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A70752
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The King's evidence justifi'd, or, Doctor Oates's vindication of himself and the reality of the plot against a traiterous libel called The compendium contrived by the Jesuits, to the dishonour of the King and kingdom.
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Oates, Titus, 1649-1705.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing O46; ESTC R22091
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62,691
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56
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Discovery is so monstrous or of such disagreeing parts as to shew it self so vain and chimerical as this Plotthing were at last reduced to proportion as he most Jesuitically insinuates it was done by the efforts and skill of better Artists Rather he ought to be call'd to an Account whom he means by better Artists For the Lords of the Council the Lords assembled in Parliament and the whole House of Commons had the Examination of all things The Attorney and Sollicitor General and all the King's Council had also their Inspections into the Proofs so then these must be the better Artists which he means that assisted Mr. Oates in the management of his Defects It lies heavy upon the Two Committees of Secresie and nothing but a Jesuites weighty Defence can help 'em out They were very ill Artists though our Observator be so courteous as to grant 'em better then Mr. Oates that all their private Debates and Consultations should be only to produce a Plot for Mr. Oates's sake that should so easily be render'd Defective and Fabulous by a Compendium-mongers untainted Witnesses Not so untainted neither as he dreams nor so much Masters of Reputation either by Law or Gospel in regard they have been all so notoriously and palpably disprov'd And that it has been so fairly made out that they onely came to lend their Friends a stretch of Equivocation if it would have serv'd their turn Neither do I believe this Plot-Plaisterer to be a Man of that Grandeur to authorize him to revile any Man with the term of Profligated Wretch unless it be because he may be Excommunicated by Don Paolo d'Oliva nor to be so good a Physiognomist as to judge by any Mans Temper or Poverty of his Inclinations And therefore he might have spar'd his Bear-Garden Arguments when he wrote to Lords and Gentlemen Now if the Observator believe that the weight of his Defences lies in Ifs and And 's and How can it be possible Then we leave it to the consideration of the People upon what has been already said but if he think that the Ponderosity lies in their Vows Denials and Protestations he only builds in the Air and must have Dr. Wilkinson's Engine to keep it from falling For it is certain that the Pope does assume to himself an absolute power to excommunicate Kings Sixtus V. Excommunicated two himself Henry de Navarre Henry Valois of France Now let us see what the Substance and Penalties of this Excommunication are The Pope order'd the King to be Excommunicated which was saith Cicarela in the Life of the same Pope That he should be struck with the Thunder of Anathema That he should incur all Ecclesiastical Censures which are contain'd in the Sacred Canons in the general and particular Constitutions and the Bull of the Lords Supper And the same Censure shall be good against all that assist the same King either with Counsel or any way else And by his Excommunication thunder'd out against Henry de Navarre and Henry de Bourbon Prince of Conde he declar'd them Hereticks and uncapable of succeeding to the Crown of France He also absolv'd their Subjects from all Oaths of Allegiance and Fidelity sworn to those Princes Now if CHARLES II. King of England be Excommunicated at Rome as there is no question to be made but He is for any Papist to profess himself a Subject to CHARLES II. King of England being Excommunicated is not only to disobey the Pope but to contemn and render invalid the Thunder of Anathema the Ecclesiastical Censure the general and particular Constitutions and the Bull of the Lords Supper and consequently to renounce his Religion And therefore all their Denials Protestations and Imprecations signifi'd nothing because they had relation to no Body For according to the tenor of their Excommunication an Excommunicated King is no Body a meer Statue of a King And therefore for them to profess themselves Jesuites and Priests and pray for the King was Non-sense and they dy'd both like Fools and Knaves together in regard it was impossible for the King to be any thing to them that were true Subjects to the Pope Now that the King stands Eternally Excommunicated at Rome as an Heretick is not only plain from the Expressions of Coleman but is manifest from this That no Man of true Religion or Piety I may add Morality would dare to invade the Dominions of a Sovereign Prince call himself His Subject and violate His Laws if he thought either His Laws to be Laws or Him to be a King And the same Argument holds against the Observator's untainted Witnesses who might easily say any thing when they were taught and believ'd that what they said was neither in a Court of Judicature nor before them that were Magistrates For the Magistrates of a depos'd King can be no Magistrates according to the true Papistical Doctrine And indeed it was the Devils Master-piece when he had invented a Pope to entail those two Powers of Excommunication and Absolution to his Chair which are the Foundation of all breach of Oaths all Protestations Vows and Imprecations of all Infidelity and Christian Irregularity As for Langhorne's averring That he did not believe the Pope had any Authority to Excommunicate and consequently to Depose the King in so doing he deni'd the Doctrine of the chiefest Fathers of his Profession Petrus Ribadeneira Becanas of Mentz Jacobus Simmancha Bishop of Badâ—â—â—os Bellarmine himself Hosius the Cardinal and Molanus who all unanimously teach the same Doctrine That the Pope has Authority to Depose and Excommunicate Heretick Kings and Princes and to Absolve their Subjects from their Allegiance and Obedience to them So that he must either have some strange Reserve to himself for that he did not speak but only deliver his equivocating Conceptions in writing or else he could be no Papist but must dye the Lord knows what a double Traytor to the Pope and to his Prince No Man can serve two Masters And therefore he did but imitate St. Peter in a wrong sense as if he thought to have got the name of an Apostle by denying his Master Antichrist thrice before the Cock crow'd once And thus we behold the Policy of Papists who when they deal with others always propose to them the Pretence and Protestations of Religion and the Arguments of their Christian Piety while under the pretext of these they hide their Self-policy to use it in time and place convenient which no Body can for the present discover nor know the depth of the Intrigue but themselves But now as if he were the Supreme Chiestain of the Spanish Inquisition he undertakes like another Guido Vaux with his dark Lanthorn to pry into Mr. Oates's Life and Conversation and to blow up his Repute with a Gunpowder-Plot of Recrimination But all this while who is this Bull of Basin that bellows out all these Reproaches against the Evidence for the King and Kingdom Common Fame my Lords and Gentlemen speaks him a
for that after the Discovery of the Plot the Sacrament was Administred to him thrice a week That he hasted away and having so great a Charge upon him as the Sacrament he grew Disturb'd and went to Bristol where God put it into his mind to discover all and so he wrote to the Secretary The premises saith he were endeavourd to be prov'd by four Collatteral Testimonies First by Mr. Robinson of the Common-Pleas who attested that Sir Edmundbury Godfrey said to him That he believ'd he should be the first Martyr Secondly by one Curtis a poor Chare-woman belonging to Sir Edmundbury Godfrey Pag 28. 39. though the Narrative says she was his maid and entrusted with the Keys of his Houshold Concerns who Swore that she saw Hill with her Master about nine or ten a Clock in the morning on the Saturday he was murther'd which the Epitomiser left out for brevitie's sake That she saw him in the same Cloaths that he had on at the Bar and that she saw Green with her master a fortnight before Now why may not a poor Chare-womans Eyes be as good as a Lady's Or why may not she swear as true as a Jesuite's Miss Thirdly by Hills denying before the Council that ever he saw Gyrald when as the Boy prov'd in Court that they frequently met there He might have added the master too who swore the same Lastly by Berry's sending away the Prince while the Intregue was on foot upon pretence that he had Orders to tell all persons of Quality that the Queen was private and that they were not to come in Pag. 50. And then being ask't at his Examination by the Lords Whether he had ever had such Orders before he then said No which Contradicted his Answer at the Bar where he affirm'd he had had several of the same Nature One of which must be a Lye The Epitomizer having thus display'd his Treacherous Endeavors to deceive the Consideration of the People by slubbering over the Charge and farcing it with the petty Dictates of his Papistical Malice being come to the Prisoner's Defence takes upon him to be their Champion and makes open War not only against the Witnesses but against the Judge himself To this Charge saith he the Prisoners answer'd with all imaginable Protestations That they were Innocent And well they might For they did not believe they had Committed an ill thing Men that were taught by their Ghostly Fathers and convinced that Murther was no Sin but an Act of Charity to the Church of Rome might well protest their Innocence of the Crime For those False Doctrines were so strongly rivited in their Breasts that if Denyals and Protestations could have sav'd them they should have been as Cheap as the Prostitutions of Harlots amongst the Papists in their Stews and nothing but the gaping Earth or some immediate Judgment from Heaven should be an Evidence of their Guilt sufficient to demonstrate it to the World Had the Romish Religion been chary of her Appeals to God and maintain'd the Chastity of Protestations as she ought to have done such Protestations might have been prevailing Arguments of the Protester's Innocency But the Experience of many Ages tells us that they have been her Common Pawns for Belief And that she has now been trusted so long and fail'd so often that she is become an absolute Bankrupt not to be trusted any farther for a Penny-worth of Imprecations And therefore to tell us of the Protestations made by these Malefactors of their Innocency is a Gullery which the Epitomizer must not think to impose upon the Consideration of any rational People But he proceeds and sayes That Sir Robert Southwel's Testimony did not advantage them a little meaning the Prisoners in the Opinion of many That 's a false Insinuation For he being summon'd as a Witness for the King to acquaint the Court with several Particulars about Praunce's Examination before the Court was ask't Whether his present Description and Accompt of Places were suitable to what he then said in Court Sir Robert reply'd Yes but that he said then more then he said before at the Council In the next place the Atturney General demanding whether Praunce did hesitate when he shew'd the Lords the several Places in relation to the Murther He answered That he went positively and directly to all the Places Till the Lords ask't him into what Room the Body was remov'd but that then after going into several Rooms he was in a great Distraction Yet because in that Confusion he said Thus far I am Certain I am Right the Chief Justice would have it that his Doubtfulness gave Credit to his Testimony since a Knight of the Post never sticks at any thing What Advantage this was to the Prisoners the Epitomizer should have more amply inform'd us for this Formal Story signifieth nothing For Sir Robert Southwel attests that Mr. Praunce was punctual direct and positive as to all the Places where the Murther was Committed and where the Corps was first convey'd If they remov'd him afterwards in his Absence to a blind Hole and shew'd him this blind Hole by a blind Light and he cautious of mistaking became more Considerative and wary then before Shall this be any Argument of the Malefactor's Innocence And therefore Pag. 47. the Conclusion of the Lord Chief Justice was Logically true That his Doubtfulness did assert and give credit to the Testimony of the Witnesse and confirm it to any Honest Man in England in regard it argu'd that the Witnesse did not go prepar'd to swear right or wrong Which because 't was Reason the Epitomizer looks upon it with a kind of Frantick Admiration But saith he the Prisoners strook at the Root For Hill desir'd that Praunce's Testimony might not stand good against him This was the wisest thing that ever he did in his Life could he have obtain'd his Suit For he urg'd that Praunce had deny'd all not only before the King as Mr. Chevins attested but before the Council as Captain Richardson acknowledg'd But this needs no farther answer then what the Lord Chief Justice himself gave that His denial which was not upon Oath could not be believ'd because his discovery upon Oath was so particular and that the bare denial of what he had Sworn could not amount to perjury Mr. Attorney General also declared that while he was a Papist and not sure of his Pardon Pag. 25. he lay under Suspitions Disturbances and Fears which prevail'd with him to deny what he had Sworn But he was no sooner returned to the Prison but being convinced and troubled that he had done amiss he begg'd of Captain Richardson to go back to the King and acquaint him that all that he had Sworn to was True and that what he had then said was False But this saith he gave several of the Auditory but small Satisfaction meaning the Papists that were there considering that a Jaylor whose interest it was to farther the Plot might easily