Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	commit_v	county_n	peace_n	3,277	5	6.0304	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31192	The case of Tho. Dangerfield with some remarkable passages that happened at the tryals of Elizabeth Cellier, the popish midwife, and the Earl of Castlemain, at the Kings-bench bar at Westminster, before Sir Will. Scroggs Kt, Lord Chief Justice, &c. in the month of June, 1680 : together with divers informations never yet publisht, John Gadbury his testimony, with all its evasions, some points of law insisted upon by the king & prisoners counsel; and the chief justice his opinion given therein, the manner and occasion of Dangerfield's commitment to prison, and also of his being discharged again and some animadversions upon the L.C.J. words / written by the hand of an indifferent person.	Dangerfield, Thomas, 1650?-1685.	1680 (1680)	Wing C1181; ESTC R2325	44,781	42

Papers into Colonel Mansels Room Mrs Cellier came to me from the Tower and told me I must go to the Custom-house and pretend to give intelligence of certain Prohibited Goods which were lodged in the Colonels Chamber to the end the Officers upon search might find the Papers Soon after being to attend the King and Mr. Secretary Coventry about the Papers and wanting some Instructions I went home to advise with Mrs Cellier at what time I was taken by Colonel Warcup one of the Justices of the Peace for the County of Middlesex and ingaged by Bail to attend the King and Councel the next day at Three of the clock Upon my being brought to a Hearing I was Committed to Newgate whither Mrs Cellier sent her Maid to me and something to my support advising me to stand fast promising I should want for nothing and should be removed to the Kings-Bench After which the Maid came a second time that day with a Note which ran thus I am in Custody and if examined how I came to know you will declare I imployed you to get in desperate Debts it cannot worst you To colour which pretence the Maid also brought me two Books of Mrs Celliers Husbands concerns and added further that her Mistress desired me to stand fast For her Life was in my hands To this Intrigue these Particulars may be added That I having told Mrs Cellier how I had been with the King alone at Mr Chiffins Lodgings Oh said she what an opportunity have you lost Soon after the Lady Powis coming in Mrs Cellier told her the story at which the Lady turning short about with her face towards Mrs Cellier said these very words How bravely might he have killed the King had he been provided That Mrs Cellier ordered me in our publick discourse to call the King Lady Mary and the Duke Lady Ann. That Mrs Cellier was one of those that ordered me to Treat with Mr. Boyce to try if I could corrupt him to be an Evidence against Prance a Witness for the King And that she was one of those that ordered me to go and Treat with Nicholas Stubbs in reference to recanting the Charge he had laid against Gifford the Priest This is the sum of the Charge without any flourishing or refining all matter of Fact which I intended to have made good against Mrs Cellier in reference to His Majesties most gracious confidence which he had put in my future reality A Charge not only in my belief but in the more venerable and sound opinion of those that had the Conduct of the Information and management of the Evidence well guarded and supported by a sufficient strength of Corroborating Testimonies But lest I may seem to abound too much in my own sence here they are all in their order Let the world view them and then give an equal Sentence John Gadbury Witness L. C. J. Mr. Gadbury what do you know concerning this PLOT Gad. I know nothing of it neither one way nor other L. C. J. Do you know of any contrivance of Mrs Celliers to Kill the King Gad. No rather the contrary L. C. J. Do you know of any attempt to change the Government Gad. I will tell your Lordship what I do know if these Gentlemen will not be too nimble for me viz. the Kings Councel I have suffered a great deal of prejudice of late in relation to a PLOT but God is my witness I know none unless it were a PLOT to bring Sir Robert Peyton over to the Kings Interest That PLOT I had some concern in and had some knowledge of Mrs Celliers concern in it and she was so far from doing any thing against the Kings Interest that she was willing to bring over with him Three Gentlemen turned out of Commission when Sir Robert was so that how she could be acting for the King and against the King at the same time I do not understand L. C. J. Mr. Gadbury you are a man of Letters pray will you give your Testimony of the things you do know in relation to Mrs Cellier Gad. Mrs Cellier was not Committed upon my accusation therefore I hoped she might have been Tryed without my Testimony But when I was in danger of my Life when I lay in the Gate-house and Mrs Cellier was reported to be a third Witness against me I raked up every trifle But if I had thought it Treason I would have discovered it before And as to that particular business concerning Mr. Smith a School-master that Smith sometime since did come to me being my old acquaintance to ask my advice in it which was to go to the Lords in the Tower I asked him what to do saith he I can say enough against Dr. Oates to serve them and take off his Evidence and asked me if he should do it By no means Mr. Smith said I. Mrs Cellier afterwards told me this Smith and one Phillips were willing to tell some stories or other of Mr. Oates and Mr. Bedlow and I told her this very story saith she you being acquainted with him it is possible you may do some good upon him and saith she I had as lieve as Ten Guineys that you would do it she said she did not care if she had been at the charge of Ten Guineys if he would be honest and discover the truth L. C. J. Did she say she heard Mr. Dangerfield talk of a Non-Conformist PLOT that would take off the Popish PLOT Gad. She said she had heard Dangerfield say there was a Non-Conformist PLOT and that he was to have a Commission among them and I think she said she had heard him say that he hoped under the colour of that the Popish PLOT would go on L. C. J. Did she say it of her own accord that she hoped that would carry on the Popish PLOT Gad. My Lord I cannot remember particulars I have no reason to spare her but I am unwilling to speak any thing that is contrary to truth though she has done me the greatest injury in the world L. C. J. How came you to talk of a Non-Conformist PLOT God It was onely common discourse as it was at Coffee-houses Record Had you heard it before that she spake of it because you say it was common Gad. No not till she spake of it L. C. J. Did Mrs Cellier tell you of any Popish Priests or Jesuits coming hither from beyond the Seas Gad. Upon the going over of one Clay I think she did say she heard there were some more coming over L. C. J. What to do Gad. God knows that L. C. J. Did she speak of any Plot or Contrivance to kill the King Gad. No she was always an enemy to PLOTS or else I would not have kept her company L. C. J. Did she say there were or that she heard there were several Priests and Jesuits coming over Gad. My Lord I think she said she heard it I said several times the Popish PLOTTERS would be destroyed but she

in the same manner but before I engaged my self in this affair with her I acquainted my Master with the design who advised me to proceed which I did and as often as she delivered those bottoms to me I gave them to my Master who forthwith carried them to the Councel at Whitehal the Contents of them I know not more than that she did in one of them request her Daughter to send Margaret Jenkinson into the Countrey and take care she wanted for nothing and here Note that Margaret was a Witness against her And that Curtis should be allowed his ten shillings a week and used with great tenderness lest he should turn Rogue as the other had done meaning Mr. Dangefield and here note that Curtis is the same man concerned in the Duke of Buckinghams business And that she should be particularly kind to Susan Edwards though she were both Whore and Thief yet she might be a great instrument towards the saving her Life when she came upon the Tryal Some time after this Mrs Cellier not thinking the way of the brown-thread safe in regard I had seemingly pretended I could not be so often at leisure to go with the bottoms as she would have had me ordered it so that the Notes should be made up in little Boxes like Pill-boxes that so they might pass under the notion of Physick and were to be left at one Howards House a Stone-cutter on the Fleet-ditch-side near Black Friars for Mrs Celliers Son in-law whose Name was Blaredale and an Apothecary in Arundel-street but these I also discovered Now for my incouragement in this affair Mrs Cellier promised to make my Fortune either by Marriage by the Dutchess of York or some other way which I should think most fit provided I would be true to her Then she further added for my incouragement that the Duke of York whom she called Master and then was in Scotland would not be long before he returned and that then it would not be long ere she should have her Liberty saying she was so much in his favour and so intimate that she both had and could be very frequently admitted the Dukes Closet by a certain scratch of the door which she said she always used and he well understood c. Anne Neathercoat The Testimony of W. Boyce c. ABout the middle of last Summer 1679. Mr. Dangerfield came to Treat with me in relation to Mr. Prance and desired to drink with me privately and thus he Attacked me three or four times still endeavouring to press upon me discourse relating to Mr. Prance wherein he seemed to express many discourses that Prance had raised of me to my prejudice and to this purpose W. Boyce The Testimony of Jane Stubbs c. WHo saith That about the Month of June 1679. Mr. Dangerfield came to her Husband who lay then very sick and desired her Husband to tell him if he had not been much Tortured when he was in Prison about the firing Fetter-lane to which her Hu●band answered he was hardly used at first but better afterwards Then Mr. Dangerfield inquired into the condition of her Husband and gave him five shillings and promised to get Money to pay the Rent of the House which was five pound and to come again but did not And asked her Husband if he knew Mrs Cellier Jane Stubbs The Information of Alice Leeson Wife of W. Leeson of Clerkenwel in the County of Middlesex Cook the 8th day of June 1680. before Sir John Frederick Kt. Alderman and one of His Majesties Justices of the Peace of the City of London as followeth THis Informant saith That having some occasion to go to the Press-yard London some time last Term she met with Mrs Cellier where this Informant did ask her how her Tryal went on whereupon she replyed I went to meet the Lyons but they did not appear but this Perjured Villain Dangerfield But I am prepared for the Lyons let them go on when they will and truly said she I now study the Law and the Statutes to bring perjured Villains to their ends and I go up to Mr. Redding to assist me and I assist him And this Informant telling the said Mrs Cellier she wondred how this PLOT was so quasht which was carried on by Mr. Oates and Bedlow she told her that they the said Oates and Bedlow were Perjured Villains and that there were more come into their Religion since the said PLOT than for many years before And that she this Informant should live to see their Religion the most flourishing Religion in the Nation viz. meaning the Popish Religion as this Informant believeth Alice Leeson Having all this united force of Evidence Testimony and Circumstances on my side I came into Court without the least suspition of meeting with such exceptions against me to do my duty as a Witness for His Majesty in the prosecution of an Information to the truth of which in substance and by allowance I had Sworn before His most Excellent Majesty himself and His most Honourable Privy-Councel and upon which Mrs Cellier had stood so long Committed by the Approbation and Act of the same Authority But to my amazing astonishment and the no small surprize of others the Prisoner who had before called me her good friend and given such a Character of my Modesty to my new-Landlord and others and judged me a good and undeniable Evidence on their parts objected against my Testimony alleadging That if she could make it out that I had been Whipt Transported Pillored or Perjured I could not be allowed a Witness against her which produced the following Dispute C. J. If you can produce any Record whereby he is Convict of any thing that can by Law take away his Testimony do it Cellier He hath been Indicted for Burglary C. J. Dangerfield were you ever Indicted for Burglary Dang I will take it at their proof C. J Let every Man have his right in Gods name Cellier My Lord I can prove him Perjured C. J. Have you any Record to prove him Perjured is he Convicted Cellier No. C. J Then you cannot do it Cellier I can prove him guilty of Forgery C. J. If you do not produce the Record you do nothing Cellier I have the Copies of several Records in Court which will be Sworn to Which being produced I then pleaded His Majesties most gratious Pardon To that Mrs Cellier replyed she had a Copy of it and that it did not extend to some of the Crimes of which I then stood Convicted And to prove her Allegation she produced a Copy of a Record of an Outlawry for Felony which occasioned the Court to order my Pardon to be read But not having it about me I prayed half an hours time to fetch it which was granted and during my absence some other Witnesses were Examined First Thomas Williamson Sworn for the King and thus Interrogated C. J. Did you ever see Dangerfield and Mrs Cellier in Company Wit No my Lord but I

resemblance onely of a preparatory Formality which the subsequent proceedings required The knowledge of my Offences were the Motives that induced Mrs Cellier to associate me with her self in the deep Contrivances of so wicked a Conspiracy His Majesty himself who never gave me those Reproaches under the foul guilt of Treason as his Lordship did when Pardoned by his Soveraign well knew my Crimes but beholding my penitence gave a forfeited Life to him who had been the bane of a Conspiracy against his Sacred person Else Mrs Cellier had hard measure to be so long detained upon the acccusations of one who walked about the Town with a defective Pardon And it may be looked upon as a Recompence for her Sufferings that she was so easily delivered Otherwise it was a severe Case that Mrs Cellier laden with so many Crimes fouler than all mine put together unless what she her self had involved me in should be brought to the Bar to encounter me her grand Associate her Confederate her Intimate in the conduct of all her mysterions Treacheries with an inconconsiderable Outlawry I speak comparatively and all for want of a Quibuscunque and this too in order to her Acquittal We ought to be very careful in these Concerns I dare not presume to instruct his Lordship nor do I nor do thousands more question but that his Lordship exactly understands how far his care ought to extend But whether needless and overweening nicety be care I leave the Casuists to dispute Care may be hurtful where there is more care taken of the greater Criminal than of the less Care may be too injurious if I may not say presumptive when it over-curiously scans and descants upon a thing of so solemn a nature as the Pardon of a Soveraign Prince whose onely Let him be Pardoned is like the command of Let there be day And I dare be bold to say That His Majesty never intended I should suffer that prejudice and disgrace by his Pardon as his Lordship hath put me to Else we may do a work this day may make the Kingdom rue it I see his Lordship continueth his care but there are many that fear his care was too neglectful to let so great a Criminal as Mrs Cellier was for while I have breath I must still maintain it break all the Fences of the Law for the meer defect of Clerkship And many good people there are whose Prayers Hopes and Wishes are all to the same effect That the Kingdom may not rue the Cavils of that Morning under the pretence of care and tenderness of Conscience And the Question may be fairly put whether the great Arch-Angel of the Three Kingdoms and the Tutelar Angels of the Nation his chosen Assistants shewed more care in committing so great an Offendor as Mrs Cellier and supporting my Information or his Lordship in vilifying both my Testimony and Person to set her free The World must needs believe that his Lordship had a very high opinion of his Prudence and Justice to advance them above the Wisdom and Equitable deliberation both of the King and his Councel But he had Condemned several at what time there was no disputing about Pardons though far more furiously Attacked and therefore as many must be saved or else Astraea's Ballance would fall from the Zodiack It is a sad thing that people of a vitious profligate Life both before they come to Newgate and all along in their Life-time should be suffered as a Witness to take away the Life of a Worm His Lordship next will deny the King his Prerogative for that very person whom the King had set right in Court he calls one of a vitious and profligate Life so far his Lordship differs from the sence of the Blessed Heaven rejoyceth at the Conversion of a sinner his Lordship storms at mine And because I had deservedly suffered before in bad Causes he was resolved to be even with me and make me suffer for once undeservedly in a good one I submit to his Lordship that it would be an hard case for such persons as he mentions to take away the Life of a Worm But his Lordship mistakes Mrs Celliers Character for she was no Worm unless he means such a Worm as would have Corroded and Cankered the very Root of the Nations happiness And then it was a sad thing that a person of a profligate Life Pardoned should not be admitted to give his Testimony against a Woman of a profligate Life unpardoned Here was onely the difference in the Proverb the Worm was trod on and his Lordship turned again Might I be so bold I would ask his Lordship who discovered the Conspiracy of Cataline but Curius Flagitiis atque facinoribus Coopertus Fulvia Salust Who revealed the Treasons of Marshal Biron but his Confident Laftin Accablé de Crimes de mauvaises affaires Mezeray For if a Man be not of the Cabinet-Councel of the wicked he shall never be able to know their Intrigues and if he know them not far less able to discover them Mrs Cellier acknowledged that had I not been brisk I had never been fit for their turn He that is not through-paced in bad principles is not to be trusted in the Murther of a Prince Men of Vertue certainly were not to be invited to the attempts But people of vitious Principles stick as close to them as honest and good men to the Precepts of Vertue which creates the difference and safety between communicating a piece of villany to a Miscreant and an honest man From whence I collect That no Man can be a good Witness in Mischief against his Confederates unless he be involved in the same Crime And therefore the reason is plain to all Men why some are Pardoned for Burglary some for Robbing on the High-way to the end they be good Witnesses to discover the mis-deeds of their Accomplices For to use his own words at the Lord Castlemains Tryal A Man once Pardoned is restored to his former Credit and so the King intends by all his Pardons Now if that be true as I would take all advantages to subscribe to his Lordships opinion certainly his Lordship was under a mistake so needlesly to quarrel with His Majesties Broad-Seal or at least to make so slight of his intentions Doubtless it was an high reflection upon the Kings Honour to repeat and raise from the Tomb of silence to the ruine of a Pardoned Subject the Ghosts of buried Crimes And yet soon after he had affronted His Majesties most gracious Act and Deed to declare that the very intentions of the King are valid in his Pardons But the grandeur of the antient Oracles consisted in their Ambiguity I question whether he will come again or no he has been gone a great while His Lordship pursues his Text very smartly and in another Man perhaps he would have looked upon it as a kind of Malitia praecogitata to prosecute a person that to his knowledge never did his Lordship wrong with

so much vehemency for my part my little reason tells me that though it be the duty of far my Betters to reverence and to be careful of giving Offence to a Personage so highly entrusted as his Lordship yet that it is beneath the Majesty of Magistrates so eminently exalted to trample upon the meanest of their inferiours Neither do I think with all Submission be it spoken that his Lordship kept within the bounds of true Decorum to sit in that place prepossessing the People with an ill opinion of the Kings Evidence I am sorry I disobliged his Lordships patience yet I dare be bold to say though it be no easie task to hurry through the streets of London that I did not exceed the time allowed me of half an hour to go from the Court of Kings-Bench beyond the Royal Exchange However at length I did return as far as I can guess contrary to his Lordships both expectation and desire by that expression which follows when he said I question whether he will come or not A surmise of which I cannot fathom the reason for I neither had the least apprehension of the danger concealed or fear of my disability to make good my Charge in regard his Lordship had not revealed his future intentions to me Had his Lordship had any suspition of me it may be wondred he did not send his Tipstaff along with me then as afterwards he did and which he might as justly have done But here Lucian in one of his Dialogues lends me his assistance where he says That he who inveighs against the absent doth but claim the attention of the Auditory to himself by prepossessing their ears and stopping them up after he hath filled them full of the worst he hath to say by which he renders them impenetrable to any defence against the ill Character he hath given Which he calls a very great injury not onely in his own but in the judgment of Solon and Draco two wise and famous Legislators Such are fit to be employed to find out but hard to be believed when they have found out This is a Laconism wherein his Lordship had undertaken much in few words and therefore the harder to be interpreted But I humbly suppose his meaning to be this That they who are and have been the Discoverers of the PLOT and fit to be believed so far as to say there was a PLOT are not when they Swear in the Prosecution of their Discovery in regard that such a Prosecution is the act of men of Profligate Lives If this be the meaning of this pithy Sentence as I believe Salmatius himself could find no other his Lordship hath laid a fair Foundation for the Subverting Overturning and invalidating all that hath been said or acted by all the Testimonies and Evidence for His Majesty in all the several late Tryals wherein his Lordship himself presided which if it should come to pass I leave it with submission to his Lordship to consider the fatality o● the Consequences My Lord it can be no good Logick to grant the Papists such a Conclusion they are nimble enough to lay hold upon the sayings of great and Learned Men especially when uttered as Apothegms and they needed no such encouragement to prove their Arguments But Heaven avert that either your Lordship or any such Stars of the first Magnitude in the Sphere of Loyalty should ever live to see such a mutation of Affairs Captain Richardson is this the Man that broke ChelmsfordGoale Lord What a strange Question was this for all Men that own Impartiality to shake their heads at Captain Richardson must be favoured by the Name of Captain Richardson and the Keeper of Newgate must be tempted to answer for the Keeper of Chelmsford Goale As much as to say Is there no Man here that can help a man out to vilifie this Rogue But it seems Captain Richardson could neither answer his Lordships Question nor his expectations But to shew how ready I am to obey his Lordships Commands I will freely give his Lordship to understand that I never did break the Goale of Chelmsford though if I had I know not what kindness it would have done his Lordship but onely to render me more odious to the Auditory Captain Richardson was he Burnt in the Hand for Felony Here was another strange Riddle proposed but not so difficult to unfold as that of Sphynx for wherefore should that Question be asked when there was a true Copy of a Record produced for it but this was still to improve the ill-will and bad opinion of the People against me My Lord could never have been the Conquering Champion had he not first made me the monstrous Dragon But I owed that respect to his Lordship that had he put that Question to my self I would have owned it For indeed I am apt to believe that as the Case then stood with me any other person though the best Gentlemans Son in the Country might have been lyable to the same scandal or rather disgrace for then I was but a young stripling under the Tuition of my Father and no way privy to the Fact laid in the Indictment till it was actually committed by another person who being as I was under my Father Clerk to another Atturney came to me one Evening with a Cabinet which as he said he had taken from his Mother who was a Woman very rigid and careless of his Maintenance withal he told me I should have a part if I would conceal his Crime and help him off with the Goods which the ignorance of my youth was by such a dazling prospect easily tempted to undertake as I did and for which the other Boy gave me as many of the things as he said amounted to one third part more Now to shew what a cunning gamester I was at this sport I was no sooner possessed of my gay Toyes but I openly wore the Rings which came to my share and shewed my Silver Medals to the Countrey-people displaying my Prizes with all the folly and pride imaginable of an unexperienced Boy and one that understood nothing of his danger At length the description of all the things being published in the Gazet the people of the Town well knowing I had shewed them several of the Goods mentioned in the Advertisement carried me before a Justice of the Peace to whom upon my Examination I owned where I had them and how I came by them thereupon the Justice Committed me and being brought to Tryal I was Convicted for Confederacy Which is the whole and plain truth of the story of which his Lordship would have made such an advantage against me He made me believe he would flie I believe he is we will not hood-wink our selves against such a fellow as this that is guilty of such notorious Crimes A Man of Modesty would not look a man in the face after he hath been in the Pillory I do find now that his Lordship is coming to his