commands and injunctions upon such as they have power and authority over and whom they thought conscious either to the manner of that Noble Peers fatal End or capable of detecting any circumstances which might let in light upon that affair And therefore knowing that the Soldiers who were upon Duty in the Tower that morning when the Earl of Essex was killed had not only taken notice of several Persons and made Observation of diverse things from which both the murder of that vertuous Lord might be inferred and concluded as well as by whose hands it was perpetrated but that divers of them had talkt too freely and lavishly of it abroad as well as among themselves accordingly on the Saturday morning being that which immediately succeeded to the day of the Earls death did a Military Officer after They and other Soldiers were called together charge them with the highest threats and menaces that they should not dare to speak of what they had seen or heard the day before adding that whosoever should be known to divulge what had passed in the Tower on the Friday in the forenoon should severely suffer for it This divers of the Soldiers have confessed and related to their friends who are willing to testifie it when occasion serves And among others one Robert Meak of whom I shall afterwards have occasion to say somewhat more declared the whole of this passage to two men that are ready to swear it whensoever their Depositions may be of advantage to the publick and can be made without exposing themselves to ruin It will not be denied by rational men but that the Souldiers who were then upon Duty in the Tower had advantages of knowing more in reference to the Earl of Essex death than most other persons can pretend unto seeing that as some were so posted as both to see all that went into his Lodgings and to hear the noise and bustle which was made in his Chamber upon his resistance and the force and violence which the miscreants used towards him so others were placed in that manner as to observe whence and from whom they came and whither and to whom they returned that were employed to commit the Hellish and Tragical deed Nor can any suspect that men who march under the Ensigns of his Majesty should forge a story so much tending to the dishonor of a great man and the Kings Ministers and so likely to displease persons that had power to cashier and otherwise punish them as this of my Lord Essex not cutting his own Throat but being Assassinated by others was adapted unto and would infallibly do Yea I do affirm with all the Sacredness which becomes a Man and a Christian in a matter of this weight and importance that this is no Calumny imposed on the Souldiers and their Commander in order to traduce the Government and enflame the Kingdom but that whatsoever is here affirmed is built upon the greatest moral certainty that an Affair of this nature is capable of And all I do desire in order to the justifying what I have now related and declared is only that his Majesty would cause order a writ of Revieu or melius Inquirendum to be issued out with an assurance of pardon to such as shall be willing to come in and be able to testifie by whom and after what manner this Noble Lord was Assassinated and Murdered Nor can his Majesties Ministers escape this Dilemma either of lying under the infamy of being conscious of and accessary unto the assassination of that Honorable person or of being obliged to obtain a Revieu of this matter with a promise of indemnity to those who shall appear witnesses and be able to give evidence in the case And I shall take the liberty further to say that it is not only the duty but the interest of those very Ministers who may not be directly concerned in the Guilt of my Lord of Essex blood to promote and second this overture and proposal and that not only for the Honor of the Government but for their own Vindication from being accessary to so enormous and detestable a Crime For the time may possibly come that their meer connivance at the concealment of this murder may rise in judgment against them and render them more lyable to punishment than they seem at present to apprehend Our Laws which expressly requires the least Officers in the Common-wealth to pursue Robbers Fellons and Murderers with Hue and Cry or otherwise makes them obnoxious to penalties never intended that privy 〈◊〉 whoâ— by the duty of their place are to watch and advise for the 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 of the Subject as well as the preservation and honer of the King should be esteemed Innocent and not be liable to any punishment by Law tho they be found to connive at the destruction of his Me 〈…〉 people and at the involving his Person and Government under an indeâ—â—ble reproach and infamy And therefore tho it cannot be supposed that those of his Majesties Ministers who are directly criminal by contriving and câ—mmanding this Murder should countenance or encourage an inquiry into and a detection of it yet it may not only be exspected but ought to be claimed of the Marquis of Hallisax the Earl of Radnar my Lord Fal 〈…〉 ridg and some others who have still the priviledge of being in the publick manage of Affairs and admitted to sit in his Majesties Councel that they would not both to their own danger and dishonor as well as the prejudice of the King in his reputation and safety continue to connive at this Excrable and Barbarous Murder but that they would apply themselves as becomes the duty of their places and the regard they ought to have for their own honor to obtain of his Majesty what is here desired in order to the detection of the assaâ—â—ination of my Lord Essex and the bringing the Maleâ—actors to undergo that severity which the Justice of the Law subjects them unto But as if the precedeing Tâ—pick did not administer sufficient Evidence that the E. of Essex was assassinated by others howsoever his memory comes to be branded for cutting his own Throat there is a further proof ariseth in confirmation of it from this that they have not only discouraged and frighted such as might be willing to lay open the whole Mystery of that divelish work of darkness but they have beyond all law and president persecuted and â—ppressed those who were either found inclined to inquire into the manner of that honorable persons death or to have vented what they had heard which might give suspition of his being brought to his End by the treache 〈…〉 villaâ—y of bloody misereants Nor shall I here enlarge on the proceedings against old Mr. Edwards the Custom-house Officer who besides his â—â—ing shamefully upbraided and standered by my Lord Chief Justice at the Trial of Mr. Bradden was afterwards turned out of his place where he had served for 39 years and for no other
desire the world should know who I am yet I judg it absolutely needful that they should understand who I am not least others come into trouble for that which ought not to be charged upon them and which none but my self can with any equity or justice be made accountable for And seeing Mr. Braddon hath been singled forth as the object of some men's indignation for the service he was willing to have done his Majesty in the detection of this Murder I reckon my self bound to publish to all the world that I know not the Gentleman and that to the best of my remembrance I never saw him much less have ever conversed or had any communication with him I will not deny but that he is a person whom I do infinitely esteem for his integrity zeal and courage in this matter yet I will not be so far injurious to him as to commence an acquaintance with him during the transaction and dependence of this affair and while he is under the power of those that will be ready to declare him criminal for the least intercourse with a person that is likely to become so obnoxious to the rage of St. Jame's and Westminster-Hall as I may come to be for this service to the King and Kingdom But besides the common tyes which I lye under equally with the rest of mankind for endeavouring to detect so horrid and barbarous a Murder there are some special obligations upon me by which I esteem my self more particularly bound than others are to do all the right and justice I can to the memory of this massacred Lord and to redeem his Name from the infamy with which they have aspersed him of being Felo de se. For I had not only the honour to be known to him which Mr. Braddon pretends not unto but besides the favouring me with diverse Testimonies of his respect he did me the kindness to own and befriend me at a juncture when I was in no small hazard from the malice of very Powerful as well as considerable persons And seeing that honourable Peer has been so unhappy as to find nothing but ingratitude as well as injustice from those of the highest and sublimest quality whom he had most effectually served and infinitely obliged it is not amiss that the world should understand there are some remains of vertue and gratitude among the mean and little people and that tho their condition does not inable them to recompence favours conferred upon them by great persons yet they have that ingenuity which others want viz. to sense and acknowledg them And as I reckon it no small honour to have been known to the deccased Peer so I thereby enjoyed an advantage which others wanted namely an opportunity of learning the principles and observing the Temper of that excellent person Whom as I found to be one imbu'd with the most vertuous and religious as well as heroick and generous principles of any Noble Man in the Kingdom so I observed him to be a Gentleman of the greatest sedateness of mind least subject to the undue agitation of unruly passions and most under the conduct of a calm steady strong clear and well poised Reason of any Man of Quality I ever had the happiness of access unto And if either the succors of Nature Education or Grace were sufficient to fortifie and preserve a person from such an enormity and crime then must the Earl of Essex above all men be acquitted from the guilt of so execrable a fact as being contrary to the Frame and constitution of his Nature as well as to all the intellectual and moral habits of his Mind So villanous a Deed was inconsistent with his Temper as well as repugnant to his vertue As he was an excellent Christian he durst not allow a thought that might give encouragement to so heynous a sin and as he was a well accomplisht Gentleman he scorned to render himself guilty of a thing that was so mean and base Nor was the folly of the Assassinates less in hoping to obtain credit to a report that the Earl of Essex cut his own throat than their wickedness was in contriving and perpetrating themselves that bloody murder upon him Yea as if it had not been enough to have first cut the throat of this innocent tho unfortunate Earl and then to have fastned the guilt and infamy of their own Fact upon his untainted vertue and spotless Soul they have sought to gain credit to their calumnious accusation and to reconcile unthinking people to their opinion by assuming that he used to commend and justifie self Murder in case there remained no other way to escape a capital punishment and the being made a spectacle to the little and gazing part of mankind And to give the better gloss to this malicious fiction they report that he used to extol the action of his Ladies Grandfather the Duke of Northumberland who being prisoner in the Tower for Treason shot himself in the head with a Pistol Put as the Earl of Essex had he entertained so ungedly and corrupt a sentiment was more prudent and discreet than to publish and avow an opinion so contrary to the Rules of Religion the principles of honor and the common sense and persuasion of mankind so it is enough to detect the falsehood as well as the malice that is in this report that the Authors and dispersers of it either dare not declare the persons to whom the Earl should have discovered and revealed his mind in this matter or else such as they have named for vouchers of the truth of this story have not only denyed their having at any time heard him express the least word in favour of self murder but do affirm with all the sacredness imaginable that he used to speak always of it with the utmost abhorâ—ency and to brand it as the greatest and most heynous sin For whereas they have had the impudence to affirm that this report either proceeded originally from his own Lady or was at least assented unto and attested by her she hath upon application to her Laâ—â—ship for the knowledge of the truth or falsehood of this Story not only with all the solemnity requisite in a matter of this importance vindicated my Lord from having ever spoken a word that might induce the Lawfulness of self murder or give countenance to a person's being Felo de se but she hath further assirmed that he used to speak against it with an emotion beyond what was customary to him and that he hath often declaned that no circumstances whatsoever could extenuate the guilt or lessen the infamy of so unnatural and wicked a Fact So that this Story which hath been so maliciously and industriously spread to gain belief to the Report of my Lords having murthered himself may upon this detection of its Falshood be very justly improved for the establishing an Assurance that he was assassinated by others For it is impossible to imagine upon what other
surprised with the expression she related it to her Sister that evening when she came home And upon hearing the next day that the Earl of Essex was murdered and how it was reported That he should have cut his own Throat the poor Lady thô strangely alarmed with the News could not but immediately make this reflexion That what she had look't upon overnight as a Parable and Mystery was then deciphered and unriddled and that the Earl must needs have come to that untimely end by the Treachery and Villany of others To this we shall subjoin what Mrs. Mewx a Gentlewoman who also lives in London was ready to Depose upon Oath relating to a previous report of this nature at Mr. Braddon's Trial. For being on Thursday the 12th of July which was the day before my Lord of Essex death travelling with her Daughter in a Coach from the City down to Berkshire she is ready to swear that her Daughter then told her how she had heard it reported That one of the Lords committed for the late Plot had cut his Throat in the Tower Which fully evidenceth That there was a discourse not only of his death but the manner of it antecedently to his Fatal and Tragical end But the Daughter being with Child and near her time and therefore not daring to venture abroad much less into the Court at Mr. Braddon's Trial my Lord Chief Justice would not suffer the Mother thô she was there and sworn to be examined alledging That because she could not Depose on her own knowledge but only on the report of her Daughter it was no evidence and therefore against all judicial forms to admit it But as Mr. Wallop well replied It was evidence there was such a talk previous to my Lord of Essex's death so I may add That by consequence he did not murder himself but was assassinated by others Nor was it only in and about the Town that my Lord of Essex was reported to have cut his Throat at least a day if not more before he came to his untimely end but the same was discoursed of at a considerable distance in the Country and related after the same manner and with the same circumstances For one Mr. Fielder a Shopkeeper in Andover a Town removed from London above fifty Miles positively swears that it was talk't there the 11th and 12th of July That the Eaâ—l of Essex had cut his Throat in the Tower whereas he was not killed till the 13th nor could the news arrive so far in the ordinary way of conveying Intelligence before the 14th And the said Mr. Fielder further avers That this was to commonly discoursed of from Wednesday night till Friday noon that he fully expected the confirmation of it by the Post-Letters which were to arrive that day But finding no mention in those Letters of any such thing tho they all agreed in the relation of the Earl of Essex's commitment to the Tower he concluded there could be no truth in the report but withal wondred how such a thing came to be talk'd of And therefore when the certain news of my Lord's death was brought to Andover about Saturday noon by some Cloathiers that came out of London on Friday at twelve of the Clock he could not but be amased at the report which had been current among them two days before But my Lord Chief Justice was pleased to ridicule all this when it was deposed at Mr. Braddon's Trial as a contrivance to deceive the King's Subjects and to set us together by the ears stiling it stuff rak'd out of Dunghills and pick'd up on purpose to kindle a fire and set us all into a flame But can his Lordship think that his blustering his impudence and the huffing the World with foaming wrathful speeches are enough to take off the positive testimony of an honest and credible person and who had spoken of this report long before he thought any improvement would be made of it Nor is it sufficient to blast the reputation of the Man or detract from the Truth of what he swore that he could not particularly name the persons that had reported it because as he never expected to be called into question about it so he had no occasion to recollect it till he was served with a sub poena to appear at Mr. Braddon's Trial which was above five Months after the time of the said talk and discourse And besides how many things are there which a publick Skopkeeper as this person is may hear his Customers speak of which he would be nonplust to give an account of the Authors of at a weeks end Nay by how much a Report is common as he says this was at Andover by so much are we apt to neglect by whom it hath been particularly related And the more our understandings are struck with the horror of a matter declared to us the less do we advert by whom it is spoken and the more unprepared are our memories to treasure up the names of the reporters Nor was it at Andover only that it was reported the Earl of Essex had cut his Throat the day before he was killed but the same story and cloathed with the same circumstances was discoursed of before his death in divers other places For I am not only credibly informed That the Earl of Essex's having cut his Throat was reported on Thursday being the day before his death at Warmister in Wiltshire which is distant from London about eighty Miles but there is one Thomas Cox who lives near Bruningham that did positively declare That the same was told him in that Town the 12th of July whereas my Lord was not killed in the Tower till the 13. And besides all this to evidence a Report of that Noble Person 's being Murthered previous to the commission of the 〈◊〉 there are two Informations more delivered upon Oath Mr. Braddon's Trial 〈◊〉 〈…〉 miah Burgâ—s that lives at Marlborrough who swears that he heard it at Frome a place 90. Miles from London the very day that the Earl of Essex died and another by one Lewes that lives at Marleborrough who deposeth That being riding on the Road within three or four Miles of Andover on Friday in the Afternoon the same day that the Earl of Essex was murdered he was told by a person whom he fell in with on the way That the said Earl had cut his Throat in the Tower And notwithstanding all the affronts and discouragements put upon those two Witnesses whilest they were giving their Testimony and notwithstanding all the scorn and contempt wherewith Sir George Jeffery's endeavoured to expose and ridicule what they Deposed yet I dare venture their Informations upon the Faith of all indifferent and ingenuous Men whether they do not abundantly prove that there was such a Report spread abroad antecedently to my Lord of Essex's death or at least before the tidings of it could reach so far as that he had cut his Throat in the Tower
say in reference to Mr. Braddon namely that he was ravelling into such a business but that he was resolved to ruine him if all the Law of England would do it makes every man affraid as well as sensible what he may encounter if he have the boldness to interest himself in this affair O degenerate off spring of brave and heroick ancestors were it not much more eligible to run hazard by acquitting your selves as persons of honour in discharge of your duty than to seek for safety by involving your persons and posterity under the guilt of that abominable and villanous Fact And besides can they otherwise hope than that through conniving at so horrid a murder committed upon another person and one who was of a rank and condition equal to themselves they shall at last undergo the same or the like fate whensoever they have the unhappiness and misfortune to fall under the wrath of a certain Gentleman at St. James's But over and above the two Letters that were sent to noble persons very near the King to be communicated to his Majesty there was another Letter addressed to the Countess of Essex and in order to the being conveyed to her Ladyship directed to be left with one Mr. Cadman a Bookseller in the New Exchange in the Strand the Tenor whereof was that if her Honour would prevail with the King for a pardon to one that would discover how my Lord came by his death or obtain of his Majesty a proclamation assuring forgiveness to any who should come in and detect by whom and after what manner my Lord was murder'd that upon either of those securities the way of the Earl of Essex's assassination should be revealed and laid open with all its circumstances This Letter was in August last brought by a young woman to Mr. Cadman's Shop who finding him sleeping on the inside of his Counter told him that she had brought him a Letter directed to my Lady Essex concerning my Lords death which she desired he would read being to that end left open and unsealed But Cadman being drowsie and still inclined to sleep instead of taking notice what she said thrust her from the Counter as an officious and troublesome person and commanded her to goabout her business Yet having after his being throughly awake both perused the Letter and considered the importance and consequence of it he judged himself in prudence obliged to carry it to a Magistrate which accordingly he did to one Hinton a Justice of Peace in Covent Garden who as I have been credibly informed went with it to one of the Secretaries of State This Letter as is most justly conceived was written by Bomeny forasmuch as he not only seemed about that time to be under some Remorse in reference to the death of my Lord but because some of Bomeny's handwriting being shewed to Mr. Cadman it appeared to him according to the best of his remembrance and judgment to be the same hand or at least very much like unto that which the letter was written in This much is plainly evident that it must have been written by one that was willing to be known seeing it was both sent open and by a person that was able to declare of whom she had received it For had the writing of this Letter been only a contrivance to avert the infamy of my Lord's death from himself and deliver those Gentlemen accused for the Plot from the consequences unto which the Earls imagined murdering himself was improved against them it would never have been left unsealed for Mr. Cadman to read nor seat by a person that was acquainted with the contents of it as it plainly appears the bearer was but would both have been sealed to prevent Cadman's looking into it and conveyed by a porter or some such hand that would have been less lyable to be questioned either about the contents or the Author of it Nor does any thing more amaze and astonish thinking people than that notwithstanding the many Reports as well as Universal jealousies of my Lord of Essex being murder'd in the Tower yet all this time his Majesty hath not published one word to encourage an inquisition into the manner of his death or to secure a pardon to such as shall be able to discover whether he was assassinated and by whom and after what manner he was brought to an untimely End For considering the obligations which the King and the Royal Family lay under to the late Earl of Essex as well as to his Father my Lord Capel and considering the many aspersions thrown upon the Court in relation to the death of the said Earl it hath been expected that his Majesty as well in justice to the Family of the Capels as in vindication of his own honour from the infamy of having a person of my Lord Essex's merit and figure assassinated in his Majesties prison and Palace would have issued out a proclamation ascertaining forgiveness to any that should be able to prove his being murdered by others and that he did not destroy himself as some people have been industrious to give out And that which encreaseth the surprise and wonder is the consideration of the forwardness which the King hath expressed in some other cases for the detection of murders of this nature For besides the tender of a pardon there was the promise of 500. l. to any who should discover the murder of Sr. Edmondbury Godfrey and reveal the miscreants by whom he was assassinated And I would be loth to think that his Majesties proceeding so differently in that case from what he hath done in this was rather to be ascribed to his apprehensions of a ParlJament which was then in Being than to his love of justice or the desire of delivering the Nation from the guilt of innocent blood But I am willing to believe that the reason why the King doth not encourage the discovery of this late murder of my L. of Essex ariseth from the fear he is in of the persons that were accessory to it For in case he would authorise the detection of the Assassinates of this Noble Earl he will find himself obliged not only to bring the Earl of S. and my Lord F. but his Royal and dearly beloved Brother I D. of Y. to punishment And who knows but that he dreads left in calling these Gentlemen to account for cutting the E. of Essex's throat He too much hazard and expose his own Nor is it at all surprizing that the King who had not courage to resent the poysoning his own Sister by her husband the Duke of Orleans at a juncture when He might have made France feel the effects of his justice and displeasure should not have the boldness to question his Brother and other principal persons of the Popish Faction for the assassination of Essex especially at a time that he hath divested himself of all power to hurt them and by seeming offended may only stir up their wrath against himself
For I remember that when the late Sr. Thomas Armstrong had come post from Paris to give his Majesty an account how Orleans had poisoned the Princess Henrietta that he only replyed Orleans is a Rascal but pray thee Tom do not speak of what he hath done Yet that his Majesty may not excuse himself hereafter from causing further inquisition to be made after my Lord of Essex's death by saying he never heard otherwise but that he murder'd himself I do therefore tell his Majesty and publish to all the World that if he will grant an indemnity and protection to three or four persons we shall fully and evidently prove a Great Man the Earl of S. my Lord F. c. to have been the contrivers and Authorisers of it and shall name the Ruffians in particular who were employed to perpetrate the hellish and execrable Fact with an account of the several sums of money which they had for the execution of it Nor ought his Majesty to be displeased that I arraign his Brother and principal Ministers of so enormous and bloody a crime for as I write nothing but what I can fully justify so I take the boldness further to tell both him and them that if ever there come a ParlJament in England this matter shall be laid fully open and justice demanded against these impudent and enormous Offenders And as if it were not enough to evidence the E. of Essex did not murder himself but was barbarously assassinated by others that no encouragement hath been given for the discovery of the Authors of that villanous Fact notwithstanding all the rumours and Reports which have run to and fro both of the Manner of his death and the Actors in it it receives both a further and a very convincing accession of proof from this that all means have been used to deterr men from enquiring into that matter and to prevent their detecting what they may know of it The passages to this purpose would fill a volume meerly to relate them and therefore I shall confine my self to two particulars which I shall endeavour to deduce and represent with all the brevity as well as clearness I can Nor can it in the first place but astonish the world to find the Judges with whom the administration of law and justice between the King and his people is trusted I say to find them contrary both to the nature and End of their office and the Oaths they have taken of acting impartially to brand the medling in the matter of the E. of Essex's death as a Reflection upon his Majesty an Affront to the Government and a design to involve and embroil the Nation in trouble For not only the Attorney General stigmatiseth the report and belief of the Earl's being murdered by villanous hands as the throwing that ill thing upon the Government which he had committed upon himself but my Lord Chief Justice Jefferies is pleased to stile it a libelling of it and to have been forged in order to beget heart burnings and jealousies in the Kings Subjects against the Government and to raise Sedition Whereas the Government would never have been charged with this horrid Guilt tho some at the head of affairs might possibly have been accused of it had not these Gown-men involved the Government under the infamy and aspersion of it and done all they can to teach others to lay the barbarous Fact at that Door For as it is not the first time that a Prisoner hath been murdered in the Tower so it was never till now called a Reflection on the Government to endeavour to prove that such or such a person was destroyed by â—iolâ—nt and bloody hands even of whose death the Coroners Inquest had upon their inquisition given an other verdict Nay when the chief Favourites of our Princes and first Ministers of State have been accused as guilty of murdering a Gentleman imprisoned in the Tower whom the Coroners Jury had on their Inquisition declared to have died a natural death yet it was not thought to be an impeachment of the Government or a devolving the guilt of that bloody crime upon the King Of this we have a famous instance in Sr. Thomas Overbury who being committed Prisoner to the Tower in the Reign of King James and there poisoned by the contrivance and instigation of the Earl of Sommerset c. that was then chief Minister as well as principal Favourite was brought in by the Coroners inquisition to have died a natural death And yet it was thought no dishonour to the Government to have the death of that Gentleman afterwards enquired into and to find it proved contrary to the Coroners Inquisition that instead of dying a natural death he was basely and treacherously murdered by Villanous hands through the accession and contrivance of him whom he had faithfully served and with the consent of those to whose care trust and custody he was committed Nay was it not a great Vindication of the honor of the Government and an eminent Declaration of the Justice of the Nation to have the Lieutenant of the Tower and four or five meaner persons executed and the Earl of Sommerset and his Countess convicted and condemned for that bloody and barbarous Fact which the Coroners Inquest had acquitted and absolved all the world from the suspition as well as the guilt of And what an injury will the Judges of the Kings Bench and his Majesties Councel at Law be found to have done the King and the Government by their foolish as well as wicked expressions if at any time hereafter it come to be proved as certainly it will that the Earl of Essex did not murder himself but was assassinated by a company of hired Russians We should be loath in that case to claim the right of their way of Argumentation and to inferr that because my Lord of Essex was murdered in the Tower and at a time when the King was walking there that therefore not only the Government ought to be charged with it but that the King himself had a hand in and had designed it Tho I must say that according to their method of reasoning it will be impossible in that case to avoid such a deduction However it is a convincing proof that the ignominy and guilt of this Noblemans death ought to be ascribed to others than himself that the Judges and the men of the long Robe can find no other way to stifle the suspition and silence the clamor of the People but by interposing the Government as a Skreen to shelter Malefactors from Accusation and abusing the Authority of the Kingdom to deter men from the duty which they owe to God and his Majesty in discovering so execrable a murder Nor is this the only way and method they have taken to frighten and discourage Persons from discoursing of the Earl of Essex's being destroy'd by others without any accession or contribution of his own to his death but they have laid their
know if possible the names of those who had related it But while he was going in the search and pursuit of this which his being obliged under the Penalty of 2000 l. to answer an Information of Subornation had made an act of Justice to himself as well as a duty of God and his Country behold the poor Gentleman was apprehended and committed to Fisherton Goal in Wilâ—shire by a Warrant the most illegal for the Form as well as the Matter that ever any man was sent to Prison upon For what could be more extravagant and illegal than to seise and commit a Gentleman travelleng peaceably on the road without an Oath or deposition of any witness against him meerly upon a groundless and naked suspition of being a dangerous and ill affected man to the Government and for having two Informations about him relating to a Razors being thrown out of my Lord Essex VVindow before the news of his death was divulged and for carrying two Letters whereof the contents of one he knew not and the contents of the other could administer no just offence But the Form of the VVarrant was more extravagant arbitrary and illegal than the matter carrying in express words this order and command to the Goaler namely That he should Lawrence Braddon safely keep till he should receive further Order from the King and Privy Councel Which VVarrant had the Goaler been as mad and foolish to obey as the officious and doating Justice was to write the poor Gentleman for any foundation of relief that was left him in the Mittimus might have lain in Prison all the days of his life unless the King and Councel should have ordered his Release and Discharge But Mr. Braddon knowing both his own Integrity as to the Business he was going upon and his Innocency as to any crime the malice of his Enemies could charge him with sued out a habeas corpus to be brought to London before some of the Judges in order to be Bailed But alass being arrived there none of the Judges of either Bench nor Barons of the Exchecquer were in Town so that he was necessitated to desire the Goaler to carry him before my Lord K. which the Goaler having accordingly done his Lordship instead of admitting the Prisoner immediately into his presence and allowing him the benefit of the Statute was pleased to adjourn the seeing him till the next day with a command that he should be then brought to the Councel Chamber at Whitehall Whither being in obedience to the said Order carried he was after an hours waiting called in before my Lord and sound together with him my Lord Priey Seal my Lord Duke of Ormond and Mr. Secretary Jenkins It would be both to enlarge these Papers beyond the bounds allowed to them and to depart too far from the essential part of the subject I am upon to relate the whole entertainment which I have been told Mr. Braddon did there meet with Only it may not be amiss to reminde my Lord K. of a Verse that he quoted out of Juvenal and to subjoin the Translation of it into English as a certain author hath rendred it For having upbraided the poor Gentleman as one that had a design to raise and advance himself by sinistrous courses which God knows the endeavouring to detect the Earl of Essex Murder was not as the present posture of Affairs stands a very likely method unto he quoted that of the Poet to give an edg to his Irony and Sarcasm Aude aliquid brevibus Gyaris careere dignum Si vis esse aliquis Dare once but be a Rogue upon Record And you may quickly hope to be a Lord. But his bitter and contemptuous Language with all his other ungentile as well as illegal Treatment might have easily been dispensed with had not his Lordship refused him the benefit of the Statute of being admitted to be Bayled unless he would procure Sureties who together with himself might stand bound in 12000 l. for appearance A thing so exorbitant considering the quality of the Prisoner as well as unjust considering the nature of that which they stiled his offence that he had both acted unwisely should he have engaged himself and Friends in Bonds so much above what he was able to discharge and injuriously to others should he have condescended to so illegal a demand and which might afterwards be improved into a president Whereupon finding after diverse Applications that this Lordship was not to be wrought to a mitigation of the 12000 l and that he would not be prevailed on to take the 6000 l. Bail which was offered the Gentleman rather than be remitted again to Prison in the Countrey was forced to comply to stand committed to the Messenger Mr. Atterburys where he continued for five Weeks at the charges and rate of 4 l. 1 s 8 d. per week During which time he applied himself by way of petition to his Majesty in Council but alas without that success which he hoped for which most Men are apt to aseribe to the King 's being prepossessed by my Lord K. concerning his case so that despairing both of all Justice from my Lord K. and of all Favour from the Council Board and groaning as well under a close Confinement as the excessive charges he was at in the Messenger's House he judged it the best method he could take to endeavour the geting himself turned over to the Kings Bench Prison in Southwark reckoning that he should not only live there at a more moderate Expence which the Narrowness of his Fortune obliged him to consult than was extorted from him at Mr. Atterburies but likewise expecting that upon giving Security for his true Imprisonment he should have the Liberty of the Rules and thereby enjoy a more open and free Air than he did in the place where he was before But as it was with some Difficulty and after earnest Application as well to my Lord K. as to my Lord Chief Justice and the Attorney General that this small Kindness was obtained so after his removal to the Kings Bench by vertue of a Habeas Corpus from my Lord Chief Justice and after his having given 10000 l. Security for his faithful and true Imprisonment yet he was by an order from my Lord Chief Justice to the Marshal of the said Prison for his close Consinement denied the Freedom of the Rules which he had not only promised himself as a thing that was in course allowed but what the Keeper of the Prison had consented unto and without the granting whereof he could not according to Law demand Bayl and Security for his true Imprisonment Yea so arbitrary and illegal were they in all their actings against this poor Gentleman Mr. Braddon that notwithstanding his Imprisonment yet they refused to discharge him from the 2000 l. Bayl which he had given at his first Appearance before the Council to answer an Information of pretended Subornation and also notwithstanding his close Confinement they
my Lord lodged And as this Girl had no acquaintance with or knowledge of the former Boy and consequently they could not agree together to form and invent a Romantick and fabulous Story nor to concert the particulars which they were to report so it is observable that their Relations do harmonise and accord in all the main heads and only seem to differ in one thing which the Girls unacquaintedness with the several parts of the house where my Lord lodged led her into a mistake about For they both agree that there was a Razor thrown out of the Chamber window before Murder cryed out and that this Razor was bloody and that immediately there came a short Maid or Woman out of the house with a white hood upon her head who went towards the place where the Razor fell which as they are all the material things requisite to the confirmation of the Fact so being wholly strangers to one another they could not before-hand concert them nor agree the things they should report Had one said it was a Knife that was thrown out of the window while the other had affirmed that it was a Razor or had one denyed it to be bloody while the other had reported that it was so or had the one mentioned a Man as having come out of the house towards it while the other spake of a Woman there would have been then some reason for the Ridiculing it as a Fiction seeing the contradicting one another in the essential circumstances of the Report would have detected the falshood of the Reporters And it must argue great perverseness as well as strange prepossession of Mind to pretend to disbelieve the Story because the Children seem to vary one from another in a little and minute thing when in the mean time there is the greatest harmony imaginable between them in all that is of moment for the establishment and assurance of he realty of the Fact And therefore whereas towards invalidating the Girls Testimony it was objected by my L. Chief Justice Jeffreys that she should say the Razor was thrown out of the Closet window when the Boy had said that it was thrown out at the Chamber window this pretended inconsistency between the two may be easily removed to the satisfaction of all rational men and the eternal reproach and infamy of Sir George Jeffreys For indeed she said no such thing nor did she know the Closet window from the Chamber window nor so much as which was my Lord's Chamber but as she heard declared by the Standers by All that the Girl did affirm was that she saw a hand throw a bloody Razor out of a window which as the people discoursed belonged to the house where the E. of Essex lodged Nor did the objection arise from what the Child her self deposed in Court but it was started from the Deposition of one Glasbrook who informed of the Girls having told her Aunt that the E. of Essex had cut his Throat and that she was sure of it because she saw him throw the Razor out of the window and that it was all bloody Now because the Closet was the place where my Lord was found dead they would infer that she meant the Closet window and thereupon conclude the Story to be false both because of the impossibility that himself should throw the Razor out and the contrariety which they would have supposed to be in this expression to what the Boy had reported Whereas the phrase does only shew the simplicity of the Child but does no ways argue the falsity of the Report And the account which She gave of the place where She stood namely in that part of the Tower called the Mount plainly shews that she could not mean the Closet window but the window of the Chamber And had the Court of the Kings Bench had but the justice and integrity which became men in their places one Question of the Judges and the Childs Answer to it would have clearly decided whether she meant the Closet window or that of the Chamber For had they but ask'd her whether the window out of which the Razor was thrown stood towards the Forestreet or the Back yard the Objection would have immediately vanished seeing considering the place where the Child was then standing she must have answered that it look'd towards the Fore-street nor was it possible for her to see any thing thrown out of the Closet window unless she had stood in the Back-yard which she neither did nor was so much as ever there But by the asking such a question Sir George Jeffreys would have lost the advantage not only of ridiculing the whole matter about the Razor and of devolving the murder of the Earl of Essex upon himself but of skreening the Malefactors from Justice and possibly of ruining Mr. Braddon which were things of too great concernment to St. James's to let an occasion and pretence of compassing them escape him especially at the cost of a little Meekness Patience and Justice in his Lordship in receiving a Deposition and examining a Witness Now this Objection advanced by my Lord Chief Justice against the Truth of the Girls Testimony being fully and to the satisfaction of all impartial men removed and taken off all that absurd and nonsensical stuff which through his having wrested the Childs words he superstructs upon his own Dreams and Fictions does of its own accord and without its being needful for me to interpose any thing by way of remark upon it fall to the ground Nor will any man of common sense henceforth imagine that the Coach which the Child says she saw at the Door must therefore have been in the Back-yard and consequently been droven through the narrow Entry and Door of the House seeing it is evident from what hath been here discoursed that she meant the Fore-door and not the Back and to that there was no difficulty of access And with the same ease may all that Captain Hawley and my Lord Chief Justice declare about the height of the Pales and the impossibility of throwing any thing out of the Closet window over them and especially of seeing it when thrown over and lying upon the ground be dissipated and blown away because it was not the Pales encompassing the Back-yard which the Girl 's Testimony referred unto but those to which her Deposition related are the Pales which face and sence the forepart and front of the House O the Chicanery and fraudulency of a mercenary Lawyer instead of the uprightness and integrity of a just and impartial Judge Nor could my L. C. Justice have taken a more expeditious and effectual course to proclaim his own Villany than he hath done by endeavouring to ridicule and expose this poor Child's Testimony in the foregoing particular And whereas Mr. Justice Holloway was pleased to except against the Deâ—oâ—tion of the Girl in another particular namely that whilst she swore the Razor fell within the Pales the Boy
him Nor according to the measures of Wisdom or in consistency with the Principles of true Reason can any Man be a Friend to Religion and Natural Rights without being an avowed Adversary to that great Man himself as well as to his Contrivances But what do you think O ye Peers and Gentlemen of England are not all your Lives threatned in the destruction of this one Nobleman The Laws that could not protect him will be as unable to defend you If the Tower of London which is his Majesty's Royal Palace as well as the State Prison could not secure the Earl of Essex from the irruption and violence of Assassinates Can you either hope for or promise your selves safety in your Country Dwellings For if they want Pretences of destroying you by Persons in Ermine and Scarlet they have no more to do but commissionate and arm Russians and Banditti against you And when it may not be found convenient to assault your Lives by Strangers and hired Rascals whom you do not know they understand the Art of debauching your Valet's de Chamber and the Servants into whose hands you commit the care of your Persons to stab or poison you Into what a deplorable condition are English Gentlemen reduced being exposed if they stay in the Nation to be either sworn out of their Lives by false Witnesses or murdered by bloody Assassinates or if they withdraw and retreat into Foreign Countries made liable to be pursued to Outlawries And which was never known in any Kingdom of the World till Sir George Geffry's had given us a President an Outlawry does as certainly destroy a Man if the outlaw'd Party once fall into their hands as if he had drunk Poison or were stab'd through the heart with a Stilleto Of this the unfortunate Sir Thomas Armstrong is an Example of the first impression who albeit apprehended within the twelfth Month which is the time the Statute allows for a Person to come in and have the benefit of a Trial notwithstanding an Outlawry was yet executed by a Rule of the Court of King's Bench without being allowed a Trial tho he most earnestly demanded it as a right of the Subject and what the Law of the Land gave him a just claim unto And which is worthy to be remarked as shewing the different treatment which Protestants meet with beyond what was measured out to the worst and most criminal Papists The same Attorny General who opposed Sir Thomas Armstrong's having the liberty and benefit of a Trial and who required a Rule of Court for his Execution upon the bare Outlawry did but a few Years before in the case of Levallian and Don O Carney two of the Ruffians who in the Popish Conspiracy were to have killed the King at Windsor not only plead for the Reverse of their Outlawry tho they had been above two Years outlaw'd and came not in till they knew there was but one Witness could swear against them Mr. Bedloe the other Witness being dead but he withal told my Lord Chief Justice Pemberton that there being an Error in the Fact through their absence beyond Sea when the Outlawry was issued out against them the Reverse of it was a thing of course which they had a Right to demand and which the Court was bound by the Duty of their Office and Place to grant Seeing therefore that those of you O English Peers and Gentlemen who remain either faithful to God in the matter of Religion or true to your Country in the business of Civil Rights can neither hope to escape the Malice and Rage of your Enemies by staying at home nor by going abroad is it not time to be at last so far awakened out of your Lethargy as to demand Justice upon those bold and enormous Malefactors that were the Contrivers and Perpetrators of this horrid Murder upon this Noble and Innocent Lord. Can you believe you have discharged your Duty either to your Maker your Prince your Country your Selves your Posterity or to your murdered Friend till you have fill'd the Ears of his Majesty with a cry of innocent Blood barbarously shed and till you have demanded melius inquirendum into the manner of that Noble Man's Death and have brought the Authors and Instruments of his Assassination to undergo the Justice and Severity of the Law Let me tell you O Peers and Gentlemen that this is both what Heaven and Earth do expect from you And if you continue to neglect it you will in the account of God be reckon'd amongst Accessories to that Guilt and in the Esteem of Men be held for a dastardly and degenerate People But if all Men shall either prove so intimid or so supine as to be regardless of the Command and Authority of God their own Personal Safety the Wrath that impends over the Nation upon the cry of innocent Blood Awake then and stir up thy self thou All-seeing and Righteous Lord who beholdest Mischief and Spite to requite with thy hand and make thy Wisdom known in the Detection and thy Justice in the Punishment of this horrid Crime For thou hast not only devolved the Inquisition after Murder upon those who are trusted with Rule among Men but hast charged thy self with it and hast said The Blood of your Lives will I require at the hand of Man and at the hand of every Man's Brother will I require the Life of Man and whoso sheddeth Man's Blood by Man shall his Blood be shed And we do the rather make this Appeal unto thee O Lord not only because they who are advanced unto the Seats of Judgment are either unaccessable or Patrons of what they should search out and punish but because they who take upon them to minister in thy holy Things have prophaned thy Name made contemptible thy Ordinances and deceived thy People whom they should have informed both by vindicating the Authors of this bloody Murder from the Guilt and Suspition of it and by defaming and wounding the Memory of an innocent and guiltless Person While the Conspirators against our Religion and Laws have been like Wolves ravening to shed Blood and to get dishonest Gain these Mercenary Men have daub'd them with untempered Mortar making the King glad with their Wickedness and the Princes with their Lies 'T is to them that the Enemies of Protestancy and English Rights owe the success of all their Attempts and it is they whom the Nation ought to accuse of being the Instruments that have betray'd us to Popery and Slavery For to omit their other Villanies by which they have fought as well to ruine the Nation as oblige the Popish Faction they have endeavoured to ingratiate themselves with that traiterous Party by becoming Advocates for Assassinates and Concealers of Massacres The aspersing this Innocent and Noble Person whose Spittle some years ago they were ambitious to lick up with the Infamy of being Felo de se and they managing that wicked Fiction to the involving others in the Guilt of a Plot hath been a Year's employment for some of the Clergy to exercise their Talent upon hoping thereby to pave their way to rich Benefices Nor is there any thing so base which some of the Clergy will not prostitute themselves unto and glory in if it may but serve the Designs of St. James's and prevent the detection of the Crimes whereof a great Man is guilty A Fresh example we have of this in an Ecclesiasticks turning Informer and causing a Souldier to be made run the Gantlet and to be cashier'd For a certain high flown Tory being viewing the Tower did with a kind of pleasure on the remembrance that the Earl of Essex had there fatally ended his days ask'd a common Sentinel where the Chamber was in which my L. of Essex had cut his Throat To which the Souldier who was neither a Stranger to the Reports that went concerning the Death of that Noble Person nor to divers Circumstances importing by what means and hands he had fallen reply'd pointing at the same time to the Room that is the Chamber where the Earl of Essex was killed And because the honest Fellow would not own to that inquisitive Person that my L. of Essex had murder'd himself but persevered in saying he was kill'd in such a place therefore did the Divine inform against him and brought him to suffer what I have related Which as it represents unto us the Principles of the present Clergy so it confirms the Assassination committed upon that Noble Peer O therefore thou holy One to whom Justice belongeth shew thy self yea lift up thy self thou Judg of the Earth cause their Mischief to return upon their own Heads and for the Violence of their Hands and the Sin of their Mouth let them be taken in their Pride that all Men may know God hath not for saken the Earth but that he ruleth in Jacob even unto the Ends of it FINIS * Braddons Trial p. 4. * Braddon's Trial p. 45. 55. * Braddon's Trial p. 3. ibid. pag. 63. * My Lord Russels Tryal p. 38. †Ib. p. 59. * See Mezerny's Life of Henry 4. * See the Information exhibited to the Committie of ParlJament p. 5. 〈◊〉 13. * See Braddox's Trial p. 48. * Bradd Trial p. 38. 39. * See Braddon's Trial p 37 49 50 51. * See Braddons Tryal p. 3 20 6â— * Braddons Tryal p. 4. 60. * 〈◊〉 Trial p. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17. * â—â—â—â—ders Trial p. 1 2. * Braddons Trial p. 2. 70. * Braddon's Trial p. 2 70. * Braddons Trial p. 55 61. * Braddons Trial p. 45. * Braddon's Tryal p. 17. * Braddon's Tryal p. 43. †Braddon's Tryal p 69. * Bradd Tryal p. 47 48. * Braddon's Tryal p. 47. †Bradd Tryal p. 58. 69. * Braddon's Trial p. 45. †Bradd Trial p. 45. compared with p 69. * Trial p. 40.