against Sr. W. Scroggs as One Article Ingredient to the making up of his Treasons Now certainly there was something Extraordinary in 't that more then That Number of Noble Lords should be Declared Pernicious Advisers Promoters of Popery and Enemies to the King and Kingdom for only Ioyning with the King Himself in Opinion against the Exclusion And that the Same Persons should Arraign the One that Brought-off the Other So Mortal a Sin was it accounted in Those days to Serve the Crown and the Royal Family and so Venial a Slip to Endeavour the Overturning of the Government I do not remember so much as any One Instance that Vary'd from This Rule And never was any thing so Constant that came by Chance To give These Political Operators their Due there was Nothing Wanting to their Purposes that either Fraud Industry Confidence or Hypocrisy could Furnish They made the People afraid of Infallibility and Arbitrary Power and at the Same Time look'd them in the very Faces while they Assum'd the One and Practis'd the Other Themselves the Former under the Authority of the Wisedom of the Nation and the Latter in the Right of the Commons of England For Every Vote was in Effect a Sentence of Law Reason and Power Sovereign Absolute and without Controll And it was but saying that This or That Is at This Time Grievous to the Subject a Weak'ning of the Protestant Interest an Encouragement to Popery and Dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom to make the Resolution Authentique with a Non Obstante of never so many Laws to the Contrary If a Vote say that the King Cannot Pardon That Subjects shall not lend him Money Or That the Refusal of the Lords to Proceed in Parliament upon the Commons Impeachments of any Peer or Commoner for Treason or any other Crime or Misdemeanour is a Denial of Iustice and a Uiolation of the Constitution of Parliaments Here 's the King Law and Lords Over-rul'd and the Votes made Presidents Cited and Pleaded for the Prerogative of the House of Commons in all the Clubs or which is the same Thing the Peoples Courts of Iustice throughout the Three Kingdoms And it could not well be Other so long as Green-Ribbon-Committees and Caballs Without doors had such an Influence upon what pass'd Within and that the Principal Managers of Otes'es Plot were the very Oracles that were Consulted for Direction and Resolution upon All the Conspiracies that were then in Agitation These Evidences upon the Transactions of the House it self drawn from the Prints that they Themselves Order'd to be Publish'd and that were Publish'd accordingly as an Appeal to the Whole World in Iustification of their Proceedings and to Prevent False Copies and Reports These very Papers are the Evidences as their Unlucky Starrs would have it that are now Arisen in Iudgment 1against them and Faithfully Deliver'd-over to Succeeding Times as the Only Sure Means of Vnriddling the Mystery of This Wonderfull Intrigue And certainly No better way to let the Reader into the Secrets of This Affair then by the Key it self that was Made Originally to the Cypher I Have by this Time Trac'd the Likelyhoods of a Deliberated Design upon the King Church and State thorough all the Steps of Probability and Strong Presumption up to the Highest Degree of Certainty and Demonstration Were not All the Violent Asserters of the Duke of Monmouth's Pretended Interest and the Opposers of the Indubitable Right of his Royal Highness Embarqu'd in the Same Bottom of Enmity to the Government and of Kindness to the Faction How many were there in Both Houses that had the Same Hearts towards the King in a Committee of Parliament that they had afterward in a Clubb or in an Army And still Otes'es Plot the Support of All their Pretences And what was the Countenance of That Plot at Last but that the King was in Danger of being Assassinated by the Papists and therefore the Posse of the Three Kingdoms was to be Rais'd to Prevent that Murther Now whoever Believes That Story to be True must of Necessity draw this Conclusion from it That the Same People Stickled for the Saving of the King at Whitehall that were for the Killing of him in the West That is to say unless they can Bear the World down that there was No Rebellion Or that None of the Leading Members of Either House were Concern'd in 't but for That there was never any thing made Plainer then This Affirmative not onely from the Mouths of their Confederates but from the Confessions of the very Parties Themselves For the Truth of This I may further Remit my self to Divers Proclamations Declarations and Other Acts of State that have been Issued out by the Order and Authority of the Late Blessed King and of his Sacred Majesty that is now in Being But as a Supplemental Explanatory to All the Rest the Paper of Association that was found in the Late Earl of Shaftsburies Closet and Prov'd upon him if ever Light it self was made Manifest That Paper I say may serve without any Violence to the Text for a Comment upon All the Dark Passages of That History for it is in the Frame Order and Matter of it no other then a Compendious Abstract of the Debates and Resolutions that had pass'd the Commons upon the bus'ness of the Plot and the Succession Insomuch that there is hardly a Syllable of any Moment in the One that is not Answer'd and Eccho'd in the Other and whoever Lick'd it into Form the Project was the Cubb of a Close-Committee and it was kept in Reserve for a Forc'd-Put The French Holy League was look'd upon in those days as a Master-piece but the Devil was as yet a Novice The Scotch and English Holy League and Covenant came an Age Later into the World and Refin'd upon the French One and Then some Forty Year after that came the Noble Peers Association that Out-did them Both. But there 's no Reading upon 't 'till we have the Piece it self Before us in its own Dimensions Words and Colours The Paper which was Seized in the E. of Shaftsbury's Closet by Francis Gwin Esquire One of the Clerks of His Majesties Privy-Council and Read November 24. 1681. at the Old-Baily before His Majesties Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer WE the Knights c. Finding to the grief of our Hearts the Popish Priests and Iesuits with the Papists and their Adherents and Abetters have for several years last past pursued a most pernicious and Hellish Plot to root out the true Protestant Religion as a pestilent Heresie to take away the Life of our Gracious King to subvert our Laws and Liberties and to set up Arbitrary Power and Popery 2. And it being Notorious that they have been highly encouraged by the Countenance and Protection given and procured for them by J. D. of Y. and by their expectations of his succeeding to the Crown and that through crafty Popish Councils his
Oppose and Pursue unto Death and Destruction All such as aforesaid But what are these same Ioynt and Particular Forces they speak of Whence do they Come Who Raises them Who Leads ' em By What Authority by What Law is all this done The People are To follow such Orders as they shall from time to time Receive from This Present Parliament while Sitting and the Major Part of it when Prorogued or Dissolv'd and to Obey such Officers as shall be set over them by the Authority aforesaid And This they do Knowing Themselves to be Intrusted to Advise and Act for the Preservation of his Majesty and the Kingdom and being persuaded in their Consciences that the Dangers are so Eminent and Pressing that there ought to be no Delay of the Best means that are in their Power to Secure the Kingdom against them WHat is all this now but King Monarchy Parliaments Laws Liberties and Properties Cut-off at a Stroke The Papists Destroy'd under the Colour of a Plot the Duke as the Head of the Papists the King as an Adherent to the Duke The King's Friends for their Fidelity to their Master the Laws Over-rul'd by a Uote The Oath of Allegeance made Void by a Subscription to an Association Kingly Government Sunk into a Common-Wealth One Part of the Two Houses Enslav'd to the Other And this Iust and Pious Work as they Call it Is in the Presence of God set a-foot for the Preservation of the True-Protestant-Religion His Majesties Person and Royal State Our Laws Liberties and Properties And this to be Pursu'd by the Subscribers During Life too upon pain of being by the Rest Prosecuted and Suppress'd as Perjur'd Persons and Publique Enemies to God their King and their Native Country Here 's in One Breath an Oath that Makes them All This and an Oath that They will Never be Other This Paper Begins with an Oath Against a Conspiracy and Concludes with an Oath Of Conspiracy It begins with an Exclamation against Iesuites Priests and Papists and Ends in the Dissolution of King Lords and Commons Upon the Whole it speaks neither More nor Less then the Sense the Design and within a little of the very Syllables of the Votes Themselves And to say all in a Word the One is but the Model or the Minutes of the Other THere was likewise found among my Lord Shaftsburies Papers as I have formerly Noted in some of my Writings a Book of the Several Counties of England Ranged in Alphabet under the Heads of WORTHY MEN on the One side and MEN WORTHY on the Other which was Intended and Made use of for a Discriminating List of the Royalists and the Republicans Under the Cypher of Men Worthy was Couch'd the Conâ—eit of Men Worthy to be Hang'd Now the Probable Advantage that they intended to make of This Distinguishing Register if Rightly Understood may serve to give some Light to the Dark and Mysterious Part of the Oxford-Plot upon the King's Person The Mercenary Forces and the Papists Adherents in the Style of Those Times By the Virtue of This Roll and Distinction at hand they could any time at a Week or Ten days Warning Flush-up an Vniversal Plot Get it Authenticated upon the Oathes of Half a dozen of the Sons of Belial that they had in Pay Put All the Considerable Men in the Kingdom into the Catalogue and File it at last to the Account of the Conspirators whose Names did not Occurr at present to Otes upon his Calculation of his Narrative A Thousand ways might have been Contriv'd by giving a Hot Alarum to have taken 'em All in their Beds before they were aware And at the Same time to Beset the King with Petitions upon their Knees to give 'em leave to Provide for the Preservation of his Majesties Person and Royal State to the Tune of the Association There would have been no more Need of Voting the Duke to be Banish'd or the King's Ministers to be Remov'd from his Majesties Councells and Presence for ever but there would have been Downright Commitments and Impeachments and more Work for One Poor Executioner then Twenty Dextrous Knaves could have Turn'd their Hands to Three or Four Home-Oaths and Warrants Immediately Dispatch'd away for the Seizure of the Conspirators would have left the Government at Mercy Nothing can be Clearer I think then that the Oxford Plot was a Branch of the Capital Design And that by the Help of Shaftsbury's List they might have Infinitely Facilitated their Work. Now if it be Reasonable to Believe that This was a Course to turn to Account it is As Reasonable to Believe that they Intended to make Vse of it and Emprove it as the Best Means they had Before them There needs no more towards the Satisfying of any man over and above the Evidence in the Foundation and Truth of the Oxford-Design then to Consider how the Whole Faction were Startled at the Summons Thither and the Pressing the Importune nay and the Menacing Instances of Application to his Majesty that the Meeting might be at Westminster These Considerations upon the Noble Peer's Book and the Oxford Conspiracies may seem to be a Digression but whoever duly Weighs them will find that they hang All on a String and are only Several Members of the Same Plot. Reflections upon the Whole I Shall now pass some Necessary Reflections upon the Whole There never was perhaps since the Creation of the World so much Confusion Wrought by so Mean so Scandalous and so Ridiculous Instruments Lowzy Greazy Rogues to be taken into the Arms of Princes Porters and the Coursest of Letter-Carryers to be made the Confidents of Publique Ministers Starving Indigent Varlets that had not Credit in the World for a Brumigen Groat and liv'd upon the Common Charity of the Basket to be a matter of Seven Hundred Pound out of Pocket in his Majesties Service as Otes and Bedloe pretended Sots to find Treason in Words at length in Common Post-Letters The Four Ruffians to have but Twenty Pound a Man for Murdering the King by Assault and Sir George Wakeman Fifteen Thousand Pound only for Poysoning him without running the Fifteenth Part of the Risque Nay and Bedloe Fifteen Hundred Pound for but Lending a Hand to the Helping away of a Dead Iustice. These and a Thousand Incredibilities more must be All Believ'd or the Witnesses found to be most Damnably Forsworn Unless it were for the Evidences sake that they had Credit given 'em for the Matter of 〈◊〉 under Such Circumstances was Morally Impâ—â—â—ble to be True And for the Probity of the Witnesses they were already as well known as the Whipping Post for a Pack of Swearing Lying Cheating a Prostitute and an Abandon'd Sort of Mercenary Villains And yet such was the Infatuated Credulity of the Common People at that Season and such the Bold and Shameless Hypocrisy of the Managers of That Imposture that there was no Place for either Truth or Honesty to Appear The Inference I
Labour'd so long under the Scandal of Oppression Cruelty and Injustice upon the Testimony of so Infamous so Sottish and so Despicable an Impostor Never so many Persons of Honour met in a Court to give Evidence toward the Confounding of so Contemptible a Miscreant Never was any Perjury made-out by so many Vnquestionable Witnesses and Demonstrative Proofs and yet for the Honor of the Criminal it must not be Forgotten how he stood his Ground to the Last I Appeal says he to the Great God of Heaven and Earth the Iudge of All and once more in his Presence and before All This Auditory I Avow my Evidence of the Popish Plot All and every Part of it to be nothing but True and will expect from the Almighty God the Uindication of my Integrity and Innocence THis Last Effort of his from any Other Lips would have Stagger'd a man if the Exact and Wonderfull Agreement of the Testimonies against him and the Palpable Contradictions of his Own Witnesses had left any Possibility for Doubting But from a fellow so Flagitious in the Habit and through the Whole Course of his Life This Last Defyance of God's Power and Iustice Compar'd with the Ordinary Course of his Conversation and Manners did but serve to make the Man All of a piece The Practice and Attempts of Bestiality upon his own Servants after he was preferr'd from a Street-Begger to be a King's Evidence the Falseness of his Malicious Oath against Parker at Hastings His taking the Holy Sacrament over and over so many times for a Cover for his Malitious Treasons These and the Like are Things so Certain and so Notorious that no Mortal that knows his Person can be a Stranger to his Villany My Lord Chief Iustice says indeed that There was a Consult and there was a Conspiracy against the Life of our King our Government and our Religion Not a Consult at the White-Horse in the Strand but a Caball and Association of Perfidious Rebels and Traytors who had a mind to Embroil us in Bloud and Confusion This is the very Truth and may serve for the Winding-up of That Point There was most Indubitably a Republican Plot as has been made appear from the Express Acts of the Plotters Themselves and Trac'd through Every Step of the Proceeding from the very Project and Foundation of it to the Last Resolve of putting it in Execution But This Plot was to be Call'd a Popish Plot according to the True Intent and Meaning of the Revenging Vote which by Interpretation was no more then This That The True-Protestants were to Kill the King and the Papists to be Hang'd for 't Our Accounts Cast-up whether we have Got or Lost by the PLOT WE are now at the Bottom of This Bottomless Bus'ness and we should do very well and like Sober Men and Good Managers of our Honour Time Peace and Mony to Compute a little upon matters So much for Double Guards So much for Treating the King's Witnesses So much among Catch-poles So much in Pensions So much for a Fond to Defray Plot-Charges So much in Narratives So much in Processions and Pope-Burnings So much to Re-imburse Otes and Bedloe the Seaven Hundred Pound a Man they were out of Pocket for the Protestant Cause So much upon Well-Affected Elections So much in Ignoramus Iuries but Discounting All this while for what we have Receiv'd from the Westminster-Insurance-Offices upon the Whole Charge and in One word to see at the Foot of the Account Paper and Pack-Thrid pay'd for whether we have Got or Lost by Part'ner-Ship with Otes and his Adherents and Abetters in This Loyal forsooth This Religious and This English Bloud-Adventure IT is not to be Deny'd and it is already Agreed that King Nation and People have Suffer'd All manner of ways and in a very Great Measure too quite thorough This Period of Otes'es Administration and All for Fear of the Damnable Hellish Popish-Plot Because and by Reason of it and that we were Necessitated to do what we did to secure his Late Majesty and his Government against Popish Conspirators and his Sacred Person against Poyson and Silver Bullets Had it not been for That Damnable Plot the King had been Safe The Queen and the Duke Vntainted and the People had still continu'd in their Wits and in their Duty The Popish Lords had been yet at Liberty the Priests Iesuits and the Godfrey-Men Vnhang'd The Papists might have had Tolerable Quarter among the rest of the King's Subjects and the Honour and Iustice of the English Nation might have yet stood as Fair in the Esteem of Other Christian Princes and States as ever it did So that upon the Vpshot what have we now to say for the Wickedness the Folly and the Madness of Those Times if there was NO Popish Plot at all nor any thing Like it but the Seditious Confederacy of an Ambitious Caball of Iuggling Canting Hypocrites to Murder the King Themselves from behind That Stale What Reparation now for Innocent Bloud and Oppression What Satisfaction or What Effectual Repentance for Those that Preach'd Pleaded Supported Assisted how Innocently soever the Credit of that Diabolical Imposture without making the Churches the Courts of Iustice Coffee-Houses and Other Publique Places Ring as Loud of their Mistakes as ever they did of their Invectives and Clamours The Misleading of People into a Belief of Falsities of This Desperate Kind and Consequence even though I my self take them to be Truths is but next door to the Swearing Men into a Belief of That which I Know to be False That is to say If when I come to find My Own Error I do not Endeavour to set All Those People Right that I Carry'd out of the Way The Shame of a Repentance is not far Remov'd from the Wilfull and Deliberate Committing of a Sin. I do not Expect that My Sermonizing here shall Work upon Those that Shut their Eyes against the Light of Experience and Example though One would think that men should be very Wary of Setting That Door Open over and over again that had been still the Inlet to all our Former Confusions If a Thief Breaks into my House at a Garret-Window I 'le provide Better Barrs and Bolts And Undoubtedly a Government may have a Weak side as well as a Private Habitation and there ought to be as much Care taken to Secure a State against Political House-Breakers upon That Quarter where they ever Enter'd Before A Caution against the same Cheat over again THE President of This Cheat and Pretext and the Sense of the Ruinous Calamities which the Belief of it has brought upon us should methinks Fortifie men against Those Panick Frights and That Childish Ielousie and Credulity that has Wrought us All This Misery And it is not to say that there may be more Reason for This Apprehension at One Time then at Another for let the Reason be Great Little or None at all it works the Same Effect
allready Granted that he was as fully Possess'd of the Whole Extent of the Matter there in Question as it was Possible for any Man to be upon Study Search and Enformation As to any thing purely relating to the Matter of Sr Edmund-bury Godfrey I shall Remit my self upon that Particular to the Third Part of This Brief History which I have Expressly Reserv'd for a Discourse upon That Subject In Fol. 7. of Greens Tryal Mr. Attorny Grafts the Murder of Godfrey upon the Discovery of the Late Horrid Plot and sets forth how Industrious Sr Edmund was in finding out the Principal Actors in That Plot and how Mortal an Enemy to Priests and Iesuits Whereas it is Notoriously known that he call'd Otes a Rogue and a Cheat from the very Beginning and that he did many Good Offices to Known Priests when he found them in Distress to the Extreme hazzard both of his Person and Estate Let it Suffice that I do here Affirm This to be True and Oblige my seif to Prove it so upon Authorities Vnquestionable hereafter It is but matter of Course for Mules according to the Adage to Knab one another and so there 's no Love Lost betwixt Otes Prance and Bedloe The Two Latter put their Shoulders to the helping of Otes'es Plot out at a Dead Lift And Thankfull Otes does as much toward the Helping out of Bedloe and Prance in Sr Edmund-bury Godfreys Murder Godfrey told Otes a Tale it seems how the Popish Lords had Threaten'd him and what a Fright he was in for fear of his Life from the Popish Party and how they had been several days Dogging of him Tryal Fol. 12. So that Otes'es Testimony some way or other was the Life of the Cause all this while and take away That Pillar the whole Building sinks into Rubbish But to see now at the Close of the Tryal and of the Day how Mr. Attorny Blesses himself to find Every thing made out so Clear even to Admiration I intended says he when I began to open the Evidence to have made some Observations after the Evidence Ended to shew how Each Part of it did Agree and how the Main was Strengthen'd by Concurring Circumstances But in Truth the Kings Evidence did fall out much better then I could Expect And the Defence of the Prisoners much Weaker then I could foresee So that I think the Proof against the Prisoners is so Strong and so Little has been Alleged by them in their Defence that it would be but loss of Time to do what I at first Intended fol. 71. As to the Strength of the Evidence and the Weakness of the Defence the Tryal is Extant and let the Cause speak for it self But Thus however he goes on Haranguing upon the Harmony of the Witnesses 'till at last he Crowns the Exploit with an Address to the Iury in These Words I shall say no more but Conclude to the Jury with That Saying that I remember in the Book of Judges in the Case of a Murder too though of another Nature Iudges 19.30 The People said there was no such Deed done nor seen from the Day that the Children of Israel came out of Egypt And I may say there was never such a Barbarous Murther Committed in England since the People of England were Freed from the Yoke of the Popes Tyranny and as 't is said There so say I now Consider of it Take advice and speak your Minds fol. 72. The Barbarous Murder of Charles the First is forgotten here once again But now we are upon the Subject of Innocent Blood let any Man set the Bloud that was Drawn upon This Authority and Encouragement against That which was There in Question and then lay his Hand upon his Heart To say nothing of the Lives that were Afterwards Sacrificed under the Countenance and in Consequence of That President It Cannot be too often Repeated that Mr. Attorny had all the Papers at his Command that might give him Light to a Distinct and Perfect Vnderstanding of the Main Cause and Every Part of it As the Iournals of Both Houses The Council-Minutes and Other Publique and Attested Enformations that he had the Whole Cause before him as in a Breviat and the Means Consequently of Comparing every Several Witness with Himself and every Witness Respectively One with Another to see how far their Oaths upon the Lords Iournals agreed with what they Swore in Court and how far their Depositions before the King and Council or before so many of his Majesties Iustices of the Peace Squar'd with Both or Either of the Other By Vertue of These Advantages Sr. William Iones was upon so great a Certainty of Knowledge in All he Said or Did upon this Matter that it was hardly possible for any Practice of Confederacy any Doubling or Shuffling any Flaw Contradiction or Equivocation in the Evidence to Scape him Beside that he wanted neither Wisdom nor Industry to make the best of his Materials And yet upon laying Things together It is a little hard to Imagine how this Learned Gentleman should come to Phansy so Admirable a Concurrence of Circumstances The Strength of the Kings Evidences so much beyond Expectation and the Defence of the Prisoners so short of it in a Case which to all other Mens Eyes appears a meer Huddle and Mish-mash of Vnaccountable Confusions which I do here Oblige my self to make as Manifest as the Light of the Sun in the Continuation of This Story if I live but a very little while longer to Finish it The most Favourable Construction that can be offer'd in Excuse of the Proceeding will be This that though Mr. Attorny had the Care of the Cause and the Command of all Papers and Enformations Concerning it Multiplicity of other Thoughts and Bus'ness might yet Divert him perhaps from attending All the Critical Minutes of the Case so Nicely as he Ought to have done Sir William Iones proceeded Thus far in the Quality of Attorny General We shall see now what Part he sustained in the Tryal of my Lord Stafford as a Manager of the Evidence upon an Impeachment in the Names of the Commons of England My Lords says Sr William Iones I think I may take leave to say that the Plot in General hath been now Sufficiently Prov'd And if we Consider whath has been Prov'd at Former Tryals upon which many of the Offenders and Traytors have been Executed what hath been Published in Print and above All Colemans Letters written all with his own Hand and for That Reason Impossible to be Falsify'd we may Iustly Conclude that there is not a Man in England of Any Understanding but must be fully Convinc'd of the Truth of the Plot in General c. p. 169. So that I think now None Remain that do Pretend Not to Believe it but Two Sorts of Persons The One Those that were Conspirators In it and the Other Those that Wish'd it Had Succeeded and Desire it May
I have been Enformed of a Design against my Person by the Jesuits of which I shall forbear any Opinion lest I should say too Much or too Little but I will leave the Matter to the Law. The Commons fell presently to work upon the Plot-Papers the Further and Further Enformations of Titus Otes That Inexhaustible Fountain of Invention and Slander Sir Edmundbury-Godfreys Matters Priest-Hunting and Impeaching And Then came-on the Humour of Seizing Caudle-Cups for Altar-Plate Medals and Guineys for Popish-Trinkets the Burning of our Blessed Saviour in Effigie Playing the Merry-Andrews and Buffoons in Priests-Habits Making Sport with Holy Orders and Holy Things 'till in the Conclusion for fear of Popery they ran-a-Muck as they call it at Christianity it self and bore down Every thing that stood in their Way betwixt This and Hell. There was no Place left for Moderation Sobriety or Councel Truth Iustice Humanity Honour and Good Nature were All Popishly-Affected and never such a Competition betwixt Divine Providence on the One hand and the World the Flesh and the Devil on the Other for the Preserving or the Destroying of a Nation The History of the Interval betwixt Otes'es Damnable Discovery and if the Conceit be not too Trivial the Discovery of Damnable Otes has been the Entertainment of all Peoples Tongues and Thoughts and the Amazement of Christendome no less then the Horrour of All Good Men To see the Foundations of Three Kingdoms Shaken with the Breath of Four or Five Prostitute Mean and Stigmatiz'd Varlets An Imperial Monarchy well-nigh Sunk into a Common-Wealth upon the Credit of Notorious Impostors and Common Cheats An Apostolical Church in danger to be Over-turn'd in the Name of God and for the sake of Religion by the same Instruments Iayls and Dungeons fill'd with Men of Honour Faith and Integrity upon the Testimony of Pillory'd Pick-Pockets and of the Sink of Mankind The Heir Apparent to the Crown in a fair way too to be Disinherited at the Instance of Felons and Renegades Perjury and Subornation Triumphant and Nothing so Sacred either in Heaven or upon Earth as to be Secure from the Outrages of the Rabble The Faction in short had got a-Head and there was No Resisting the Torrent Now the Fact was Agreed upon at All Hands but as to the Rise the Occasion and the Danger of these Distempers People were Divided Some would have it to be a Popish Plot upon the Kings Person and Government and the Protestant Religion Others would have it to be a Republican Plot against All Three under Another Name but with the self Same Design That is to say of Killing the King Changing the Government Dissolving the Church and rather then fail their Ends to be Compass'd by Fires and Massacres as was Expresly Own'd by divers of the Common-Wealth-Conspirators that were brought to Iustice Some in 1666. and Others in 1683. Certain it is that the Cover of the Four Evangelists never had Fouler Lips laid to 't the Merits of the Cause apart then Those of the Kings Witnesses upon This Occasion And it fell out too huge Vnluckily for Their Purpose that the People that were to be Massacred should break out into so many Rebellions for fear of having their Throats Cut while the People that they swore were to Cut their Throats were either Coop'd-up in Prisons or Gibbeted up and down the Kingdom like so many Vermin in a Cony-Warren without making anyOne Attempt either upon the Person of his Majesty or upon the Peace of his Dominions Nay and to give them their Due without so much as Muttering against the Government under All This Rigour The Cause is now coming to an Issue and the Articles of the Charge Mutatis Mutandis the very Same on Both sides as Perjury Subornation Packing of Witnesses and Iuries Only for Pickering reade Rumbold for Papist reade True-Protestant And so in like manner where the Same Reason holds in Other Cases The Theme that I am now upon is so Copious It has so many Incidents that Necessarily fall into the Story the Matter is of so Great a Consequence to be Clear'd and there is so Great a Variety of Previous and Leading Circumstances in the Nature of Praecognita that require a Place in the Preamble to This Narrative that the Prologue to my Bus'ness has been a great deal longer then I intended But I shall now Hasten to an Impartial Account upon the Two Plots in Question AS to the Proof or Testimony of a Popish Plot we have the Credit of Witnesses Innumerable such as they are both English and Irish But the Foundation of the Whole Fabrick is Otes'es Consult at the White-Horse in the Strand And All the Rest has been but a Superfoetation upon that Original It has been Sworn to be a Plot Iudg'd to be a Plot I know not how many Priests Iesuits and Others have Dy'd for 't as a Plot But in fine Such a Plot it was as no body ever yet saw Any thing Of it or any thing Like it but with Otes'es Eyes which in the Bus'ness of Don Iohn Mr. Coleman and Several Other Instances have been found not be Infallible So that upon the Main Otes'es Plot is the Ground-Work of the Whole And if That Fails All Fails which may nevertheless Be and No Affront to the Believers of it For an Oath may be Good in Law and yet Carry a Man to the Devil upon the Point of Conscience Simpson Tonge proves the Popish-Plot to be only a Contrivance betwixt his Father and Titus Otes NOW as to the Project commonly call'd Otes'es Plot if a man may Speak Truth and Shame the Devil it was not the Doctors Alone but a kind of a Club betwixt Titus Otes and Ezrel Tonge as I have it under the Hand of Young Tonge Himself and upon Other very Good Authorities beside As for the Purpose Your Petitioner doth Protest in the Presence of Almighty God that it is very True that the Plot was Contrived by my Father and Titus Otes when he returned the Second Time beyond the Seas Subscribed Simpson Tonge The Petition to His Late Majesty and the Original I have in My Own Hand As likewise of these Instances that follow Vnder the Pretence of a Popish Plot which my Father first Imagin'd was a-foot and afterwards Otes at his Second Return Swore to be True Their Main and Principal Design was to Disinherit his Royal Highness The first Persons that Manag'd the Plot and were Privy to it were my Father Otes c. This was Address'd to my self Dated from the Kings-Bench Ian. 5. 1681. and Sign'd Simpson Tonge And once again yet When I came from the Vniversity in the Year 77. I found Otes with my Father in a very poor Condition who complained he knew not what to do to get Bread who went under the Name of Ambrose My Father took him home and gave him Cloaths Lodging and Dyet saying he would put him into a way And then he persuaded
is no Security or Safety for the Protestant Religion the King's Life or the Well-Constituted and Established Government of This Kingdom without Passing a Bill for Disabling James Duke of York to Inherit the Imperial Crown of England and Ireland and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging and to Rely upon any other Means and Remedies without such a Bill is not only Insufficient but Dangerous Here 's the Horrid Popish English Plot made the Ground for the Excluding of the Duke and keeping the King short of Mony according to the Intent of the Votes of Ian. 7. 1680. above-mention'd And That 's made the Foundation likewise for the Refusal in the Address before-Cited in the very Syllables of the said Address That your Majesties Sacred Life is in Continual Danger under the Prospect of a Popish Successor is Evident not only from the Principles of Those Devoted to the Church of Rome but also from the Testimonies Given in the Prosecution of the Horrid Popish Plot against Divers Traytors Attainted for Designing to put Those Accursed Principles into Practice against your Majesty There needs no Subtlety of Quirking or Reasoning upon this Case of MONY the Spite of it lying so Open that Every Common Eye sees thorough it and that the Terms the Republican Cabal Treated upon in some of those Parliaments were no other then a Tryal of Skill to see if they could bring his Late Majesty to a Composition for his Crown For the King was to have No Mony but upon Conditions of Disinheriting his Brother and more yet as I shall shew in Due Place Contrary to all the Tyes of Conscience Gratitude Iustice and Prudence And All for fear of a Damnable Hellish Popish Plot. We shall see now how they Dealt with his Majesty likewise in the Matter of Power No Power THE Power of a Prince Exerts it self in the Means of an Ample Revenue to Answer all the Necessities of the Crown to Pay his Troups and to Reward Honourable Services In the Privileges of Sovereign Authority the Love and the Reputation that he has in the Hearts of his People In the Arms of his Militia the Command of his Subjects and the Chearfull Obedience of his Friends They had allready Maim'd and Disabled his Late Sacred Majesty in the First Great Point of his Revenue That which comes-on Next is to see how they dealt with him in respect of his Power of Prerogative in General and as to his Forces both by Land and by Sea in Particular and whether the whole Proceeding was not still Grounded upon the Damnable Bug-bear of the Popish Plot. How they us'd him upon the Matter of his Credit and Friends shall come-on in due Time. But to Proceed now to an Enquiry how they handled him upon the Subject of his Prerogative First in the Case of the Earl of Danby The Kings Prerogative of Pardoning Question'd REsolved That an Humble Address be made to His Majesty Representing to his Majesty the Irregularity and Illegality of the Pardon mentioned by his Majesty to be Granted to the Earl of Danby and the Dangerous Consequence of Granting Pardons to Any Persons that lie under an Impeachment of the Commons of England Here 's the Kings Power of Life and Death shaken at the very Root and what 's the Unpardonable Crime at last but This among Others That he is Popishly-Affected and hath Trayterously Conceal'd after he had Notice of the Late Horrid Plot or Conspiracy Contrived by the Papists against his Majesties Person and Government and hath Suppress'd the Evidence and Reproachfully Discountenanced the Kings Witnesses in the Discovery of it in favour of Popery Immediately tending to the Destruction of the Kings Sacred Person and Subversion of the Protestant Religion There happen'd no Evil under the Sun in those Days but the Late Horrid Plot or somewhat like it had still a Finger in the Pye But from Pardoning in my Lord Danby's Case they proceeded afterward to a Bolder Step in my Lord Staffords and to make a Moot-Point of it whether the King by his Prerogative could so much as Remit any Part of the Sentence but Sir W. I. gave his Opinion upon 't in Favour of the Prerogative upon a very Weighty Reason This House says he lyeth not under any Obligation to Offer at any Opposition nor concern themselves herein Especially at This Time when such a Dispute may End in Preventing of the Execution of the said Lord Stafford And therefore I do humbly Conceive you may do well to give your Consent that the said Writ be Executed according to its Tenor. The Short of the Bus'ness was This Sentence of Death was pass'd in Form upon my Lord Stafford and the Kings Writ to the Sheriffs Commanded only his Head to be Sever'd from his Body Bethel and Cornish the then Sheriffs of London and Middlesex Apply'd themselves by Petition to the Lords to know whether they should Obey the Writ or Not The Lords found the Scruples Vnnecessary and Declar'd That the Kings Writ ought to be Obey'd After this to the Commons Stating the Matter under These Four Following Quaeries I speak upon the Credit of the Collection of Debates above-mention'd 1. Whether the King being neither Iudge nor Party can Order the Execution 2. Whether the Lords can award Execution 3. Whether the King can Dispense with any part of the Execution 4. If the King can Dispense with some part of the Execution why not with All Upon the Debate it was in the Conclusion Resolved That This House is CONTENT That is to say it does VOVCHSAFE and with MVCH A-DO too that the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex do Execute William Late Viscount Stafford by Severing his Head from his Body only The Story of these Insolencies will never be Believ'd in After-Ages but however we are upon the Foot still of the Trayterous and Execrable Conspiracy for the Imprisoning Deposing and Murdering his Sacred Majesty and the Raising and Disposing of Men Monys Arms and other Things Necessary for their Wicked and Trayterous Designs and Namely a Commission for William Viscount Stafford to be Paymaster of the Army HEre 's a Dreadfull Bus'ness as the Good Woman said about this same Trayterous and Execrable Conspiracy Pray the Lord it be all True at Last for the Government was Mightily off the Hinges about it and the Fountain of Mercy and Power seem'd to be quite Dry'd-up The Sheriffs were become the Peoples Officers and the Commons made Iudges of the Validity of the King 's Writ The Style of Authority was no longer We Charge and Command but Resolv'd upon the Question and the Power of the Keys dropt into St. Stephens Chapel Parliamentary as well as Pardoning Power Encroch'd upon AND that they might not seem Partial to One Prerogative more then Another They struck at the King's Power of Parliaments as well as of Pardons and finding that an Everlasting Parliament Agreed so well with their Predecessors
they had a Months-mind to make Tryal of the Same Experiment Themselves too as may be seen by the By in their Parliamentary Addresses and Votes but most Expresly in the Throng of Popular Addresses to his Majesty and in the Libel of Vox Patriae where so many of the Members got themselves Address'd to in a kind of an Association to That very purpose As for Example In the Address against Sir George Ieffreys the Earl of Hallifax and several Votes upon the same Occasion We your Majesties most Dutifull c. in hopes to bring the Popish Conspirators to speedy Iustice were about to Petition to your Majesty in an Humble Dutifull and Legal Way for the Sitting of This Parliament c. And so again We c. being deeply sensible of the Manifold Dangers and Mischiefs which have been Occasion'd to This your Kingdom by the Dissolution of the Last Parliament and by the Frequent Prorogations of This Parliament whereby the Papists have been Greatly Encouraged to Carry on their Hellish and Damnable Conspiracies c. Resolved That Whosoever Advised his Majesty to Prorogue This Parliament to Any Other purpose then in Order to the Passing of a Bill for the Exclusion of James Duke of York is a Betrayer of the King the Protestant Religion and of the Kingdom of England a Promoter of the French Interest and a Pensioner to France What is All This but Overturning and Overturning Confusion like Waves following One upon the Back of Another and the Cabal so Intoxicated with Passion in the Logick of This Last Vote that the very Despite of being Defeated made them Forget their Ordinary Prudence For the Conclusion is never to be Reconcil'd to the Premisses All that can be said for This Worrying Vote is that they were then in their Last Agonies for they were That Day Prorogu'd from the aforesaid 10th of Ianuary to the 20th in Order to a Dissolution And in All Mischievous Creatures the Convulsions of Death are ever the Strongest But for the Rolls of the Written Addresses of Those Days they are most of them Peremptory for Sitting 'till they might be Effectually Secur'd and That 's One Main Condition too of the Countrys Addresses to their Members And the Address of Sir Patience Ward then Lord-Mayor c. to his Majesty Himself Your Petitioners were Extremely Surpriz'd at the Late Prorogation whereby the Prosecution of the Publique Iustice of the Kingdom and the Making the Provisions Necessary for the Preservation of your Majesty and your Protestant Subjects hath received an Interruption c. They do therefore most Humbly pray c. That the said Parliament may Sit from the Day to which they are Prorogued untill by their Councels and Endeavours Those Good Remedies shall be Provided and Those Iust Ends Attained upon which the Safety of your Majesties Person The Preservation of the Protestant Religion The Peace and Settlement of your Kingdoms and the Welfare of This your Ancient City do so Absolutely Depend What is This now but the Counter part of the Bill for Continuing the Parliament that was Pass'd in Forty One and Chiefly upon the very Same Pretences too Viz. That Publique Grievances might be Redress'd and Iustice done upon Delinquents before the Parliament should be Dissolv'd Or in short The King was Not to Prorogue Adjourn or Dissolve This Parliament without Consent of Both Houses And there 's Another Parliamentary Point yet to Come in the Vote of Unqualifying the Members for the Receiving of any Beneficial Office from the King. 'T is a kind of a Scandalous Incapacity for a Subject to fare the worse for his Master's Commission And too much in all Conscience for the Same Men to Tye-up the King's Hands from Any Act of Grace and Bounty toward his Subjects that had before Ty'd-up the Peoples Hands from Supplying his Majesty The Vote was This Resolved That no Member of This House shall Accept any Office or Place of Profit from the Crown without the Leave of This House nor any Promise of any such Office or Place of Profit during such time as he shall continue a Member of This House An Eminent Member that Started This Motion made it his Observation upon the Long Parliament That All Those that had Pensions and most of Those that had Offices Voted All of a side as they were directed by some Great Officer c. If That Gentleman had taken as much Notice that the House had but Two sides and who Voted on the Other he would have found a Noble Peer to have Weigh'd against his Great Officer and the Matter to be no more then the Old Discrimination over again of King and Parliament It may be a Question now the Tendency and Intent of This Touch duly Consider'd whether they made the King or the Member in such a Case the Greater Delinquent of the Two. And they were not Contented here neither without a Further Essay upon the Choice of his Majesties Ministers and Officers of State War and Iustice After the Copy of the Old Nineteen Propositions The King not to Chuse his own Officers and Ministers NO Judges but men of Ability Integrity and Known Affection to the Protestant Religion And They Themselves to be Iudges of the Iudges Their Offices and Salaries to hold Quamdiu se bene gesserint c. No Lord-Lieutenants but Persons of Integrity and Known Affection to the Protestant Religion the Religion of the Associators that is No Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace but so Qualify'd And moreover Men of Ability Estates and Interest in their Country uâ—der the Same Character still None to be Employ'd as Military Officers or Officers in his Majesties Fleet but men of Known Experience Courage and Affection to the Protestant Religion All Parliament-Proof still and of the Same Stamp To say nothing of the Habeas-Corpus Bill and other Encroachments upon the Prerogatives of the Crown for fear of being too too Tedious We 'le see next how they Beâ—av'd themselves in the Bus'ness of the Militia and the Kings Guards over and above the Step they made to have the Approbation of All Officers Themselves After the Blessed Example still of Old Forty One Nay and in the very Method too Beginning with an Address for Guards as follows They offer at the Militia and the Guards WHereas the Safety and Preservation of your Majesties Sacred Peâ—son is of so Great a Consequence and Concernment to the Protestant Religion and to All your Subjects We do most humbly beseech your Majesty to Command the Lord Chamberlain and All Other the Officers of your Majesties Houshold to take a Strict Care that no Vnknown or Suspicious Persons may have Access near your Majesties Person and that your Majesty will likewise please to Command the Lord Mayor and Lieutenancy of London to Appoint sufficient Guards of the Train-Bands during This Session of Parliament and likewise the Lords Lieutenants of Middlesex and Surry to appoint
the Like Guards of the Trained-Bands in Middlesex Westminster Southwark and other Places Adjacent as shall be thought Necessary With Honour to That Long Loyal Parliament so many of them as Believ'd the Witnesses had great Reason to Provide against Otes'es Black-Bills and Mustard-Balls But They that KNEW the whole Story to be as Arrant a Tale as Tom Thumb Those People I say had Designs of Drawing the Militia over to Themselves by Trepanning the Multitude into the Execution of One Cheat under the Dread and Belief of Another And there were Ill men enow got into That Body to Leaven the Whole Lump The City of London however will be Wiser I hope in the time to Come after the better Part of 200000 l. paid for Experience then to call for Double Guards again for fear of Popery But here follows Another Address about the Militia that goes a little Further than the Former Tho' That would not do Neither May it please your Majesty We your Majesties most dutifull and Loyal Subjects the Commons in Parliament Assembled taking into Consideration the Eminent Dangers Arising to your Majesty and the Whole Kingdom from Popish Practices and Conspiracies and Conceiving that Nothing can so well Resist their Attempts as some Parts of the Militia The Setled Legal Forces of This Kingdom They should have said By your leave Gentlemen of the Guards Actually in Arms on whom your Majesty may Rely with the Greatest Confidence and Security We do therefore humbly Desire your Majesty to Command your Lieutenants and Deputy-Lieutenants of the Several Counties of This Kingdom to Give Order to All their Trained-Bands to be in a Readiness and Draw together one Third Part of the Respective Militia and to Continue them in a Body for Fourteen Days and after they are Dismiss'd to Draw up another Part for the same Time c. The Plot would not Take it seems in One Parliament and so they Try'd it again in the Next falling foul particularly upon the Kings Guards in the First Place and after That they were All in Post-hast again for the Raising of the Militia in these two Following Instances of Vote and Address Resolved That the Continuing of Any Standing Forces in This Nation other then the Militia is Illegal and a Great Grievance and Vexation to the People And then We your Majesties most Loyal c. do most humbly beseech your Majesty that your Majesty would be Graciously pleas'd to give Order that the Militia of London Westminster Southwark the Tower-Hamlets and the Counties of Middlesex and Surry may Immediately be Raised and put in a Posture of Defence in such Proportion and for such time as your Majesty shall think fit In the Wipe upon the Guards they had it in their Heads directly to Disarm the King Nay to Un-king him for without the Power of the Sword he hath No Power at all and in fine to Turn the Point of it upon their Sovereign For the Militia at the Rate that they had Tamper'd the Peoples Minds and Affections would have been as Fit for Another Edg-hill Expedition against Charles the Second as ever it was for That in the Time of Charles the Martyr Practices upon his Late Majesties Credit AFter these Attempts to make the Late King Poor and Weak by all ways of Draining the Exchequer without any Prospect of Ressource and by Vsurping upon his Prerogatives as well Military as Civil they Attacqu'd him next in his Credit the Conspirators of the Cabal Endeavouring to Render him as Cheap and as Hatefull That way as they Propounded to all other Purposes to make him Miserable When I say Credit I do not mean the Credit of a Merchant in Matter of Money but the Credit of a Prince upon the Point of Character and Honour There could not well be a Greater Libell then their Printed Votes beside the Encouragements they gave to Scurrilous Little Knaves and Pamphlets Nor was it Possible to Speak Worse of a Prince then Those Papers made Every body Think that Read and Believ'd them His Wisdom His Iustice His Truth His Clemency were All call'd in Question and Expos'd by Votes and Orders As That One Instance of the Address Nov. 29. 1680. may serve for All. The Question was Popery The Fears of it grounded upon the Plot the Queen and the Duke of York involv'd in the Scandal of the Accusation and his Majesty Himself render'd by more then Implication a Favourer of That Plot and a Conspirator against Himself But let the Address speak in it's Own Words Their Opposers the Papists have found means to Disgrace and if they were Iudges Iustices of the Peace or other Magistrates to have them turn'd out of Commission The Continuance or Prorogation of Parliaments has been Accommodated to serve the Purposes of That Party Money rais'd upon the People to Supply your Majesties extraordinary Occasions was by the Prevalence of Popish Councels Employ'd to make War upon a Protestant State. When the House of Commons were Prepared to bring to a Legal Tryal the Principal Conspirators in This Plot That Parliament was first Prorogu'd and then Dissolv'd Witnesses are Attempted to be Corrupted and not only Promises of Reward but of the Favour of your Maâ—esties Brother made the Motives to their Complyance Divers of the most Considerable of your Majesties Protestant Subjects have Crimes of the Highest Nature Forged against them the Charge to be Supported by Subornation and Perjury that they may be Destroy'd by Forms of Law and Justice We have lately upon Mature Deliberation Proposed One Remedy of These Great Evils without which in Our Iudgments All Others will prove Vain and Fruitless And like All Deceitfull Securities against Certain Dangers will rather Expose your Majesties Person to the Greatest Hazzard and the People together with All that 's Valuable to them as Men or Christians to Vtter Ruine and Destruction If after All This the Private Suggestions of the Subtle Accomplices of That Party and Designs should yet Prevail c. we shall have This Remaining Comfort that we have Free'd our selves from the Guilt of That Bloud and Desolation which is like to Ensue What did These People make of the King all this while but the Patron of the Sworn Enemies of his Life and Religion and the Contriver of the Ruine of Himself and of his People The Papists did All it seems and made Him to do All too that They pleas'd Was it True that They did so or was it False If True it must be either out of Facility Confederacy or with Veneration to his Sacred Ashes it must be Inadvertency to the Highest Degree and Such an Inadvertency as Hazzarded his Crown his Life and his Reputation All in One For the Action was His Own upon what Motive soever he Did it Was it the Papists that put-out the Iudges and Iustices Was it the Papists that Continu'd or Prorogu'd Parliaments Was it the Papists that made the Protestant
War That Repriev'd the Plot and the Conspirators Was it the Papists that Suborn'd Witnesses against Shaftsbury and College for That 's their Meaning And was That the Case of Subornation that This Address Strikes at Was it the Papists that Ruin'd All for not Yielding to the Exclusion of the Duke Was it the Papists again that they make Answerable for the Bloud and Desolation Threaten'd in This Address because They Would not do the Things which only the King Could do How could Any man Believe These Calumnies and at the same time keep his Thoughts of his Prince within the Bounds of his Duty Or how could any man Disbelieve 'em without the Vttermost Abhorrence of so Diabolical a Practice upon the Honour of their Sovereign They stript the Late King of his Friends too AND the Malice of the Conspirators was not Satisfy'd Here neither unless after the Stripping his Majesty of All Other Means of Supporting Himself they Depriv'd him of the Vse and Service of his Friends too which Friends of his may be Properly Divided into Papists Convict and Suspected or Reputed Papists The Former were Visible and Known The Other were a sort of People of their Own Creation For whoever was not for their Turn they could make such a Papist of him at pleasure We shall see in Good Time how it far'd both with the One and with the Other while the Remaining Body of the Nation was only a Party of so many Vnited or Associated Protestants that were Link'd in One Band of Confederacy and Wag'd War to the Everlasting Reputation of the Plot under Otes'es Banner But to come to the Matter I shall begin with the Former Sort of them and Carry These Two Points Before me First The Story and Secondly The Ground of their Sufferings And bring the Whole into as Few Words as Possible in a Consistence with Candor Truth and Iustice. PApists or so Reputed were to be Banish'd BECAVSE of the Bloudy and Traiterous Designs of Popish Recusants To be taken into Custody and Disarm'd Their Names Taken Rewards given to the Discoverers of their Arms BECAVSE of the Damnable and Hellish Plot for the Destruction of his Majesties Person c. Papists to be Disabled from Sitting in Either House of Parliament BECAVSE of the Restless Conspiracies of Popish Recusants against his Majesties Person c. No Popish Recusants to have a Residence in his Majesties Palace or Access unto his Presence BECAVSE his Person is in Danger at This Time from Popish Conspiracies All Popish Recusants or Iustly Suspected Papists to be Apprehended Disarm'd and Secur'd BECAVSE of the Pernicious Plots and Contrivances of Popish Persons Resolved That if any Popish Recusant Convict shall Receive any Commission he shall be Deemed a Felon And shall be Pursued Apprehended and Executed as such Popish Delinquents to be brought to speedy Iustice BECAVSE of the Manifest Danger to his Majesties Sacred Person c. from the Notorious Conspiracies of Popish Priests and Iesuites Pickering to be Executed and all Papists or Reputed Papists to be Banished Twenty Mile from London and Westminster for Six Months BECAVSE of the Horrid Conspiracies of Popish Recusants London and the Parts Adjacent to be Freed from Popish Inhabitants At this rate they Proceeded against Papists Convict in the Quality of Papists and put That Part of his Majesties Friends out of Condition of either Serving their Master or Helping Themselves But then tâ—e Distinction of Suspected or Reputed Papists Swept the whole Remainder of tâ—em to a Single Man for One Wry Word of Otes or of his Works was enough to bring any Mans name into the Black Roll. Whoever Adher'd to the Duke of York Oppos'd the Exclusion was Suppos'd to Advise a Prorogation or Dissolution Deny'd the Plot Spoke Coursly of the Evidence and in fine Whoever was not an Associator or a Friend to That Interest was Popishly Affected But before I proceed to That Part of the Division of the Kings Friends there are Certain Qualifications of Papists and Popery under Other Circumstances that are to be taken in the way An Address to be Presented to his Majesty that his Royal Highness may Withdraw himself from his Majesties Person and Councel Resolved That a Bill be brought in to Disable the Duke of York to Inherit the Imperial Crown of This Realm And then follows immediately The Resolve Nemine Contradicente of the Revenging Vote In the Next Parliament they were at the very same Sport again Resolved Nemine Contradicente That the Duke of Yorks being a Papist and the Hopes of his coming such to the Crown hath given the Greatest Countenance and Encouragement to the Present Designs and Conspiracies against the King and the Protestant Religion The Next Resolve is the Revenging Vote and after That the Disabling Bill These Three Successively So that the Matter and the Order of it were Evidently Fore-laid and the Caball in Both Parliaments agreed upon 't before-hand Nay the Queen her self was brought into the Conspiracy to the Eternal Infamy of the Believers as well as the Reporters of That Sacrilegious Scandal and an Address Resolv'd upon as follows We Your Majesties most Dutyfull c. having received Enformations by Several Witnesses Otes and Bedloe of a most Desperate and Trayterous Design and Conspiracy against the Life of your Sacred Majesty wherein to their Great Astonishment the QVEEN is particularly Charged and Accused In Discharge of our Allegeance and out of our Affections and Care for the Preservation of your Majesties Sacred Person and Consequently of the whole Kingdom do most Humbly beseech your Majesty that the Queen and All her Family and All Papists and Reputed Papists be forthwith removed from your Majesties Court at Whitehall And then follow'd a Resolve of the Same Date That an Humble Address be Presented to his Majesty that All Papists and Suspected Papists within the Several Counties of England and Wales and Town of Berwick upon Tweed may be Apprehended and Secur'd This was a Ready way now to have a Clear Stage to Themselves And the Wickedness of That Age Stopt at Nothing when the Four Evangelists came once to be made a Stale to the Bus'ness and when Murder was Super-Added to the Hypocrisy and Perjury of the False Witnesses and their Confederate Patrons and Abettors I come now to the Address that was made upon the Revenging Vote WE do humbly Represent to your Majesty that being Deeply Sensible that the Greatest Hopes of Success against our Religion in the Enemies thereof the Papists are Founded in the Execrable Designs which they have laid against the Sacred Person and Life of your Majesty which it is not only our Duty but our Interest with the Greatest Hazzards to Preserve and Defend we have Apply'd our selves to the making such Provisions by Law as may Defeat those Popish Adversaries their Abettors and Adherents c. And while any such Laws are
in Preparation and bringing to Perfection it is our Resolution and we do Declare that in Defence of your Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion we will Stand by your Majesty with our Lives and Fortunes and shall be ready to Revenge any Violence Offered by them to your Sacred Majesty It is to be noted that the Vote was Soften'd in this Address For as it was Worded at first Whoever had Kill'd the King the Papists should have Gone to Pot for 't which Hint did as good as say Get but over This Iobb my Masters and y 'ave done your Bus'ness But the Conspirators found a way however to Supply That Restrictive Distinction by Murdering him Themselves and giving it out that the Papists had done it according to the Evidence of the Republican Conspiracy which says it was so Determin'd if the Rye House Project had Succeeded The Conspirators were to go to several Persons and Ask them Supposing that the Papists should Rise or that there should be a General Insurrection or a French Invasion Are you in a Posture of Defence This was the very Practice and the Imposture in the Case of the Militia the Double-Guards and the Rout they made among the Papists But Keeling a little Lower in the same Tryal puts it into somewhat Plainer English. These Men says he where to be in a readiness and it was Design'd that the Thing should be laid upon the Papists as a Branch of the Popish-Plot Which may serve for an Excellent Commenâ— upon the Present Text. Upon the 15th of Dec. 1680. There was no way with 'em but immediately to Banish All the Considerable Papists in England out of the Kings Dominions And it is to be Suppos'd that they would not have Forgotten his Royal Highness in the Number Especially Considering how Mindfull they were of him in Other Cases Insomuch that there was hardly any thing done by the Conspirators that had Worm'd themselves into the House but for Countenance-sake and to While away Time that had not the Ruine of the Duke and consequently of his Royal Brother in the Bottom of it and they were so Eager upon 't that all they could do without it was to no purpose Resolved Nemine Contradicente that so long as the Papists have any Hopes of the Duke of Yorks Succeeding the King in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and the Dominions thereunto Belonging The Kings Person the Protestant Religion and the Lives Liberties and Properties of all his Majesties Protestant Subjects are in Apparent Danger of being Destroy'd And then follows Another Resolve upon the Necessity of such a Bill Excluding and Proroguing Two Great Points THE Refusal of This Bill and the Last Refuge that the King had left him of Proroguing Parliaments were Two Terrible Rubbs in their way For with the Help of the One they could have done the Bus'ness of the Roman Catholiques at pleasure and made as many Reputed and Suspected Papists of the Rest of his Majesties Subjects as they found Averse to the Popular Design And Then under the Countenance of a Sitting Parliament they had a Thousand Tricks and Devices by their Printed Votes Papers and Intelligences to make their Principals Fall down and Worship them as the Bulwark of the Protestant Religion the Heroes and Patriots of the Common Cause and the Saviours of the Nation But the Cunning Snapps of the Faction finding that the King would not let go his Power of Calling them and sending 'em away again as he pleas'd and that Prorogations and Dissolutions were but as Sentence and Execution to them They had the Wit to make a Provision of Parliamentary Guards for the Oxford Meeting under Colour of Securing the Protestant Members from having their Throats Cut there by the Papists And it is more then Probable that if his Majesty had not very prudently taken Two Steps at a Time and Dissolv'd them upon the very Spot and Instant without the Antecedent Ceremony of Proroguing them they would have found under the Colour of a House of Commons yet in Being Another Game to Play. There had been a Heavy Cry made upon all their Former Disappointments in Pamphlets Papers Discourses Addresses upon Surprizing Prorogations Popish and Amazing Prorogations c. which humour they did Notably set forth in an Address to his Majesty of No. 11. 1680. IN relation to the Tryalls of the Five Lords Impeached in Parliament for the Execrable Popish Plot we have so far Proceeded as we doubt not but in a short time we shall be ready for the same But we Cannot without being Vnfaithfull to your Majesty and to our Country by whom we are Intrusted Omit upon This Occasion humbly to Enform your Majesty that our Difficulties even as to these Tryalls are much Increased by the Evil and Destructive Councels of those Persons who Advised your Majesty first to the Prorogation and then to the Dissolution of the Last Parliament at a time when the Commons had taken great pains about and were Prepar'd for those Tryalls And by the like Pernicious Councells of those who Advised the Many and Long Prorogations of the Present Parliament before the same was permitted to Sit whereby some of the Evidence which was prepared in the Last Parliament may possibly during so long an Interval be Forgotten or Lost and some Persons who might probably have Come-in as Witnesses are either Dead have been Taken-off or may have been Discourag'd from giving their Evidence But of One Mischievous Consequence of those Dangerous and Unhappy Councells we are Certainly and Sadly Sensible Namely that the Testimony of a Material Witness against every of Those Five Lords and who could probably have Discover'd and brought-in much Other Evidence about the Plot in General and Those Lords in Particular cannot now be given Viva Voce forasmuch as That Witness is Unfortunately Dead between the Calling and the Sitting of this Parliament To prevent the Like or Greater Inconvenience for the Future we make it our most Humble Request to your Excellent Majesty that as you tender the Safety of your Royal Person The Security of your Loyal Subjects and Preservation of the True Protestant Religion you will not suffer your self to be prevail'd upon by the Like Councell to do any Thing which may Occasion in Consequence though we are Assured never with your Majesties Intention either the Deferring of a Full and Perfect Discovery and Examination of This most Wicked and Detestable Plot or the Preventing the Conspirators therein from being brought to speedy and Exemplary Justice and Punishment and we humbly beseech your Majesty to rest Assured Notwithstanding any Suggestions which may be made by Persons who for their Own Wicked Purposes Contrive to Create a Distrust in your Majesty of your People that Nothing is more in the Desires and shall be more the Endeavours of us your faithfull and Loyal Commons then the Promoting and Advancing of your Majesties True Happiness and Greatness NOW to Observe a little upon
This Lamentably-Complaining Address the Old Vein I perceive of Popery and Calamity Conspiracy and Destruction runs quite thorough it And what Misery soever has either Threatn'd or Befall'n the King the Government the Church or the People is All-Charg'd upon the score of This Almighty Plot as the First Cause and Mover of it And which was the spite on 't no Averting of Those Impending Miseries but by the Kings Parting with his Honour his Crown Natural Affection Humanity Gratitude In short His Ministers His Friends His Prerogative Reasâ—n and Iustice 'T is Urg'd that the Councels were Evil and Destructive that Mov'd his Majesty to a Prorogation and Then to a Dissolution of the Foregoing Parliament How could it be Evil and Destructive in the Advising and not so in the Doing too Or what matters it whether it be done Without Advice or With it so long as the Venom of This Address Wounds the King Equally under the Cover of his Ministers The Want of That Advice and Resolution in the Parliament of One and Forty Cost the Royal Father his Life and the Son Probably upon such a Concession would not have come-off much Cheaper Unless it shall be Imagin'd that he might have found Better Quarter in the House then in the Field from the very same Persons that were Now in Councell and Afterwards in Arms against him It is pretended that the Commons were ready for the Tryal of the Five Lords at the Dissolution of the Last Parliament Now This was only Bubbling the Multitude for the Commons Themselves would not Yield to 't unless the Earl of Danby might be Try'd First But to say All in a word The King was Vndone if he did Not Prorogue and the Republicans if he Did. As to the Possibility of more Witnesses Coming in it cannot be Deny'd that according to the way of Summons that was then in Fashion the Common Iayles nay Newgate it Self in the Case of Prance were Consulted for Evidence and they could not well fail of as many Witnesses as either Malice Faction Countenance or Reward could Prevail upon to Forswear themselves But a Material Evidence it seems was lost by 't Bedloe they mean. A Fellow known for a Blasphemous Atheistical Wretch A Thief a Cheat and in fine a Scandal to the very Alms-Basket What a Dismal VNFORTVNATE Loss was This now of so Material an Evidence in Good Time upon the Plot in General which Material Evidence in the True Intent of it is no Other then a Rogue that would Swear any thing But against the Five Lords they say in Particular And if there had been Five times Fifteen Hundred more of them he should have Sworn against 'em All at the Same Price I can hardly look back upon the Parting Complement without Thinking of the Addresses and Declarations of One and Forty for the making of Charles the First a Glorious King they are so Very Very Alike But so much for the Bus'ness of Prerogative And now for the Other Great Point the Matter of Exclusion let the Bill Speak for it self 'T is Long But it Carries the Heart in the Face on 't and 't is Pity but Posterity should have it Entire The Bill amended as the House had order'd was read Intituled An Act for securing of the Protestant Religion by disabling James Duke of York to Inherit the Imperial Crown of England and Ireland and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging WHEREAS James Duke of York is notoriously known to have been perverted from the Protestant to the Popish Religion whereby not only great Encouragement hath been given to the Popish Party to enter into and carry on most Devilish and Horrid Plots and Conspiracies for the Destruction of his Majesties Sacred Person and Government and for the Extirpation of the True Protestant Religion But also if the said Duke should succeed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm nothing is more manifest then that a Total Change of Religion within these Kingdoms would ensue For the prevention whereof Be it Enacted by the King 's most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in present Parliament Assembled and by the Authority of the same that the said James Duke of York shall be and is by the Authority of this present Parliament Excluded and made for ever uncapable to Inherit Possess or Enjoy the Imperial Crown of this Realm and of the Kingdoms of Ireland and the Dominions and Territories to them or either of them belonging or to have exercise or enjoy any Dominion Power Iurisdiction or Authority in the same Kingdoms Dominions or any of them And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That if the said James Duke of York shall at any time hereafter Challenge Claim or attempt to possess or enjoy or shall take upon him to use or exercise any Dominion Power or Authority or Iurisdiction within the said Kingdoms or Dominions or any of them as King or chief Magistrate of the same That then he the said James Duke of York for every such offence shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and shall suffer the Pains Penalties and Forfeitures as in case of High Treason And further that if any Person or Persons whatsoever shall assist or maintain abet or willingly adhere unto the said James Duke of York in such challenge claim or attempt or shall of themselves attempt or endeavour to put or bring the said James Duke of York into the Possession or Exercise of any Regal Power Iurisdiction or Authority within the Kingdoms and Dominions aforesaid or shall by Writing or Preaching advisedly publish maintain or declare That he hath any Right Title or Authority to the Office of King or Chief Magistrate of the Kingdoms and Dominions aforesaid That then every such Person shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and that he suffer and undergo the pains penalties and forfeitures aforesaid And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid that he the said James Duke of York shall not at any time from and after the 5th of November 1680. return or come into or within any of the Kingdoms or Dominions aforesaid And then he the said James Duke of York shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and shall suffer the pains penalties and forfeitures as in case of High Treason and further that if any Person or Persons whatsoever shall be aiding or assisting unto such return of the said James Duke of York that then every such person shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and suffer as in cases of High Treason And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That he the said James Duke of York or any other Person being Guilty of any of the Treasons aforesaid shall not be capable of or receive benefit by any Pardon otherwise than by Act of Parliament wherein they shall be particularly named and that no Noli prosequi
Monarchy it self And here comes the Expedient My Lords and you the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons THat Royal Care which his Majesty hath taken for the general quiet and satisfaction of all his Subjects is now more evident by those new and fresh Instances of it which I have in Command to open to you His Majesty has Considered with himself that 't is not enough that your Religion and Liberty is secure during his own Reign but he thinks he owes it to his People to do all that in Him lies that these Blessings may be transmitted to your Posterity and so well secured to them that no Succession in After-ages may be able to work the least Alteration And therefore His Majesty who hath often said in This place that He is ready to consent to any Laws of this Kind so that the same extend not to Alter the Descent of the Crown in the Right Line nor to defeat the Succession hath now Commanded this to be further Explained And to the end it may never be in the power of any Papist if the Crown descend upon him to make any Change either in Church or State I am Commanded to tell you that his Majesty is willing that Provision may be made first to distinguish a Papist from a Protestant Successor then so to limit and circumscribe the Authority of a Popish Successor in these Cases following that he may be disabled to do any harm First In reference to the Church His Majesty is content that care be taken that all Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Benefices and Promotions in Gifts of the Crown may be conferred in such a manner that we may be sure the Incumbents shall always be of the most Pious and Learned Protestants And that no Popish Successour while he continue so may have any power to Controul such Presentments In reference to the State and Civil part of the Government as it is already provided that no Papist can Sit in either House of Parliament So the King is pleased that it be provided too That there may never want a Parliament when the King shall happen to Dye But that the Parliament then in Being may continue Indissolvable for a competent time Or if there be no Parliament in being then the last Parliament which was in being before that time may Re-Assemble and Sit a competent time without any New Summons or Election And as no Papist can by Law hold any place of Trust so the King is content that it may be further Provided That no Lords or other of the Privy Council no Iudges of the Common Law or in Chancery shall at any time during the Reign of any Popish Successor be put in or displaced but by the Authority of Parliament And that care also be taken that none but sincere Protestants may be Iustices of the Peace In Reference to the Military part the King is willing That no Lord-Lieutenant or Deputy-Lieutenant nor no Officer in the Navy during the Reign of any Popish Successor be put out or removed but either by Authority of Parliament or of such Persons as the Parliament shall intrust with such Authority 'T is hard to invent another Restraint to be put upon a Popish Successor considering how much the Revenue of the Successor will depend upon consent of Parliament and how impossible it is to raise Money without such Consent But yet if any thing can else occur to the Wisdom of the Parliament which may further secure Religion and Liberty against a Popish Successor without defeating the Right of Succession it self His Majesty will most readily Consent to it Thus Watchfull is the King for all your safety and if he could think of any thing else that you do either want or wish to make you happy he would make it his Business to effect it for you God Almighty Long continue this Blessed Vnion between the King and his Parliament and People NOt to Descant beyond Good Manners upon this Wonderfull Offer The Government seem'd now Cross or Pile whether it should be a Monarchy or a Common-Wealth But all Treating and Propounding pass'd with them for Dodging So that they put-off the Consideration of it Day after Day till the 11 th of May following and Then upon a Sundays Uote they came to a Resolution of having A Bill brought in to Disable the Duke of York to Inherit the Imperial Crown of This Realm Which was follow'd with the Revenging Vote in the Tayle on 't Now this was rather a Mockery then an Answer and a Proceeding that had more of Haughtiness and Insolence then of Prudence for it was their Interest to have been more Mannerly and Modest But their Bus'ness was Matter of Power and Command not Grievance and Redress and the Kings Complyances in this Matter were Worse then Flat Denyals For the more He Yielded the Harder They Press'd him and the Inference was Reasonable Enough from the Gaining of One thing after Another by Importunity to the getting of All at Last In short they had set their Hearts upon the Exclusion and their Reputations too were so far at Stake upon 't that the Carrying of That Point Either way was a kind of Victory on the One side or on the Other They had said they Would have it they had Tun'd the People to the Expectation of it and therefore Have it they Muâ—t Insomuch that More any Other way seem'd Less to 'em For to be Refus'd and to sit down with That Repulse would have been to Lose Ground And they were upon Any Terms to Uphold the Credit of their Authority and rhe Reason of their Demands as well as the Opinion of their Power Delays are Hazzardous and they were rather for One Kingdom in Hand then Two or Three in Reversion upon the Emprovement of the Project But they reckon'd without their Host it seems for that Bout and so left the Stage and the Debate Re Infecta UPON the Meeting of the Next Parliament they Open'd a little Wider Declaring in an Address of December 21. 1680. That in Truth the Exclusion Alone would not do the Bus'ness without an Association to Back it Nay and This was not sufficient neither for As some further means says the Same Address for the Preservation both of our Religion and Property We are humble Suitors to your Majesty that from hence-forth Such Persons only may be Judges c. And so it proceeds to the Purging and Regulating of Courts of Iustice the Choice of Lord-Lieutenants Deputy-Leutenants and Iustices of the Peace Military Officers both at Sea and Land with an Express Exception all this while to Men of Arbitrary Principles and Countenancers of Papists and Popery c. That is to say Always Excepted the Pernicious Advisers of Proroguing Parliaments and Rejecting Bills of Exclusion So that in fine the Devil a Dram of Popery was here to be found upon the Foot of This Account nor any thing else but Sedition under a Masque
accept and admit any others hereafter into this Society and Association Notes upon the ASSOCIATION THE Reader will find in this Paper of Association All the Lines of the Pretended Popish Plot the Summ of the Whole Cause and of all they Contended for It shews the Modell and Expounds the Meaning of the Design the Manner of Working-it-up and the Degrees of Ripening it for Execution It lays Open the Rise Progress and Drift of a Republican Conspiracy Step by Step Insomuch that a man may Trace out with a Chalk the Entire Course of the Intrigue from the First Broaching of it to the Last Resolution and understand that Resolv'd upon the Question had a Hand in 't as well as Wée the Knights c. And This will Plainly Appear upon Comparing the One with the Other My Next Bus'ness is to lay open the Conformity of Parts and the Harmony of Design betwixt the Proceedings of the House and the Tendence of the Paper of Confederacy and when I have made out That once there will be No Separating the Conspirators in the Votes from Wée the Knights c. in the Association but they must be Both of Necessity Involv'd in the same Plot. The First Clause finds a Hellish Popish Plot agreeable to the Vote of Oct. 31. 1678. The Second finds the Duke of York in the Bottom on 't And so did a Following Vote some Four Days after the Former Whereupon I remember there was a Debate Started for an Address to Remove him It speaks of the Power and Influence of Popish Councells in the Disposing of Offices which is the Main Topique again of the Address of Nov. 29. 1680. And so in the Third and Fourth Clauses it falls upon the Illegal Mercenary Forces Unreasonable Prorogations and Dissolutions The Strength of the Nation both at Sea and Land put into the hands of His Royal Highnesses Party and their Adherents which is no other again then an Extract out of Several Votes and Addresses already mention'd The Fifth takes a General Prospect of the Miserable Condition of the King and Kingdom through the Vindictive Malice of the Papists Which is over and over Inculcated also in Several of their Addresses as in that of November 29. 1680. If so and so We have Freed our selves from the Guilt of That Bloud and Desolation which is like to Ensue And so afterward in that of Decemb 21. 1680. The Question is Put Whether in case the Crown should Descend to the Duke of York the Opposition which may possibly be made to his Possessing it may not onely Endanger the Further Descent in the Royal Line but even Monarchy it self In the Sixth Clause it sets forth that since they cannot Prevail upon the King to Exclude the Duke by a Bill in a Parliamentary-way they Propose a Promise of Mutual Defence and Assistance among All True-Protestants In the Preservation of the True-Protestant Religion his Majesties Person and Royal State and our Lives Liberties and Properties c. These are the Words of the Preamble or Introduction to the Association which are but the very same Thing in Other Terms with the Proposal of Dec. 21. 1680. in the Address it self Wherein they desire That his Majesty will be Graciously pleased to Assent to an Act whereby his Majesties Protestant Subjects may be Enabled to Associate Themselves for the Defence of his Majesties Person the Protestant Religion and the Security of his Kingdoms These Requests say they we are Constrained humbly to make to your Majesty as of Absolute Necessity for the Safe and Peaceable Enjoyment of our Religion So that This Association is Parliamentary from Head to foot and little more in 't then a Working upon Their Modell Only Wée the Knights c. Took Leave in One Case and Ask'd it in the Other I speak of the Majority of the House as it was then Leaven'd and with Great Honour to the Loyal and Sober Mixture that was in That Assembly While the Address above-Mention'd in Answer to the Kings Speech of the 15th of the same Month was under Debate the Collectour of the Proceedings of That Season takes upon him to Report this following Passage of a Speech Deliver'd in the House upon That Question I cannot agree in Pressing the Association-Bill For being it hath not yet been brought into the House we do not well know what will be the Purport of it And it is not Proper that we should Ask of the King we know not What nor Expect that he should Grant us what He can know nothing of And truly Sir I think that These Things about the Judges Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace are Minute Things to be Insisted on at This Time Compar'd with Others which might be Demanded Queen Elizabeth's Councellours never thought Her Safe 'till the Popish Successor was in a Tower and I am afraid that you will never be Safe untill you take some such Course that may bring things to an Issue When you have done That and Banished All the Considerable Papists out of England I think we shall not be in such Apparent Danger as we now are And seeing This may Probably be Granted and the Other Bills Not I humbly Move you to Recommit the Address that it may be better Consider'd And what 's the Difference now in Substance betwixt the Biass of the Debate and the Effect of the Resolution The Exclusion and Association were not let fall because they were Vnequal and Vnreasonable but because they were not Attainable and only in Exchange too for Other Equivalent Expedients for Such an Imprisonment and Such a Banishment would have had the Force of an Exclusion and an Association without the Name of it for the Banishing of All on the One side does Naturally Resolve into an Vnion of All on the Other Now to put All This together it amounts to no more then what the Prevailing Party in the House had Propounded Declar'd and Resolv'd upon Before-hand Only the Kings Peremptory Refusal put 'em upon the After-Game of Attempting to get That by Force which they could not Gain by Address And it is not to be doubted but the Faction Acted In the House as well as Out of the House by the Same Spirit To say the Truth on 't The Conspirators that Influenc'd These Desperate Designs were Past Rubicon long since and No Retreat left them but with Halters about their Necks if Tenderness and Clemency it self had not well nigh Dissolv'd the Awe of Royal Power and Iustice in the Overflowings of That most Gracious Prince's Patience and Mercy But when the Ring-Leaders found that they might Ask any thing Gratis they never fail'd of following Denyals with Importunities and Importunities with Expostulations 'till in the End upon a Full Tryal of their Interest and Skill they might come to Settle their Measures They Reckon'd upon 't that they had Two Strings to their Bow And that if One Fail'd they had Another would Hold. They Ply'd his Majesty
Papists in Despite of the Evangelical Precept that bids us Love one Another Subornation was Authoriz'd under the Title of Reward Murder was recommended under the Varnish of Publique Iustice. Atheism was a kind of a Qualification for a man of Interest in This Matter because they were to Talk of God and at the same Time make a Mock of the Belief of any such Power and it was Requisite that the Hardness of their Hearts should be Proof against the Sense of Divine Vengeance and Iustice. There was no Room left for Christian Charity when Every Papist was to Suffer for the Principles of his Party and when they could Make Those Principles to be whatever Themselves pleas'd In All their Holy Leagues Vows Covenants and Associations they have This to say for Themselves that the Hypocrite is of No Religion and Consequently that The lifting up of their Hands unto the Lord and their Solemn Promises In the Presence of God are of No more Force upon people that do not Acknowledge a God then the Oath of a Iew upon the Four Evangelists In the Matter of Reputation How have we Lost our selves at Home and Abroad by Believing Things upon Second Thoughts Incredible and Believing too upon the Testimony of Known Falsaties and Blasted Criminals By setting the Evidence of Common Hirelings and Scoundrells against the Character the Try'd Faith Integrity and Incontestable Loyalty of Men of Honour The King the Queen the Duke and so many other Illustrious Persons on the One side to be Confronted by Miscreants on the Other not to be Nam'd in the Same Page How have we Expos'd the Dignity of our very Profession to make it a Point of Conscience to work so Great a Villany An Instance of our Zeal to Pursue it into so many Barbarous Extremeties and which is more then All to cast a Protestant Cover over One of the Lewdest Impieties that ever was under the Sun and to make it an Impulse of our Religion which was only a Perjurious Conspiracy of State It has Lost us to the Present Age thoroughout the Christian World for the King receiv'd not so much as one Complement of Gratulation from any of the Forreign Ministers for his Deliverance which would have been Otherwise if any of them had Believ'd it It leaves us Expos'd likewise to After-Times Especially Considering that so great Care has been taken by Some for the Transmitting of the Imposture and so Little by Others for the Propagating and Confirming of the Truth And now again we are as much Lost in the Offices of Charity Truth and Iustice. This Plot has turn'd Religion into a Faction and the Animosity which it has begot in us toward Roman Catholiques has utterly Extinguish'd the Love and Veneration we Owe to Christianity it self As to the Next Point Truth and Falshood have Chang'd Places and according to the Mode of the Times the very Quality of it is Inverted too Truth is Ridiculing the Witnesses Invalidating the Plot Arraigning the Iustice of the Nation and Popery in a Disguise whereas Falshood or Perjury is a Thing to Bless God for a Miraculous Discovery a Subject to beg a Pension upon a Wonderful Service to the Protestant Religion and what was This Plot at last but a Blasphemous Slanderous Imagination made up of Lies and Contradictions as I shall set forth by and By. Now over and above all the Rest How was the Iustice of the Nation Abus'd and Impos'd-upon by the Trumperies of Confederacy and Practice even to the Confounding of Right and Wrong Good and Evil and Inverting the very Order and Equity of Reward and Punishment How many Innocent Men were Clapt-up and Kept upon Vnconscionable Expence 'till all they had left in the World was little enough to Clear the Charge of the Prison without Any Cause Assign'd without ever being brought to know their Accusers or their Accusation and forc'd to Content themselves upon their Humble Petition with the Hope of a Mercifull Vote in the Conclusion for their Discharge Paying their Fees without any Reparation while Suborners and False-Witnesses Pester'd the Lobbys Barefac'd with their Crimes as Open as if they had been Writ in their Foreheads So Sacred was Villany and so Hazardous was it for any man to do his Duty 'T is true that upon the First Springing of this Cause a man might for want of Iudgment Thought or Foresight Charitably and Innocently enough be Misled or Mistaken The Evidence was Positive and Bold the Fact Horrid so many Conspirators of Quality to Countenance the Tale and Formalities of the Law in favour of the Witnesses But yet afterward when the Masque came to be Taken off and the whole Web of the Villany to be Vnravel'd the Iustice of the Nation did Then Suffer I say in the Opinion of the World for not doing Immediate Right upon these Miscreants to a Distracted State and People to the Orphans and the Widows that these Forsworn Wretches had made and to the Innocent Bloud that cry'd for Vengeance It gave them some sort of Reputation to let 'em Triumph so long in their Wickedness Insomuch that a Friend of mine Burnt his Fingers in the Case of Otes even for bringing the Bear to the Stake at Last Why This will Destroy the whole Plot they Cry'd as if the leaving of a Nest-Egg would have been such a Comfort to the Nation I speak in This Place rather of Publique then of Private and Personal Iustice for the Indignities they put upon the Government were Infinitely above the Injuries of here and there a Member of it for they Swore the Monarchy it self to Death as well as the Papists They Embroil'd the Order and they Vnsettled the Foundations of it Under Colour of Securing the Kings Person they Cramp'd his Prerogative and took away peoples Inheritances for fear of their Religion How many Incapacities and Disabilities have we seen Created upon the Same Score Now I take the Reason of the Case betwixt a Private Cheat and a Publick to be much the Same If a man Wins my Money by False Dice and I can Prove it I 'le have my Money again and why should not this Equity hold as well now in the Case of a Factions getting any thing from a Government by the Help of False Witnesses There 's a Plot Affirm'd Warranted and Sworn We shall lose our Prince they Cry our Religion Laws Lives and Liberties unless we have such and such Powers put into our hands to Prevent or to Disappoint the Danger The Yielding on the One side is in Confidence and upon Condition of such a Desperate Plot on the Other Now if there be No Plot there 's No Bargain Nay and 't is a Worse Matter Yet if what was Demanded for a Security against One Devillish Plot shall Appear Evidently to be Intended and Apply'd toward the Promoting and the Strengthning of Another A Lapidary sells me at a Horrible Price That which He Warrants for a Ruby of the
Old Rock I Buy it of him accordingly Now if it prove afterward to be only a Past or a Doublet My Remedy is good against him But shall Equity Relieve a Private Man in a Cheat of Trade and will there lye No Relief for a Whole Politique Body against a Cheat of State Especially where there 's Mischief and Premeditate-Malice Super-added to the Fraud That is to say where the Pretended Means of Preserving the King are Meant and Emprov'd for his Destruction In such Instances as these Common Iustice requires that Matters may be put into the State they were in Before for otherwise it will lye in the Power of a Brace of Prostitute Knaves to Swear the Government off the Hinges To Conclude This Impious Dissolution of Faith and Good Manners made the Kingdom as Miserable as 't was possible to be without Plague Sword Pestilence and Famine and All Charg'd upon the Account of the Papists by the Patrons and the Instruments of the Opposite Interest Upon the whole Matter we have had Saying and Swearing Abundantly and Nothing else in Affirmance of the Popish Plot. Not so much as a Letter not a Commission Produâ—'d to Help a Lame Dog over the Style Not so much as One Paper found upon the Strictest Search of Popish Houses Lodgings Boxes and Cabinets Colemans Letters Excepted to Countenance the Evidence Not a Conspirator taken in the Manner nor so much as One Material Witness in the Cause that did not Open for Bread and Reward and Eat the very Price of his Damnation His Pardon Secur'd him in the False Accusing of Himself and his Allowance Encourag'd him in as False a Testimony against Others Whereas the Proceedings on the Other hand were only One Continu'd Series of Restless Importunities Expostulation Slander and Tumult There was a Great Stress laid 't is True upon Mr. Colemans Letters which in respect of his Over-busy Intermedling in Matters of State of so Great Moment Together with Several Indecencies in the Wording of them are not upon any Terms to be Defended Whoever knew him Well knew him to be a Forward Zealous Man in His way and upon That Consideration I told a Gentleman of Great Honour and my Particular Friend the Apprehensions I had when he was just Taken-up and before Any of his Papers were Seiz'd of the Inconveniencies that his Careless and Vnwary Way of Writing and Keeping Papers by him would bring upon the Whole Party if they Search'd His Study For to be sure Things would be Interpreted at the Worst So I Sayd and so it Prov'd But it was not upon the Plot of his Letters but upon the Plot that Otes and Bedloe swore against him that He suffer'd So that even supposing the Worst that can be Imagin'd of his Letters he Dy'd yet upon the Oaths of Two Perjur'd Varlets That is to say if Otes'es Plot was an Imposture For Colemans Plot could have No Relation at all to a Plot that had no Béeing His Main Bus'ness was to get Mony for the Entertainment of his Humour in an Expensive Train and Equipage To that End he Got it and in That Way he Spent by much the Greater Part of it His Pretence was the Gratifying of Members in order to the Service of the French Interest and to Try what might be Done toward the Dissolving of the Parliament and procuring Liberty of Conscience The Subversion and Subduing of the Pestilent Northern Heresie in one of his Letters to Mr. Le Chaise was a Rude and a Dangerous Expression but not one jot a-kin yet to his Privity or Approbation of Groves and Pickerings Shooting the King or the Design of the Four Ruffians that was Sworn against him by Otes and the 10000 l. to Sir George Wakeman for Poysoning his Majesty as was given in Testimony upon the Oath of Bedloe In fine Colemans Letters were but Brass Grains Cast into the Scale to help out Light Gold and to make the Other Evidence Weight THese Letters of Mr. Colemans and the Somerset-House Gambole upon Sr. Edmundbury Godfrey I look upon as the Two Stilts of the Crippled-Plot They have neither Life nor Sense in ' em But without many Words in This Place I have Some Thoughts and Hopes of giving the World such an Account of the History of That Fantastical Murder That is to say if my Life and Health will give me Leave as it shall be No longer a Question how he came by his End. For I have Materials enow by me upon the Oaths of Vnquestionable Witnesses not only to Trace the Matter of Fact from End to End Bating the Proof of the very Stroke it self but to lay Open a Great Part of the Practice in the Manage of the Proceeding for the making of a Popular Cause on 't I shall shew how Evidences were Stifled Disguis'd Rejected Vnfaithfully set down and as Vnfaithfully Reported And though the Contradictions of the Witnesses to the Murder over and above Common sense and Reason might serve to Convince All Mortals of the Iniquity of This Iuggle I shall yet make Those Inconsistencies the Least Part of My Bus'ness This is enough to say at present Saving only that I do no more doubt of his Falling upon his Sword in the place where his Body was found then I do of Any thing in Nature which I my self did not see the doing of THat there was a Plot no man in his Right Wits can pretend to Doubt and if Otes'es Narrative was a Sham it self there was Some Other Plot in the Setting-up of That Plot and a Plot that was to be Carry'd-on under the Cover of the Counterfeit We cannot find any Trace or Foot-steps of That same Popish Plot more then from the Incredible Informations of Incredible Mercenaries The very Matter and the Men being Equally a Scandal to the Evidence and the Characters of the Accusers and the Accused as Contrary one to the Other as Light is to Darkness There 's Infamy Oppos'd to Honour Persidy to Faith Base to Noble and in short the Scum and Dreggs of the Nation for the Accusers and the very Pillars of the Monarchy for the Traytors Let no man say Miracles are Ceas'd and Swallow This. He that has the Faith to Believe that so many Prostitute Criminals became Men of Integrity and Conscience all in an Instant and Believe This too upon their own Bare Words for 't against the Habitual and the Persevering Lewdness of their Lives and Conversations to Prove the Contrary He I say that could Believe This on the One hand and Then that so many Persons of Eminent and Exemplary Worth and Dignity All in the Same Moment should Turn Apostates on the Other might as well be Impos'd upon to Believe that the Fall'n Angels have Recover'd their Primitive Station and that the Glorious Spirits that have stood Firm ever since their Creation have now Joyn'd in a Rebellion against their Maker If a man may Collect any thing from Strong Presumptions and Improbabilities
is This Let him be Detected of a Thousand Falsities A man is Pop't in the Mouth with this Answer Where 's your Record Why You might have Indicted him If you can Produce a Record you say Something when yet to my Certain Knowledge Means have been made by Application and Petition for Leave to Prosecute him for Perjury according to the Ordinary Methods of Common Iustice and there was no Obtaining of it This in one Instance for All was the Case of Mr Cox a Linnen-Draper in Covent Garden who Frankly and Honestly made the Attempt and he was only Brow-Beaten Repuls d and Baffled for his Pains I would fain get over This Topique but the Nature the Reason and the Importance of the Subject in hand forces me to be yet a little more at Large It will now come into Course to see what Quarrel it is that SrWilliam Iones had to the Testimony of Mr. Lydcot First as he was Secretary to the Earle of Castlemain he was True to his Lord. 2 ly In the Honour and Freedom of a Companion to Him He was Iust to his Noble Friend 3 ly In taking Notes for my Lords Service who was himself Concern'd in Otes'es Accusation He did no more then what in Generosity Good Faith Common Humanity Tenderness and Prudence he was Bound to do He took Notes that he might be able upon any occasion in the Future to bear Witness to a Truth which Truth would have been as much Against my Lord if he were Guilty as For him if he were Innocent and the Service he Intended my Lord by These Notes was only the Attesting of a Truth on his Behalf in Confidence of his Integrity The Want of an Evidence in This Case would have been Just as Mortal as the want of a Record in the Other before Spoken of and mens Lives were Lost both ways in This Controversy for want of a Legal Proof of an Indubitable Truth So that here 's a short Result of the Stress of the Exception First Block-up the way to an Enformation of Perjury against a Forsworn Varlet and Then Hang-up an Honest Man for Want of one Make it a Misdemeanor and a Scandal High enough to Incapacitate any man for a Witness that shall Presume to take Notes in a Popish Cause and then Truss-up the Pretended Traytor though never so Innocent for want of an Evidence to Prove what was Said or Sworn upon such a Tryall Why This looks like Lying in Wait for Bloud when they find they Cannot reach a Man upon a Guilt of Fact to Ty-him-up by Surprize for either Ignorance or Neglect upon a Formality of Proof But in One Syllable now From a General Contemplation or Supposition of the Case to the Real Condition and Quality of that Case as it was found afterwards before a Court of Iustice in Truth and in Effect No man was More Press'd or Harder put to 't and no man put himself more Franckly upon his Iustification then my Lord Castlemaine I remember what Pains was taken upon his Lordships Tryal to make a Witness of Dangerfield A Wretch of a Character to bring an Infamy upon a Common Iayl. And I remember an Oath of Otes'es there in a Flat Contradiction to what he Swore in my Lord Staffords Tryal I have a Charge of High Treason says Otes against That Man one Mr. Hutchison an Evidence against him for Seducing me from my Religion My Lord I will Swear he Turn'd me to the Church of Rome and I desire it may be Recorded Lord Castlemain's Tryal fol. 51. Upon the whole Matter his Lordship was acquitted with Honour and to the Confusion of his Enemies and it is but a Bare Iustice Abstracted from All other Considerations to say that no Man Lâ—ving perhaps has given a more Vncontestable Proof of his Faith and Affections to the Crown then Himself And as to Mr Lydcot now Sr Iohn Lydcot and Worthily advanc'd to a more Honourable Station It is beyond Question that he Behav'd himself in This Office toward both the Government and my Lord Castlemaine with a Resolution and Integrity Answerable to the Character of a Man of Honour There have been so many Hares Started in my way and the Change of Subject has Carry'd me into so many Digressions that I had almost forgot one Passage which though formerly Cited Cannot be well Pass'd over in this Place There were Certain Quaeries offer'd to the House of Commons by the Sheriffs of London and Midl Dec. 23. 1680. about the Kings Prerogative in Dispensing with any part of the Sentence upon My Lord Stafford upon which occasion Sir W. I. Deliver'd his Opinion and Advice in These Words It is probable that the Royal Power hath always Dispensed with such Sentences formerly and if so This House Lyeth not under any Obligation to offer at any Opposition nor Concern themselves herein Especially at This Time when such a Dispute may End in Preventing the Execution of the said Lord Stafford And Therefore I humbly Conceive you may do well to give your Consent that the said writ be Executed according to its Tenure Collections p. 215. Here 's an Indubitable Prerogative subjected to a Question The Resolution given is that It is Probable c. Mr Attorneys Advice is Not to Offer at any Unseasonable Opposition for fear My Lord Stafford's Life might be Sav'd by 't Theâ—efore says he 〈◊〉 Give your Consent For the Avoiding of Confusion I have Interjected where there was Room Convenient for 't Some Remarques and Reflexions upon the Attorny Generalls State of the Evidence and upon the Progress of his Animadversions in the Further Prosecution of that Pretended Popish Cause as well in the Quality of a Kings Councel upon the Tryals of Green Berry and Hill as in That afterward of a Principal Manager of the Evidence against my Lord Stafford This did not yet Hinder the Saving to my self the Liberty of a Word or Two more upon the Whole Matter at Last There are Three General Points that fall Naturally under Consideration in This Place First Did the Kings Witnesses as the Law Terms them Agree in their Evidence or Not 2 ly If they did Not Agree Where and How does That appear Did they Swear One Thing at One Time and Another Thing at Another Was not their Evidence in Court the Same with that before the King and Councel The Kings Iustices of the Peace the Two Houses and the Committees 3 ly Was Sir W. I. Sufficiently Arm'd and Instructed with All Necessary Powers and Papers for the Perfect Vnderstanding of the Matter both in the Whole and in Every Part To These Three Questions I return These Three Answers First That there are Disagreements and Inconsistencies in the Evidence both Ioyntly and Severally that are Utterly Impossible to be Reconcil'd 2 ly I appeal for the Proof of This to the Council-Books The Lords Iournal and the Printed Tryals even under All their Partialities where their Depositions many times are no more
Prevented AFter so many Several Tales and Those Several Tales so many Several Ways Told too of one and the same Thing After the Saying and Swearing of That same Same Thing to be done in so many Several Places Shapes and Manners At so many Several Times By so many Several Methods and Persons upon such and such Several Reasons and to so many Several Ends It can be no Longer a Question I say upon the Whole Matter After These Diversities Disagreements and Contradictions Whether the Point in Issue be True or False For Truth is Simple Vniform Consistent with it self and in Every Line and Article of it Still and Ever the same This is the very Case betwixt the History of the Somerset-House-Murther upon Saturday and That of the Dead Body that was found the Thursday following They are without more ado so Vnlike so Forreign Nay so Contrary One to Another in many Passages even of the Greatest Weight that they Agree only in the Name of the Iustice Insomuch that Supposing Two Sir Edmund Godfreys the Relation might very well Pass for an Account of Two several Persons Now since it is a Thing Utterly Impossible to Vnite These Variations and Oppositions in the same Point and to make good Evidence to the VVorld of Those Allegations that are Never to be Reconcil'd I am in This Chapter to Ask Bedloes and Prances Pardon for having made such Fools of a Couple of the Kings Witnesses in some Half a dozen Chapters before as if it had been VVholly Their Faultâ— that Things and Things Cotton'd No better together when in very Deed Their Present Circumstances and the Parts they had in the Plot Duly Consider'd they were at That Time Under a Moral Necessity either of laying themselves open or of doing Things not to be Done So that for want of Well-grounded Presumptions and Authentique Proofs to move mens Vnderstandings they were fain to Content Themselves with Dazling the Peoples Eyes and Boyling up their Passions by the most Popular and Plausible Arts the Matter would bear Where the Sham was not strong enough to stand upon its own Legs the Security of his Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion the Honour of so many Parliaments the Wisdom of the Nation and the Credit of the Kings Witnesses were All Call'd in to the Vpholding of it and the Restless Alarms of Popish Fires Massacres and Faggots were like so many Rods in Piss for Those Infidels that had not the Grace to give Credit to a Forgery so Necessary to be Believ'd VVhen I speak of the Difficulty of Reconciling the History to the Fiction in This Present Instance I do not Mean that the making a Plausible Imposture of it was a Thing Vtterly Impossible if it had been Attended in Time though I am very well aware too that Falsity can Never Pass for Truth but for want of Means and Industry to find out where the Inconciliable Difference Lyes But the Difficulties to be Treated of in This Place are of Another Quality and not so much arising from the Contradictions in the Nature of True and False as Peculiar to the State of Things in That Iuncture and to the Matter in Hand The Body was found out of Town yonder in a Ditch and the Murther was laid at Somerset-House The Death of Sir Edmund was made a Murther Nay and a Popish Murther as is formerly Observ'd even while he was Yet Alive Now this could be no other then an Ominous Foreboding upon a Desperate Melancholy which he had then upon him For there was No Talk of any Apprehension he had of the Papists 'till the very day that he left his House We shall speak in Another Place to the Bus'ness of his Saying that he should be the first Martyr or the first Man that should suffer The Faction had no sooner made a Popish Murther of this Disaster but it dropt Naturally into the Common Receptacle of All Rogueries the Pretended Popish Plot. This Occasion lay so fair for the Hand of the Republican Conspirators who under Another Pretext were at that time Designing upon the King the Royal Line and the Monarchy it self that having drawn his Royal Highness the Queen Consort and Almost the Late Blessed King Himself into the Confederacy they thought they could not do better then to make her Majesties Palace the Scene of the Villany This was the Ground-work of the Mock-Tragedy that Our Knights of the Post Bedloe and Prance Nay Otes came in for a Snack too afterward Play'd their Parts in upon That Stage In one Syllable the Plot-Cabal Lodg'd it there and Bedloe took them at their Word and Swore to 't there by which Vnlucky Blunder the Project was as good as Curs'd in the Cradle for when it was once Lodg'd within Those Walls there was no removing of it at least without taking the House for Company The Story 't is true went off well enough at Volley for a good while and pass'd Current among the People upon Content without either Weighing or Computing it But when they came once to Confront Matters and to Adjust Things to Things they found themselves Horribly out in their Measures and that they might as well pretend to bring Heaven and Hell together as to Tally the Two Stories of Somerset-house and Primrose-Hill There was the Hat the Gloves the Stick the Sword the Ditch the Posture the Two Wounds the Bruises the Fly-blows the Bloud the Linnen Cloth the Looseness of his Neck and the Circles about it c. Now All these Cases and Accidents were to be Obviated and Provided for in the Counter-part As in some sort they were too There was a Twisted Hankercher and a Crevat to Answer the Linnen Cloth Green to Wring his Neck about Hill and the rest to Punch him to Encounter the Bruises Tryal fol. 17. Hill Kelly and Gerald to run him through with his own Sword throw him into a Ditch and lay his Gloves and other Things upon the Bank Tryal fol. 20. to make the Tale Square with the Original To say nothing of the Risque of Discovery upon the Place or upon the Way and the Vanity of so much as Hoping to Prevail upon any Man in his Right Wits either to Vndertake or Believe so Ridiculous an Adventure Upon the whole Matter If People had but taken Half the Pains to Detect and to Crush this Imposture that they did to Countenance and Conceal it the Cheat could never have stood a Six Minutes Close Examination For the Witnâ—sses Launch'd out into such a Variety of Circumstances and Matters that it was wholly Impossible for them so to Concert their Lessons as not to lye open to a Hundred Surprizes It was a kind of Fantastical if not an Vnaccountable Resolution taken to send the Body away to Primrose-hill and just to such a Ditch there A Place that 't is odds none of the Assassins ever so much as heard of Before and to give such Orders as they pretend they did about the Disposing of things
with the Body the Sword the Stick the Gloves c. Now whether this was History or Forgery let the World Judge But in Fact the Body was there So and so Found and in the Congruity of the Counterfeit it must be thither carry'd and so and so laid The Distance the Danger the Chair and the Difficulties of the Way thither are the Soberest part of the Foolery Nay and by the strangest Consent of Thought that ever was heard of the Murtherers Pitch'd upon the very Place upon the Wednesday Night that Sir Godfrey Enquir'd the Way to the Saturday Morning before There were in fine a Number of Inextricable Difficulties in the Way as they had order'd the Contrivance But the Mother-Over-sight and in Truth the Root of all the Difficulties and Cross Accidents that Follow'd was the laying of the Murther so far at first from the Place where the Body was found For if they had but Hounded him to Primrose-Hill instead of Dogging him to Somerset-House and open'd the Intrigue upon the very Spot the Mystery of This Project might have remain'd a Secret to the Day of Iudgment Especially having so fair a Pretence to Look for him That Way for this was not only known to be Sir Edmund's Vsual Walk but he was seen Going thitherward and taken Notice of to Enquire which was the way to That Place that very Morning So that for Brevities sake they should have Smother'd or Stifled or Strangled him or what they would have call'd it else and then have run him through with his own Sword in the very Ditch it self which would have Prevented all the ensuing Dangers betwixt the Cup and the Lip as they say If they had gone that way to Work there would have been no need of a Comment upon the Text of Somerset-house The Story of the Crevats the Pistols and the twisted Handkercher the Water-Gate and the Court-Gate the Plotters and the Quarrels the Stable-yard the Vpper Court the Invisible Chair and the Dead Body a-Cock-horse would have been All out of Doors There would have been no need of Witch-craft to cast Mists before the Eyes of the Guards But in fine All these Plunges and a Hundred and Fifty more might have been sav'd and the VVitnesses might have brought Green Berry and Hill as Cheap to the Ditch Especially when they had him as Prance says in Red-Lyon-Fields already and have Sworn as true to the One as they did to the Other But This was the Fault of the First Discoverer Bedloe's heart was so set upon the Five Hundred Pound that he thought of nothing else and when the Word was once pass'd and the Charge Rivetted to Somerset-House there was No Recalling No Vnclinching of it But now if he had thought on 't tine enough to have Order'd the Regulation of This Murther in the Chappel-Gallery and the Execution of it about the White-House the History might have been kept up to the Decorum of a Probable Truth I must not slip the Occasion here of Obviating a Question that very frequently offers it self in this Case If this was Sir Edmund's usual Walk why should he ask the Way to a Place that he knew as well as any body could tell him There 's no Divining upon Men's Thoughts but since it is certain he knew the way and no less certain that he did Ask the VVay and that he did not Ask it Neither as Ignorant of it or as Needing the Enformation VVhy might not his Enquiry be intended for a Hint or a Light to People where they should look for him when they should afterwards come to miss him CHAP. XV. Supposing the Murther of Sir Edmund-bury Godfrey to have been a Branch of the Popish Plot as it was Commonly Reputed If there was no such Plot there was No such Murther THERE was a Time when a Popish Murther was Trumpt up for the Proof of a Popish Plot but we are Now as hard put to 't for want of a Plot to Prove That Murther as we were Formerly for want of a Murther to Prove That Plot In short there 's no Reconciling Either of them to it self Apart or Both Each to the Other If there was No Popish Plot There was Consequently No Popish Murther at least upon That Bottom Unless a Man shall suppose a Branch without a Root or an Effect without a Cause If there were No Treasonous Consults how should there be Murderous Practices Grounded upon Imaginary Councels The Equity of Otes's Conviction of Wilful Malicious and Corrupt Perjury at the King's Bench Bar Westminster the 8th of May 1685. upon the Iesuits Tryal in the Bus'ness of That Plot lyes every Jot as strong in Parity of Reason and of Iustice against Prance and Bedloe for This Pretended Branch of That Pretended Conspiracy They Hang both upon the same String and whoever Overthrows the One Trips up the Heels of the Other That is to say where the Matter of Fact is False in the foundation All Inferences from it must be so likewise in the Superstructure and whatsoever Bedloe and Prance have Sworn upon a Plot where there was None is only the Seconding of one Perjury with Another For the Profligate Improbity of the Witness Blasts the Credit of the Murther as well as of the Treason I do not say but that there might be a Murther and yet No Conspiracy Nay I say there might be a Murther Executed by Papists too and yet That Murther not a Popish Assassinate neither for I would Distinguish the Wicked Practices of some particulars in All Religions from the Wicked Principles of a Whole Body of Men of This or That Persuasion so that we have a Great Many Steps to make before we come to a Resolution upon This Question We take it for Granted First as we find it upon Record that Otes's Popish Plot was an Imposture 2 dly That if there was No Popish Plot there could be No Popish Branch of it From whence it will Now Follow that Prance and Bedloe are Manifestly forsworn in Every Tittle of their Evidence that either Imputes the Murther to the Conspiracy or lends a helping hand to the Confirming of the Forgery They Swore the Murther into the Plot for the Sake of the Plot Not the Plot into the Murther for the Sake of the Murther And though Bedloe came in to give Evidence to the Murther 't was his Swearing to the Plot that got him the 500 l. And to make the best on 't his Perjury in the One Case made him Incompetent in the Other To Sum up All in a Little for I am Now about to Close the First Part of This Discourse Was Godfrey Murther'd at Somerset-house according to the Depositions of Bedloe and Prance or was he Not What Inducement have we to believe it or what Arguments or Objections to the Contrary As to the Credibility of the Fact in Issue There were so many Contradictions in the Watching and Dogging of him in the Manner of Desâ—roying him in the Concealing and Removing of
the Book of Judges in the Case of a Murther too though of Another Nature Iudg. 19.30 The People said there was No such Deed Done Nor seen from the Day that the Children of Israel came out of Egypt And I may say There was Never such a Barbarous Murther Committed in England since the People of England were freed from the Yoke of the Pope's Tyranny And as 't is said There so say I Now Consider of it Take Advice and speak your Minds Ibid. A Man should have been very sure of his Point before he Lash'd out into so Bold a Figure for here is Scripture call'd into his Aid for the Illustrating of a Forgery Here 's One Notorious Murther in the False Witnesses That is Supported under the Colour of Arraigning Another And here 's the Actual the Treasonous and the Sacrilegious Murther of a Pious a Gracious and a Merciful King set in Ballance with the Fictitious Murther of a Malancholique Iustice and found Light upon the Comparison But be it as it will here 's Case against Case And so long as I have the Authority and Opinion of Sir William Iones on my Side as to the Legal Competency of Circumstantial and Presumptive Evidences I 'le make no Difficulty of casting my Reputation upon the Merits of the Cause Only a Word or Two by way of Preparatory that I may slide Naturally into my Bus'ness 'T is out of Doubt that Sir Edmundbury Godfrey Dy'd a Violent Death but whether by Another Hand or by his Own is the Single Question Now One of the Two it must be though Which of them is not as yet Determin'd If by the Former there must have been some Notorious Grudge Quarrel or Controversie whereupon to ground so Mortal a Malice and Revenge If by the Latter 't is no New Thing for a Man that lyes under either the Load of a Hideous Melancholy or the Power of a Temptation that he has not Strength to Resist though otherwise of never so Fair a Life and Conversation to sink under the Horror of his own Thoughts and to Lay Violent Hands upon Himself Now how far any thing of This might appear in the Circumstances of his Temper and Condition is a Point that a Thinking Man would not on either hand wholly pass over without loooking both ways upon This Occasion First as to any Matter of Grudge Quarrel Controversie or Rancorous Animosity Private and Personal I cannot Learn that there has been any Thing of This either Observ'd Apprehended or Suggested Nor in Truth which was a wonderful Thing that any of his Family were ever so much as Examin'd to That Point But in a Word for want of a Personal Pretence they have turn'd it to the Spleen of a Party and Grafted the Murther into the Conspiracy However for Colour sake There were Two Reasons Assign'd The One Special and the Other General as the Inducements to This Barbarous Fact. The Former was the taking of Tong 's and Otes's Depositions which as I have it elsewhere would not have Signify'd a Single Hair of a Man's Head if Ten Thousand Lives had depended upon the Matter there Depos'd The Other Reason was as Groundless as the Former was Frivolous The Murther says the Kings Council was Committed upon a Gentleman and upon a Magistrate and I wish he had not Therefore been Murther'd because he was a Protestant Magistrate Greens Tryal fol. 7. And he was very Industrious in finding out the Principal Actors in this Plot. Ibid. This was the Song in all the Narratives Pamphlets and Tryals That the Papists Murther'd him and Principally for the Hatred he bore That Party Now This is so Notorious a Mistake that he Liv'd in a strict Confidence and Friendship with Divers Roman Catholiques of No mean Quality and Character He was so far from Promoting the Plot that he took it for a Cheat from the Beginning Gave his Royal Highness an Account of Otes's Depositions and so likewise to some Other Men of Honour of the Roman Communion upon the First Taking of them Nay he was so Tender of any Oppression That way that upon the bringing of one Mr. Burnet a Priest before him to be Examin'd and Proceeded against according to Law Sir Edmund made his Application to Dr. Godden then belonging to the Queen about him told him how it was and though at That Time a Stranger to him desir'd him to use what Means he could either by her Majesty or by a Secretary of State to Prevent his going to Prison and in the mean while he Himself would put the Bus'ness off as long as he could So that hitherto there appears neither Interest nor Provocation Private or Publique toward the taking away This Gentleman's Life but for want of a more Plausible Pretext there has been Objected over and over the Frequency of his Exclamations that he should be the First Martyr That he should be the first Man to suffer in the Cause and other various Readings upon Words of his to That Purpose according to the Rellish of the People's Fancy or Palate that Heard them Now this was an Expression that Carry'd the Best Countenance of a Favourable Insinuation of any that they made use of But there 's Nothing said in all these Fore-bodings from what Quarter it was that the Danger Threaten'd him only he told Otes if Otes does not Bely him That he was in a great Fright and went in fear of his Life by the Popish Party Greens Tryal fol. 12. Wherein Otes's Sagacity supply'd a Dark Text to speak in his own fine way with an Elucidating Comment worth Twenty of the Alexandrian Version of the Septuagint that he presented the Iesuits with But why he should be affraid of his Known Friends and of Those that knew him to be Their Friend And why should he be Affraid of the Papists for fear of Spoiling Their Plot when he had Already so much as in Him lay Spoil'd Otes's Plot by Discovering the Roguery of it upon the first Instance Why I say the Papists should Murther Sir Edmundbury Godfrey contrary to all the Rules of Morality Humanity Gratitude Iustice and Common Prudence and do All This to No Manner of Purpose too is a Mystery wholly Vnaccountable We shall speak to his Exclamations by and by But First to his Melancholy and Then Leave the World to Iudge whether These Ejaculatory Starts and Apprehensions took their Rise from Splenetick Vapours or from any Reasonable Fears In the Handling of This Subject I shall Range what I have to say under These Following Heads and Assign to every Head a Chapter by it self for the avoiding of either Prolixity or Confusion First What Humour was Sir E. B. Godfrey observ'd to be in upon the Morning and Day when he last left his House 2 ly What Notice was taken of Sir E. B. Godfrey 's Melancholy before he left his House And what Opinion or Apprehension had People of it 3 ly What Opinion or Apprehension had Sir E. B. Godfrey
Signification and Import of Words and Actions in the Simplicity of their Meaning Sir Edmundbury Godfrey was too well acquainted with the Dismal State and Effects of his Fathers Melancholy to lay such an Emphasis upon his Own as still to call it Hereditary and at the same time not to have Other Apprehensions about him then the Fear of being Murther'd by the Papists There were No Tongs nor Otes's in his Fathers Days No Whole-sale Narrative men to deal for Treason by the Gross and yet so often as he found himself in any Extraordinary Distress and Anguish of Thought it was still his Fathers Melancholy that he Inherited That Dark Melancholy as he calls it and nothing but the Instance of his Fathers Melancholy would serve him for the Illustration of his Own. This was sure a very Vnhappy President for him to Copy out the Resemblance of his Own Distemper by for I find it Asserted upon Oath by Mrs. Gibbon and No Body knew the Family Better that the Father of This Miserable Gentleman though otherwise a very Good Man was so Overcome with Melancholy that he attempted several Times to kill Himself that she had seen him Bound in his Bed and that in One Fit of Distraction he wounded three of his Children almost mortally with a Cleaver This in Substance is Confirm'd by many Others And I could carry it further but it is a Calamity to be Compassionated and even This alone would have been too much if the Necessity of the Case and of the Argument had not Required it He says He was affraid of his Fathers Melancholy and this is only to shew what kind of Melancholy it was that he was affraid of Harry Moor the Clark speaks of the Father to the same effect To bring my Matters Now a little Nearer If it be True that Sir Edmundbury Godfrey Dy'd a violent Death and Certain that He was Kill'd either by Some body else or by Himself If No Animosity Private or Publique appear'd to make it either a Personal Act or the Malice of a Conspiracy Nay and that the Gentleman was Manifestly a Friend to That Party which the Faction would perswade the World he had so much reason to be affraid of it will be as hard to Believe at Last that This Gentleman Dy'd by the Hands of Papists as that he Dy'd the Somerset-House-Way which is as Impossible to be True as that Fire and Water should Ioyn in one and the same Body to Drown and Burn the World Both at Once I shall Leave it now to the Reader to Consider that if he did not Dye by Other Hands he Dy'd by his Own and if there was No Likelyhood at all of his being Cut off by the Papists whether there was any Ground or Not to fear he might be Destroy'd by his Melancholy Or in fine Since of Necessity it must be One of the Two Whether of the Two was yet the more Probable But People are still at a Loss they say how to bring him off from That Ordinary Ejaculation of his that upon all Discourses of his Vneasiness and Trouble of Mind was still the Burthen of the Song Mr. Robinson afterward Sir Thomas gave Evidence as I have Noted at Greens Tryal of a Discourse he had with Sir Edmundbury Godfrey and of Sir Edmunds speaking These Words to him Vpon my Conscience I believe I shall be the first Martyr Tryal pa. 14. In short Mr. Wynnel Captain Gibbons his Wife and Daughter Coll. Welden and indeed who Not have heard him speak Many and Many a Time to the same Effect Now 't is a Strange Thing if he reckon'd himself in Danger from the Papists that he should never so much as Mention This but to Otes Whose very Oath in the Affirmative Blasts the Credit of the thing he Swore to Especially as it was Hook'd in to serve the Turn of his Plot. A man might very well Content himself after what is said Allready upon the Ambiguity of This Expression and the Weakness of laying more Weight upon 't then 't would bear to Pass over the Question without any more ado But yet though it may seem a Thing Wholly Frivolous to Reason upon there is somewhat in it however upon the Point of Curiosity that may Deserve a Place in This Account of Things though but for Common Satisfaction Upon taking Tongs and Otes'es Depositions upon Sept. 28. 1678. though very Unwillingly as appears over and over Already Sir Godfrey reflected upon it that he had made No Formal Discovery of the Pretended Treason and finding now that the Bus'ness was come to be Publique the Matter being then brought before the Councel he came to be Every day more and more Sensible of the Danger of the Misprision and not without Several Hints by the By that he was like to be call'd to an Account for 't There being near a Month Past from his First Enformation Sept. 6. without any Regular or Effectual Notification of the Matter And he was the More Frighten'd upon it for the Disservice that he did to the Design of making a Plot on 't for he never Believ'd one Word of the Story and told All People as much where he thought he might Safely Declare Himself So that the Martyrdom he fear'd was the being made a Sacrifice to the Faction He was Sufficiently Sensible how Greedily the Multitude swallow'd This Bait of a Plot what Labour was us'd to make a Parliament Cause on 't And how Heartily Dispos'd the Majority even of That Parliament were to Entertain All Colourable Suggestions under so Popular a Pretence It must be added now that This Terrible Parliament it Self was to meet upon the 21 th of That October So that Sir Edmund had but a Matter of Three Weeks Time to Consider on 't There was an Vnlucky Circumstance More too in the Kings going to New-market upon the Second of That October When the Faction had Effectually the Shuffling Cutting and Dealing of their own Game and All things working toward a Common Ruine There never was a Concurrence of more Critical and Mortal Accidents toward the Ruine of One Poor Iustice of Peace then met upon This Single Occasion Adding to All the Rest an Hereditary and an Inseparable Melancholy to Work upon a Melancholy that he Complain'd of long before These Depositions came into the World as is Set forth already in the Depositions of Mr. Church But upon the Whole Matter however the Last day of his Life was the 12 th of October The 15 th Day from the bringing of the Plot before the King and Council and the 9th from the Meeting of the Parliament This was the Pinch of his Condition His Case lay Open to the Worst of Constructions and he was Morally Sure that his Enemies would make the most of any Advantage against him The Man was No Fool and his Head as well as his Humour lay for Practice and Bus'ness And who knows if he had Liv'd 'till the Meeting of the Parliament Whether he should
the Tuesday and his leading her to Church after the Corps and Declares That he went with the Godfreys to her House on the Sunday He acknowledges his telling Mrs. Pamphlin on Sunday Morning that Sir Edmund was gone Abroad Two Hours before she enquired for him and for the Reason of it he gives the Command of Secrecy Enjoyn'd him by Mr. Godfrey In short the Great Secrecy that he was all along obliged to by the Godfreys for which we could not get any Reason from him when we told him how much it had been the Interest of his Masters Brothers and all his Friends if they had suspected he had been Murther'd by any Person to have made the same Publique and obtained my L. C. Justice's Warrant to have searched all Places that they had suspected for him together with the Evasive Answers he gave us shews a Practice c. Dr. Nalson Writes thus He is a Cunning old Fellow as ever I saw and what you have is Extorted from him by a Thousand Cross Questions for we were upon him Five or Six Hours It is the Greatest Riddle as I told him that as he Averrs only He Himself and the Two Godfreys should know of Sir E. G's Absenting till the Tuesday and yet the Saturday Post sent it all over England that the Papists had Murther'd him or at least that there was such a Fear This Cavil about the Saturdays Post I have cleared over and over where the Subject led me to That Point And so I have the Other Pretence of the Worlds taking no Notice of Sir E's Absenting Himself till Tuesday for they went from place to place Enquiring after him to my Lady Prats to Captain Gibbons they told Parsons and Mason as much before and most of the Enformations Dated from the very day of his Absenting himself it being All over the Town upon the Sunday What was become of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey He went out Yesterday Morning and did not come home Last Night The First Thing Necessary was to Learn out the Truth of the Fact and the Next Thing in question was the Practice of the Instruments and Managers of These Plot-Matters and Principally how they dealt with their Pris'ners by the Force of Money Cruelty False-Witnesses Sham-Accusations Menaces Flatteries the Fear of Death or the Hope of Life And in fine by All the ways Imaginable of Hitting the Blind side of the Men they had to do withal 'T is no News at This time of Day what Arts Sollicitations were us'd to Carry people off and on according to the Biass of Those Times when the True Interpretation of Confess the Truth or you shall certainly be Hang'd was Forswear yourself and be Damn'd Now the Stories of This way of Tampering were so Rife while This Bus'ness of the Plot was in Agitation that His Majesty was pleas'd to Grant Another Order of Enquiry into any thing of This Kind that pass'd in the Prisons which I did accordingly And the Order runs in the Terms Following Whitehall Octob. 6. 1684. WHereas his Majesty hath lately received several Enformations concerning the Manage of Edward Fits-Harris and Miles Prance and several other Persons while they were Prisoners in Newgate the Gate-House and Elsewhere It is his Majesties Pleasure that you make a particular Enquiry by the Means of Captain Richardson Mr. Church and others into the Matters aforesaid concerning the Practices of Those that came to them and had to do with them by any unlawful and Unwarrantable Ways And you aro likewise hereby Authorized and Empower'd to assure the said Keepers or Others by them Employed of his Majesties particular Grace and Favour even in case of their own Failings or Misdemeanours upon a full and a clear Declaration of the Truth in or concerning this Affair And hereof you are forthwith to make a Report To Roger L'Estrange Esq It was a Great Advance that was made into the Cause of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey and the Proceedings against Otes were by This time brought to the very Day of Issue when God Almighty took to Himself our Late Gracious and Blessed Soveraign which put a short Stop to the Prosecution both of the One and of the Other But however the Prosecution was Reviv'd and upon the 8th and 9th Days of May 1685. Otes was Convict at the Kings-Bench-Bar upon Two Indictments for Wilful Malicious and Corrupt Perjury and Miles Prance was also Convict of Perjury in the Case of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey and Mr. Vernatti May 4. 1686. So that now there was a Fair Place left for a General Review But I was Concern'd however to secure my self under the Warrant and Protection of a Further Authority for a Continuation of the Scrutiny which his PRESENT Majesty was Graciously pleased to Grant me in the Form following JAMES R. IT is Our Royal Will Pleasure and Command that immediately upon Sight hereof you make a strict and diligent Enquiry into such Matters and Things as you shall reasonably conceive may give some Light concerning the Death of the Late Sir Edmundbury Godfrey and that you forthwith send for such Persons of Probity and good Repute as you shall know hear or understand to have been privy to any Circumstances relating to the said End And that you Examine every such Person upon Oath touching the same more especially the Keeper of Newgate and such of his Officers and People as had the Care of Miles Prance while he was there a Prisoner And likewise one Boyce a Glass-Eye-Maker and such others as you shall have cause to believe may be able to give any Material Enformation thereupon You are hereby Required and Authorized to proceed upon the Matters aforesaid without any Delay and to give us a particular Account of the whole Affair And for so doing this shall be your Warrant Given at our Court at Whitehall the 19th Day of February 1685 6. in the Second year of our Reign By His Majesties Command Sunderland P. To our Trusty and well-beloved Sir Roger L'Estrange Knight Over and above These Authorities I had likewise the View of the Parliament-Iournals the Councel-Papers and All Publique Depositions that might be helpful to me upon This Subject and Occasion to say nothing of all the Printed Tryals and Narratives that are Extant So that in short there wanted only True Copies of the Enformations before the Coroner to put me in possession of the whole Matter to which End I was further Enabled by This Following Order Robert Earl of Sunderland Baron Spencer of Wormleighton President of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Council and Principal Secretary of State c. WHereas upon or about the 18th Day of October 1678. You by Your Precept summon'd a Iury to Enquire how Sir Edmundbury Godfrey late of the County of Middlesex Deceased came by his Death And whereas you did Execute the said Inquisition and several Witnesses were Produced and Examined before you on the Behalf of the King whose Enformations upon Oath in Writing are in your Custody or
Power True Copies of which Examinations from the Originals as also a True Copy of the Inquisition it his Majesties Pleasure should be forthwith delivered to Sir Roger L'Estrange Knight One of his Majesties Iustices of Peace for the County of Middlesex These are therefore to will and require you forthwith to deliver to the said Sir Roger L'Estrange True Copies of All the said Enformations not omitting any one of them and likewise a True Copy of the said Inquisition by him to be compared with the several Originals And hereof you are not to fail Given at our Court at Whitehall the 28th Day of March 1687. Sunderland P. To Mr. Iohn Cowper one of his Majesties Coroners for the County of Middlesex Upon This Order Mr. Cowper the Coroner deliver'd me the Copies of several Enformations As the Enformation of Ioseph Radcliffe and of Eleanor his Wife Two Enformations of Zachariah Skillarne Two of Iohn Brown the Constable and the Enformations of Nicholas Cambridge Iohn Wilson Tho. Morgan William Bromwell Iohn Walters Iohn Rawson Henry Moor Caleb Winde Richard Duke and Mary the Wife of Captain Tho. Gibbon The foregoing Enformations must be understood according to the Order to Mr. Cowper to be the True Copies of the said Enformations And to be All too Not omitting any one of them And Mr. Cowper Delivered me likewise a Copy of the Order it self by him thus Attested at the foot of the said Order 6th of April 1686. This is a true Copy of the Order above-written Delivered unto Sir Roger L'Estrange Knight by me the Original being in my Custody Jo. Cowper Here are Sixteen Enformations upon Tale and not One Word to the Question of the manner of his Death but upon the Conjecture of the Two Surgeons Mr. Skillarne and Mr. Cambridge Mrs. Gibbon that could have spoken very much says very little and it was not properly an Enformation to the Coroner neither for the Verdict was Over first Moor the Clark that was in Effect a Secretis to the whole Mystery was only Interrogated If his Master went out in a Lac'd Band I do not object to That Question but why That Question and No More to a man that both the Brothers and the Coroner knew to be Privy to the whole Transaction If he went out in a Lac'd Band he was Murther'd but if he had gone out in a Plain Band he had been Felo de se. For whether he Dy'd by the Sword or the Rope or the Linnen Cloth was the Question The Iury sat upon Friday and Adjourn'd 'till Saturday and it was after Midnight when they gave up their Verdict Now the Surgeons Deliver'd their Conjectural Evidence upon Friday but the Iurors being wholly Vnsatisfy'd upon That meeting were Prevail'd upon to Adjourn in order to the Getting of Further and of Better Proofs And what were those Further and those Better Proofs that came in next day but Mr. Radcliffe and Mrs. Radcliffe Caleb Wind and Richard Duke that saw Sir Edmund in the Strand at Twelve or One a Clock the Saturday of his going away after he had taken his Walk in the Fields toward Marybone But These are Points that are Handled in Better Order and more at large in Their Due places After this Care taken for the Finding out of the Truth and for the Methods of Arriving at it All Good men I hope will Acquit me that I have proceeded upon the Conscience of an Honest Man in the very Inclinations of doing it and that in the Zeal of pushing it forward I have no cause to be Ashamed of Owning my self an Officious Lover of Iustice. And I have been no less Tender of usurping upon the Province of my Superiors in keeping my self strictly to all the Measures of Duty and Reverence towards the Government I can fairly Appeal to the Reader now in one Word more that I have taken as much Care to lay open the matter of Fact on the One side as on the Other for where should any Man look for the True and Reasonable Grounds of a Verdict but in the Words and Import of the Evidence To which End I have here exposed the Enformations that were taken by the Coroner I have likewise Impartially Extracted the Uttermost Force of All that was said in Proof of the Murther upon the Tryals And upon the whole Matter I do here submit my self as to the Candor of this Following Discourse to All Indifferent Iudges Let me not be thought Insensible all this while that I Write now against the Stream and that an Integrity of This Standard Labours against Wind and Tyde A stubborn Inflexible Honesty is allmost sure of as many Enemies as there are Men able to do him Mischief that have Sacrific'd to Pluralities upon the Poll Popular Applause Interest and Occasion But my Fortune is made in the Comfort of a Good Conscience and in the Blessing of an Indifference that has cast All these Cares behind it I will have the Vanity too even without Asking God Forgiveness for it to Hope that These Papers may out-live the Envy that This Necessary way of Liberty has brought upon the Composer of them And that After-times shall Thank me in my Grave for the Plain History of many Useful Truths how Odious soever at Present which in all Likelyhood they should never have known without me But to shew now at last that the Officious Zeal of a Pragmatical Observator as the Wit in Mode has it has not Transported him beyond the Terms of Decency and Good Manners I have not so much as skew'd in this Whole Discourse upon Any Person where the Thrid of the Story did not Absolutely Require it I meddle with no Mans Opinion Forreign to this Single point Toleration or no Toleration has nothing at all to do in This Book I support my self from one End of it to the Other upon Evident and Visible Fact I have the Publique and the Solemn Declaration of a Famous Common Lawyer for the Equity and the Legality of my Conclusions as they are drawn from Warrantable Premisses As to the Coroners Iury with a respect to the Verdict I do here make use of several of their Enformations which were Frankly Deliver'd and they are as Faithfully Reported I do not find that there was any Great Stress laid upon the Evidence before Them that spake to the very Pinch of the Question Only upon the First day while Bloud or No Bloud was any part of the Debate they stood it out for they themselves knowing that there was a Great Deal of Bloud would not agree to find him Strangled so long as Bloud was insisted upon as an Argument that he Dy'd by the Sword. But upon the Saturday and after a whole Nights Contest what to make on 't The Bloud that is to say the Demonstrative Proof being quite laid aside the Surgeons continued of Opinion that he was Strangled and the Question being a Surgeons-Matter the Iury resign'd themselves and Agreed upon the Verdict JUst as I was