for the raysing the Army so immediately necessary to prosecute the Blow after the Kings dispatch Now in the name of dulness where were Our Witts when all this Hideous pieco of Apocrypha was currant Gospel amongst us And Lastly To bring the Forreign Heroes into Play too Oates swears that upon subduing of England in manner aforesaid the French were to be Lord of be Ascendant the Government of England being designed to have devolved into their hands And pray mark the Riddle of the Business Here was the Spanish King in the Year 78. lending no less a Body of Men then thirty thousand Fighting Pilgrims to help establish the French King in the Monarchy of England at the very same time that he was in actual Wars against him and an utter Enemy to France and so harrast by the French that he was courting allmost all Christendom against him and imploring all Foreighn Aides and Alliances to oppose him yes tho' he had already lost so large and so important a part of his own Country to him and was not over able with his best strength to defend the rest from him yet is this Spanish King forsooth if Oates his Evidence will hold Water ayding and assisting the French King with so vast a Succour for the enlarging the very Victories of his most hated Enemy by so prodigious an Acquisition as the Imperial Diadem of England Oh! The Miracles of a Romish-Plot and the more Miraculous English stomach to digest it This Reader is the great and dreadful Popish Bugbear that once had Power to Fright three Kingdoms out of their Senses and this the Saviour of the Nation that so many almost prostrate Knees and up lifted Hands entertained and saluted with no less than Palm-Branches and Hosannahs The particularizing of all the nonsensical Incongruitys and Contradictions thro' the whole Legend of his Discovery such as his Swearing at one Tryal he was perverted to the Romish Religion and at another that he was still a Protestant and only play'd the Hypocrite amongst the Papists to learn their Secrets and to detect their Plots And then his Swearing before the Council that he knew not Coleman when brought Face to Face before him and yet at his Tryal to Swear he was his most intimate Acquaintance and Co-Plotter in the whole Business of the Four Irish Ruffins and consequently was the main Evidence that Hanged him But most of all this his most egregious Perjury in Swearing before the House of Lords that he had Discovered his whole Plot and had not one Person more to Accuse than what he had named and impeach'd before and yet after all this to bring the very Queen into the Conspiracy to Poyson the King a Princess of that immaculate Virtue and unexampled Piety into so damnable and hellish a Design that most Arrogant of Impostures and Villanies as far from the very shadow of Truth as the Monster that uttered it is from Heaven The particularizing I say of all the egregious and impudent Falsities thro' his whole Fardle of Narratives is a Work too long and tedious Besides the Mystery of Iniquity thanks be to Heaven is already made so tranparent almost to all Eyes and Understandings that 't is almost impossible that any thing but wilfull and hardned Blindness it self cannot plainly see through The only and last tho feeble Argument that his Defenders if 't is possible he can have any left can make for him is to say How is it possible that all his Discovery should be such errant Forgery and Imposture and yet be so universally believed even by the most unanimous and so long Assent of the greatest and most sensible Men of the whole Kingdom Why truly were not an English-Mans Belief one of the greatest Prodigies since the Flood this might be much wondred at And truly it would appear almost stupendious how almost a whole Nation should be so besotted had not woful experience convinced that truly this is but the second Notorious Blot in our English Scutcheon For let us but look back into the dismal Fears and Jealoasies in the first King CHARLES his Raign and we shall find the self same Phantom govern'd then too And just such another as senseless and as ridiculous imaginary Plot of setting up Popery and Arbitrary Power O Monstrum Horendum Blew Three Kingdoms into a Flame and from the dismal Effects of that Epidemical Lunacy has left that stain upon the English Name and Reputation abroad in the World that not whole Ages will wash off And truly we have no Excuse left why we should be so grosly imposed upon again and run into a second as damnable an Errour as the first but frankly confessing that the Frenzy of our Fathers is Hereditary and nothing but their Madness running in our Bloods has been the cause of so enormous a Folly the extravagant Apprehensions of the Danger of Popery being that natural impefection that the generallity of English Men are as much born to as men are to a Club-Foot or a Hunch-Back or any other Deformity and really which they are almost as hardly to be cured of And therefore to draw to an End with our Swearing Master Titus that Hellish Incendiary and chief Visible Original of our so many Years Distractions His Sentence though it seem Severe is much less than he deserves our English Law-makers as never imagining the possibility of so unexampled an Offender having provided no Punishment equal to the Demerits of such unprecedented Villany FINIS Entred according to Order
TITUS OATES WILLIAM BEDLOE Stephen Dugdale Miles Prance THE MEMOIRES OF Titus Oates Written for Publick Satisfaction Oates Bedlow Dugdale Prance whose Breath alone Cou'd almost States subvert and Kings dethrone To sculp their Shadow 's in the Pow'r of Art Ink may be black enough to act that Part. Drawn to the Life would you their Souls behold That Work requires a more Infernal Mould LONDON Printed for Thomas Graves 1685. THE PREFACE THE great and wonderful Exploits of our Hero Titus have so far out-done the Feats of Sancho Pancha himself that the very Atcheivments even of a Garantua will bear a fairer Appearance of History and Truth than the more Romantick Narrative of our Great and Formidable Salamanca Discoverer For truly to consider how strangely powerful the Infatuations even of almost three whole Kingdoms have been in reposing such implicite Faith in a Discovery made up of so many Incongruities Inconsistencies and palpable Contradictions as are all along through the Depositions of the pretended Popish-Plot is enough to make the English Credulity so universally ridiculous that all Christendom shall blush at us and our very Posterity shall be so much ashamed of their Forefathers Folleys and stupidity till future Generations even for their own Reputation shall as zealously indeavour to cover and conceal this most Egregious Blindside of their besotted Progenitors as ever Shem and Japhet did the Nakedness of their Father But because Justice has at last in some part overtaken him and Frydays and Saturdays Inquisition into the Innocent Blood that that Barbarous Wretch has so solemnly murdered has set forth the Perjured Murtherer in some of his true infernal Colours I have thought fit to Publish these farther Memoires of that ever execrable Fardle of Imposture and Perjury his pretended Discovery of the Popish Plot. And the reason of this undertaking is that notwithstanding the two last Tryals have made his Shams and Lies so notoriously apparent as to make him truly deserve the Lord Chief Justices proper character of him of being certainly the Blackest of Villains that ever lived upon the face of the Earth and those two Limbs of his Plot his Consult on the 24th of April and the August following have sufficiently assured us that all the rest of his Discoveryes are but Branches of the same damnable Stock whilst the same vein of perjury runs thro' the whole Mass of his Hellish Lies and Narratives yet because the Universall spirit of Delusion is such that too many of our English Fools are as fond of their own senceless Dreams as of their very Bibles themselves and no doubt there are yet thousands of those unthinking unconverted Animals that have that veneration still for their Darling Titus that they pay him even a wild Indian Adoration and make a God of the Devil himself it will not be amiss to examine a few more particulars by way of enquiry into the most important Foundation of his whole Plot and shew what Nonsense and Chymeras have been imposed upon the World Titus Oates HIS MEMOIRES THe Popish Plot as delivered by Titus Oates and the rest of his Zanies Bedlow Dugdale Prance c. is wholly founded on these two Bases First That the Papists had a Designe to Murder the late King And next to Massacre Us Popery being only to be introduced by these two Desperate and bloody undertakings The several Attempts and Designes of Murdering the King are as follows The First Bloody Resolve of the Papists for that purpose was on the 24th of April in the Year 78 whilst Oates upon the Holy Evangelists assures us that the Principal of the Jesuites and other great Popish Agents to the number of above fifty from several parts of the World met together on that day and came to this Resolve That Pickering and Groves should go on with their Attempt of Murdering the King for which the one should have 1500 l. and the other 30000 Masses to which Resolve and promise they all at several places subscribed their several hands Now we are to know likewise who those two Persons were that were thus set at work viz. Two poor Servants Retainers to the Romish Priests two Persons who had been before engaged in the same Design had dogg'd the King by Oates his own Oath from the year Seventy to that very day with screwed Guns and Silver Bullets to do the same Execution and were two such Wretched Fools at so desperate a peice of service that one time their Flint was loose another time their Gun was charged with all Bullets and no Powder another with no Powder in the Pan and another with all Powder and no Bullets Yet nevertheless after they had alwayes miscarryed at this egregious senseless Rate and had been disciplined severely for it Here meets a consult of Jesuits from all Quarters of Europe and after a full Debate upon so Important a point to their Grand Designe as the Immediate Murder of the King they come to no other Result than that these two poor Cuddens after above seven Years fumbling before should go on with the Attempt without so much as engageing one hand beside in the Conspiracy for all the other Assassionates were not Embarked in the Design till August following so that had Oates been able to have proved himself here in Town at the April-Consult nevertheless his Great April-Plot must still have fallen to the ground and consequently all the Blood of the Executed Papists have cryed for Vengeance from so Perjured a Murderer unless we can imagine that so many Popish Emissaries the greatest of all the Romish Politicians could be guilty of so ridiculous a Management Besides as the sequel of this King-killing-Blow Oates particularly swears That no sooner was the King to have fallen but both the Spanish Pilgrims thirty thousand strong and a French Army besides were prepared to Land and follow the Blow by Joyning with the English Papists already listed for that purpose and cutting the Protestants Throats so that upon the upshot of the whole matter unless we can suppose that the French and Spanish Kings had their Pilgrims and Armies and a Fleet ready to land 'em all prepared for seven whole Years together Winter or Summer to step over the Water to nick the Business and prosecute the Massacre upon the crisis of the Kings Murder the whole Conspiracy comes to nothing Besides we must pardon Mr. Oates his forgetfulness in several main passages of Pickerings Atchievement First That in his Narrative he expresly upon Oath Assignes the time of Pickerings flint being loose and his being lasht for it to be in January 77. but at his Tryal he possitively swears it was done in April 78. Secondly We must not be staggered to imagine how a Fellow in so open a place as St. James's-Park could present a Gun against the King and flash in the very Pan as another time he swears for Pickering and yet neither the King nor one of his Attendants discover him Neither are we to
reflect how 't is utterly impossible to shoot a Silver Bullet out of a screwed Gun Silver being too hard a mettal ever to be discharged without tearing the Gun all to Peices For the History of his other Popish Ruffins his Conyers with his Dagger his four Irish Ruffins by the by all Gentlemen of Quality and Fortunes and yet all hired for so bold an attempt as shooting the King for but poor fourscore pounds between them when the little inconsiderable Wretch Groves was to be rewarded with no less than 1500 l. For the History I say of these Assassinates and Sir George Wakemans Affair they were altogether a Mass of nonsence so nauseously fulsom that even the all-believing Whiggs themselves in the very hottest Dog-dayes of true Protestant Zeal and Euthusiasm turn'd stomack at insomuch that the terrible Poysoner Sir George himself was acquitted even by a Whigg Jury In Defiance of all the Popish Fears and Jealousies which in that time of the World were no less than Mountain High But to muster the strength of all these last undertakers and indeed the whole force of his whole Plot it self In his Preface to his Narrative he tells the World that he discovered his Plot first to His Majesty by the introduction of Mr. Christopher Kirby on the 13th of August 78. At which time you must note he brought no other credentials to support his Plot but Words and Forehead Oath and Impudence being utterly unable to produce the least scrap of one of all his numberless pretended Treasonable Papers Letters or Commissions to Corroborate his Evidence notwithstanding his Narrative assures us that the Jesuits had long before wrought the King almost to an utter Deafness and Infidelity against all Informations whatever against them and consequently his preserving of some of those undeniable Records against them all intrusted in his Hands was the only necessary Introduction to the Credit and support of his whole Discovery But however tho' not one syllable of any thing of that Kind was ever seen or brought forth from that day to this and the only lame Excuse that can help him is to say Truly whilst he plotted with them he was one of them therefore did not seek to preserve any such Convincing Papers or Commission Tho' by the by it looks a little odd in one of his Trialls where he downright swears he was a Protestant all along and disguis'd himself a Papist only to herd with them to betray them But let that pass The Prodigious oversight and negligence of our Discoverer in this Point being forgiven him for once How comes it to pass nevertheless that after that very 13th Day of August when he return'd again to the Jesuits and plotted with them once more only as a Spy and a Trapan to take an opportunity of betraying them when after that very day he delivered out several new Commissions met also at a consult of the Benedictines and carryed their Subscribed Resolve of Murdering the King to a second consult of the Carmelites for to sign it met likewise another time Conyers with his Broad Dagger in Grays-Inn-Walks and Pickering with his Basket of Fire-Balls at noon day in Lincolns-Inn-Fields when he saw Coleman dispatch the Messenger to the four Irish Ruffins Nay and all the whole business of Sir George Wakeman was all acted after that Day when in fine no less then thirty Paragraphs in his Narrative containing the very hottest part of his whole Plot were all Transactions after this first Discovery to the King How comes it to pass I say after his cold Reception at Court and the Kings so obdurate Incredulity that our Adventurer should set out a Treason hunting once more for no other design but for proof and Demonstrations and Ocular Testimonials and yet after all these offerd advantages of both Conspirators and Conspiracies Traitors and Treasonable Records in his Power he should still come to Sir Edmund-Bury-Godfrey the September following with his full and compleat Popish Manifesto and yet without one scrap of Commissions Papers Resolves c. and with only his Old Jargon Breath and words noyse and Oaths for the support of his pretended Oraculous Discovery Good Heaven How wide was the English swallow When such idle ridiculous stuff could go down But to leave the Kingkilling part of his Plot and take a little view of his Protestant Throat Cutting viz. The second Act of his Popish Tragedy Here we must returne to his Spanish Pilgrims his Black Bills and his French Armies before mentioned together with the Armies of English Papists designd to be raised to joyn with them And to begin at home here was the Lord Bellasis and the Lord Petre and a great many other of the greatest Roman Catholik's had Commissions deliverd them to be Generals Livetenant Generals and so downwards to Collonels and Captains c. Over severals Popish Armies intended to be raised to subdue England to the Romish Yoke Now here are a great many very odd things in this projection First 'T is wondrous that the Jesuites and the Head Plotters of the Papists were so Cocksure of the Fidelity of their whole Party that they durst hope to list so many Thousands of Roman Catholicks nay had listed them if Bedloe may be believed being all ready to rise at four and twenty hours warning and not have one false Brother amongst them all to betray so barbarous and so Rebellious an Undertaking There was a time when Thousands of that Religion ventured both Lives and Fortunes to recover the Kings Right against usurping Traytors with scarce one Dissenter amongst the whole Party against so Loyal a Cause and 't is a very strange change that in a matter of thirty odd Years they should all be so Universally perverted to the Deposing and Murdering him as not to meet so much as one Pendril or one Huddleston amongst so many thousand as this Army was to consist of that might probably have told tales beforehand and betray'd so Wicked and so Hellish a purpose and thereby not only have ruin'd the whole Plot but the whole Party besides Secondly We are to take notice 't was in May June July and August 78. That Oates attests his delivery of Commissions for the pretended Popish Armies And on the success of these Armies assisted by the Forreighn Popish Auxiliaries before mentioned depended the whole fortune of the Romish Cause Popery being wholy to be Establishst by Military Execution And yet as the Devil and the Doctor would have it Pickering and Groves as you have been told before had been seven years together at the Kings very Throat nay and the Great rewards of 1500 ll and 30000 Masses together with Pickerings severe Backside Castigation were Motives and Spurs to hasten and expedite the future performance of these two terrible screwed Gunners And yet here was the King to have been shot the very next moment if possible and all the while the very Commissions were not given out till for some months after