neither pay'd by him nor yet receiv'd by them and not only so but that the Protestants in the North of Ireland were much alarm'd at those Quantities of Arms and Ammunition that were put into the Hands of the Irish Catholicks 10. Your Conspirators Coleman and the Jesuites in London receiv'd Letters from St. Omers written from Father Ireland not he that was hanged for his own Name was Ironmonger but this Man 's own Name was Saltmarsh That Care was taken for the Destruction of the Duke of Ormond in Ireland he being then Lord-Lieutenant there And for what Reason Because he had refused Sir to join with you in Breaking the English Interest in that Kingdom though Sir you may remember that the said Duke was a Person very Obsequious to your Brother and your Self and the Reason why you could not get him to engage with you in Omnibus was his own Safety and Ease Yet when you acted by the King's Command the said Duke never failed you nor did his Son the Earl of Ossory which cost that good Gentleman many a Sigh when he came to dye for the Business of the Smyrna Fleet and the Wicked War against the Dutch stuck upon his Soul to the last Minute of his Life But I say Because the Duke of Ormond would not push on every thing you put upon him he was not for your turn though give him his due he had gone farther than his Inclinations lead him to please your Mind 11. In the last place when you took the Crown you in a short time put the whole Government into the Hands of the Irish Papists by which means the English Protestant Interest was in great danger to be lost and the Protestant Inhabitants were under the daily Fears through your Grace and Favour of having their Throats cut nay many daily by your Cut-Throat Teagues were by your especial Direction basely inhumanely and barbarously murthered So that some tasted of that Cruelty which others justly apprehended from the Arbitrary Power you set up there Some of them left the Kingdom and abandoned their Estates calling to mind that Cruel and Bloody Massacre which fell upon their Fathers in that Kingdom in the year 1641. And to crown your Work you traiterously invaded that Kingdom and called a Number of your Villains together and christened them by the Title and Name of a Parliament and what you did by their countenance many yet alive can tell But Doctor King an old Passive Obedience Friend of yours hath painted you out at large in those particular Carriages of yours when you with your French Mirmidons invaded that Kingdom But Sir let me tell you That Great William our King hath endeavoured and doth still study to bring Ireland into such a State that the Settlement of the Protestant Religion may there be religiously observed and the Protestant English Interest may be secured against any Effort of yours or your Irish Teagues to the contrary notwithstanding III. SCOTLAND You having play'd your Game so well in Ireland it will not be amiss to cast our Eye upon that Quondam Ancient Kingdom and see how you managed there for as you managed Ireland by a Tool that succeeded the Lord Roberts so in Scotland You and your Brother acted by Lauderdale for he brought all the Laws and Liberties of Scotland to the Council-Chamber bringing all Persons and Causes of any moment to your Arbitrary Council who acted as Lords Paramount without controul and so zealous were you by him to promote and support the French Interest there that continually new Levies were making in Scotland for the Service of the French King tho' at that very time we were pretending a French War in England You remember Sir that by your Influence upon the King your Brother and on the Council of Scotland you make them use all the diligence that was possible to get an Army there to be a standing Army in the room of the Militia of that Kingdom the Militia being not thought fit for your Popish Designs And the means to effect the same you pitch'd upon those you judged to be the most effectual which was first to Oppress and Enrage the Dissenters and this could not be better accomplished than by disturbing and prosecuting their Meetings and Religious Assemblies for the Worship of God which You and your Conspirators did with all imaginable diligence And you having found out a new way by caution your Conspirators devised a Bond should be imposed upon every Man they marked out for Ruine as being Enemies to their Arbitrary Proceedings which Bond was That the Landlord should be bound for his Tenant the Master for his Servant and the Husband for the Wife and Father for the Children not to go to Conventicles Which you knew many would not do for that the People of Scotland generally hated Praelatical Government But this way they thought would so enrage the People whom they fore-knew would not part with their Meetings that they doubted not but to force a Rebellion and thereupon have a fair Pretence to raise Forces for the Security of the Kingdom against restless Meeters and Meetings Which Design Sir You and your Party in that Kingdom did at last effect Another Device you and your Conspirators had of seizing the Field-Meetings by the armed Forces and destroying them both in Bodies and Estates and dragging them to Gaols and then by whole Ship-loads selling them to the Plantations as Condemn'd Men and Ship-loads coming here for London they by one way or another got their Liberty Was this of the Bond all And was the Selling of them all No For You and your Conspirators found out another way by the Tyranny of Duke Lauderdale and that was this There was a Warrant procured from the Council of Scotland to disarm divers Shires and Low-lands of that Kingdom and when that would not exasperate them then another Order was procured to order the High-landers a sort of barbarous Papists to be armed and by whole Regiments to come down upon the Inhabitants spoiling and destroying the whole Country living amongst them at discretion and these very High-landers thus armed under the pretence of keeping the Peace had in their Commission from your Brother's and your Council in Scotland Authority to live at Free Quarter upon those Inhabitants which they did divers Months together to the destruction of the poor People And all this was to procure a Rebellion at any rate But least this should be too general I will descend to some Particulars that the thing may be plain to your Ragged Regiment at St. Germans and your Hell-born Cut-throat Crew here in England I. I will shew you in several Particulars how your Brother and You invaded the Rights of the Good People of Scotland in general II. I will give you to remember some Instances of your Brother's and your Barbarity to particular Persons III. Your Brother's and your way of using your Prisoners I. Give me leave to put you and your Conspirators in mind of
was to Man them The French King judged that too great a Point to be gained by King Charles upon him and wheedles with the Duke of Buckingham and offers him 100000 l. Sterling to consent that he should Man the Fleet against which the Duke urged it was against the Agreement the King his Master had made with him the French King and so would not accept the 100000 l. withal telling the French King That if he would let us be Neptune at Sea he should be Jove by Land The French King seemed contented and so the Discourse ended But the French King deals then with the Lord Arlington and gives him 60000 l. and Arlington prevailed Sir with you to press the King your Brother not to insist upon Manning the French Fleet with English for that it would be less charge to him if the French King did Man the Fleet himself and withal urged to the King That they were but low and they should have occasion enough for Money otherwise So Arlington got by the Bargain his 60000 l. and the French King the advantage of setting out his own Fleet. Well Sir you remember the French Fleet was set out and joined the English the English Fleet was commanded by your self and the French Fleet by Monsieur d' Estree and upon the 28th of May 1672. you were attacked in Soul-Bay by De Ruyter who commanded the Dutch with a great deal of Bravery and the Attack was made with great advantage on the Dutch side you did what you could to have beaten the Dutch and the French Admiral did what he was sent for and that was to look on till you both were well worried Vice-Admiral Montague was sacrificed and your Fleet so damnably mangled that a man would have thought you had met with another Smyrna Fleet but our Bells did ring for joy but God know there was no occasion on your side to boast of a Victory but you may see what it is to be in ill Company and I think they served the Dutch the same Trick when they joined with them in the Year 1666. a remarkable Year you know for what but of that in its proper place What is next You may be will not own you were beaten by the Dutch but it is plain that if you had a Victory it was not worth the name of one but we have no more fighting under your Command How fared it with your Brother of France truly very well for the rest of the Year passed with great success to the French but none to the English What shall we do now What did you begin that War upon Hopes yes and great hopes too the French King 's supplying us towards the carrying of it on and taking the Smyrna Fleet and a multitude of Dutch Prizes but Prob Dolor all these Hope 's vanished and the Revenue exhausted and the Exchequermoney spent then Sir you were put to your last shifts Since Liberty of Conscience turned to so little account well you resolved once more to permit your Brother's Calling his Parliament to set down on the 4th of February 1672 3. the very day appointed for God knows you were so disappointed that I wonder you were able to set out a Fleet that Year 5. You come to your last Project for the carrying on the War and that is the Parliament and so by the good leave of your Banditti they do set down but that which is the greatest astonishment to me that they could look a Parliament in the face after they had advised and compleated so many Rogueries in an interval of Parliament and how you your self could sit with ease in the House of Peers whereas you could not but be conscious to your self of abetting and joining in with these these Rogues in their Villany Well then What said your Conspirators to the Parliament truly they communicated the War to them and the Causes of the War the Necessity of the War and the Danger of the War if not supplied but not a word of your hopes of never wanting them any more not a word of the Design of Propogating the Catholick Cause you mentioned the Medals and Pictures and the Flag but the Devil a word of the Northern Heresy and the reducing the States-General to the Popish Religion Truly Sir this House of Commons took pity upon you and according to their never failing Loyalty to the Crown knowing that a good Gratuity would appear to themselves put you off with the small Pittance of 1250000 l. tho those Pensioners would wash their hands of the War and therefore would not give this Money for the carrying a War against the Dutch but for the King 's Extraordinary Occasions But was this all they did no it was not all there was something else done that did some what allay the growing Greatness of you and your Conspirators for tho they were to be supplied for their private Occasions out of the 1250000 l. they had given yet they were sensible that the Nation began to smoak the true Causes of this wicked War and the End for which it was undertaken There was an Act prepared before the Money-Bill was passed by which your Popish Conspirators were obliged to pass through a new State-Purgatory or to be uncabable of any Publick Imployment I remember when I was abroad what Curses were laid upon the Parliament for that scurvy Bill and upon the Earl of Shaftsbury who tho then Lord Chancellor yet engaged so far in that Act and in defence of the Protestant Religion that in due time it cost him his Place which notwithstanding the Popish Parties bitter Curses he won a fair Reputation and became to their great grief a zealous Assertor of the Rights of the People of England Was this all No your first step to the Establishment of Popery the Indulgence I mean was called in question and tho the Popish Party had contributed more than it was worth for the carrying on of the War the King was pleased to cancel it and promised that he never would do so any more and passed the Test-Bill Did he so Had he not promised the Princess your Sister that he would restore the Roman Catholick Religion and that he would begin first in Ireland in order to which you know the Lord Roberts was removed and another that was base enough to do such a Jobb was sent in his room and you in your Brother's Name engaged the same to your Popish Contributors and he engaged in his own name the like It is scarce possible to believe it how could he answer this to Lewis the French King For it was his Agreement with him to have the same Government and the same Religion truly he could not tell how to help it the Sons of Zerviah were too many for him And 1250000 l. was not to be lost for want of a compliance with the Parliament and to you the King promised that he would make it up to the Roman Catholicks another way but how and when I
occasion the lessening the Affections of the People to your Person and for that you were so nearly related to the Crown they desired that your Honour and Esteem should be preserved But had they known of your Trayterous Confederacy with the French King and with him designing to subvert our Religion Laws and Liberties they would sooner have addressed for your being Banished from the King's Presence and his Councils for ever if not to have sent you out of the World as you justly deserved But Sir you may remember that you once were the Darling of the Nation and had the Esteem and Affections of the People upon the Account of your being the Son and Brother of a King and stood in a very near Relation to the Crown of England in the time of your Brothers Reign but when your Traiterous Designs were laid open the Parliament Apr. 27. 1679. Resolved That your being a Papist and the Hopes of your coming such to the Crown had given the greatest Encouragement to the then discovered Conspiracy and Designs of the Papists against his Majesty your Brother and the Protestant Religion Notwithstanding this Vote of the House of Commons you had an impudent Crew that did endeavour to perswade the Nation and not without some Effect through the Power of their bold Asseverations that you were no Papist but of the established Religion only that you were a Prince of more Generosity and Greatness of Mind than to comply with the Capricio's of a Parliament in Renouncing this or Swearing to that as they should in humour enact which Roguery in Conversation passed with a great many Rascally Profligate Protestants who would not believe your being a Papist till the day you opened your Chappel or Oratory the next or next Sunday but one after you took the Crown 5. The Parliament was of an Opinion that for an Age after the Consummation of the said Marriage at the least the People of England would be under continued Apprehensions of the Growth of Popery and the Danger of the Protestant Religion and so they were an Age before For when they saw so many Piracies made on the Dutch Factories in the Years 1663 1664. and a wicked War commenced in the Year 1665. and the City fired by Papists in the Year 1666. and the Papists incouraged not only in the Years aforesaid but in the Year 1667. and 1668. and Persons that had a hand in firing the City of London not only protected but preferred and the Trpiple League broken and another ungodly War proclaimed Priests and Jesuits increasing in their Numbers and their Insolencies and Impudence This increased the Fears and Jealousies of the Nation and your first Lâ—dy turning Papist and dying such but when you married an Italian Papist you had more Eyes upon you and the People by degrees began to see into your Designs against the Protestant Religion and Government That the Protestant Religion was by this means in danger is beyond Disputation for it had three great Enemies conspiring against it that had made a League together to destroy it and all those Princes and States that did intend to maintain and uphold it viz. your Brother Charles the French King and your self and this Confederacy was set up to destroy the Prince of Orange the Government of the States-General and the Parliament of England and this the Parliament feared and therefore they interposed in this marriage Object But here an Objection will arise Why should the Parliament object against this Match and be so zealous in their Interposition to prevent this Match with the Daughter of Modena since it is plain you in view of the World had been for several Months ingaged in a Treaty of Marriage with another Catholick Princess yet a Parliament nay that very Parliament held during the time of the Treaty and not the least Exception taken at it To this I Answer 1. That the Archduchess of Inspruck though she was of the Romish Religion yet she was an avowed Enemy of the French Cause and Interest For observe this there were many Papists which Sir you hated and by your Conspirators were looked upon with an evil Eye for the Lord Castlehaven that was one that served the King of Spain was one that was used very hardly by you Sir Kenelm Digby was also very obnoxious to you and so was my Master the Duke of Norfolk being one of the Spanish Faction and Anderson the Priest and several others that I can when called to it name who were Enemies of the French Faction And this Lady being not of the French Faction and Interest the Match through the Influence of the French King was broken and this Piece of Flesh you have was sent from Modena in her Room 2. The Match between you and that Duchess was never so near a Consummation as this between the Daughter of Modena and you was de non Appaparentibus non existentibus eadem est Ratio the Match did not appear to them therefore they touched not upon it But to make sure they addressed the King that you might not match with Modena or any other Popish Princess for several weighty Considerations 6. The House of Commons considered that your Princess of Modena being so near a Relation and Kindred to the many Eminent Persons of the Court of Rome might give great Opportunities to promote their Designs and carry on their Practices amongst us and by the same means penetrate into the most secret Councils of the King your Brother and more easily discover the State of the whole Kingdom It is observed that it is a standing Rule amongst the Venetians that if one of their Senators have a Relation that is made a Pope or Cardinal or is preferred to any great Dignity in the Court of Rome that the said Senator withdraws from or is dismissed his serving in the said Senate And the Reason is plain First Because they will not be imposed upon by any of that Vermine and Secondly Because they will not have their Councils looked into by any that belong to the Court of Rome nor Thirdly Will they have the Secrets of their Government discovered to them and lastly they will not have the State of their Commonwealth exposed to the Censure of the Ecclesiastical State Sir You were no sooner married but how Letters pass betwixt the Court of Rome and you self and your servant Coleman Jan. 4. 1676. Cardinal Howard writing to Coleman intimates That Sir Henry Tichburn was appointed by you to be your Minister at Rome and rejoyced at the Prorogation of the Parliament and further said That if the King would do well then all would do well Now you know what was meant by the King 's doing well that is if he were removed In that Letter he saith he hoped to do you good Service It is plain that now not only France but Rome was also to be interested in your Councils to destroy the King your Brother and expose the Councils and Secrets of the
but procured it after the Violence committed and it was antedated on design to serve a turn at that time yet the said Baily was fined 6000 Marks and kept in Prison for a long time which sort of Proceedings put the poor Protestants under sad Apprehensions 3. Now Sir I pray remember how your Conspirators used the poor Protestants when they had them in Prison There was fourteen Men taken at a Field Meeting who without being legally convict of that or any other Crime were secretly and in the Night taken out of a Prison upon a Warrant signed by the Earl of Linlithgo and the Lords Hatton and Collington and were delivered to Captain Maitland who had been Page to Duke Lauderdale but after a French Officer and was making his Levies in Scotland and were carried over to the Service of the French King in the Year 1676. Your Conspirators in Scotland did for your Brother's Service and yours upon many Occasions proceed to the most unreasonable and arbitrary Fines either for slight Offences or for Offences where the Fine is regulated by Law which they have never considered when the Persons were obnoxious to them So the Lord Cardross was fined 11000 l. for his Ladies keeping two Meetings in his House and Baptizing a Child by an outed Minister without his Knowledge the Provost formerly mentioned and Baily and many others were also fined without any Regard had to the Law 4. Give me leave Sir to put you in mind of a fourth Piece of Villany acted by you and your Brother upon the Protestants of Scotland Your Conspirators by your Brother's Authority and your Procurement did several times proceed to take away Gentlemens Dwelling houses from them and to put Garrisons into them even in the time of Peace contrary to all Law Justice and Reason In the Year 1675 it was designed against twelve Protestant Noblemen and Gentlemen and executed upon the Houses of the Earl of Callendar the Lord Cardross the Lady Lumsden c. and it was again attempted in the Year 1678 upon the Houses belonging to the Lairds of Chesnock Blaghan and Rowallane and they were possessed by Souldiers and declared Garrisons Nor did it rest here but your Conspirators sent Orders and required the Countries about those Houses to furnish them for the use of your Souldiers and to supply them with Necessaries contrary to the Laws of that Kingdom It was against this that Sir Patrick Hume now a Peer of Scotland applied himself to the Conspirators to have Redress and common Justice being denied him he used a legal Protestation in the ordinary Form of the Law of that Kingdom and was thereupon kept many Months in Prison and declared uncapable of all Publick Trusts 5. I must put you in mind how you by your Conspirators endeavoured to kindle a Flame amongst the Scotch for since you had disobliged so many of them and had begot such a Disaffection in them against you and your Brother your great Design was to keep that Disaffection alive and not only so but so to increase it as to make them rise and take up Arms in their own defence therefore in order to this in the Year 1677 April 19. the Letters of your Conspiring Jesuits to the Procurator-General at Madrid gave him notice that your Conspirators at London the Fathers of the Society had sent for Scotland three Jesuits in Masquerade to give the poor provoked Scots to understand these three things 1. That all the Miseries under which they groaned was from the Bishops and their Clergy which Doctrine they were inclined enough to believe they naturally hating the Government of the Church by that sort of Men as being against the express Word of God and tending to Tyranny 2. That there was no other way to recover their Liberty and Religion but by the Sword and this was certainly true for they had made all the humble Applications that could be made by Men both to the King your Brother and the Council in Scotland and could find no Redress of their Grievances for as these Villains were sent to exasperate them on the one hand so you and your Traitor Lauderdale augmented their Miseries on the other hand and all in Order to make them take up Arms in their own Defence 3. That the King your Brother was so addicted to his Pleasure that he neither would nor could take care in that Concern but left them to be redressed by those that cruelly oppressed them which was as notoriously true and you wanted not your wicked Instruments to accomplish the great Design you had in hand of enslaving the Protestants of that Kingdom so that the Method you took by your Jesuits by their Insinuations and by your Task-masters to oppress them you did very much incline them to take up Arms against your Conspirators in their own Defence Sir Your Jesuits in Scotland laid not aside their Attempts there to make the distressed Protestants rise for the whole Popish Party was at Work to stir up the Commotion by them designed in that Kingdom as appears by Letters from thence from your Incendiaries of the 11th of August 1678. Nay that the Work might take effect Eight thousand Scots that were of the Romish Religion should be ready For what to join with the disaffected Scots Such Sots you employed as if the disaffected Scots would join with them But the Truth of it was to Pillage and Destroy the Habitations of those that should rise in the Defence of their Lives Liberties and Religion for that was the Intent whatever Imaginations your Cut-throat Jesuites had in their empty Noddles that appears in their Pacquet of August the 10th 1678. directed to John Grove For you must remember that was your Design and Lauderdale's tho' your Jesuites thought that the poor Protestants might be brought to join with the Popish Party to make a Commotion there for when your Secretary perused the Contents he laughed at the Folly of the Scotch Jesuites but said If the Scotch would rise he cared not with whom they joined for their Rising was the thing that was desired Your Design had its effect for their Provocations were so many and their Oppression so great from Lauderdale and his wicked Party who were serving your Brother's and your Popish Designs to bring that People under a despotick Power and the Insolencies of your impudent Clergy was such that they could no longer bear and therefore in the Year 1679. they did raise Forces and armed them and by their Declaration they were far from carrying on a Popish Design for their Design was the Extirpation of Popery and Popish Prelacy out of Scotland which had been a great Grievance to that Kingdom And because Sir you may have forgotten their Declaration I will give it Word for Word and is as follows AS it is not unknown to a great Part of the World how Happy the Church of Scotland was whilst they enjoyed the Ordinances of Jesus Christ in Purity and Power of which we have been
ought to have considered That none of the vain Pamphlets that either Ferguson or L'Estrange or any of that rascally Crew ever writ were ever able to shake the natural and dutiful Affections of our English Nation to your Majesty and of this I am sure they have had sufficient Experience In the next place many of these Conspirators are Priests and Jesuits more fit to manage a Pen than a Launce to dispute of Philosophy than to discourse of War to have a low opinion of their own Parts than to be prodigal in their Assurance and let them say no more than what is true and judge that to be the great truth that is best made out In the last Place if that those have not been of the Tribe of Levi yet then they have been Fellows of desperate Fortunes which they are ambitious to advance by Lies and the ruin of their Country I do not wonder why they traduce and asperse your Majesty's Government for they are and have been for many Years plotting your Ruin and Destrâ—â—tion both before and since you were our King and the business is plain that they can never hurt your Person till they have destroyed your Interest and have withdrawn a considerable Party from your Majesty by which they may make a Stand then they may possibly if not discovered make an attempt upon your Person which they cannot do till your Interest is destroyed by their many traiterous Aspersions and they believed thrown upon your Majesty Nay tho King Charles the Second did comply with them in many things yet because he did not comply in every thing they spared not him but made it their business to traduce him it is true his Government was Censurable because he complied not with the Terms and preserved not the fundamental Constitutions of an English Monarchy therefore his Government was exposed to the Censure of some that opposed even his proceedings when they had liberty as they were Members of Parliament for they had just Ground to believe that he closed with the French Interest against that of his own Kingdom and with the Popish Party in order to betray the Protestant Interest both at Home and Abroad and the Conspirators they let lose their Tongues against him because he was not wholly theirs but ever and anon gave them the slip by which they were disappointed in their Designs therefore in a Letter of theirs to their Party in Scotland they plainly say That he was so addicted to his Pleasure that he was not fit to Govern and in another Letter they charge him with unsteadiness in his Resolutions as to Religion and when they had a design to hasten his Exit then they charge him with all the Falseness and Vileness that might be imagined to be in the worst of Men so that your Majesty is not the only Prince that these Miscreants have Traduced And truly it filled me with great Horror when I saw their Industry in dispersing their filthy and scandalous Libels against your Majesty and Government it being the method of those Men first to beget a disaffection in your Subjects against your Majesty if it were possible that your Destruction might be the more easily accomplish'd by them but your Majesty hath been very happy for nothing these Villains could either Write or Speak ever made the least impression upon the Hearts of your Loving Subjects but on the other hand it filled them with Zeal against that party of Men especially since they were so highly sensible of that Grace and Clemency by which their Lives had been continued to them for we all know that this was not the first Conspiracy that they have been engaged in against your Majesty I pray God it may be the last Give me leave to put your Majesty in mind of a Passage in one of Mr. Coleman's Letters to the French King's Confessor which is this he saith there The Design prospered so well that he doubted not but the Business would be manaaged to the utter ruin of the Protestant Party So the design of these Cut-throats prospered so well that they did not doubt but that in a little time their Business would be managed to the Destruction of your Majesty and your Protestant Subjects for they carried on one Design to Murder your Person and another to Invade your Kingdoms with a Foreign Force and they were much in the right for it would have been impossible for them to have Restored the Late King by an Invasion and to have set up Popery and Slavery without destroying a Protestant King and the Protestant Interest in England All good Protestants I hope will find to their great Satisfaction that these Traitors have brought Destruction upon themselves and their Party and that not a Man of them shall Escape for your Majesty's Proceedings with such will be as quick as their Gunpowder and much more effectual So that your humble Subjects may rejoice in your Majesties Justice upon these Men since Grace and Clemency could not Reform them Sir I was a Discoverer of a Conspiracy carried on by the Popish Party for the Destruction of King Charles the Second and your Majesty when Prince of Orange and for the Subversion of the Government and the Protestant Religion in England and all over Europe but it was my Misfortune to discover a Conspiracy to a King that was engaged in every part thereof but that of his own Life and I met with such Opposition from the then Duke of York and his Conspirators that it was scarce possible for me to have withstood it had not I had a more than an ordinary Presence of Mind to have supported me This Sir I say was my Case yet notwithstanding all the Opposition I met with all I gave the Popish Party such a deadly Wound that they could not be cured of it no not in the Reign of the late King though they had all the Incouragement that Men could have because the Villany of that Party of Men stuck so upon the Minds of the People of England that no Stone was left unturn'd to rid our Hands of them and their Popish King which was effectually done when your Majesty undertook and compleated the Deliverance of this poor bleeding Nation Many Men have wondered that the late King when he was Duke of York should have such an Ascendency over his Brother King Charles the Second since it is well known that when King Charles was upon his return Home to enjoy his Crown that the Duke of York with the Queen Mother was in a Conspiracy to have destroy'd King Charles to the end that he the said Duke of York might have return'd Home and enjoy'd the Crown himself the Lord Arlington discover'd the same and so the design was baffled yet no Man was so much in favour as the Duke of York and as a Testimony of the King's Grace and Favour He was made Lord High Admiral of England and held that Office till he openly refused the subscribing the Test
according to an Act made in the Year 1673 But he enjoying that great and mighty Office of Lord High Admiral of England for several Years He obtain'd the King's Favour the Court was at his Will and Commandment either for love to him or for fear of his Greatness and Authority He so demeaned himself to the King his Brother that that King would never believe that the great Interest that he had acquired by the Greatness of his Office should ever be abused to the prejudice of the Government but for the King's Service and Benefit he increased the number of his Friends and Followers by gratifying some with Naval Preferments and others with Mony always imploying his Purse his Credit and his Countenance for the strengthning his Party and that in such a manner as that the King could not but perceive it yet he so dissembled the Matter and pretended to such a degree of Obedience and Affection to the King and gratify'd him in his sinful Pleasures that the King did not distrust his Proceedings and that he might continue in the King's Favour he made it his business as much as in him lay to comply with his Humours and Humane Frailties And when he was forced to lay down that great Office by reason of his refusal of the Sacramental Test above-mentioned he obtain'd of the King that his Friends and high Church Conspirators might be put in Commissioners of the Admiralty in his place he made all the Ministers of state sure to him so that when he was banished into Flanders a first and a second time and after his return he procured that the Duke of Monmouth should be banished the Court he judging him to be his Enemy and then his Conspirators endeavour'd not in vain to keep the said Duke of Monmouth in discredit with the King But the then Parliament being sensible of the dangerous Conspiracy against the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and the King's Person carried on by the Popish Party and finding that the Duke's being a Papist had incouraged them in that Hellish Plot they having great hopes of his coming such to the Crown they fell upon the Duke and to prevent the Storm from falling upon the Duke the King sends him into Scotland after that he had bridled and sadled that Kingdom in some measure to his Hearts content He applies himself to his Friends to procure his return he is accordingly permitted to return to the great Joy of his Party He fawns upon the King's Whore that he kept in the Matted Gallery at White hall and who he created Dutchess of Portsmouth who had a great Interest in the King and obtain'd at first or last whatsoever pleased her of the King that whosoever he was were he never so high in the King's Favour that displeased her in time lost the King's good Will and good Opinion this Duke carried himself so towards her that he seemed to affect nothing more than her good liking and yet not so desirous thereof as that he would wholly depend thereupon knowing that the King although he always attributed much to this infamous Whore and was pleased that she was Reverenced and Respected yet he could not well bear that her good Will should be sought above his own Royal Favour But the Duke did continue his Friendship with her hoping in time to command them both and when ever he found any of the King's Ministers not throughly complying with him and not ready to follow his Designs he laboured by all means to have them removed and others put in their Places who would not fail him in his wicked Designs and Purposes nor to depend wholly upon his Favour and also to make him privy if need were to whatsoever Business and Affair of State they were commanded by the King to dispatch whereby he came tho he were out of the Councel upon the same account as he had left the Office of Lord High Admiral to the perfect knowledge of all that was purposed and determined by the King 's Privy Council and he was in such Favour and Credit that even the principal Officers about the King either for Faer or Love or by other Mens Examples submitted themselves wholly unto his Devotion and he had such Interest in the King's Court and Courtiers that all or most part of them seemed to be at his sole Disposition and to affect him more than the King himself He having Installed himself in this manner in the Court and in a great measure withdrew the Hearts of the principal Officers thereof from their Duty and Love to their King He thought it also not enough to be invested in their Favours but all the endeavours were used that he might have the Affections of the Common People to procure this he obtains the help of a filthy Strumpet called High-Church whose Blasphemous Preachers of Passive-Obedience and Non-Resistance did him mighty Service in order thereunto And what Feasting there was provided for the Apprentices of the City of London who were a sort of young Men who were to be by his Conspirators debauched in order to his Service and by the great promises of his Grace and Favour he easily and quickly perswaded the Conspirators to favour his Cause and Conspiracy Nay all the legal Force throughout the Kingdom from the Lord Lieutenant of a County to a Deputy Lieutenant and Captains Lieutenants and Ensigns and Serjeants were all and every of them his Creatures the Justices of Peace and Sheriffs were his Admirers and the Custom-house and Excise were all at his Devoire from one end of the the Kingdom to the other and generally Vintners and Ale-drapers were of his Interest and so was old L'Estrange the Guide and his little Scoundrel Clergy of the Church by which means many of the Common People were so ready willing and desirous to perform and accomplish his Pleasure as that in respect of their Obedience to him he seemed to lack nothing but the name of a King to be one Notwithstanding the great Honour and Reverence the Court shewed him in the Reign of his Brother and the Love and Affection the Commonalty did bear him the nearness of his relation to the King and the mighty Interest he had and the unaccustomed Authority he had in so slie a manner Usurped the high Attempts and Imaginations he had lodged in his Heart and the great Opinion he had of himself yet he was so far from appearing puffed up with Pride and Disdain to those that were much below him that he thought not scorn to give Audience to the meanest Man that had business with him Now how could a Man of my Circumstances having provoked him by the Discovery of the Hellish Conspiracy carried on by him and his wicked Popish Party and Popishly affected stand against such a Man of such an Interest for he and his Party when they could not hurt me by their Subborned Witnesses against me not only to destroy my Reputation but my
Subsidy of One shilling in the pound to the real value of all Lands and other Estates proportionably with several more Beneficial Clauses into the Bargain to begin the 24th of June 1671. and to expire the 24th of June 1672. together with this they gave the additional Excise upon Beer and Ale for Six years to reckon the same from June the 24th 1671. And lastly the Law-Bill commencing from the first of May 1671. and at nine years end to determine If you now you are at leisure will cast up these Three Bills you will find them not a penny less than 2500000 l. Thus Sir you may see what a Reputation this Tripple League gave the King your Brother both at home and abroad at home this Triple League obtained a Tripple supply which some men thought would as with three Golden Nails have revetted it All the Princes of Europe courted him abroad and were highly pleased with it the Emperor used all the pressing means that became him that he might partake of the benefit of that Alliance and was refused The Duke of Lorain who had been always a true Friend to your Brother and your self and by his affection to the Tripple League did incur the displeasure of the French King and lost his whole Territory It was seized in the Year 1669. against all Laws not only of Peace but of Hostility too because of his not being admitted into the Alliance for which he had so great a regard that the honour he had for it proved fatal to him he was left by your means to be a Sacrifice notwithstanding King Charles's Invitation of all Princes to come in yet when they desired to be admitted they were refused But in a short time all those Honest Counsels which had taken effect with so great satisfaction to the Nation and to the great honour of your Brother were all changed just as if Treaties as soon as the Wax is cold do lose their vertue the King your Brother went down to Dover in the Month of June 1670. to meet after a long Absence Madam his and your only remaining Sister and if the Duke of Buckingham and Sir Thomas Armstrong were alive they could tell what a pleasant Meeting they had and how pleasantly they passed the time of the interview and what passed I shall not now relate you knowing all of it well enough But as the days were the more pleasant because the King had not seen her for a long season so the Interview proved fatal to that Princess for though she left England in good health yet upon her arrival in France she suddenly expires Well then she dies what was the consequence of her death The Marquess Belfonds is immediately dispatched hither and a Person of great Honour sent to the Court of France and before ever the inquiry and grumbling at her death was over in a trice there was an invisible League in prejudice of the Tripple one struck up with France to all the height and dearness of affection as if upon diffecting the Princess there had been some State-Philtre been found in her Bowels or the Reconciliation with France were not to be celebrated with a less Sacrifice than the Blood Royal of England The sequel of this Interview was fatal to the Princess and the consequence of her coming was fatal to England for as the Treaty was a work of darkness and could not presently be discovered so the Parliament I told you must meet again to give a Tripple Supply to maintain the Tripple League and they being ignorant of what was done thinking all had been secure gave the aforesaid supply Sir You got the Supply what use did your Conspiritors make of it Was not the Parliament prorogued and met not again till the 4th of Febr. 1672. by which means you and your Accomplices had a convenient scope for the mighty work you had upon your hands to ruin the Protestant Religion and the Professors thereof and that you might be free from the inspection of a Parliament till this mighty Work was finished I observed to you That the King your Brother before the Interview was inciting of the Princes to come into the Alliance but from hence forward it ceased and as I said before when any did offer themselves they were basely refused Oh! what joy Sir you and the rest of the Conspirators did conceive with what diligence was Smith the Jesuits Agent in London dispatched over to St. Omers to acquaint your Friends there of the English Jesuits and from thence to Doway to acquaint the Crew there in what a happy way you were in to do the Catholick Religion service and that the King was clearly come over he having promised to do all things now that might tend to the destroying of the Interest of the Dutch and to advance the Power and Interest of France and if that the Tripple League were once dissolved the King your Brother would never more make any such Alliance with those Rebels I have seen your Letters dispatched by the said Smith You indeed with the help of your Hellish Crew your Brother being gained to your side in this particular you resolve upon the annulling of that Alliance which was of very little use for some time before it was totally dissolved In order to the dissolving this Treaty old Henry Coventry one of your Conspirâ—tors was dispatched to the Court of Sweden and he with as much impudence as truth affirmed at his departure That the end of his Journey to Sweden was to break the Tripple League and this is apparent that after his jugling with the French Ministers there and the King of Sweden the said King did never more prosecute the Design and ends of that Alliance until the breach between us and the Dutch What did he arm himself at the expence of the League and did first under the disguise of a Mediation act the French Interest and at last he threw off the Vizor and drew his Sword in their Quarrel Truly Sir I cannot but admire how successful you were in gaining that great Point of ruining Europe in general and this Nation in particular by this way designing the utter subversion of the Protestant Religion and all our English Liberties as I shall shew you in the sequel of this Memento Nevertheless I cannot but much more admire that Mr. Coventry that in his Embassy at Breda was so instrumental in putting a period to that first wicked and unfortunate War with the Dutch should at length be made a Tool of a Second and break such an Alliance as rendered England honourable to all Europe and by which all Christendom was fastened And that which rendered his Carriage in that Affair more vile and base since no man understood the Theory and Practick of Honour better than himself and yet could in so eminent an Instance forget it and himself too the imployment being more fit for a Butler or a Downing or some such Dunghil Rascal all that I shall say in his
good account of them would he but have joined Sir Edward Spragg's assistance to his own Conduct for Sir Edward was in sight of them at the same time with another Squadron and Captain Legg making sail totward him to acquaint him with the Design till called back by a Gun from his Admiral of which several Persons have their Conjectures possibly Sir Robert Holmes considering that Sir Edward had sailed all along in consort with the Dutch and did but now return from bringing the Pirates of Algiers to reason thought him not proper to engage in this Enterprize before he understood it better But some have believed that it proceeded partly from that jealousie of admitting a share of Honour and Profit in this Piracy and partly out of too strict a regard to preserve his Commission secret but two of a Trade could not agree and by this means the whole Affair miscarried and through the Bravery of the Dutch Merchant-men and their little Convoy Sir Robert was forced to quit the Enterprize and all that was got by this piece of Piracy never answered the great damage his Fleet and Seamen sustained When the News arrived of Sir Robert's Fate I well remember with what a sad Countenance the Conspirators walked about St. James's Park and Whitehall you your self was much out of humour at the Defeat Your Confessor Beddingfield told me That that Defeat was of such ill consequence to their Design that it had almost broke all their Measures 4. Notwithstanding all this a War the Conspirators were resolved upon And if Sir you will give me leave to descend to the bottom of your Hellish Conspiracy and that was that of Religon for so Pious and so Just an Action in which Sir you imployed Sir Robert Holmes could not be better accompanied than by a Declaration of Liberty of Conscience you doubting that he could not find that admirable Commodity in the Hole of an Amsterdam Flyboat therefore while he was trying his Fortune in Battel with the Smyrna Merchant-men on the 13th and 14th of March 1672. the Indulgence was printing off with all haste and was published on the Fifteenth as a more proper means than Fasting and Prayer to obtain a Blessing from Heaven upon his Enterprize and upon a wicked War that was to second it upon which you may remember that the King your Brother at your persuasion and the Counsels of your Conspirators took upon him the Dispensing Power just as you did when you usurped the Throne for by this Indulgence all the Penal Laws against the Papists for which former Parliaments had given so many Supplies to the Crown and against Nonconformists for which the Pentionary Parliament had paid more largely were at one instant suspended in order to cheat the whole Nation at once of all their Religion which they had so dearly purchased But you and your Conspirators may say How was Liberty of Conscience to get Money You well remember Sir that the Popish Party were so well affected to this Point of suspending the Penal Laws and Statutes that were against them and that the King your Brother and your self making such solemn Protestations to the Gentlemen and Noblemen and the Monks and the Dominicans that this Indulgence was but a step to the establishing the Catholick Religion That several Gentlemens Estates were so impaired in contributing to this wicked War that they have not recovered the same to this day The Monks at the Savoy were so undone that they could scarce hold up their heads And the Dominicans having parted with their All were forced to fly for the Debts they had contracted in that Juncture of Affair But the whole amounted to so little that it did turn to little account for the whole you got and paid into the Conspirators Bank amounted to no more than 356000 l. As for the Protestant Dissenters tho they made use of the Liberty you procured for them yet they parted with no Money they remembring what a Cheat was so lately put upon the Nation in the business of the shutting up the Exchequer And considering that the Indulgence it self was but an Arbitrary Act in the King your Brother and would never pass for currant Law when ever a Parliament should meet your Jesuits they pleaded that they had no Cash they having let great Sums upon the security of several Estates belonging to the Noblemen and Gentlemen that were of the Catholick Church And besides all this they had met with a loss from one that had lately fallen from them so that then they had not ready Money to part with all this Project did not answer your Expectation Tho your Conspirators did assure you If it were done it would bring a Million into your Conspirators Bank but such a Sum as it was it hath caused many a Popish Gentleman to sing Lachrymae till your Accession to the Crown and as a Reward and Plaister they were put into Imployments both Civil and Military which Imployments never let them see the fortieth part of the Interest of their Money the Principal being totally lost A War being proclaimed you must now carry it on What did you do with the small Stock you had you equip out a Fleet. The French King seeing you and your Conspirators ingaged beyond retreat comes into the War according to agreement and proclaims War against the Dutch not in so sneaking a manner as you did for he would assign no Cause but said It was for his glory and that such was his pleasure But by his Ambassador to the Pope he gave the Pope the true Cause which you durst not for your Ears give to the Pope or any body else tho that was the Design of King Charles and your self His Ambassador said That his Master had not undertaken the War against the Hollander in conjunction with the English but for the extirpating of Heresie And the French King to the Emperor of Germany saith The Hollanders were a People that had forsaken God and were Hereticks and that all Christian Princes ought to associate together for their Extirpation That it was a War of Religion in order to propogate the Catholick Faith You know that your Brother's the French King's and your Interest and Religion were the same And what other Design then could you have in that wicked War but to advance the Religion of Rome's Church and Power of France both at home and abroad and that the Declaration of Indulgence was but a step towards the setting up the Romish Religion according to the Agreement that was made with Madam your Sister at the Interview in June 1670. and by that means you met with that Contribution from the Romish Party to carry on this War of Religion against the Dutch who you judged to be Hereticks Give me leave Sir to make a little digression You know that the late Duke of Buckingham who was then in the Conspiracy with you was sent into France to borrow 40 Sail of French Ships and by agreement our King
Was this Sir to carry on the War or to go on in making of Alliances you know it was that Popery and the French Government might be advanced both at one and the same time so that Sir I have justified that head the unwillingness of King Charles's entring into and keeping League with those who would uphold and maintain the Protestant Religion but chose rather to make Alliances with France yea and keep them too with a King that had a mighty mind to destroy it 11. I come to the last Passage that I proposed in the beginning of this Memento to treat about and that is this That as long as King Charles lived what a dismal and difficult task had this Nation to suppress you and your wicked Popish and Popishly affected Accomplices and that when he died you were like to be his Successor and therefore the Commons took this into serious consideration and upon the whole that the state of Religion was desperate and that the Popish Conspirators would certainly be advanced and that there would be nothing less than the Nation to all intents and purposes ruined therefore I pray Sir remember the Vote passed Ap. 27.1679 Resolved Nemine Contradicente That the Duke of York being a Papist and the hopes of his coming to the Crown such hath given the greatest incouragement to the present Conspiracy and designs of the Papists against the King and the Protestant Religion Sir This Vote would have ground and beaten an ordinary Subject to Powder but it had not that effect upon you and your Party your Party was so prevalent at that time your Popish Party I mean that you and your Conspirators threw off all these Difficulties with scorn and impudence enough for it is plain enough that the Popish Party had such an influence upon King Charles as to favour them notwithstanding the notoriety of those Crimes both they and you stood charged withal For 1. The Popish Party had a great interest at Court upon the pretence of their pretended Loyalty in the time of the Civil War between Charles the First and his Subjects And again some few of them were instrumental in the escape of his Son Charles the Second from Worcester and the seeming readiness that was in that Party for the Restoration of the said Charles the Second in the Year 1660. this gave them not only a share of peace and Quiet under Charles's Government but procured from him a farther degree of respect unto them by this means they had a very great advantage of carrying on their Designs against the Interest of the Nation and Peace of the Government and this was the Argument Sir that you used for that part of your Banditti in order to join your Forces and strengthen your Party Give me leave Sir to observe to you how wicked a thing it was in you to embolden such a party of Rogues to ruin the Nation you used to say they were always loyal and therefore how many times did you procure great Indulgences from the Government against the express Letter of the Law for them while the rigor of the Law was let loose upon other Dissenters who yet continued more quiet and loyal under their Pressures and Provocations than those under Favours and Caresses and did not the King your Brother hazard the Hearts and Affections of his best Subjects and much of Royal Honour if ever he had any in appearing for his Indulgence of March 15. 1671 2 with frustration to engage if possible these everlasting holy Cutthroats but where was the Loyalty of these your Popish Conspirators For 1. Was it not at their instigation when they were in a Conspiracy against the Peace of this Nation with that Arch-Traytor Laud that was sometime Archbishop of Canterbury that the Uniformity of Service that was in England was against all Law Justice and Conscience pressed upon the Kingdom of Scotland which occasioned that breach with that Nation that was not without great difficulty and vast expence made up to the dishonour of King Charles the First and the English Nation You cannot but remember you have been informed who were the Prime Sticklers upon the occasion of that Service-book and other strange Impositions laid upon that people to foment the War between the two Kingdoms For in your Letter to Ashby the Rector of the English Colledge at St. Omers dated March 17 1676 7. to supply you with a dozen of such men as were used in Scotland in 1637 1638 1639. that would not stick at any thing to carry on the Catholick Cause in which you said that his Majesty of France your Brother and your self were ingaged for you then did want them and upon the receipt of your Letter the Scotch Colledge at Doway was consulted and 12 men were dispatched over for England for what Ends and Purposes you know well enough But to return to the Point in hand The Priests that were sent into Scotland in the time of your Father Charles the First you have been informed that they were sent by Cardinal Richlieu into that ancient Kingdom to enflame the Differences between the two Nations and the Motives upon which that great Incendiary was so earnest to kindle a War in the Dominions of your Father were sufficiently understood by those that lived and were actually engaged in publick Negotiations who have been so just as to leave them upon record to future Generations and they were the very same Motives that you and your Party made the grounds for the subversion of the Protestant Religion and our English Government these were your loyal Men that would have brought in a Religion upon us by a conversion of us with Blood and a Baptism with fire but the Good Lord I hope will keep the Land from the one and this great City from the other 2. Your Conspirators were men of undoubted Loyalty and this Englishmen will believe if you can make them because of their great zeal in commencing and carrying that never to be forgotten bloody Massacre in Ireland wherein so many thousand Protestants lost their Lives and were by your Hell-born Cut-throats basely and barbarously murthered Nay as a testimony of their Loyalty they renounced your Father's Authority and the Authority of his Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom and assumed the Royal Authority to themselves owing only a dependance upon the Pope and his Nuncio yet these men for that piece of barbarity were by you and your Brother recommended to several Princes as men that had ventured their Lives and lost their Estates for promoting the Catholick Apostolick Religion in Ireland by the direction and express Command of your Royal Father of blessed Memory and many of them in their old age were at your Brother's request and yours made Priests to get Bread for that piece of Service 3. The Loyalty of your Conspirators did highly appear in that accession they had to the Death of Charles the First they did contrive it and this hath been made appear to their
between the King your Brother and his Most Christian Majesty and your self which you say Arlington and his Party endeavoured by a thousand Deceits to break to the end they might supplant all three of you but Arlington's Design was to establish a good Understanding and Intelligence between the Parliament the Prince of Orange and the States-General You say that Arlington and his Party had used a thousand Deceits to carry on his Rogueries to betray the Councils of France and England and you and your Party used Ten thousand Rogueries to betray England Holland and the Prince of Orange to the French King You said through the Deceits of the Lord Arlington your Designs succeeded not but through your Violence and Folly his Designs succeeded to the Honour of God and the Happiness of the three Kingdoms and you are living upon the Charity of that Monster of Mankind whose Interest you advanced whilst you were here But you will say what is all this to the Purpose Yes it is much to the Purpose You may see that the Nation knows well how you interested the French King in all your Councils to change the Protestant Religion into down-right Popery and the well established Government into French Arbitrary Power and were not your Party grown to such a height of Insolence that they boasted openly of the Aid and Assistance the French was to give for the setting up the Romish Religion 3. A Third Step you took to ruin the Protestant Religion and the well established Government of England was your unhappy Match with the Daughter of Modena I must put you in mind what the Opinion of the then Parliament entertained of that Match and that you may see in these following Particulars 1. That it would disquiet the Minds of the Protestants at home and fill them with endless Jealousies and Discontents and would bring the King your Brother into such Alliances abroad as might prove highly prejudicial if not destructive to the Protestant Religion it self Now Sir it was your main Design to inflame the hearts of the People and put them upon a Ferment And you engaged the King in the said Marriage as might put him upon those Alliances as might weaken his Esteem with his People and strengthen you and your Popish Cut-â—hroats in your Conspiracy against the Peace and Tranquility of the Nation For Sir in a Letter of Coleman's to Ashby the Rector of S. Omers he saith you commanded him to let the Fathers know that that Match was to strengthen the Catholick Cause and Interest and that now the King your Brother who had ingaged in it would be engaged to unite himself in a more near Alliance to his Majesty of France and the Princes of Italy Apr. 2. 1674. 2. That they had found by sad experience that such Matches had encouraged Popery within this Kingdom and had given Opportunity to Prieists and Jesuits to propagate their wicked and devilish Doctrines and to seduce great numbers of the King's Protestant Subjects You that had such a mighty Work upon your hands as the Conversion of three Kingdoms and the Subduing of a pestilent Heresie which had so long domineered in these Kingdoms and it being a great Work and the Labourers in your great Harvest being but few and you being like to meet with mighty Opposition as indeed you did and an effectual one too so that it did import you to have all the Assistance you could that your Labourers might not be out of breath and tho' next to Gods or rather the Devil's Providence you did rely on the mighty Mind of his Most Christian Majesty whose Generous Soul had inclined him to many Barbarous and Traiterous Undertakings and tho' his Temper was in that very much like your own yet three or four Strings to your Bow were more than one for the more Alliances abroad with Catholick Princes would increase the Number of your Labourers in the Devil's Harvest Therefore in order to this what Alliances you were engaging your Brother in you well know and you cannot forget how all that Design was dashed and by whom But Sir you must be stone-blind and so must your whole Party if you did not see that Experience had taught my Lord Arlington and the Parliament how such Matches had been fatal to this Kingdom and to their Designs The Match of the King your Father with the Daughter of France was the first Step that was taken to advance Popery and the French Interest in England and when she came over what a Swarm of Priests and Friars followed her and what Numbers of Priests and Jesuits she protected and what Numbers were seduced in hopes of Employment under her or of Preferment by her Grace and Favour and how that unhappy Prince was influenced by her Councils till she had promoted a War in Scotland by the Influence of that old Incendiary Cardinal Richlieu and the Rebellion in Ireland and the bloody Civil Wars here which terminated in the Ruin and by the Just Judgment of God in the untimely end of your Father 2. The Match of the King your Brother with the Daughter of Portugal by whom he could through the Blessing of God have no Issue This Lady what she wanted in Understanding to be a Councellour she had made up to her in the blessed Gifts of Malice and Treason and Revenge which she exercised to the utmost And what Swarms of Priests Jesuits Monks and Friars were by her protected and with what Zeal she promoted the Romish Religion and protected Men that were in a Conspiracy against our Religion Laws and Liberties and how great Numbers were by her Priests perverted to the Romish Faith to the great disquiet of the Government the Parliament well knew And therefore Sir you must know that the Experience they had of these two considerable Matches how fatal they had been to these Kingdoms was a sufficient Motive for to interpose in yours 3. The Parliament observed how your Devilish Popish Party were animated by the hopes of this Match before it was consummate which were discouraged by the King's Concessions at the last meeting of that Parliament you know what they were the Breaking the Indulgence and the Passing the Test Bill My Lord Arlington and the Parliament were very prosperous in their Rogueries as you called them those Sons of Zerviah were then too many for you and your damnable Crew It is remembred upon the hopes of this Match that a Protestant could scarce come within your Court at S. James's but he was affronted by your Popish Crew and scarce a better Word than Damn you for a Heretick Dog and when Complaints were made to you of these Insolencies the Complainer found no other Redress than What Business had you there insomuch that this sort of Carriage was observed by the Parliament and upon this Consideration they interposed with all their Might to hinder if possible the Consummation of the intended Marriage to that Italian Princess 4. They did greatly fear it would
both in their Estates and Families that Scotland was a Field of Blood through many Barbarous Murders that you by the Hands of your Party Committed there Some of your bloody Crew here especially the Tyrant Lauderdale were exceeding glad of the News of these poor Protestants Rising and your Popish Conspirators and their Motly Protestant Admirers and Abettors did prick up their Ears at the News and concluded the Day was their own Our English Popish Army was to cut their Throats first and then the Throats of all English Men that stood in their Way afterwards And Lauderdale highly valued himself upon this Rising for Posts came every day to White-hall to bring the News of their Increasing boasting that now the Fanaticks had shewed themselves in their Colours and that it was by that strict hand that he had kept over them in Scotland that had been the Cause of their being quiet so long hoping by this to get Honour for his prudent Management when all Mankind knows that his Management was with a Design to make them take up Arms And it was you and he that raised that Devil but Sir you know whom you had appointed to betray them Sir you were in Flanders thither the News was sent to you not because you were ignorant of the Contrivance but it was a Watch-word for your Return But that you might lay this Devil which you and your Conspirators had raised and kill two Birds with one Stone therefore you pitch'd upon the Duke of Monmouth that he might destroy the Protestants there and that his Person might either fall in Scotland or his Reputation be ruined here at home therefore by your Advice or rather Direction he is ordered for Scotland in all hast for it was the Grief of your Soul to see him the Darling of the Protestants of both Kingdoms Besides Sir you knew that if he went Armed into Scotland without Assent of Parliament in both Kingdoms by an Act made in the Reign of Charles the Fâ—st was High Treason and therefore the Consequences might be fatal to him every way However he went by the general Consent of the Council and was well received in Scotland by Vertue of his Commission given him and draws the Army in Scotland together and faces these poor Wretches and indeed as Matters had been managed in Scotland it was a great Question if the Forces in Scotland would have been prevailed with with so little Difficulty to be commanded to go out against these innocent and oppressed Country-men of theirs had it not been to go under the Command of the Duke of Monmouth who marches up to the Enemy they by their Petition desire Liberty of Religion and offer to lay down their Arms it being given out by your Party that the Duke of Monmouth had a Power of giving them Terms but that could not be done by him for your Blood-hounds never intended they should have any Quarter given them therefore he had not that Power in his Commission of granting any Terms as was promised him Nay if I am not mistaken after that he had left London the Instructions that he had to grant Terms were recalled before ever he arrived in Scotland so that some of our Counsellors intended well and though all things were promised not long before to be acted before their Faces above-board yet they were mistaken for all the chief of their Consults were privately acted amongst your Popish Crew the French Ambassador and your Priests at the Duchess of Portsmouth's Lodgings and to give them a Reputation the honest Part of the Council sitting as Cyphers all was done as by an Order of the King and Council Well what then The Duke of Monmouth engaged with these poor Creatures but your Rogues and Trickers and Officers amongst these poor Souls soon left them before the Battle was begun so that the Pains of Reducing them was not very great nor hazardous and divers of these poor Protestants were murdered upon the place by one Oglethorpe an eminent Cut-throat yet alive notwithstanding they cried for Quarter which was promised them but how well that Promise was kept was seen many hundreds of them having been murdered in cool Blood under a Colour of Law as if they had been Traytors So that the Duke comes home a Victor in the sence of some and a vanquished Person in the minds and affections of others who would not out of Love to him have had him engaged with such an ill Company of Cut-throats in such a thing in Scotland they knowing it hazardous in many Respects however for his own Security he procured his Pardon for that Action But that Pardon though it was an Act of great foresight in the Duke yet the Judgment of Heaven pursued him for as he contributed to the Murder of so many poor Protestants by the Help of Popish Cut-throats so he himself was murdered and his Friends by you and your Popish Cut-throats It will not be amiss Sir to put you in mind of your Cut-throat Lauderdale of whom you made such use and who complied against his Understanding Judgment and Conscience if he had any with you and your Brother in all those Villainous Acts and Barbarous Inhumanities in Scotland I will now shew the Opinion that our English Parliament had of that Monster of Mankind 1. Remember Sir the Address of the House of Commons to the King your Brother on April 23. 1675. for then they found that some persons in great Employment under that King had fomented Designs against the Interest of the Subject intending to deprive Great Britain of its ancient Rights and Liberties that thereby they might the more easily introduce the Popish Religion and Arbitrary Government to the ruine and destruction of the Subjects thereof amongst whom they had just cause to accuse for a promoter of such Designs the Duke of Lauderdale because it had been testified in their House by several Members of Parliament That in a Hearing before the Council in the Case of Mr. Pennystone Whalley who had committed Mr. John James contrary to the King's Declaration of the 15th of March 1671 the said Duke of Lauderdale did publickly affirm in the presence of the King your Brother and before several then attending the Board that the King's Edicts were to be obey'd for that they were equal with the Laws and ought to be observ'd in the first place thereby justifying the said Declaration and the Proceedings thereupon and declaring his Inclination to Arbitrary Councels in terror of all good Protestants This Sir was not all but they had a farther confirmation of this Opinion by two Acts of Parliament of a very strange and dangerous nature which they had found in the printed Statutes of Scotland the first whereof was in the third Session of the first Parliament held under the King your Brother Cap. 25. and the other in a second Parliament Cap. 2. the like had never passed since the union of the two Crowns and were contrary to an Act passed
in the fourth year of the Reign of James the First your Grandfather which intended the better abolition of all memory of Hostility and the dependencies thereof between England and Scotland and the better repressing the Occasions of Discord and Disorders for time to come and of a like Act passed about the same time in Scotland by the force of which said late Acts there was a Militia setled in that Kingdom of Twenty thousand Foot and Two thousand Horse who were obliged to be in a readiness to march into any part of the Kingdom of England for any service wherein your Brother's Honour and Greatness might be concerned and they were to obey such Orders and Directions as they should from time to time receive from the Privy Council of that Kingdom By colour of which general words the then Parliament did conceive that the Kingdom of England was liable to be invaded upon any pretence whatsoever And this was done by the procurement of that Lauderdale he having been all the time of those Transactions Principal Secretary of that Kingdom and chiefly intrusted with the administration of the Affairs of State there and he being Commissioner for holding the Parliament at the time of passing the latter of the said Acts whereby the providing the said Horse and Foot was effectually imposed upon that Kingdom and that extraordinary Power vested in the Privy Council there so that the Commons of England conceived they had just reason to apprehend the ill Consequences of so great and an unusal Power especially since at that time the Affairs of the Kingdom of Scotland were managed by the said Duke who publish'd himself to be a Person of such pernicious Principles thereupon they pray'd the King your Brother to dismiss him from all his Employments and forbid him his Presence and Counsels for ever as a person obnoxious and dangerous to the Government This Sir is the Character and these are the Qualifications of a person that your Conspirators judg'd meet for a man to serve your Cause and Interest and how near he brought the People of Scotland to the French Government and Interest I must leave an impartial Reader to judge he wanted nothing but a King to make an Example of him and all such profligate Monsters of Mankind But I will give you a second Instance of the good Opinion that the Commons of England assembled in Parliament had of this Varlet and that is as follows 2. Upon the 10th of May 1678 the Commons of England assembled in that Parliament represented to the King your Brother the deplorable condition the state of the Kingdom thro' evil Counsellors which Sir you know were your Conspirators and were designing to overthrow the Protestant Interest in both Kingdoms and were the Cause why the King your Brother follow'd not the Advice of his Parliament for the redressing of Grievances amongst whom they reckon'd John Duke of Lauderdale and pray'd that the King would remove him from his Council and Presence for ever 3. I hasten to a third Instance of the Opinion that the Commons of England had of the said Duke of Lauderdale and that was in a Parliament held in May 10th 1679. They tell the King in their Address That they found the Kingdoms involv'd in imminent dangers and great difficulties by the evil designs and pernicious Counsels of some who had been and were then actually in high Places of Trust and Authority about the Person of the then King who contrary to the Duty of their Places by their arbitrary and destructive Counsels tending to the subversion of the Rights Liberties and Properties of the People of Great Britain and the alteration of the Protestant Religion did endeavour to alienate the Hearts of the People from the then King and his Government amongst whom they had just reason to accuse the Duke of Lauderdale for a chief promoter of such Counsels and more particularly for contriving and endeavouring to raise Jealousies and Misunderstandings between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland whereby Hostilities might have ensued and might have risen between the two Nations They took notice of the many repeated Addresses of the immediate preceding Parliament and were much concerned that notwithstanding those Addresses they found that Duke Lauderdale with all his Qualifications continued in the Councils of the then King for that the Affairs of the Kingdom required that none should be put into such Employments but such as were not only of known Abilities Interest and Esteem in the Nation but also were without all suspicion of mistaking or betraying the true Interest of the Nation Upon these Considerations a new Parliament pray'd the then King to remove him the said Duke Lauderdale from his Employments and Person and Councels for ever You well know that in the Month of February 1678 you were banish'd into Flanders before the meeting of the new Parliament for the good King your Brother parted with his old Pensioners who lowed very loud for want of Fodder and to save Charges that stale Parliament was dissolv'd and a new one call'd whom your Conspirators by the insight they had in the Elections knew it would be such a Parliament as was not for their turns therefore a deep Consult was held how to make the Nation to believe that they were in earnest they resolv'd to discover the Plot and discourage Popery tho' in truth it was the two things you and your Conspirators aimed at to be still supported However to blind the Eyes of Mankind it was resolved that all imaginable symptoms should be publickly professed both for the discovery of the Popish Plot and leaving you and your Conspirators for you were to absent your self from your Brother and go beyond Sea for some time upon these Considerations the one was That you being out of the way might stop the further examination of the Popish Plot then newly discover'd to the King who was in every bit of it but that of his own Life and it had a near relation to your self And by this means your Conspirators thought to preserve the Chief Conspirator alive and safe The other was for a gloss to make Mankind to think that the King your Brother and the Court were such mortal Enemies to Popery that he would not endure you his Popish Brother near him for fear of being influenc'd by Popish Councels But Sir you may remember that your self and Conspirators at St. James's were of a different Opinion some of your Partisans with all their might and skill opposed your leaving the Kingdom for that it would weaken your Party extreamly and make persons more bold to come in and give Evidence against you when you were absent than if you were present and that if you were absent tho' by the Royal Command of your Brother the King yet the People would be ready enough to say you flâ—d for fear and that it was in effect to own your self guilty Such Arguments as these were used by your Conspirators but the Whore Portsmouth
Parliament you used great Endeavours for a standing Army under the notion of securing the Peace against those Dissenters and Field Meeters but tho' you had labour'd hard in that point yet the Success did not answer your expectation so fully as to give you content Well Sir what becomes of old Lauderdale your faithful Servant and dearly beloved Favorite for I do not find him in this Parliament No he 's forced to stay in England not daring to appear in Scotland for his Hell hounds were not able to weather the Point because the Stream run so strong against him not that you had made any change of his Measures in the Conspiracy against the Protestant Interest and Religion unless it were for the worse and very desirous you were of getting him into Scotland and no doubt you would have served him a Scotch Maiden Trick Why so Because that Old Dog had been heard to say that all you had done in Scotland was nothing in regard the Oaths were omitted and that the Parliament was but a Convention and what you had done was in it self void and of no effect These were bloody words and highly resented by you and afterwards you had an Eye upon Argyle who began to snort at the Test and though he had been a Dog in a String to your Brother and your self some Qualm came cross his Conscience He therefore began to make his Interpretations upon it which were such as cut the Throat of the thing it self And altho' the Interpretation he gave could be no other than the genuine sence of the thing and plain to be understood that it could mean no other than what he intended to take it in yet it was so much disliked that he was then to have been made a Sacrifice under the notion of being guilty of High Treason only for explaining the Test he was accordingly seized and libelled against and found guilty of the Fact and he was then in a fair way to have lost his Life for his Ingenuity but he with a great deal of dexterity made his escape and so saved himself for that time from being murder'd by you and your Cut-throats there Scotland Sir you bridled and saddled and brought the Government there to be something like the French Mode differing nothing but that you had made the Scots the greater Vassals of the two And the People of that Kingdom caressed you highly for the grace and favour of their Vassalage notwithstanding which you were not willing to stay any longer there your Friends advising you by all means to return to England to secure your Interest in England you having setled Scotland to your content And this remember Sweet Sir that the Whore Portsmouth with her Bastard Son was by your Royal Brother sent to France to renew the Dover Treaty in which she was more successful than your Sister of blessed memory for she was caressed by the French King and her Bastard honour'd as a Prince of the Blood and she setled a firm Correspondency between Lewis of France and Charles of Great Britain pursuant to the Treaty at Dover This you heard of and you judged the Strumpet was undermining you and obtaining the Succession for her son which made you after your arrival at Whitehall more unwilling to return again for Scotland than before and you pressed the then King your Brother for your stay here but you were told that you must return to Scotland where your stay should be but short you obeyed and went by Sea with your chief Favourite Mumper who with you was like to have been lost but you saved your self and the Curr and lost some Treasure with a great part of your Retinue who drank your Health and went to the bottom But you arrive in Scotland and the Mony being lost your Intentions of having a standing Army there were sunk also Your stay was to be short in Scotland and so shall mine therefore since I have put you in mind of your bridling and saddling that poor Kingdom as a Subject and a High Commissioner for King Charles give me leave to remember you of your Carriage when you pretended to and usurped that Crown as King of Sâ—otland for by the Laws of that Kingdom all Popish Princes were uncapable of that Crown And because of your Omission of the Oaths that were to be by you taken all that you did in repealing them was null and void and to no effect so that those Laws were still in force against you notwithstanding the aforesaid pretended Repeal for without those Oaths the meeting together of Lords and Commons was no Parliament but a Convention which cannot repeal any Statute there Upon your taking that Crown the Earl of Argyle upon the 20th of May 1685 well knowing how the Protestant Religion must suffer in Scotland lands in Scotland near a place called Kentire and on the 21st sent forth his Declaration wherein he tells the Scots That the End of his coming was the defence of the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of the Protestants of Scotland against Popery and Arbitrary Government and therefore he required all persons from sixteen to sixty to come and joyn with him with Arms and Provisions necessary One of his sons sent Letters to several Gentlemen upon the same account so that in few days his Army was encreased to 2500 Men. But Sir your Trappan that betray'd the poor Protestants at Bothwâ—ll bridge 1679 escaping the Gallows lived to betray this poor Gentleman in the year 1685. for instead of shewing him the true way wherein he should have marched provided Rogues who led him into a bogg from whence he returning towards Glyde was fallen upon by some Scots and taken and Sir by your Arbitrary Order he was basely murder'd at Edinburgh on the 30th of June following This man had all along fought in your Brother's Cause and Quarrel and was an Instrument to betray his Father to your Brother and was murder'd in the beginning of his Reign after his Return This man had served your Cause and Interest in Scotland many years and had run in the same excess of Riot with your Conspirators but God opened his Eyes to see your base Designs against the Religion and Liberties of his Country and therefore nothing would satisfie you but his Blood and the ruine of his whole Family Well he is dead but I must say of him he deserved better Fortune in the World and more Favour from your Hands and his that is gone to his place Scotland did another time become a Field of Blood and till it was you were not contented But the Scots being weary of these perpetual disappointments they submitted to your Government and you then declared by the Advice of your Villanous Conspirators especially the damn'd Bishops that you were clothed with an Absolute Power and that all your Subjects of that Kingdom were bound to obey you without reserve upon which you did assume an Arbitrary Power both over the Religion and Laws of that
Kingdom From all which it 's apparent what you did when you were Duke of York was in order to compleat the Work when you came to be King James These great and insufferable Oppressions of the poor Protestants of that Kingdom and the open contempt of all Law Justice Sence and Reason together with the sad Consequences that most certainly followed upon it did put those poor People under great and just Fears and did thrice make them offer at such lawful Remedies as were Allow'd by the very Law of Nature tho' it was not with that effect that was desir'd Lauderdale and your other Conspirators did endeavour to make all men to apprehend the loss of their Lives Liberties Honours and Estates if they should go about to preserve themselves from your great Oppressions by Petitions Remonstrances or other means the Law did allow of So you did by several Scotch Noblemen and Gentlemen to their utter ruine therefore what Obligation you have laid upon the Kingdom in general or any one Protestant in particular both before and since your pretended Reign there I leave it to your self and Conspirators to judge And therefore blessed be God for delivering that Nation from your Tyranny and Oppression IV. ENGLAND NOW we have seen your particular Projects that you and your Conspirators pursued to ruine Holland Ireland and Scotland I think it will not be unnecessary to put you in mind of the Pranks you and your Party play'd both before and since you usurped the Imperial Crown of this Kingdom and then you will see whether you can expect that any honest Englishman should ever engage for your return again in Peace to this Nation Therefore I shall use this method 1. I shall shew you how far you were engag'd in the Conspiracy of turning the Civil Government into downright French Slavery and our Protestant Religion into Popery before you took the Crown And 2. I shall shew you what you contributed to it after 3. I will shew you the unreasonableness of the attempting your return hither On which Particulars I hope you have leisure enough to reflect and advise about with your worthy Ministry you have attending your person at St. Germains I. I will shew you how far you were engaged in the Conspiracy of turning the Civil Government into downright French Slavery and our Protestant Religion into Popery before you took the Crown When God was pleased to restore you and your Brothers you may remember that you came into a Land flowing with Milk and Hony for its Plenty and a well-govern'd Country for Religion and Virtue But this agreed not with the Complexion of your Souls you had another Game to play and this I found in a Letter of yours from Breda to old Courtney the Jesuite That you would follow the Directions that Mazarine had given you and then you question'd not but to bring the People to receive the Roman Catholick Religion This Sir was your Project and how you pursued it let all the World judge Therefore 1. Your Conspirators were resolv'd to remove all those who had been eminent in Virtue and Sobriety from any Command or Place of Trust in the Government I must not forget the Usage of those who had been great Instruments in that Work viz. Two thousand Ministers in one day laid aside that room might be made for those whose Doctrine should enslave the People and whose profligate Lives should render Men Atheists enough to be of any Religion but of that which was according to Godliness Make them Atheists said Mazarine aad you will soon make them Papists Nay the love of Debauchery created such a Prejudice in your Brother the King against the Marquiss of Argyle that it was the chief Obstacle to his being pardon'd for he had reprov'd Charles for offering Violence to a sober Lady in Scotland in the year 1650 for which Reproof he never forgave Argyle to his dying day Nay give me leave to remember you that when that unfortunate Lord was in Custody and humbly requested but to speak one word with the King before he was carried for Scotland to be murder'd you took upon you to reprove any that should move the King with this Jeer. That Argyle was one of the Godly Party it was not for such fellows to see the King Or to that purpose and the King your Brother was pleas'd to say Let my Lord Argyle be content he shall see the Maiden e're long his own dearly beloved Invention And nothing was a greater Argument for his Destruction than his Piety Sir I can prove that those men who were concerned in Judging and Condemning your Father to death tho' that was the Pretence or handle you took to have them cut off yet the great reason why they were not spared was that if they lived and as long as they lived they would have been great Obstacles in your way of debauching the People and that was the reason of their being cut off for old Courtney being at London and admiring their demeanour and deportment in their Confinement gave you an account of their Piety and Devotion And so did old Hitchcock the Monk but what Answer you made them was remarkable your Brother and your self would never have had them excepted had you not been fully satisfied that as long as they lived you could have no manner of prospect of settling the Government and advancing the Catholick Religion both which have told me of their stedfastness and resolution to the last degree and could not forbear shedding of Tears when they discoursed that matter to me and if you remember it was the weaker part of those men that had their Lives given them not but that some of them were worthy persons but they had not arrived to those Experiences of God and true Religion as the others had done that laid down their Lives in that Cause But the truth is I never found many of them had so little Grace as to repent of what they had done Nay your Rage did not cease here for you by all the Wrong imaginable pack'd a Parliament together of greenheaded young Gentlemen the Sons of some Cavaliers whose Parents suffer'd in the late War and so were haters of Dissenters from whom an Act was obtained to empower Commissioners to displace all Officers that they should judge not to be firm to the King's Interest and Proceedings By this Knack you had all Justices of the Peace and Corporation Magistrates that had been forward in punishing Prophaneness and Ungodliness in their respective Places and had been great Promoters of Religion and Holiness of Life turn'd out and in their rooms were put all profane and ungodly Wretches Swearers by and Blasphemers of the Name of Almighty God these being Men for your Turn that you might the more easily enslave and so pervert the People And it was come to that pass that none could have any Employment unless he could swear and damn for the Church tho' they never came within the inside of
was a great mistake for your Crimes were so plain and notorious that an honest man would have thought the Laws of the Land and publick Justice would have reach'd you both without such irregular Methods as these were but I discover'd the Letter and the Trappan escap'd for a while and then God cut him off with Infamy and Disgrace 9. I must entreat your patience to remember another Instance and that is the particular Case of Mr. Thomas Dangerfield who was maintained by you and your Conspirators with Twelve pounds per week to invent a Plot against the Protestants the better to colour or hide your own What Papers you and the rest of your Conspirators contrived to be put upon the Duke of Buckingham The Gentleman of his Horse was Mansfield and he was prepared to be a second Witness against the said Duke as Dangerfield was suborned to be the first so that you might have the Blood of that great man as being one in a Conspiracy to destroy the King your Brother But Dangerfield had not been so mindful of his Lesson as he ought and fixeth himself upon one Mansel who had been a Retainer to the Earl of Essex who at that time was carried away with the dissimulation of the Popishly-affected Party but instead of leaving them in Mansfield's Chamber left them in Mansel's Chamber In these Papers there was a List of Noblemen and Gentlemen that were to be sworn against as being in a Conspiracy against the Life of the King your Brother and your self and Church of England And to make the World believe that these Papers were not forged this Dangerfield repairs to Secretary Coventry your old League-breaker and informs the Secretary who was privy to the whole Concern of a dangerous Plot against the Government and that there were dangerous Papers in the Chamber of Coll. Mansel that would make the same out but the fellow tho' he had been a Rogue all his days as God would have it scrupl'd the Oath tho' if he had said in Mansfield's Chamber he should have had a Warrant without an Oath but mentioning the Name of Mansel the Secretary was startled because that Mansel was a Favourite of the Earl of Essex against whom this Conspiracy was not at first to appear therefore Coventry would do nothing without an Oath in relation to Mansel because of the Earl of Essex who was then actually a Privy Councillor therefore Dangerfield was resolv'd to have the papers brought to light and therefore gets an Officer or Officers of the Customhouse to search Mansel's Chamber for prohibited Goods and then these papers were seiz'd And Mansel hearing of what was done when he came to his Lodging and that papers of dangerous consequence was found in his Chamber behind his Beds-head where he had never laid any he immediately repairs to the Council and complains of his usage before Dangerfield had told his Story Well then what becomes of this Affair so foolishly miscarrying in its first birth I must observe to you that Dangerfield is called in question and tho' he had many Friends in the Council and many that knew the Design well enough yet the Blunder that Dangerfield made was so great and his Story hung so ill together that the Conspirators that were at the Board began to be confounded and were much dejected that their Tool had succeeded no better for besides all his self-contradictions shrewd proofs were brought against him Yet notwithstanding the aforesaid blunder and his being so confronted with Major Richardson and others Dangerfield was as bold as his Folly was great and stood in it that the Papers taken in Mansel's Lodgings were not put there by him till at last the proof of the Customhouse Officer that searched and Dangerfield's own words the Cheat and the Roguery was most manifest so that the Council tho' many of them your Conspirators and his intimate Friends were of necessity obliged to commit him to Newgate who being there was still upheld by that Whore Cellier and the rest of your Conspirators who had redeem'd him out of Newgate for this very end and purpose and had forbad him to discover but some Letters being discover'd and he being out of all hopes made his application to the then Lord Mayor to take his discovery which was done and upon that Discovery it plainly appear'd who set him on work to frame such a piece of Villany You were so nettl'd at the Discovery that instead of the Lord Mayor's having Thanks return'd him for his Service to the King and the Nation that he met with a Check at Court for meddling in that which concerned him not But by this Trick the Earl of Essex's Eyes were open'd and he fairly left you and the Council abhorring such Villanies as never was to be parallel'd in future nor heard of in past Ages Your Sham-Plot thus miscarrying and the Book found in the Meal-Tub shewing who they were that was to be sworn out of their Lives falsly appearing you know Sir that you were with your Accomplices at a stand for Sir you know that this Villany if it had been placed with Mansfield the Duke of Buckingham's Servant who was to have been a second Witness with Dangerfield and both these to have been corroborated by Blood Butler and Seely you would have cut off by a Form of Justice all such persons as had stood in opposition to your wicked Designs and Practices so that a new Parliament should have been open'd with the noise of a Presbyterian Plot therefore you know the Parliament was prorogued for a longer time and your self forced to part with a small Spell to get this thing done and the French King pressed for a bigger Seame which was happily prevented by the Duke of Buckingham 10. I must beg your Pardon if I put you in mind of another piece of Roguery your restless Conspirators undertook For a new Parliament being to meet at Oxford in the year 1680 1 they were resolved to welcom that Parliament with a Protestant Plot in good earnest to the end with more ease you might bring your cursed Designs to pass In order to this it was agreed by your Crew that Papers containing Treasonable Matters should be got to be written and lodg'd in the Houses of private men and shuffled into Gentlemen's Pockets at Oxford and before the meeting of the Parliament they should be seiz'd with such Papers about them and one Fitz-Harris who was to be their Tool was well acquainted with one Everard that was a Villain much of the said Fitz-Harris's stature or standard for it was a hard matter to know which was the greatest of the two This Everard had been countenanc'd by the Earl of Shaftsbury and therefore the said Everard was judg'd the most fit to joyn with him in the Roguery And Everard had agreed with this Fitz-Harris to be seized with these Papers about him when they had dispersed as many of them as would do the business but those that employ'd
these Rascals in this affair were such that it would â—ill an Englishman with Confusion to name them Fitz-Harris had his Instructions from your Brother and Portsmouth and when Access could not be had to them then they received them from Nell Wall a notorious Whore that from a poor Wench that washed down the Stairs was made her Mistresses Woman and privy to the whole Intrigue The Writing was drawn up and much approved by the King your Brother and the Dutchess and their Approbation signified to this Fitz-Harris by this Whore Nell Wall and the same told to this Everard by Fitz-Harris but no Mony considerable appearing unless it were one Thirty pound Everard discovers this Intrigue to one Smith commonly call'd Narrative Smith and Sir William Waller They are planted in a secret Room where they might not only hear but see the Transactions between Everard and this Fitz-Harris so that Fitz-Harris was apprehended and committed upon Everard's Testimony and Try'd and Condemn'd upon the Testmony of Smith and Waller and Everard and fairly Hang'd that he might not tell Tales So Shaftsbury and several others escaped that one time from being made a Sacrifice to your Will and Pleasure The Story Sir is too long to be fully repeated but when any of your Cursed Crew shall Answer this I shall tell the whole Story at length but this shall suffice for this Particular 11. Be pleas'd to remember how many Irish men were suborned to swear against the Life of the said Earl of Shaftsbury and how diligent your Conspirators were to suborn others that were of the same stamp for Roguery and Villany but God by the Industry and Care of his Friends deliver'd him and what these Villains swore against him was so inconsistent with either the Principles or declared Judgment of that Noble Lord and the Particulars of their Testimony so contradictory one to the other that the Grand Jury would not return a billa ver a upon the Testimony of these Rogues tho' the Court used all the indirect methods with that Jury to have the Bill found 12. Sir I must deal plainly with you and your Tribe that my Heart is ready to bleed when I must name to you the Murther of the Earl of Essex whose Throat you procured to be cut that very Morning that a Way might be made for the Horrible Murther of the Lord Russel who was by your means basely murder'd by a Form of Law and the great Collonel Sidney what Juries of Common Rogues and Villains were pack'd upon them by the contrivance of murdering Rich and North your two pretended Sheriffs of London and Middlesex Fellows that valued not the Blood of a Protestant but rejoyced that they had made you and your Conspirators drunk with their Blood I must not forget poor Stephen Colledge who was basely murder'd at Oxford by a Sett of wicked Judges and a Pack'd Jury at Oxford whose Blood cries to Heaven for Vengeance against you and your Cut-throat Party We have a Cloud of Instances against you and your Party of your suborning Witnesses against Mr. Colt Mr. Arnold Sir Samuel Barnadiston Mr. Covet Mr. Culliford Mr. Braddon Mr. Johnson Sir Thomas Pilkington and Mr. Hampden my self and others what a long and tedious Imprisonment we all suffer'd through the Testimony of your suborned and perjur'd Witnesses But this may suffice for this second Particular how you and your Conspirators from the very time of your being restor'd to your Native Country which was in the year 1660 to the year 1685 that you took the Crown III. A third Project that you and your Popish Crew had on foot was to ruine our Trade It was not enough that you fired our Cities and abused the Professors of the Protestant Religion by the many Murders that were by you and your Party committed by the help of your Mercenary Judges and Hackney Jury-men but you also labour'd heartily to disturb the Trade of the Nation that you might with more ease enslave it and bring in Popery upon us I will but give you only one or two Instances Many might be given to your Shame and the Shame of your Party if there was any such thing remaining with you 1. The first Instance I shall give you is the countenancing the French King to take so many of our Merchants Ships by his Pyrates and Rovers in our Seas and several Letters were written by your Secretary Mr. Coleman to Sir Ellys Leyton wherein several Merchantmen whose Owners and Merchants had been obnoxious to you or your Party by opposing Popery and Slavery he was by your especial Order to see their Ships and Goods condemned to the utter undoing of several Families And your Servant Coleman when any thing of a Tradesman was mentioned he used to say Damn them they are a sort of Fanaticks that have no Kindness for my Master or our Religion and it will be never well till we make them poor then they will be brought to obey Nay Sir this was your Language too or else you would never have been so much of the Opinion of the French King your most Christian Brother 2. A second Instance is taken from the Letters that were written to the Rector of St. Omers Richard Ashby from Thomas White and John Keines and others of the Society in London in which Letters from them and others were enclosed Letters to Thomas Stapletoa then Procurator at Bruxels to perswade the Father Confessor of Duke de Villa Hermosa then Governor of the Spanish Netherlands to inform him the said Duke That the King your Brother did not intend to assist the King of Spain but would stand a looker on till he was ruin'd by the French King Which Letter being not sealed I saw it and that in case the Father Confessor to the said Governor should not be ready to comply with the said Stapleton that Messengers should be forthwith sent to Father Swiman at Madrid to inform the King of Spain of the said Concern and to make the same relation of the business to the Popish Archbishop of Tuam of the Kingdom of Ireland who was then at the Court at Madrid that he the said Swiman and the said Titular Archbishop might jointly give an account of the Motion made or to be made to the said Father Confessor of Duke de Villa Hermosa and also to advise the Spanish King to seize the Estates of the English Merchants in their several Factories in his Dominions for that they had endeavour'd to transport their Estates and did transport them to England and all or most part in the Coin of Spain to the great Prejudice of the Kingdom of Spain And for the confirmation thereof they procur'd Letters from one Fonseca sometimes an Agent in London to attest the same this Fonseca willingly complying with your Conspirators and sent his Letter to St. Omer's that the Fathers there might give their Approbation to the said Letter in order to be sent to the Court of Spain which Letter was
Member of the Romish Synagogue You in the time of your short Tyranny made a sad Havock with the Protestant Religion and can we expect better usuage from you seeing you having Seven Devils more within you rageing against the Protestant Interest than you had before you left us What I say to you in this particular I speak not without Witness for it is most certain that you have and do to this very day entertain a very great aversness to any Man that bears the name of a Protestant Therefore since by your late behaviour to those whose Principles have led them to espouse your Interest and have followed you into France if they have any Sense of their English Liberties and of the Protestant Religion will abhor the thoughts of your return hither For if you appear so violent against our Religion now you are under so great an estate of Sufferings What will your declared Hatred be against Protestants here in England if we should admit you to reign over us For if you can presume to that degree of Malice as to deny your Protestant Tools your Grace and Favour at St. Germains What can we that are Protestants expect from you whenever you shall return Do you think that any of us should be so stupid to expect fair Quarter from you since your very Religion lays you under the necessity of Converting us with a Fagot and bringing us to your Obedience with the dint of a Dagger Nay Sir your Passive Obedience Curs fare not much better though they saved you from your being prosecuted for your being deeply interested in the Popish Plot and from being excluded from the Succession to the Imperial Crown of this Realm and also from being beaten out of the Kingdom by the late Duke of MONMOVTH What reason than have we not to believe that you will not only in general invade the Protestant Religion but also once again attempt the depressing the Church of England In your short Reign you sent Seven Bishops to the Tower but if ever you should return I will not excuse the whole Twenty Six from being more hardly used Upon which consideration I will appeal then Sir to your Judgment or the Judgment of your Friends here or those with you at St. Germains whether or no it is impossible for you to gain so great a Point as to be received again as a King And whether it would not be the greatest Folly or Madness in you or any of your Party to attempt it For have you any that are with you that are Protestants upon a Principle of Conscience How have you used and treated them and if they have no better usage from you since they follow you in their Afflictions and are contented to share with you in your Hardships as not to enjoy the Liberty of serving God according to their Dictates of their own Conscience How must it fare with them if you should arrive to that State and Condition in which you should stand in no need of them And if so What can we expect from you that have hated your Person and do hunt down your Cause and Interest out of the Nation Therefore the Duty that we owe to Almighty God and the Affection and Zeal we have for the Protestant Religion will oblige us to pursue you as a Murderer and an Assassin of the People of England and a Traytor to the Nation and those who shall be found fighting under your Banner will be used as Banditti and Robbers and Protestants that shall not have the benefit of Repentance 3. Consider we are English Men and that very Consideration might satisfie any Man that will but consult his Reason of the impossibility of your being restored to your pretended Right and of the folly of your many attempt in order thereunto Had your Interest been an English interest than your Conspirators might have had some colour for their attempt of this Nature but your Interest is a French Interst and therefore your Interest that you have espoused is incompatible or inconsistent with your being restored Here are two Points that must be considered 1. That your Interest is a French Interest 2. That a French Interest is not consistent with your Endeavours after a Restoration and both these Points fairly proved will justifie the refusal of the Kingdom of Englands admitting you to act and execute the Office of a King here again amongst us 1. Your Interest is not an English but a French Interest for as you followed your loving and kind Brother in most of his Vertues so you persued the same Interest that he pursued For was not the Interest of your Brother and the Interest of the French King and yours inseperably united Knowing saith your Quondam Secretary the Interest of our King and in a more particular manner of my immediate Master the Duke and his Most Christian Majesty to be so inseperably united that it was impossible to divide them without destroying them all Again his Majesty the French King was pleased to give Order to signifie to his R. H. my Master that his Majesty was fully satisfied of his R. H's good Intentions towards him and that he esteemed both their Interests but as one and the same and that my Lord Arlington and the Parliament were both looked upon as very unuseful to their Interests And again Father Ferier begged his R. H. to propose to his Most Christian Majesty what he thought necessary for his own Concern and the advantage of Religion and his Majesty would certainly do all that he could to advance both or either of them I communicated it to his R. H. to which his R. H. commanded me to answer as I did the 29th of the same Month. That his R. H. was very sensible of his Most Christian Majesty's Friendship and that he would labour to cultivate it with all the good Offices he was capable of doing his Most Christian Majesty That he was fully convinced that their Interests were both one That my Lord Arlington and the Parliament were not only unuseful but dangerous both to England and France and therefore it was necessary they should do all they could to dissolve it I did communicate this Design of mine to Monsieur Ravigney who agreed with me that it would be the greatest Advantage to his Master to have the Duke's Power and Credit so far Advanced Again If we can advance the Duke's Interest one step forward we shall put him out of the reach of Chance for ever Then would Catholicks be at rest and his Most Christian Majesty's Interest secured with us in England beyond all apprehensions whatsoever Our prevailing in these things would give the greatest blow to the Protestant Religion here that ever it received from his Birth If the Duke should once get above them after all the Tricks they have plaied with him they are not sure he will totally forget the usage he hath had at their Hands For my part saith he I can scarce believe my self awake