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A34178 The Compleat statesman demonstrated in the life, actions, and politicks of that great minister of state, Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury : containing an account of his descent, his administration of affairs in the time of Oliver Cromwell, his unwearied endeavours to restore His Most Sacred Majesty, his zeal in prosecuting the horrid Popish Plot, several of his learned speeches during his being Ld. Chancellor, his two commitments to the Tower, the most material passages at his tryal, with many more considerable instances unto His Lordships going for Holland. Dunton, John, 1659-1733. 1683 (1683) Wing C5658; ESTC R35656 48,139 160

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Si●… John Duncomb In the Afternoon of the same day the Earl of Shaftesbury was visited by Prince Rupert with divers other great Lords at Exeter House where they gave his Lordship Thanks for his Faithful and Honourable Discharge of that great Employment Thus this mighty Minister who had to the universal satisfaction of all good Men been raised to that degree of Interest in his Masters favour without a murmur laid all his Honours at his Masters Feet and was observed not to abate of the chearfulness of his Temper upon the loss of his honorary Employment I shall conclude this part with a touch of this Earl's Character which saith His choice Sagacity Strait solv'd the Knot that subtle Lawyers tied And through all Foggs discern'd th' oppressed side Banish'd delays so this noble Peer Became a Star of Honor in our Sphere A needful Atlas of our State c. The 16th of Feb. 1676. The Honourable Earl of Shaftesbury was sent a Prisoner to the Tower by Order of the House of Lords There were at the same time committed the E. of Salisbury and the L. Wharton The Form of the Warrant for their Commitment was as followeth Ordered by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled That the Constable of His Majesties Tower of London His Deputy or Deputies shall receive the Bodies of James Earl of Salisbury Anthony Earl of Shaftesbury and Philip Lord Wharton Members of this House and keep them in safe Custody within the said Tower during His Majesties pleasure and the pleasure of this House for their High Contempts Committed against this House And this shall be sufficient Warrant on that behalf To the Constable of the Tower J. Browne Cler. Par. The 27th and 29th of Jan. 1677. The E. of Shaftesbury was brought to the King's-Bench-Bar upon the Return of an Alias Habeas Corpus directed to the Constable of the Tower where the Council for the Earl prayed that the Return might be filed and the Friday following appointed for Debating the sufficiency of the Return and my Lord was remanded until that day On Friday the Earl was brought into Court again and his Council argued the Insufficiency of the Return After Mr. Williams Mr. Wallop Mr. Smith had shewed divers weighty Reasons in behalf of the Earl that that Court might relieve him they were opposed by the Solicitor General and the Attorney General who brought divers Instances why that Court could not discharge a person Committed by Parliament whereupon the Earl of Shaftesbury is said to have spoke to this purpose My Lords I did not intend to have spoken one word in this business but something hath been objected and laid to my Charge by the King's Council Mr. Attorney and Mr. Solicitor that enforceth me to say something for your better satisfaction They have told you that my Council in their Arguments said That this Court was greater than the House of Peers which I dare to Appeal to your Lordships and the whole Court that it was never spoken by them I am sure it was not by any direction of mine What is done by my Council and by me is that this is the most proper Court to resort unto where the Liberty of the Subject is concerned The Lord's House is the Supream House of Judicature in the Kingdom but yet there is a Jurisdiction that the Lord's House does not meddle with The King's Council hath mentioned as a wonder that a Member of the Lord's House should come hither to diminish the Jurisdiction of the Lords I acknowledge them to be Superiour to this or any other Court to whom all Appeals and Writs of Errour are brought and yet there are Jurisdictions that they do not Challenge and which are not natural to them or proper for them They claim not to meddle in Original Causes and so I might mention in other things and I do not think it a kindness to any Power or Body of Men to give them some Power that is not natural or proper to their Constitutions I do not think it a kindness to the Lords to make them Absolute and above the Law for so I humbly conceive this must do if it be adjudged that they by a General Warrant or without any particular Cause Assigned do Commit me or any other man to a perpetual and indefinite Imprisonment And my Lords I am not so inconsiderable a person but what you do in my Case must be Law for every man in England Mr. Attorney is pleased to say I am a Member of the Lord's House and to lay weight on the word Member It is true I am one of them and no man hath a greater Reverence or Esteem for the Lords than my self but my Lords I hope my being a Peer or a Member of either House shall not lose my Priviledge of being an English man or make me to have less Title to Magna Charta or the other Laws of English Liberty My Opinion is not with one of my Council who argued very learnedly that the Passing an Act by the King 's Royal Assent can make a Session because the usual promise was not in it It was without any Instruction of mine to mention that point The King's Council tells your Lordships of the Laws and Customs of Parliament and if this were so I should submit but this Case of mine is primae Impressionis and is a new way such as neither Mr. Attorney nor Mr. Solicitor can shew any President of and I have no other Remedy or place to Apply to than the way I take Mr. Attorney confesseth that the King's pleasure may Release me without the Lords If so this Court is Coram Rege this Court is the proper place to determine the King's pleasure This Court will and ought to Judge of an Act of Parliament void if it be against Magna Charta much more may Judge an Order of the House that is put in Execution to deprive any Subject of his Liberty And if this Order or Commitment be a Judgment as the King's Council affirms then it is out of the Lords hands and properly before your Lordships as much as the Acts which were lately Passed which I presume you will not refuse to Judge of notwithstanding that the King's Atorney General saith this Parliament is still in being I take it something ill that Mr. Attorney tells me I might have Applied elsewhere My Lord I have not omitted what became my Duty toward the King for besides the Oath of Allegiance I took as a Peer or an English man there is something in my Breast that will never suffer me to depart from the Duty and Respect that I owe him but I am here before him he is alwaies supposed to be here present and he alloweth his Subjects the Law My Lord They speak much of the Custom of Parliament but I do affirm there is no Custom of Parliament that ever their Members were put out of their own Power and the Inconveniencies of it will be endless Mr.
Grey Chandos Grey Howard Herbert Rockingham Townshend Holles Delamer And was personally presented to His Majesty by four Earls and five Barons viz. Huntingdon Clare Stamford Shaftesbury North Grey Chandos Grey Howard Herbert With whom the Earl of Bedford had personally joyn'd but that by a sudden indisposition he was prevented It was delivered by the Earl of Huntingdon in the name of the rest of the subscribed Lords And they were introduced to His Majesty by his Highness Prince Rupert His Majesty was graciously pleased to return this answer That he would consider of what they had offered and could heartily wish that all other People were as sollicitous for the Peace and Good of the Nation as he would ever be But on the Twelfth His Majesty of his Princely Wisdom thought fit to prorogue the Parliament from the 26 of January until the 11th of November next ensuing Near this time this Noble Peer recovered out of a violent and dangerous fit of sickness So endless were the designs and Conspiracies of the Papists against this Noble Peer that notwithstanding they met with many disappointments in their Attempts the Almighty Providence protecting his Innocence from their ●…ellish Machinations that now another Female Agent is discovered for Tampering with Mr. Dugdale to retract what he had sworn before King and Parliament towards the detection of the damnable popish Plot the sum of Two Thousand pounds was offered him by one Mrs. Price and divers great persons named by her to be security for the payment of it in case he would sign such a Recantation and affix the Odium of a Protestant or Presbyterian Plot on some of the Protestant Peers and others of known Loyalty and Integrity to their Prince and Country particularly on the Right Honourable the Earl of Shaftesbury Of which ●…rous design Mr. Dugdale being at that time touched with some remorse at such a horrid Villany gave his Lordship an account which occasioned the miscarrying of that foul and traitorous Enterprise Nor were they wanting in their famous Method and Artifice in calumniating and throwing dirt on the Reputation of this Noble Peer which is a faculty they are very famous for and on the account of which they may particularly value themselves ●… For now a Pacquet of base Libels and Treasonable Reflections were by the Penny-Post transmitted to a Printer and Copies of the same dispersed about the parts of Westminster full of venemous and malicious slanders and Imputations tending to the taking away the life of this Protestant Earl and divers other Peers of Right Honourable Account But the Printer detesting so black a design published an Invitation to any person that would detect the Author or publisher of that infamous Libel And now we are got into such a Bog of Plots Sham-plots Subornations and Perjuries as the History of no Age can parallel 'T was the mode for discarded Varlets Irish Skip-kennels and indigent extravagants to be treated and treating one another with no less than the Assurances of vast and mighty Fortunes and Employments in places of Trust and Honour on condition they would lustily swear the Plot upon the Presbyterians but none of these cursed projects were ever proposed but the Earl of Shaftesbury was principally though with many other Noble Heroes to be charged as the chiefest Agent in it To this purpose David Fitz-Girald one of their notorious Evidences endeavours both by Bribes and Threats to draw divers others of his Countrey-men and Complices to join with him in the Catholick Design They had been disappointed at the Ponyard and Pistol nor could have opportunity to dispatch him that way the remembrance of Sir Edmund-Bury Godfreys Cravat and the Assassination of Justice Arnold were caution sufficient to any discerning Protestant and now that method had been so shamefully and notoriously detected and cast such a just Odium upon their party other means must be attempted nothing so suitable to their Genius as an Oath and it is no marvel if those who can't ordinarily discourse without discharging loud 〈◊〉 of Blasphemies and Execrations the embellishment of whose comm●…ik is the Rhetorick of their 〈◊〉 and Dam●…e's If such I say should at some 〈◊〉 or other make their loose Breath serve them to better purpose and swear themselves into Estates and Offices Fitz-Girald had store of Guinnys he ch●…nks them lustily and shews them to Mr. Hetherington besides divers Five-pound-pieces of Gold telling him this should be done to the man that was loved with divers other Invitations to come over and transfer the popish Plot in Ireland on the Protestants This was deposed by Mr. Hetherington before the Lord Mayor of London In January before the meeting of the Parliament at Oxford we find the Earl of Shaftesburys hand amongst other Noble Peers affixed to a Petition and Advice to His Majesty requesting His Majesty that the Parliament might ●…it at W●…minster And because the 〈◊〉 Petition and Advice 〈◊〉 all through it such unque●…able marks of a most tender Duty and ●…ction to His Majesties person It may not be improper here to insert it to obviate the evil surmises of some who would stain the most loyal performances with imputations of a contrary nature At the delivery of the Petition and Advice the Right Honourable the Earl of Essex is said to have made the following Speech May it please Your Majesty THe Lords here present together with divers other Peers of the Realm taking notice that by your late Proclamation your Majesty hath declared an Intention of calling a Parliament at Oxford and observing from Histories and Records how unfortunate many such Assemblies have been when called at a place remote from the capital City as particularly the Congress in Henry the Seconds time at Clarendon Three several Parliaments at Oxford in Henry the Thirds time and at Coventry in Henry the Sixths time with divers others which have proved very fatal to those Kings and have been followed with great mischief to the whole Kingdom And considering the present posture of Affairs the many Jealousies and Discontents which are among the People we have great cause to apprehend that the consequences of sitting of a Parliament now at Oxford may be as fatal to your Majesty and the Nation as those others mentioned have been to the then Reigning Kings and therefore we do conceive that we cannot answer it to God to your Majesty or to the People if we being Peers of the Realm should not on so important an occasion humbly offer our Advice to your Majesty that if possible your Majesty may be prevailed with to alter this as we apprehend unseasonable Resolution The Grounds and Reasons of our Opinion are contained in this our Petition which we humbly present to your Majesty To the Kings most excellent Majesty The humble Petition and Advice of the Lords undernamed Peers of the Realm Humbly sheweth THat whereas your Majesty hath been pleased by divers Speeches and Messages to your Houses of Parliament rightly to represent
to them the dangers that threaten your Majesties Person and the whole Kingdom from the mischievous and wicked Plots of the Papists and the sudden growth of a foreign Power unto which no stop or remedy could be provided unless it were by Parliament and an Union of your Majesties Protestant Subjects in one mind and one Interest And the Lord Chancellour in pursuance of your Majesties commands having more at large demonstrated the said dangers to be as great as we in the midst of our fears could imagine them and so pressing that our Liberties Religion Lives and the whole Kingdom would certainly be lost if a speedy provision was not made against them And your Majesty on the 21st of April 1679. having called unto your Council many Honourable and Worthy Persons and declared to them and to the whole Kingdom That being sensible of the evil effects of a single Ministry or private Advice or foreign Committee for the general Direction of your Affairs your Majesty would for the future refer all things unto that Council and by the constant Advice of them together with the frequent use of your great Council the Parliament your Majesty was hereafter resolved to govern the Kingdom We began to hope we should see an end of our Miseries But to our unspeakable grief and sorrow we soon found our expectations frustrated the Parliament then subsisting was prorogued and dissolved before it could perfect what was intended for our relief and security And tho another was thereupon called yet by many prorogations it was put off till the 21st of Octob. past and notwithstanding your Majesty was then again pleased to acknowledge that neither your Person nor your Kingdom could be safe till the matter of the Plot was gone through It was unexpectedly prorogued on the 10th of this Month before any sufficient Order could be taken therein All their just and pious Endeavours to save the Nation were overthrown the good Bills they had been industriously preparing to Unite your Majesties Protestant Subjects brought to nought The discovery of the Irish Plots stifled The Witnesses that came in frequently more fully to declare that both of England and Ireland discouraged Those foreign Kingdoms and States who by a happy conjunction with us might give a check to the French Powers disheartned even to such a despair of their own security against the growing greatness of that Monarch as we fear may enduce them to take new Resolutions and perhaps such as may be fatal to Us the Strength and Courage of our Enemies both at home and abroad encreased and our selves left in the ●…tmost danger of seeing our Country brought into utter desolation In these extremities we had nothing under God to comfort us but the hopes that your Majesty being touched with the groans of your perishing People would have suffered your Parliament to meet at the day unto which it was prorogued and that no further interruption should have been given to their proceedings in order to their saving of the Nation But that failed us too so then we heard that your Majesty had been prevailed with to dissolve it and to call another to meet at Oxford where neither Lords nor Commons can be in safety but will be daily exposed to the Swords of the Papists and their Adherents of whom too many are crept into your Majesties Guards The Liberty of speaking according to their Consciences will be thereby destroyed and the validity of all their Acts and Proceedings consisting in it left disputable The straitness of the place no way admits of such a concourse of persons as now follows every Parliament The Witnesses which are necessary to give Evidence against the popish Lords such Judges or others whom the Commons have impeached or had resolved to impeach can neither bear the charge of going thither nor trust themselves under the protection of a Parliament that is itself evidently under the power of Guards and Souldiers The Premises considered We your Majesties Petitioners out of a just abhorrence of such a dangerous and pernicious Council which the Authors have not dared to avow and the direful apprehensions of the calamities and miseries that may ensue thereupon do make it our most humble Prayer and Advice that the Parliament may not sit at a place where it will not be able to act with that freedom which is necessary and especially to give unto their Acts and Proceedings that Authority which they ought to have amongst the people and have ever had unless impaired by some Awe upon them of which there vvants not precedents and that your Majesty would be Graciously pleased to order it to sit at Westminster it being the usual place and where they may consult vvith Safety and Freedom And your Petitioners c. Monmouth Kent Huntingdon Bedford Salisbury Clare Stamford Essex Shaftesbury Mordant Ewers Paget Grey Herbert Howard Delamer In October during the Session of the last Parliament it is very remarkable that Francisco de Faria Interpreter to the Portugal Ambassadour amongst other high matters relating to the popish Plot gave it in his Information at the Bar of the House He declared that the said Ambassador had tempted him to kill the Earl of Shaftesbury by throwing a Hand-Granado into his Coach as he was passing the Rode into the Country And about the 20th of Novemb. one Zeal being called to the Bar of the House delivered his Information at the Bar the purport whereof was this That being a Prisoner in the Marshalsea Mrs. Cellier came divers times to him and treated with him not only to be Instrumental himself but to procure others to Assist him to fire His Majesties Ships as they lay in the Harbour as also to swear against the E of Shaftesbury such Art●…es of High Treason as she should get ready prepared for him or to that purpose To sum up the many various Methods and Waies that were devised and put in execution to cut off the Life of this Noble Peer would be Task enough to fill many Volumes The Jesuites next to the Attempting His Majesties Life set all their Inventions and Engines on work to make away the Earl of Shaftesbury he was the Beam in their Eye the Clog that hindered the motion of their Curst Designs What have they not attempted that might render him distastful to the King throwing the foulness of their own Treasons upon him as appears by the Deposition of Brian Haines before the Council in Octob. 1681. That David Fitz Girald told the said Brian Haines that he the said Fitz Girald possessed His Majesty and had given it under his hand and Seal that the late Plot was a Presbyterian Plot and Invented by the Right Honourable Anthony Earl of Shaftesbury on purpose to Extirpate the Family of the Stuarts and dethrone his present Majesty and turn England into a Common-wealth or else set the Crown upon the Earls own Head with more to this purpose of which we shall have occasion to make farther mention when we come
after my Lords Commitment and when he was challenged and told he was to be a Witness against him whether he did not then say as he was alive he knew no such thing Mr. Attor Gen. told my Lord this was not to be allowed this was private Instruction which the Ju●… was not to take The Foreman replied no it was no private Instruction but asked Turbervill whether he had not spoke such words to Mr. Herbert Then the L. C. J. asked whether they had any Information touching that to Mr. Herbert the Foreman said he had a long time ago that the person told him so set down the day and was very angry with Turbervill for it The L. C. J. told them that discourses taken up at random at Coffee-houses were not fit to be brought in when Treason was in question against the King's Life that it was not ground to cavil at persons because they heard such discourse at a Coffee-house The Foreman said he never was in a Coffee-house with Mr. Herbert in his life but had the discourse of him some months ago The L. C. J. asked whether they thought that groundenough against the Witness Mr. Papillion replied they only asked the question whether he had not contradicted or said the contrary to any body Turbervill said he did not remember he had said any thing to Mr. Herbert in his life and that at that time he was discarded by all persons of my Lord's Interest and if he would then have given under his hand that he knew nothing against him he believed he might have been in their favour as before He was asked whether he was not one of them that petitioned the Common Council and declared that he was tempted to witness against his Conscience Turbervill said he did but that he believed he never read the Petition but was drawn to it by the order of Mr. Colledge by a Scriviner about Guild-Hall That his design in it was that the City should take care of him that he was not very poor nor over full of money some Members of the House of Commons had told them that the City should advance money for the support of the Witnesses and that they were to Petition that they would answer the design of the Parliament being asked what Members they were he said it was a Member of the House of Commons that told him so he would assure them he said what he spoke was voluntarily that he knew nothing more than what he had here declared he supposed his Deposition was given in after the Commitment of my L. Shaftesbu Smith being asked whether he had not used to go by the name of Barry said he had gone by several names as all Popish Priests do he said he had given in his Information to Secretary Jenkins he thought a little after my L. was committed but had given notice long before of what he intended to do to other persons But the Questions put to him being not very material and his Answers of little moment for want of room must be waved and we come to Bryan Haines who in answer to divers Questions put to him by the Jury said That he gave in his Information against my L. Shaftesbury the day that he the said Bryan was taken by a Messenger that he had before given in another account to Sir G. Treby of a design against the L. Shaftesbury about March last which was That Fitz-Girald had told him that he had given it under his Hand to the King that the E. of Shaftesbury did resolve to set the Crown on his own Head or turn the Kingdom to a Common-wealth that he had discourse with my Ld. at several times sometimes at his own House somtimes in Ironmonger-Lane that there Hains had proposed a Rebellion in Ireland that the Earl said that was not the best way they had other means to take and so the Discourse was waved being asked whether ever he had bin a Witness for or against the Lady Windham he said she arested him because he had said he lay with her John Macknamara answered to several questions put to him that he had discourse with the Lord Shaftesbury in March and April that he could not tell exactly when he gave in his Information but that it was to Secretary Jenkins that Ivey was by when they had the discourse That he signed the Petition to the Common Council but did not see it till 't was brought him to sign that he did not read it nor knew the Contents of it Then Mr. Papillion told the Court that in that Petition they say they were tempted to swear against their Consciences and that some of the Witnesses had made Shipwrack of their Consciences but if we should ask them who tempted them and who those Witnesses were that made shipwrack of their Consciences it would signifie nothing for since they do not know what was in the Petition it is in vain to ask them any more J. Macknamara said he heard Mr. Colledg that was executed at Oxford was concerned in promoting the Petition by my L. Shaftsburys Advice The Answer of Dennis Macknamara to divers questions put by the Jury was to this purpose That he was introduced to my Lord by his Brother in March or April last he knows not which that none but Ivey was by that he gave in his Information to the Secretary of State long before the Earl was committed Then Mr. Papillion proposed to the Court whether they might not ask if he had a Pardon for it would be satisfaction to them Ld. Ch. Just. North answered it might be proper when the Prisoner made Exceptions to the Witnesses but that there were no Exceptions to the Witnesses Mr. Papillion said they made no exceptions but they must satisfie their Consciences and that was very much as they found the credibility of the Witnesses My L. Ch. J. North asked what he should have a Pardon for Mr. Papillion answered for Crimes My L. C. J. North said They must not ask him to accuse himself Mr. Papillion said if he had a pardon he was in Statu quo suppose my Ld. some of them have been guilty of Poisoning some of Felony some of Robbing on the High way they did but ask them if they were pardoned L. C. J. North answered a Man must not be impeached but where he may answer for it Mr. Papillion said My Lord if you do not give leave we must for bear then L. C. J. N. said he did not think it proper Edward Ivey gave in answer to several questions demanded of him That the discourse he had with my Lord was some time after the sitting of the Parliament at Oxford about the latter end of March or beginning of April that he could not be positive when he made his Information but it was given to the Secretary of State that he thinks the two Macknamara's were by no body else he is sure one of them was That he gave his Information as soon as he