Title and Quarrel against the Lady Jane she published a Proclamation to forbid and inhibit all Preaching and Expounding of the Scripture without her special License Which was to subject the Reformed to punishment if they offended whereas the Papists were sure not only to be pardoned in case they transgressed but were thereby in effect countenanced to restore the Romish Worship and Service And when a Parliament was called there was not only violence used in divers places to hinder the Commons from assembling to chuse and the election of several who were judged fit for the Queens turn promoted by force and threatnings but there were many false Returns made and some duly elected forcibly turned out of the House Upon which all the Laws against Popery came easily to be repealed and new Laws made for the suppression of the Reformed Religion and the persecution of Protestants Which as it serveth to convince all that have not wilfully shut their eyes against light and who are not resolved with a brutish obstinacy to withstand reason what we are to expect from a Popish Successor notwithstanding all the Laws which we enjoy for our security so the rage wherewith the Papists are at present transported and inflamed against the Protestants of these Kingdoms and the temper of the Gentleman whom they labour to see advanced to the Throne may cause us reasonably to fear and apprehend severer persecutions in case he should attain the weilding of the British Scepter than ever our forefathers under Queen Mary suffered or met withal For the Scheme which he hath set in Scotland while he is but a Subject and greatly restrained by the Wisdom Goodness and Authority of His Majesty from accomplishing half of what we are to suppose him inclined unto by his Principles may sufficiently satisfie all mankind what he is like to prove should he ever come to act with an uncontrolled liberty and have an opportunity to display the complexion of his mind His proceedings against the Earl of Argyle do not more surprise all the World than they proclaim how little he values the Lives of the Greatest and most Innocent Peers if they will not become subservient to his Interest and instrumental in his Popish and Arbitrary Designs And as the Earl's offering to explain in what sense he was willing to take the Test is a thing which no Law can justly forbid and which a Cobler might have done in England in the like case without being so much as liable to a rebuke so it is not unworthy of the knowledg of the World that he communicated the Explanation to his Highness beforehand and desired to know whether he might not be allowed to take it with the Proviso's which he afterwards mentioned in Councel And as the Duke did not prohibit but seem'd to permit at least to connive at what was proposed so it is remarkable that the said Earl was suffered to take his Place in Council after he had taken the Test in the sense which that Explanation did import But his Interest in the Kingdom and his stedfastness and zeal for the Protestant Religion administring matter of dislike and jealousie seeing nothing more material or really Criminal did occur were thought fit after some Nocturnal thoughts and private Consults to be laid hold upon for the ruining a Person vvhom as they could not manage to the service of their purposes so they dreaded the prejudice he might do them by running cross to their Designs Nor is the Earl of Argyles entertainment more severe in having that called Treason vvhich the common reason of mankind and all the Lavv of the World justifies than it is expresly contrary to the Lavv and Practise of Scotland to condemn attaint and forfeit any unless they either are or have been in actual Rebellion but such as are personally present or have had Warning given them to appear But the unpresidented Severity vvhich this Great and Wise Nobleman hath had measured unto him may be a Warning to all His Majesties Protestant Subjects what they are to expect if this Commissioner in Scotland arrive once to be King of Great Britain France and Ireland and how little the Laws which we so much rely upon will avail us if we be found to thwart his will and humour And as Laws are no security to Protestants against the Malice and Cruelty of the Papists when once they are armed with Force and Power sufficient to destroy them so neither the Liberty and Priviledges which the Papists are suffered equally to enjoy with our selves nor the Favours and Civilities which we have been ready upon all occasions to heap upon them can restrain or hinder our being ruined whensoever they are furnished with an opportunity to attempt and aceomplish our extirpation The Bloody Cruelties of Queen Mary to the Suffolk Protestants who in effect set the Crown upon her Head and the barbarous Severities exercised at present against the Hugonots of France who not only with the expence of their Treasure and Blood established Henry the 4th on the Throne of France when the Princes of Lorrain would have excluded him but by their Courage and Valour preserved the Soveraignty unto him that at this time persecutes them when the Prince of Conde would have wrested the Government out of his hand are so many uncontrollable Arguments and Demonstrations that no Merits or Services can secure Protestants from the Rage and implacable Malice which the Popish Religion inspireth men with And as the Irish Massacre ought never to be forgotten by the Protestants of these Dominions so it had this ingredient to aggravate the Barbarity of it that it was perpetrated at a season when instead of having any reason to complain of their usage by the English they were in the quiet possession of equal Priviledges almost with themselves But if we will descend to the present time and take a view of what the condition of the Papists hath been since His Majesties happy Restoration we shall easily perceive what an ungrateful generation of men they are and that they are not capable of being obliged by kindnesses For to begin with the Irish Papists who of all men deserved least lenity from a Protestant Government it is remarkable that notwithstanding the Rebellion wherein they had been ingaged and the infinite slaughters which they had committed in a time of Peace without the least provocation administred unto them yet there hath not any Law been made against them since the King's Return save one against their living in Walled Towns which was suspended by His Majesties Command expressed in a Letter to the Lord Deputy and Council from being put in execution And as to the ancient Laws which vvere in being and force against them that vvhole Kingdom swarming with Priests and Friers and their celebrating Mass every where with as much openness as the Parochial Ministers do preach the Word or read the Liturgy are undeniable Evidences how little those Laws have been applied to their hurt or
pretensions to any such thing It is also remarkable and serves to discover their Falshood in what they swore against the Earl of Shaftsbury that they endeavoured to make themselves valuable and worthy to be trusted by great and wise men by pretending a knowledg of the Transactions of the world and affairs of Kingdoms which as they were never capable of attaining so they had but betrayed their Folly and Vanity in offering to discourse concerning such things to that knowing and sagacious Peer For to hear Hayn's depose That he gave my Lord Shaftsbury See Proceedings at the Old-Bayly p. 27. an account of all Transactions from King Charles the First 's Reign to this very day and that my Lord was mightily satisfied pleased and free with him finding that he was a Traveller Is as if he should have told all the world that what he Deposed against that great man was all Forgery and that he was only seeking to beget a credulity in the Court by a vain ostentation of his knowledg in Civil Affairs and his being qualified to be admitted into the secret and hazardous Counsels of the greatest Statesmen Alas an acquaintance with the Occurrences of Princes Reigns and a being able to declare the affairs of two Regencies in their dependence and order with the Causes and Reasons of a War which few can penetrate into the grounds of â—re not things agreeable to the way of Hayns's Education nor to be expected from one that is not wonderfully conversant in the Memoire and Registers of Civil matters and who hath enjoyed an intimate acquaintance with those that were interested in the management both of Civil and Military Concernments Their Malice and Perjury in this whole Affair are open and palpable by their indirect and evasive answers to plain and easie questions Such was Booth's reply to Mr. Papilion who having ask'd him whether he knew any of Proceed p. 36. the Fifty men which he had deposed were listed under Captain Wilkinson said He never directly knew or conversed with any of them And such also was Haynes's reply to the question which was put to him concerning his having given an Information to a Justice of Peace of a design against Ibid. p. 42 43. the Earl of Shaftsbury for as he wrigled to and fro a great while before he could be brought to acknowledg it the answer was neither full nor ingenuous Again Their not remembring times and seasons when such things which they swore should be spoken or when they gave in their Informations about them does proclaim the Witnesses to be Impostors and whatsoever they deposed to be nothing but Forgery For several of the things which they declared they could not remember were such as it is morally impossible they should forget them Thus Haynes could not tell the time when the Earl of Shaftsbury spake Ibid. 44. the Treasonable words about making the Duke of Buckingham King Nor could either Smith or Turberville tell when they gave in their Informations against my Lord nor whether it was before or p. 40. after his Commitment Nay Smith could not tell in what month he did it In a word the Demeanor of the Witnesses carrying things so as if they would hector people into a belief of what they swore and their answering the questions proposed unto them either with great difficulty or with great artifice and cunning proclaim to all impartial men that the Design upon which they appeared was very ill and that they were suborned perjured fellows There was not that modesty to be seen in their Behaviour nor that simplicity in their Evidence nor that plainness easiness and directness in their Answers which was agreeable to Truth but their whole carriage and the manner of their delivering themselves was starch't huffing artificial and full of trick But whereas there is a Paper stiled An Association pretended to be found among other Writings in the Earl of Shaftsbury's Closet that morning he was apprehended upon which great stress is laid towards the proving a Conspiracy of this Lord and other Protestants against His Majesty and the Government I shall therefore with all that modesty which becomes me in reference to persons in Authority and yet with all that freedom which the Innocency of Peers and Gentlemen unjustly accused doth require take this Paper a little into consideration and make some just and modest Reflections in reference unto it An Association for the preservation of the King and the Protestant Religion if it be duly drawn and contain nothing in it contrary to the Rights and Prerogatives of His Majesty the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties and Property of the People will neither be found so new nor so surprising a thing as that the Grand Juries of the several Counties should be influenced and perswaded to abhor it For our Ancestors in Queen Elizabeths time being apprehensive that the Queens Life the Peace of the Kingdom and the Protestant Religion were in danger from the Papists upon the hope they had of a Popish Successor in case of the Queens Death they thereupon entred into an Association for the preservation of her Majesties Life and the revenging her Death if she should have perished by violent hands which instead of being ridicul'd and declared against was not only unanimously subscribed by the most considerable persons in the Kingdom but both approved and ratified by an Act of the Parliament that next followed But whether it was that our Forefathers loved the Queen and were more zealous for their Religion than we love his present Majesty and are zealous for ours or whether they thought there was more danger to be feared from Mary Queen of Scots who was then the apparent Popish Successor than we think there is from a Gentleman of the same Principles with her that hath the same and more palpable pretences to the Crown I shall not take upon me to determine However it is not unknown that Two several late Parliaments being convinced of the dangers which His Majesties Life is in from the Papists that they may accelerate the ascent of one of their own Communion to the Throne did after mature Debate and as a Testimony of the greatest Loyalty they could pay His Majesty come to this Resolve Resolved That in defence of the Kings Person and Government and Protestant Religion the House doth declare That they will stand by His Majesty with their Lives and Fortunes and that if His Majesty should come to any violent Death which God forbid they will revenge it to the utmost on the Papists Yea the last Westminster Parliament being deeply sensible what Plots the Papists were embark'd in for the Destruction of the King the extirpation of the reformed Religion in these Kingdoms and the placing the Crown upon the head of a Popish Prince they ordered a Bill for an Association to be brought into the House And whereas Secretary Jenkins deposeth upon Oath That tho he heard of such a thing as
hath given since to Europe had they been believed and hearkned unto But alas instead of taking that poor people into our protection and care or entring upon those Counsels with other Princes which the preserving the Peace of Europe and the securing unto the French Protestants the liberty of their Religion called for all the Intelligences we received were communicated to the French King upon which they became not only discouraged from placing any confidence in our Ministers for the future but one poor Gentleman who had ventur'd to treat with a certain person near his Majesty had the misfortune to be broken upon the Wheel and some others are forced upon the like account to live in perpetual Exile from their Country And yet even they by whom they were betray'd dare not say that ever they found them enclined to depart from their Allegiance unto their own King or to enter into any Confederacies unbecoming good Subjects and natural Frenchmen but that all which they aimed at and were willing to have transacted about was only that in preserving their Loyalty to their Prince they might not be suffered to be sacrificed and rooted out merely for their Religion Nor are the Stipulations of Kings or the established Laws of Kingdoms any security unto Protestants for their Lives or their Religion if once the Papists esteem themselves furnished with a sufficient Power and a seasonable Opportunity to subdue and extirpate it or them For as the Pope can Absolve all such Princes from the Promises and Oaths which they make to their Subjects so it is a known Principle of the Romish Church That no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks And where the Prince by not having the whole Legislation in himself is restrained from repealing Old and Enacting New Laws at his pleasure he will either mould and influence those who have a share with him in the Legislation to a compliance in what he designs or he will venture at the trampling upon all Laws and through the efficacy of the Principles of the Popish Religion will pursue the Extirpation of Heresie in defiance of all Boundaries prescribed unto him by the Law For what greater assurance could the Protestants in France have for the Liberty of their Religion and the preserving unto them all the Rights and Priviledges of Frenchmen than they enjoyed by that Edict of Henry the fourth commonly stiled the Edict of Nantes from the City where the King was when it was concluded and yet notwithstanding that Edict they are treated as if they were neither Christians nor Frenchmen being deprived of all that was therein granted unto them and brought to suffer every thing which that Edict was purposely made to defend them from For whereas by the said Edict they have a great number of Churches allowed unto them for the open exercise of their Religion and it is ordained that it shall be left free for any Papist to turn Protestant and that those of the Reformed Religion shall be as capable of enjoying publick Charges Honours Royalties and of exercising any Art or Trade as the Roman Catholicks themselves shall be and that there shall be no difference betwixt Protestants and Papists as to the security of their Lives the ways and means of their subsistence their authority over and freedom of educating and disposing their Childred yet through an implacable hatred which Popery inspireth men with against all that differ from them in Religion they are rob'd of all that was therein established in their favour and subjected to all the mischiefs which the fury of their malicious enemies and the power of a Prince guided by Father le Chaise the Jesuit can inflict upon them And as the Edict of Henry the fourth tho confirmed by Lewis the thirteenth proves no security to the French Protestants against the present Persecution which they are groaning and perishing under so it is to be feared that the Laws which the Protestants in other parts of the world do trust unto for the preservation of their Religion Lives and Legal Rights will be as insignificant to the securing these unto them in case they should fall under the power of a Popish Prince or that the Counsels of Ministers Popishly inclined should prevail as the Edict of Nantes hath been to the Hugonots For it is observable that as the Scots have at all times testified as much Zeal for the Reformed Religion as any people in Europe have done so they took care to establish the continuance of it to them and their Posterity by as good Laws as any Nation in the world could yet upon finding how useless such Laws as I shall name are unto the ends for which they were made and enacted there is a wonderful Jealousie possesseth the generality of that Kingdom That nothing can preserve them from being enslaved again to Popery but His Majesties outliving the Duke of York For it is Ordained by the Law of Scotland That no man is to James 6. p. 6. Act. 9. bear any publick Office within that Realm but such as profess the Protestant Religion And that none who shall not make profession James 6. p. 3. Act 47. of the said Religion shall be reputed a Loyal and Faithful Subject to the King but be punishable as a Rebel And that whoever shall at any time happen to Reign and bear Rule over that Realm shall at the time of his Coronation and the receipt of his Princely Authority make his faithful Promise James 6. p. 1. Act. 8. Charles I. p. 1. Act. 4. by Oath in the presence of the Eternal God That during the whole course of his life he shall serve the same Eternal God according to the uttermost of his power as he hath required in his most holy Word revealed and contain'd in the old and new Testaments and shall according to the same maintain the true Religion then professed and received within that Realm c. And therefore seeing these Laws have not been so observed but that one who doth not profess the Protestant Religion hath contrary unto them wrought himself into the chief administration of Affairs there under His Majesty hath presided daily in Council and sate as the Kings Commissioner in Parliament they begin to apprehend that other Laws may prove as ineffectual for the securing the Protestant Religion to the Nation as these have been to the excluding one from the highest Places of Authority and Trust under the King who hath not declared himself for the Protestant Religion as the foresaid Laws do require Besides it is not to be questioned but that the Protestants of this Kingdom in the time of Edward the sixth thought they had gotten their Religion so established by Laws that there was no fear of the reintroduction of Popery whoever should afterwards ascend the Throne and yet Queen Mary was no sooner come to the Crown than contrary to the Law of the Land as well as her promise to the Suffolk men who had espoused her
man from doing himself right when he hath been publickly as well as eminently injured And truly it looks like an imposing that upon the implicite Faith of the World which they know themselves unable to prove or it argues a distrust either of the goodness of their Cause or that it hath not been managed with integrity and candor when they are unwilling to admit both sides the priviledg of being openly heard For tho it may become the Wisdom of men in Power and Government to preserve the Justice of Courts and Reputation of Juries from being openly arraigned when an Indictment after a full Enquiry hath been approved and allow'd by such as are the proper and only judges of it yet such a procedure as the restraining men from defending their own Innocency and vindicating the impartiality of those who acquitted them after a full and Legal hearing can never adjust it self to the sense or reason of mankind Nor doth such a course and method import any thing less than that for having miss'd the satiating their Malice in the Blood of one or two whom they mortally hated they will pursue their Revenge in endeavours to blast the Credit and diminish the value and esteem of all that have been instrumental in preventing and defeating their Intendment NOW this Plot for Deposing the King and altering the Government whereof Protestants were to be Accused and Impeached was not only so contrived as that it might reach most English Peers and Gentlemen who stood in the way of Popery and Arbitrariness but the Protestants in Ireland were to be brought under the charge and accusation of it For the Popish Conspiracy having been carried on with the same vigour against the Lives of Protestants and the established Religion in that Kingdom as it was in this and the Parliament here being so far satisfied and convinced of the reality of it there as well as in England as to declare and testifie the belief of it by the unanimous Votes of both Houses accordingly the Papists in both Kingdoms were equally and by the same Artifices to be relieved from the imputation which lay upon them and to be rescued from the punishments which the Laws Adjudged and Condemned them unto Therefore the Protestants in both Nations were to be accused of having forged the Popish Plot and that having thereby amused His Majesty and the people they have in the mean time been fomenting and promoting a real one of their own This was that which St. Laurence the Priest would See No Protestant Plot First part p 33 34 35. have Hired and Suborned Mr. William Smith to Swear and Depose and whereof the Evidence was so strong against St. Laurence at his Trial that tho' he was acquitted yet he is still believed by all impartial men that heard it to have been really guilty For it is not only reported from thence by persons who deserve to be credited that such especially were returned upon the Jury who were known before-hand to have reflected upon Mr. Smith but it is most certain that whereas the Prisoner was allowed five Councel to plead for him there was none of the King's Councel nor any one man of the Gown besides that appeared in behalf of the Evidence Whether they forbore from an opinion that the Evidence was so plain that it required no Plea to enforce or apply it or whether they did it out of deference to some great men whom they would not offend by being concerned in any thing that may prejudice the honour and integrity of the Papists or whether it was in obedience to the commands of such who would not have an Intrigue detected upon the discovery whereof the Protestants may come to be thought peaceable and loyal again as I cannot certainly tell so I shall not take upon me to conjecture and divine But besides that which was sworn against St. Laurence by Mr. Smith which to any who read it will appear either the copy transcript or counterpart of what they have been doing here we have other evidence of the Papists labouring in Ireland to sham off their own Plot by representing it as a Forgery falsely laid upon them by the Pratestants and their endeavouring to possess the Government with a belief that during the noise and buz which the Protestants had raised concerning a Popish Plot they were themselves embarkt in a Conspiracy against the King and the Monarchy Thus whereas one Captain Morley had appeared before the Committees of Lords and Commons here and swore two Consults which the Papists had in Ireland in reference to the extirpating the Protestant Religion in that Kingdom they have procured no fewer than six or seven Irish Witnesses not only to Depose against the said Morley That he was Suborned by the Earl of Essex the Earl of Shaftsbury Sir Robert Cleyton and others to Swear Treason against the Duke of Ormond the Lord Chancellor Boyle and Sir John Davies but that he himself had said the King was on enemy to all Protestants and deserved to have his Head cut off as his Father had Here we have an Epitome and Abridgment of what the whole Popish Party is laying out their Money improving their Wit and employing the Power and Interest of their Friends for and about But why the Papists should in all their Depositions introduce the Protestants affirming the King to be a Papist and an enemy to those of the same Religion which he not only professeth but which he hath sacredly and solemnly Vow'd for ever to protect and defend I think no wise man is able to tell unless it be that they have a mind to recriminate upon us what they have been proved guilty of themselves It is not yet seasonable to declare by whose means and by what Arts the foresaid Deposition was obtained nor how Handland and Murphey two fellows that came over hither to Swear the Popish Plot were since their return transformed into Witnesses to prove a Protestant Conspiracy but all these things must be foreborn till his Majesty in his Princely Wisdom and from that Justice which he hath hitherto governed his people by and in the discharge of his promise which his Loyal addressing Subjects as well as others do rely upon be pleased to call a Parliament and then both all these and many other things will be more fully disclosed and set in a brighter light In the mean time this must be acknowledged to the Honour of His Majesty and the Justice of the Council-Board that tho the foresaid Deposition was received by some in Ireland with great fondness and transmitted hither not only with all expedition and speed but accompanied with an earnest desire that the Gentleman might be sent thither yet the King and Council would neither do so illegal and arbitrary a thing as to send a person from hence to Ireland without his own consent both born and bred here and who actually possesseth an estate in England Nor could it be done without great Injustice
that for advancing the Duke to the Throne my Lord should not only venture his own life fortune but disoblige the best Friends he hath in the Nation and entangle his native Country in Civil War This misadventure in the Testimony of one of the most considerable Witnesses betrays not only their Folly but that the whole Plot whereof the Earl of Shaftsbury hath been accused is a malicious Forgery in order to take away the Life of that innocent Peer Nor can any who are not willing to sacrifice the Protestant Religion the Liberties of their Country and the Lives of Guiltless Persons to the Hatred and Rage of the Papists give any Credit to Fellows who Swear at so Wilde and Nonsensical a rate Had the Mercinary vvretches designed to publish themselves for Liars and Impostors to all the vvorld they could not have taken a more effectual vvay to do it than by affirming that the Earl of Shaftsbury should be desirous to enter into a Combination and Conspiracy vvith Irish Papists in order to prevent a Popish Successor and for preserving the Protestant Religion For at the same time that Dennis chargeth this Noble Person vvith saying That he would extirpate the King and all his Family he swears That he desired him to write to his Ubi supra p. 32. Irish Popish Friends to be ready to assist And tho' I do not much vvonder to find a Caitiff of the size of Dennis's Wit and Understanding swear a business vvhich disproveth it self before all Wise and Rational persons yet I cannot forbear marvelling that they vvho vievv'd the Depositions and vvere to gloss and enforce the Evidence vvould suffer such a Deposition to appear upon the publick Stage vvhich vvould not only make the Forgery notorious but infallibly expose themselves as well as the perjur'd Rogues to the laughter scorn and detestation of mankind Nor is it unworthy of remark that in the expressions which they swear my Lord Shaftsbury used they make him not only forget the Loyalty of a Subject but the Civility and Breeding of a Gentleman For the Terms wherein they represent him speaking of the King are besides their being Treasonable too rude to proceed from any that knows the measures of Civility or hath been occasioned to speak with any kind of Decorum For not only Macknamarra introduceth him calling the King a Faithless Person and one that was no way to be believed But Haynes will have him both to say That the King had no more Religion than a Horse and that he was degenerated into a perfect Ibid. p. 28. p. 43. p. 27. Beast and that he durst as soon be hang'd as to meddle with the said Haynes if he stuck to his Information about Sir Edmond-bury Godfrey ' s Murder This is a Dialect proper for such Rascals as the Witnesses to use but it is not a Stile that men of Quality are accustomed unto or can allow themselves to speak in For how much soever they may be offended with the ways and methods of Princes yet they constantly speak of their Persons with Respect and Deference Whether are we to esteem it a Subject fit for our mirth and laughter or for our disgust and indignation to see a Fellow appear at a Bar against a Great and Wise Peer and among other Treasonable Expressions whereof he accuseth him to swear That the said Lord put a greater Respect and Valuation upon him than he did upon the King himself Haynes having sent to the Earl of Shaftsbury and several other Noble Persons That he would make considerable Discoveries if they would procure him a Pardon the Rascal swears That being in Discourse with my Lord Shaftsbury about that matter my Lord should say If the King would not grant the Pardon for him that was desired they would raise the whole Kingdom against him and Ibid. p. 27. that he must not expect to live peaceably in his Throne if he did not grant it For not to insist on this That the Earl of Shaftsbury never spake with Haynes nor would not so much as see him both which will be proved as far as Negatives are capable can any man that hath not renounced Sense as well as Conscience believe that the Earl of Shaftsbury would put the Life of the King and the Peace of the Kingdom in competition with Haynes's being pardoned or not pardoned For suppose that the Fellow undertook to make very useful and important Discoveries provided he might have a Pardon yet we must be Bruits before we can be perswaded that a person of Prudence and Conduct should in case a pitiful wretch were not secured against the danger of the Gallows to which he stood obnoxious threaten not only to dethrone a Monarch to whom he lies under many Obligations besides those of Fealty but to hurl a quiet and peaceable Nation into War and Blood And as if it were not enough for these silly as well as malicious wretches to make my Lord Shaftsbury say a Thousand things which are equally Ridiculous and absurd as they are Treasonable they will have him to have talk'd of matters ready to be done which being duly weighed will be found to have been morally impossible For so is all that is sworn against him concerning a Design to seize the King at Oxford where he was not only surrounded with his Guards but as our Enemies must acknowledg environed with many Loyal Peers and Gentlemen Nor are we told of any preparations that were suitable to an undertaking which was so difficult in it self and which would be extreamly fatal to the Authors if it miscarried For whereas they depose That my Lord told them the Members came well Smith p. 26. Horsed and well Armed the whole Kingdom knows the contrary Some of the Members went so ill attended as that they were not in a condition to secure themselves from being Rob'd by the way And divers of the most Martial persons in the Oxford House of Commons went thither in Hackney Coaches with scarce a Servant a peice to wait upon them Yea this very Earl who is said not only to have projected the seizing the King at Oxford but to have corresponded with others in order to their coming provided thither with strength and force for the accomplishing of it had neither Coach nor Horse there himself So ignorant was this Noble Person of any such design and so unprepared for the execution of an attempt of that nature that he went down in an hired Coach and was forc'd to stay there after the Dissolution of the Parliament till he sent to London for Horses to convey and accommodate him home Was not the Concourse at Oxford much smaller than was reckoned upon considering the Greatness and Solemnity of the Occasion It cannot be thought that the Peers of England and the principal Gentry of the Kingdom should go to to so August and Solemn an Assembly without some Menial Servants to attend them And if the having supernumeraries in a
between His Majesty and his People and filled the best and wisest of the King's Subjects with jealousies that it is through a concert with that foreign Monarchy that Parliaments are either Called Prorogued or Dissolved And as the Papists in these Nations are emboldned by the Confederacy between us and France to maintain an intimate and dayly Correspondence with that Court so it is justly to be apprehended that they have made themselves sure of Supplies of Power and Succour from thence whensoever they shall judge it convenient to set upon destroying our Religion and altering the Government But besides all which they have either endeavoured or been able to effect towards the destroying us and the Reformation in these Nations through the influence which they have had upon Ministers of State and Publick Councels they have entred into Conspiracies for the overthrowing Religion and extirpating Protestants wherein we are inclinable to believe none have been trusted but themselves And as the Burning of London in September 1666. was the first plain and uncontrolable Evidence that the freedom of their own consciences and the private liberty of their Religion would not content them but that they were implacably bent upon the ruine of all His Majesties Liege people who differ from them in Principles of Faith and Worship so we are well assured that their Malice and Rage had not terminated in the firing our Houses but that they would have mingled the blood of the inhabitants with the ashes of their dwellings had not the courage and spirit of some of their own party failed them and had not the Citizens been awaken'd to a sense of their danger and appeared resolute to fell their Lives at a dear rate And tho we are most ready to believe that none had a hand in the contrivance and execution of that Villanous Design but the Papists yet the rescuing some out of the hands of Officers and others who had been taken in the very act of throwing Fireballs and dismissing divers without prosecution against whom the same Fact was sworn clearly argues that the Authors and Instruments of that horrid Crime had many great and potent Friends who were forward to protect them from the punishment and demerit of it But the Papists having miss'd the opportunity of cutting the throats of the Hereticks when they were under a consternation and amazement and finding that the Flames of London had enlightned many concerning their Designs who vvere before both secure and possest vvith more favourable thoughts concerning them and perceiving that notvvithstanding the Mercinariness of the Members of the Long-Parliament there vvas no hope of biassing them by Bribes and Pensions either to establish Popery by a Lavv or so much as give an universal Toleration to the Roman Catholicks they arrived at last to these Devillish Resolutions of Murdering the King and Massacring all the considerable Protestants in the Kingdom This vvas the Plot into vvhich all their Contrivances at last resolved and vvhich they had determined to have executed in the latter end of 1678. For the constant expence vvhich they vvere at in carrying on the Conspiracy being grovvn so burdensome that they could not much longer maintain and support it and the Parliament being after the breach of the Triple League and the formidable grovvth of France become less manageable to the subserving their more calm and leisurely Designs and finding vvithall that the Nation begun to fear and apprehend that the Papists had some extraordinary thing in agitation but especially the jealousie and dread they vvere in lest His Majesty might not live the Duke of York in vvhom they placed all their hopes of obtaining the re-establishment of their Superstition and Idolatry should he once ascend the Throne vvere the motives and inducements upon which they determined to defer and adjourn matters no longer but to put all upon one desperate and bold adventure Nor could they ever expect to be in circumstances which could promise them a greater moral certainty of success than they were in at that time For as the Power Forts and Strength of the Nation were either in Popish hands or entrusted to such whom they might so far rely upon as not to fear any considerable opposition from them so the Duke of York who is known to be a person as zealous for the Papal Cause as any of themselves was ready to have assumed the Crown and if not inclined to authorise directly what the Papists were to do yet forvvard enough as vvell as capable through his possessing the Regal Povver to fright Protestants into a quiet submission to the Svvords of their Enemies or declare them Rebels that should dare to arm for self defence And as there vvas no less than Twelve hundred thousand pounds payable at that time into the Treasury being the money vvhich vvas granted for the carrying on a War against France the thoughts whereof expired vvith the passing of the Bill so there vvas a formed Army of Thirty thousand men vvhich having been raised upon the same pretence vvould have been ready to have received and obeyed the Commands of the King that vvas designed to succeed And if the Romish Conspirators in conjunction with that Army should have proved too few to dispatch and extirpate the Hereticks in these Dominions all things were so well adjusted the Peace of Nimmeguen being at that time so near a conclusion that the French King whom for divers years the Papists have depended upon and accordingly interested him in all their Councils could without the abandoning his concernments abroad have assisted and supplied them with large and powerful succours Nor is it to be imagined how the murder of the King which as it was to have been the first Scene of this new Tragedy was also to have been charged upon the Phanaticks would have enraged one half of the Protestants against the other For having obtained Mr. Claypool to be imprisoned about that time in the Tower upon a forged accusation of his having said That he and Two hundred more had resolved to kill the King they thereupon reckoned that could they but succeed in the designs which they had formed against His Majesty the Protestant Dissenters would both undergo the scandal and odium of it and feel the revengful resentments of the Nation And then after that many of the Protestants had embrued their Hands and dyed their Swords in one anothers blood it was determined that the rest should fall as a Sacrifice to be offered up by the Roman Catholicks to the Holy See Thus according to the best Rules and most solid Foundations that men are to judg of the success of Designs they might very rationally think themselves secure of effecting and accomplishing whatsoever they intended Nor was the King ever in a more perfect security or they who were destined to be slaughtered with him less provided of means for their defence But God would not abandon his Worship and Truth nor surrender an infinite number of innocent
and juncture against Phanaticks it being so apparent a weakning of the whole Reformed Interest in these Kingdoms and a betraying all the Protestant party into the power and hands of their worst Enemies And seeing none but the Papists can reap any benefit or advantage by it it must be they and none else that were the first Authors and continue to be the promoters of such Councels And as some of these Laws were procured by the means of Sir Thom. Clifford Sir Thom. Strickland and others who have since appeared to be Papists so it is not unpleasant to observe how they have endeavoured to get them either suspended or executed according as this or that have lyen in an usefulness to their Designs Nor can we otherwise believe but that as some of our Ministers obtain'd them to be dispensed with 1672. in favour of the Papists so others pursue the having them put in execution in 1682. out of friendship to the same people Thus the Laws which were pretended at first to have been made for the preservation of the Church of England have been from time managed to set forward the concernments of the Church of Rome and advance the projections of the Papists Accordingly we have beheld them suspended for divers years when both most of the English Clergy were earnest to have had them executed and when the execution of them seemed to lye in a subserviency to support the grandess of the Church But now when neither the Church can be able to subsist nor are any means left to the preservation of the Protestant Religion unless Moderation and Lenity be exercised to Dissenters we are made daily and sad Spectators of Oppression Spoil and Havock brought upon a quiet industrious and useful people by the execution of these very Laws And we may be sure the Papists hug and solace themselves to find that through the Ascendency which they have over some Publick Persons who influence all our Counsels they can apply the Laws to the ruin of many Protestants and in revenge for their having escaped their murderous and bloody hands engage the Government and Authority of the Nation against them Nor is it less than a matter of Triumph to them to think that when the Commons of England in Parliament assembled had not only read and committed a Bill For the uniting His Majesties Protestant Subjects but Resolved it as the Opinion of that House That the prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning to the Protestant Interest an encouragement to Popery and dangerous to the peace of the Kingdom they should not only be able to alienate and exasperate us more from and against one another than ever we were but procure one Protestant to prosecute another upon the Penal Laws to the scorn and contempt of the Wisdom of Parliaments and the proclaiming to all the world of how little esteem and value their Counsel and Advice are What effect these proceedings upon the Penal Law against Dissenters may have upon others who are not Phanaticks is not easie to be throughly apprehended but it is certain that the English are naturally inclined to censure whatsoever is extremely rigorous and to compassionate such as suffer merely for Religion not for Crimes against the peace and safety of the Government How soon did the Nation grow dissatisfied with the Cruelties of Queen Mary and even they who had no Religion themselves came to abhor the seeing their Countreymen burnt for Principles which had no influence upon the subversion of Thrones and disturbance of Societies Yea tho her second Parliament revived the old Laws against Hereticks yet the minds of men were so much altered in a little time that the Commons in the third Parliament of that Queen would not pass a Bill which was brought in for incapacitating those from being Justices of the Peace that were suspected to have been remiss in prosecuting Hereticks And it is remarkable that not only our late Parliaments were for the mitigation of the Laws against Dissenters and for the uniting all His Majesties Protestant Subjects but even the Long Parliament which had been the Authors of all the new Laws against Phanaticks saw a necessity if they would preserve our Religion and the Lives of Protestants from the dangers which threatned them by means of the Papists to take other measures than they had acted by before and to recur to Methods of Lenity Accordingly the House of Commons in the Session that was held February 1672. sent up a Bill to the Lords in favour of Dissenters and about the Union of Protestants Nor is it to be imagined what jealousies it raiseth in the minds of most people concerning what they and all Protestants are to fear in case of a Popish Successor by seeing many of the soberest in the Nation and who agree with the present Church in all Doctrinals of Faith and Essentials of Worship so severely treated and prosecuted under a Protestant King only because of their differing from those of the established National way in some little and inconsiderable things And by how much all this rigor against Protestant Dissenters is thought to have its rise from the counsels and importunity of the Duke of York by so much are all thinking men possest with astonishing apprehensions of the Cruelties which they must expect to undergo if he come once to wear the Crown For being universally supposed and taken to be a Papist and thereupon of a Faith altogether opposite to ours so we are not now to learn that the very principles of his belief will oblige him to extirpate all that will not own the Tridentine Creed Yea such people as dare speak their thoughts do commonly say That the reason why the Duke adviseth His Majesty to courses so contrary to the Meekness and Compassion of his Royal Breast as well as the whole tenor of his Reign hitherto is that he may darken and eclipse the Glory of His hitherto merciful Government and by putting him upon austerities towards subjects who profess the same Religion that their Prince doth justifie himself hereafter in all the Slaughters and Barbarities which by virtue of the malicious ferment of Popery he may be inclined to perpetrate upon those whose Religion he so implacably abhors as he doth that of Protestants But would it not be worthy of the serious consideration of those at the Helm That it is not only the Dissenters who suffer by the Execution of the Penal Laws but the whole Nation which participates in the profits and advantages of their Industry More especially all they who have any relation unto or such as manage any Commerce with them do all bear a common share in their Calamities And besides the recentments which will spring up in the minds of men by seeing an innocent people harassed whose Lives tho they do not imitate yet they cannot but commend will it not be apt to impress their hearts with secret
Shaftsbury p. 19. Country were well provided with Horse Arms and Men and that if the King offered any violence to them they might oppose him for the like had been done in former times And Haynes deposeth That Colledg should tell him Vnless the King should suffer the Parliament to continue to sit at Oxford they would seize him and bring him Colledg's Tryal p. 30. to the Block as they did the Logger-head his Father yea that my Lord Shaftsbury should declare Vnless the King granted the Pardon which was demanded Proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury p. 37. for the said Haynes they would raise the whole Kingdom against him Booth likewise swears how my Lord Shaftsbury told him That he and others had considered with themselves that it was fit for them to have Guards at Oxford and that to this purpose he had establisht a matter of Fifty men persons Ibid. p. 21. of quality and that he had entrusted Capt. Wilkinson with the Command of them and in case any violence should be offered by the King they would repel Force with greater Force Now tho' all this be nothing but a bundle of forged lies yet it plainly declares that no fewer than all the men of quality in England who are zealous for the Reformed Religion and Civil Rights yea the whole Body of sincere Protestants were to be drawn and hook't within the verge of this Plot and all their Lives and Fortunes brought to lye at the favour of the Government upon the pretended guilt of it For no man can think that the blood of the Earl of Shaftsbury and my Lord Howard would have attoned for so general and universal a Conspiracy could they but once have enjoyed the good fortune to have had credit given to these fellows Testimonies The designs which the Papists proposed unto themselves in their forging of this Conspiracy were greater than to be compassed and accomplished by the murder of Three or Four men in the way of legal proofs For as nothing less was aim'd at by means of this Sham Plot than the destroying all who withstand the Introduction of Popery and the establishment of a Popish Successor so many hundreds were to be taken out of the way besides those apprehended and accused ere ever the people of this Kingdom could be expected quietly to submit to be Papists slaves But because the foregoing Depositions do only speak in general of a Conspiracy wherein the Parliament and Nobles were engaged in conjunction with my Lord Shaftsbury to apprehend and cut off the King we shall therefore give an account from the Attestations of others of some few more who besides those publickly named were to have been charged with and perished under the pretended guilt of this forged Plot. And as we are assured from the mouth of a Gentleman of great Reputation and good Quality that John Smith said to him he could swear Treason against a hundred Protestants so Thomas Samson hath deposed upon Oath That John Macknamarra told him that Edward Ivie Bryan Haynes John Smith and Edward Turbervile did intend to swear Treason against Sir Patience Ward Sir Robert Clayton Sir Thomas Player Mr. Bethel who was then Sheriff of London Coll. Mildmay others Yea to that confidence were the mercinary perjured Rogues arrived of their being able to destroy men upon the suborn'd Testimonies that had been dictated unto them that one Mr. Shewin informs upon Oath his having heard John Macknamarra and Edward Turbervil offer on the 11th of August last to lay a wager That Mr. Sheriff Bethel Mr. Best and divers of the London Jury which had brought in an Ignoramus upon the Bill against Stephen Colledg would be hang'd before Christmas last And that the world may be fully convinced how the Papists and the Tools of one quality and another which they work by designed to extend the guilt of this pretended Protestant Plot we shall subjoyn the Deposition of one Ashlock who said That Edward Ivie immediately after Colledg ' s Tryal told him That as they had gotten the said Colledg to be cast and condemned so they were resolved to have the Duke of Monmouth and other Lords to drink of the same cup and to taste Colledg ' s fate So that no man who is a Protestant ought after the knowledg of this to believe himself safe or that he is exempted out of the number of those upon whom the Papists under the pretence of a Protestant Plot hoped to have wreck'd their Malice and Rage For they that dare entertain thoughts of destroying a Prince whom his greatest Enemies can charge with no fault save that he is a Protestant and zealous for the King's preservation and glory are not to be supposed to harbour any thoughts of Compassion and Mercy towards Protestants of an inferior rank Shall neither the Honour which the D. of M. hath brought to His Majesty and the Nation by his foreign Atchievements nor the peace and establishment which he restored to the King and Throne by his prudent and valorous subduing Insurrections at home be sufficient to protect him from the danger and infamy of a Scaffold no more than they were able to secure him from being excluded his Father and Prince's presence and deprived of those Offices which his Merit rendered him worthy of had he not any nearness by Nature and blood to His Majesty to plead for him Will nothing satisfie the Romish Crew unless they can bring the King to forget the Affections of Father as well as the Justice of a Monarch and make him abandon a person to their treachery and implacable wrath whom he is obliged by the Laws of nature to protect as his son whom he is bound by the Laws of England to defend him as his Subject And as all men discern whose Interest hath been served and whose revenge gratified in all the mortifications of this Loyal and Innocent Duke so we can easily guess in whose behalf and for the promoting of whose concernments this whole Protestant Conspiracy was invented and forged And having succeeded so well already as by their meer importunities to alienate his Majesty from a person whom he once seemed to value and love they are encouraged to hope the King will be prevailed with by suggestions of Treasonable Crimes to sacrifice him to their indignation and ire Having now traced and pursued this forged Plot so far as to see that it was calculated for no less than the whole Meridian of Great Brittain and that all the Patriots of Religion and Laws in both Nations were to be destroyed under a pretence of being combin'd in it we are in the next place to view it in the complexion and figure wherein it opened and unfolded it self against the Right Honorable the Earl of Shaftsbury and those other persons who have been either Indicted or only Committed for an alledged accession to it And as the Papists very well know that none had more opposed and
in and joyn with him and he would have the Earl of Shaftsbury ' s head cut off and sham the whole Popish Plot. By this Deposition we are plainly led into this whole deviliâ—h Intrigue of charging Protestants with a Conspiracy against the Person of the King and the established Monarchy For Fitz Gerald being corrupted by the Papists and sâ—ch as manage their designs to sham off the Popish Plot and swear one upon Protestants he accordinly applies himself to every person whom he conceived with any probality entertain thoughts of prevailing upon And by dealing with men of no Principles and of most profligate Lives to whom were proposed great Offices and ample Rewards they have by degrees been able to muster up Nine or Ten Rascals most of which were before notoriously infamous and having clothed them with the stile of the King's Evidence they grow angry that their Testimony is not admitted to the reproach of our Religion and the destruction of many innocent persons Yea this wretch Hayn's consessed to one Mrs. Hall That he had been dealt with to form a Presbyterian See Colledge's Trial p. 42. Plot and that he was desired to corrupt and suborn one Everard and others to come over and promote the same Design And upon the Overtures which had been made him he not only told one Mr. Titon That he could frame a Presbyterian Plot and that there was Money to be gotten by doing it but he acknowledged to one Mr. Richards That he was employed and Ibid. p. 43. had an hand in putting the Plot upon Dissenting Protestants and that he was offered a Pardon and 500 l if he would swear such and such base things That is if he would accuse the Earl of Shaftsbary and other Loyal Patriots of Religion and English Liberties of being guilty of a Conspiracy against his Majesty and the established Government And the Fellow being in great want and having long before shipwrack't his Conscience he was easily brought to comply with this wicked and abominable Proposal For as he told Mowbray His necessitous Condition made him take desperate Resolutions and that to make his Fortune he would swear a Plot against the Presbyterians in reference to whom any plausable thing would be believed And that the World may know of how long standing this forged Conspiracy has been I shall here add something of Sampson's Deposition upon Oath before an Alderman of London which may serve further to enlighten this Affair He swears That John Macknamarra told him that Edward Ivey and Bryan Hayns agreed together in April last to swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury and that the Treason which they resolved to swear was That the said Earl should say That this King deserved more to be dethroned than Richard the second and that he the said Earl vvould dethrone the King and make England a Common-Wealth and that if the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury were once found that then they with Smith Turbervil and others would swear Treason against many more And as we may be sure that the Villan's being a Papist disposed him the more readily to venture upon a Design which was judged so subservient to the Romish Interest so it were worth the while to inform the World with what Court-Ministers and little Officers he secretly corresponded all the time he pretended to abscond But as those persons must be left to suffer by Justice of a Parliament so all the Discoveries relating to a close Converse between those Gentlemen and Hayns must be deferred till this whole matter fall under the Inspection of the Two Houses But so zealous of a sudden did the Rascal become in ruining Protestants upon this forged Plot That he not only called the Parliament at Oxford a company of Rogues because they would give the King no Money but that by doing Shaftsbury and other Protestants business they Colledge's Trial p. 44. would help him to Money out of the Phanatiks estates for they would rather damn their Souls to the Devil than that the Catholick Cause should sink If men did not chuse the being imposed upon and were not obstinate against conviction they might have been satisfied long ago that there was no Truth nor Reality in all the talk and noise which we have had concerning a Protestant Plot but that it is only the invention of ill men instructed and acted by the Papists for the retrieving the sinking Cause and Interest of the Catholick Church in these Nations And they have pitched upon Tools who are either wholly fearless of Damnation or such who upon a promise of Happiness in this world are resolved to venture it So that upon what hath been here with all Truth as well as Brevity represented concerning this Fellow Haynes I hope that at least all the sober part of Mankind will see cause for justifying the late Jury in their not believing his Testimony Nor have I insisted upon half the Crimes and gross Immoralities of his Life such as his forging a Letter to one Mr. Harbottle of Lincoln in order to cozen a Gentleman of Goods to the value of 200 l. And his marrying one Mrs. Mansfield and then turning her away after he had lived divers years with her and spent 500 l. which she brought him pretending she was but his Whore because they were not married according to the Form of the Church of England but after the Romish Fashion tho' he that is guilty of such things ought not to be believed unless the matter he swears carry a probability in it or be rendred morally certain by Circumstances which are either notorious or otherwise confirmed No instead of recounting such Wickednesses and Immoralities I have rather chosen to make him appear an infamous Rascal and one to whose Affidavit concerning a Protestant Plot no credit is to be given by declaring his own acknowledgments of the whole Forgery and upon what Motives and through whose Instigation he listed himself for a Witness and what was the end which the Managers of this Design proposed ultimately unto themselves with respect to which they reckon'd the murdering of innocent men would be esteem'd a holy and meritorious service And I shall only add to what hath been said That the wretch plainly contradicted himself in the face of the Court. For being asked by the Jury Whether he had not given an Information to a Justice of Peace concerning some design against the Earl of Shaftsbury he twice denied his having given such an Information to any save Secretary Jenkins yet upon my Lord Chief Justice's telling him that he did not observe the question and proposing it again to him he See Proceedings at the Old Baily p. 44 45. at last accknowledged that he had given an Information to Sir George Treby how Mr. Fitz-Gerald had both told the King and given it under his hand That the Earl of Shaftsbury was resolved to set the Crown upon his own head or otherwise to turn the Kingdom
King And Mr. John Jenks deposeth That Mr. Ivey confessed to him how he had great offers made him provided he would swear against Protestants And Mr. Ashlock says that Ivy one day told him He had been with the said Lord and that my Lord Hyde had order'd him to send at any time to him and he should have money And the said Ashlock further adds That he saw a Letter directed to my Lord Hyde from Ivey which Ivey said was for money Now that Ivey was necessitous and the more likely to be suborned for money to swear any thing that was false appears not only by the Petition presented to my Lord Major the Court of Aldermen and the Common Council which he among others subscribed but more especially from his own Testimony in Court at the time when Mr. Rowse was indicted seeing he then owned That he had falsly sworn such things meerly because he could not otherwise get mony And that this Protestant Plot was hatched by this hired suborned Rascal and others who in order to promote the Interest and designs of the Papists had combined to asperse Loyal Persons with the imputation of Treason and to make the chief Protectors under his Majesty of our Religion and Liberties perish in the form and course of Justice does appears by what Mr. Sampson hath deposed upon Oath namely That John Macknamarra told him how he and Ivey having been with the Earl of Shaftsbury his Lordship had refused to discourse with them alone saying He never discoursed with any but in the presence of his Servants and that I being thereupon very greatly disgusted contrived by way of Revenge to swear High Treason against him Not but that the Design of accusing my Lord Shaftsbury of Treason was laid by others but Ivey being suborned to be a Witness against him he therefore sought an opportunity of speaking with his Lordship alone the better to obtain what he should afterwards say against him to be believed However having upon some instigation or other entertain'd a Resolution of swearing Treason against this Loyal and Noble Lord his next business was to procure others to fortifie his Testimony and second him in whatsoever he should say Accordingly he applies to Haynes assuring him in the names of several Lords That he should not only have his pardon but five hundred pounds provided as Mrs. Wingfield Haynes's Mother-in-Law told Mrs. Hall and Mary Richards he would fasten a Plot upon Protestants and swear against several Lords Nay Mr. Zell one of Justice Warcups present Darlings and whose Testimony he ought not to decline against Ivey having so lately made use of it in the Court of Verge to vindicate himself I say this Zell hath deposed upon Oath That Ivey would have perswaded him to swear High Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury and by way of Argument to influence him to a compliance told him That the E. of H. my L. H. my L. C. and Mr. S. were a Commitee to give assurances of Pardons and to allow Gratuites to all that would swear against that Lord and that there is a Presbyterian Plot. And tho' I am not willing to believe those great Ministers guilty of this which Zell says Ivey reported of them yet it is something strange that knowing it from Prints as well as otherwise they have not endeavoured to get that Rogue punished for defaming of them And I do verily think it would be as much for the Honour of the Government and for the Reputation of these States-men to have this fellow and the rest who have used the like Language concerning them either prosecuted by way of Action or Information as it will prove in the issue that the Attorney General is prosecuting one Baldwin for having published a Book called No Protestant Plot wherein so far as very good and wise men can see there is not any thing criminal unless it be a Crime to detect the Designs of the Papists against Protestants and to vindicate the innocency of those who as it hath appeared by the verdicts of Juries were falsly and unrighteously accused But to return I suppose from what hath been here declared and laid open concerning Ivey there will not many be found who are credible persons themselves that will look upon him hereafter as a credible Witness in reference to a Protestant Plot. Nor is the bringing the Lives of Innocents into hazard upon the Testimony of a wretch branded with so many capital Offences and who besides hath been so evidently tamper'd with to be any other way expiated or attoned for but by bringing both him and his Abettors to condign punishment The last Witness made use towards the proving the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury was Bernard Dennis a fellow as lewd in his Morals as any of the rest and drawn and procured to be an Evidence against Protestants by the same means and arts that they were Nor is he only an Irish man but of one of the most sottish bigotted bloody Clans's of all that Kingdom See proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of Shaft p. 48. And upon the best enquiry I can make there is not one Irish man of his Name in that whole Nation who is known to be a Protestant I should not have mentioned this if the fellow upon being ask'd whether all his Kindred were not Papists had not answered he could not say so And yet were he put to it he will not be able to name one Person neither in the County where he was born where Ibid. p. 32. he says there are so many of them nor in the whole Country besides that is not a Papist if withal they be not of the most violent and bloodily disposed sort And whereas he once told Mr. Wilmore they two being discoursing together about the principles of the Papists that the Papists valued no more the life of a Heretick than they did that of a Dog it is most probable that he therein spake the Sense of his Kindred and published what they had of old infused into him I will not enquire what Religion he is of at present seeing no form nor kind of Religion can give him a Reputation but he reflects dishonour upon whatsoever Religion he doth profess Only I wish that the Papists have not Sham'd him upon the Church of England that he may the better and under the fairer name Sham a Plot upon Protestants And who knows but finding a respect paid to his Testimony at the Tryal of my Lord Stafford because he there professed himself a Papist he might thereupon hope it would advantage him in being believed against a Protestant by listing himself in the Communion of the Protestant Church The forgery of this Plot would have been too obvious should Romish Priests have come forth as the principal Witnesses to prove the best Protestants in England concerned in a Conspiracy against His Majesty and the Government but the producing none for Evidence but Members of our own Church
was pleased graciously to add that he should find him very just and kind in rewarding what he had done and suffered for him But what this Earl acted and underwent for the King when his Lordship's Father and almost all the Scotch Nation had either fallen in with or submitted to the Usurpers will better appear by a Paper under Middleton's hand which I shall here annex John Middleton Lieutenant-General next and immediate under His Majesty and Commandev in Chief of all the Forces raised and to be raised within the Kingdom of Scotland Seeing the Lord Lorn hath given so singular proofs of his clear and perfect Loyalty to the King's Majesty and of pure and constant Affection to the good of His Majesty's Affairs as never hitherto to have any ways complied with the Enemy and to have been principally Instrumental in the enlivening of this late War and one of the chief and first Movers in it and hath readily chearfully and gallantly engaged and resolutely and constantly continued active in it notwithstanding the many powerful Disswasions Discouragements and Oppositions he hath met with from divers hands and hath in the carrying on of the Service shewn such signal Fidelity Integrity Generosity Prudence Courage and Conduct and such high Vertue Industry and Ability as are suitable to the Dignity of his Noble Family and the Trust His Majesty reposed in him and hath not only stood out against all Inducements Temptations and Enticements but hath most nobly crossed and repressed Designs and Attempts of deserting the Service and persisted Loyally and firmly in it to the very last through excessive Trials and many great Difficulties and misregarding all personal Inconveniencies and chusing the loss of Friends fortune and private concernments and to endure the utmost Extremities rather than to swerve in the least from his Duty or taint his Reputation with the meanest shadow of Disloyalty or Dishonour I do therefore hereby testifie and declare that I am perfectly satisfied with his whole deportments in relation to the Enemy and their late War and do highly approve them as being not only above all I can express of their worth but almost beyond all parallel c. John Middleton What his after-Sufferings for His Majesty were and how he continued six years a Prisoner under the Usurpers for his Loyalty to the King I shall content my self to have only barely suggested them And as no man in all Scotland was more capable of serving his Prince both by reason of the greatness of his Parts the height of his Quality and the largeness of his Interest than this Noble Lord so no person of one degree or another hath at all times and in various Employments and Trusts more approved his Zeal and Loyalty to the King's Person and Government than he hath constantly done since His Majesties Restoration And if he have offended in any thing it is by an excess of compliance with his Majesties Will having as himself declared in his Speech at his Arraignment served him all along after his own way and manner Nor can any wise man believe that what he was accused of High-Treason for was either a Crime in it self or would have been charged upon this Earl as an Offence if His Majesties present Commissioner in Scotland had not upon some hidden and more important motive and inducement conceived an implacable hatred against him For the declining to swallow the Test abruptly and without such limitations as might give it both a determinate and a legal sense cannot be imagined to be more criminal than altogether to refuse it which not only many of the Conformable Clergy but divers Peers and Gentlemen without being accused of High Treason have done And surely it was more becoming a man of Honour and a Christian to declare plainly and openly in what sense he could and was ready to take it than to take it with a pious and devout ignorance as another Lord of His Majesties Privy-Council did And as the Council's publishing an Explanation of it is an unanswerable Argument that it required some Explication towards the reconciling it to its self and the Laws of the Land so wise men are apt to think that it is as lawful for a person to explain it for himself as for them to take upon them to explain it for others But it seems very strange that it should be Treason in the Earl of Argile to declare in what Sense he would take it when at the same time others have been allowed to put Senses and Constructions of their own upon it which were more remote from the meaning of the words than his were But that the World may be both able to judg of that Affair and of the hard and unpresidented usage which this Noble person hath met with I shall first subjoin the Explanation of the Test for which he was Accused and Condemned of High Treason Secondly I shall annex an Explication which he had prepared of that Explanation and which he threw into such a Texture with the words of the latter that being read interwoven together his purpose meaning and design will not only more clearly appear but justifie themselves to the minds of all rational men And I shall add in the last place the Opinion of several of the best Lawyers in Scotland concerning the Case of this Great and Loyal Peer The Earl of Argile's Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and I am very desirous to give obedience as far as I can I 'm confident the Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths Therefore I think no body can explain the Test but for himself I take it as far as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion And I do declare That I mean not to bind up my self in my Station and in a lawful way to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion and to my Loyalty And this I understand as a part of my Oath The Earl of Argile's Explication of his Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and have seen several objections moved by others against it and I am very desirous notwithstanding of all that I have seen or heard to give obedience in this and every thing as far as I can I am confident whatever scruples any man doth raise The Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths And because their sense and genuine meaning is the true sense and seeing the Test that is enjoined is of no private Interpretation nor are the Kings Statutes to be interpreted otherwise than as they bear to the intent they are made Therefore I think no body that is to say no private person can explain the Test for-another But every man for himself as he understands it to agree with and suit the Parliaments sense which is the true sense I take it notwithstanding all these scruples made by any As far as it is consistent with it self and which is indeed wholly in the Parliaments sense and true meaning which was the securing the Protestant Religion founded on the word of God and contained in the Confession of Faith recorded Parl. 1. Ja. 6. And I declare that by that part of the Test viz. that there lyes no obligation on me c. That I mean not to bind up my self in my station and in a lawful way still disclaiming all unlawful endeavours To wish and endeavour any Alteration I think according to my Conscience and Allegiance To the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion nor my Loyalty which I understand no otherwise but the duty and allegiance of loyal and faithful subjects And this Explanation I understand as a part not of the Test nor Act of Parliament but of my Oath that I am to swear and with it I am willing to take the Test if your R. H. and Lo. allow me it or otherways in submison to the Act of Parliament and your R. H. and the Councils pleasure am content to be held a Refuser at present The Opinion of the Lawyers about the Earl of Argyle's Case WE have considered the Criminal Letters raised at the instance of His Majesties Advocate against the Earl of Argyle with the Acts of Parliament contained and warranted in the same Criminal Letters and have compared the same with a Paper or Explication which is Libelled to have been given in by the Earl of Argyle to the Lords of His Majesties Privy Council and owned by him as the sense and explication in which he did take the Oath imposed by the late Act of Parliament and which Paper is of this Tenor I have considered the Test and am very desirous c. And likewise having consider'd that the Earl after he had taken the Oath with the explication and sense then put upon it it was acquiesced to by the Lords of the Privy Council and the Earl allowed to take his place and sit and vote And that before the Earl's taking of the Oath there were several Papers spread abroad containing Objections and alledged Inconsistencies and Contradictions in the Oath And that some thereof by Synods and Presbyteries of the Orthodox Clergy to some of the Bishops of the Church It is our humble Opinion that seeing the Earl's design and meanin in offering the said Explication was allenarly for clearing of his own Conscience and is of no contravention of the Laws and Acts of Parliament and doth not at all import the Crimes Libelled against him viz. Treason Leising-making Depraving of His Majesties Laws or the Crime of Perjury But that the Glosses and Inferences put by the Libel on the said Paper are altogether strained and unwarrantable and inconsistent with the Earl's true Design and the Sincerity of his meaning and intention in making of the said Explication FINIS