Selected quad for the lemma: order_n
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A49553
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Mr. Langhorn's memoires, with some meditations and devotions of his, during his imprisonment as also his petition to His Majesty, and his speech at his execution.
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Langhorne, Richard, 1654-1679.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing L397; ESTC R5132
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29,740
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24
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than in the presence of my Keeper Upon her coming I bemoaned my self to her that I was totally ignorant of what was Charged against me and had still a continuance of my Fear that I should be surprized with a Tryal without being able to make any Defence My Wife much troubled to hear this could not give me any answer to remove my apprehension because Captain Richardson was present but against the time of her next coming to me she procured an Abstract to be made of the several Narratives of Mr. Colemans and Mr. Irelands Tryals and when she came next she endeavoured to give it to me to the end I might from thence know what was at those Tryals given in Evidence relating to me But Captain Richardson discovering her intention took the Paper and though he told me he would restore it to her he carried it to the Privy Council and would not permit my Wife to see me any more Upon the delivery of the before-mentioned Paper to the Council which was on the first day of March a most worthy Friend of mine had Licence from His Majesty to come to me to exhort me to confess my knowledge of the Plot to represent unto me my danger if I refused and to give me hopes of a free Pardon in case I complied therein In truth he represented my condition to me so dismally that had not Almighty God been very merciful unto me his discourses would have been of sufficient force to have deprived me of my understanding In short he both told me I was to expect no Mercy without a discovery made by me of the Plot and that there was two or three express Witnesses against me who had been believed already by several Juries and that it was unreasonable in me to expect that other Juries should not believe what former Juries had believed He added That the whole People were so possessed of a full belief of the Plot from the Testimony of those Witnesses and of such strange an Abhorrence against all of my Religion that whatever could be said against me would be believed by every Jury and whatever I should pretend to give in Evidence for my Defence would be disbelieved and rejected though an Angel should come from Heaven to confirm it To all which I gave answer That my Trust and Reliance was in my God and onely in Him that I had no doubt but my God who knew my Innocency would stand by me and assist me and find some way for the justification of my Innocency which to him I did averr and declare in the Presence of God and by invoking his Divine Majesty to testifie the Truth of what I so averred and declared with all the Solemnity that I could use and that can be used by a Christian in any case of like nature I told him that there must be two several Persons perjured or I must be safe and I could not think that two Persons should conspire in Perjury for the destroying of so inconsiderable a Person as I knew my self to be And I added that in case my God should so far withdraw his Grace from me by abandoning me to a Reprobate Sense as to leave me to submit to the Temptation of charging other Persons faslly with any Crime or Plot by which I should endanger the Lives of others for the saving of my own Life I was totally ignorant how to frame a Plot that should seem credible and could not in possibility frame any thing that could agree with what was at the present affirmed by my Accusers I being totally ignorant of what they had affirmed After this Person had left me I was in the beginning of March and about one or two days before the meeting of the now Parliament again sent for down into Captain Richardson's House where I found two most Honourable Lords of His Majesties Council who gave me the same Exhortation and Invitation in order to a discovery of the Plot as I had received before from my other Friend with this great addition That their Lordships shew'd me an Order of Council to secure me of my Pardon in case I should make such Discovery but with this Condition that I must make it then or else the assurance of Pardon promised by that Order to be void My Conscience being clear and innocent I made the same Answers to these Noble Lords as I had done to the former Person who had been sent to me whereupon before their departure they delivered into my hands that Paper which my Wife had formerly prepared for me it being as I found the Opinion of His Majesty and of the Council that I should have it Upon all these Circumstances duely considered I hope it will appear to every charitable Judgment That if I had been in the least measure conscious to my self of any Treason I must as I have said before be esteemed to have totally lost my understanding and to have become a perfect Lunatique in refusing to Discover what in case I had been Guilty I could not but see would be proved against me especially when my Discovery was so fully secured of producing me a Pardon My close Imprisonment continued until two or three days before Whitsunday about which time it was allowed to some of my Friends to come to me with freedom in order to my preparing for my Tryal which was appointed to be at the end of Whitson week By these Friends I had the Printed Narrative brought to me of all the former Tryals relating to this Plot but I could have no light otherwise than from them of what would be Charged against me in Evidence I found it given in Evidence by Mr. Oats at Mr. Coleman's Tryal That he communicated the substance of a Treasonable Consult unto me on the 25th of April 1678 The very next day as he then swore after the Consult and saw several Commissions then in my Chamber lying before me and that after that time he had never seen me And I was glad to find that he had as I conceive by what he then swore lockt himself up by his Oath to a time and could not without Perjury charge any thing against me as done after that time And so far as I could make any Judgment of what was deposed by Mr. Bedloe against me at Mr. Ireland's Tryal touching my Registring the Consults of the Jesuits I conceived it was only intended by him upon his hear-say This was the whole so far as I could gather from the printed Narrative of what appeared to be charged I did remember the name of Oates having once by his hand received a Letter but I did not remember his Person And as for Mr. Bedloe I did not remember ever at any time to have heard his name I found also from the said Narratives That the Court had declared both those Witnesses to be Ill Men. And as to Mr. Oates I found that he had owned himself to have been first a Protestant then a Roman Catholique and
Discovery required must be a Discovery of Estates otherwise the perusal of Papers and Writings had been to no purpose In Obedience to the said last mentioned Command I applied with all Diligence to compleat my Discovery my Papers and Writings were examined by my Friends and my Discovery was perfected and delivered in unto the Council at the precise day for that purpose limited and it amounted to the value as I computed the same of between Twenty and thirty thousand Pounds Sterling and was annexed to a Petition wherein I declared my Innocency and Ignorance of any Treason or Plot and my sincere dealing as to my said Discovery and oftered to submit my self to be examined upon Interrogatories upon Oath or to undergo any Tryal of any Test for the giving satisfaction that the Discovery then by me made was complete and that I knew of no other Lands belonging in any wayes to the Jesuits other than what I had then and there Discovered and likewise for the purging of my self touching any other matter upon which it should be thought fit to Examine me And in my said Discovery I expressed every thing with such certainty as to the Names of the Estates and the Places where they lay and the Values so far as I was able to give the same and the Persons so far as I knew concerned therein that it was easie to seize the same immediately for the use of His Majesty So that I thereby did all that was in my power in order to my giving a perfect Obedience to the said Commands of His Majesty and to what was thereby required from me And my Friends as well as my self had no Doubt but that as Almighty God requires no more from us for the obtaining his pardon of our Sins and the salvation of our Souls than what His Divine Majesty knows to be possible for us to do on our parts so the King's Majesty and His Council would require no more from me for the saving of my poor Life and the obtaining of my Pardon than what was possible for me on my part to do I also looked upon the Publick Honour and Faith to be now firmly engaged for the security of my Life and the granting of a Pardon to me I having fully performed my part of that which was the Condition And it being clear that when once my Discovery was delivered in and read in Council it ceased to be a Secret and that nothing therein contained could afterwards remain as a thing undiscovered It was likewise evident that by this Act I had done as I believed more than any other single person now living who is meerly a Lay-man could do for the Service of His Majesty And that if there were any such Plot as is affirmed by Oates and Bedloe and that any person now charged therewith had knowledge thereof and should be required as I had been to discover what he knows for the saving of his Life he would hardly be induced to make such Discovery in case my Life should be taken away after my so free Discovery of all that was within my knowledge to be discovered was in obedience to so great a Command delilivered out of my hands However I rested satisfied That in case my Life should be taken away for the Crime for which I stand Condemned and after my Obedience given to His Majesties Commands in making the said Discovery I should dye with this great comfort That I should have a double Martyrdom First as dying perfectly Innocent of the Crime for which I should lose my Life And secondly as choosing rather to dye than to sin against my God and my Neighbor by charging others falsly and becoming guilty of their Blood and of the Ruine of their Families by accusing them of a Crime of which my own Conscience must bear me witness that I did never know them or any of them Guilty but on the contrary believe them to be perfectly Innocent Whereas if I had on the other side denied my self to have known any thing of those Estates which I was required to discover I must have sinned against the God of Truth by affirming a Lye And if Confessing That I had knowledge of such Estates I should rather have chosen to dye than to have made a Discovery of such my knowledge for the saving of my Life I should have appeared in some sort at least guilty of my own Blood through my obstinacy Upon the delivering of this Discovery and the reading of it in the Council the Lord Viscount Hallifax produced a Letter written to him as his Lordship affirmed from the Earl of Roscommon from Bruxels in which Letter the said Earl taking notice that he had heard of my being Reprieved affirmed himself to be much satisfied That my Life should be saved and gave this Reason That my Life might be useful to the Publick or to the like effect These words were taken to my great Disadvantage and to import as if the Earl of Roscommon did know That I was able to make a Discovery of the Plot. And though the words might well bear a more kind sense and did not without forcing so much as incline to that unkind Interpretation yet upon the reading of that Letter my Discovery was rejected after having been Publickly read and ordered to be sent unto me by a Clark of the Council and notice to be given to me That by an Order of Council I was Reprieved onely until the 14th day of July and that if before that day I did not make a Discovery of the Plot I was to expect no farther mercy My Friends were more astonished at this Order than my self was and being now in this condition I presumed yet once more to address a Petition in which I prayed That my Life might be saved though to be spent in Banishment and to the end that I might do all that in me lay to express and declare my Innocency I did to that Petition annex this following Declaration and Protestation viz. I Do Solemnly and Sincerely in the Presence of Almighty God Profess Testifie and Declare as followeth That is to say I. That I do believe and own my my Most Gracious Sovereign Lord the King's Majesty King CHARLES II. to be my True and Lawful Sovereign King in the same Sense and Latitude to all Intents and Purposes as in the Oath commonly called The Oath of Allegiance His said Majesty is expressed to be King of this Realm of England II. That I do in my Soul believe That neither the Pope nor any Prince Potentate or Foreign Authority nor the People of England nor any Authority out of this Kingdom or within the same hath or have any Right to dispossess His said Majesty of the Crown and Government of England or to Depose Him therefrom for any Cause or pretended Cause whatsoever Or to give Licence to me or to any other of His Majesties Subjects whatsoever to bear Arms against His Majesty or to take away His Life or to