Instance or two and those very remarkable by which it will appear that this is allowed by the Ghostly Fathers and practised by the Members of the Papal Communion the first then shall be that which Robert Perkins gave an Information of upon Oath and which Sir Robert Atkins one of the Judges at Stafford Assizes 1679. took as followeth This Informant saith That about seven or eight years since Mr. Arthur Fox then Servant to the present Lord Aston came to him and to another of his friends and told them that there was a Bastard-child laid to his charge by one of his Lords Tenants Daughters and did acknowledge to them that he did several times Lye with her and that by the best computation of time he could make he had just grounds to believe she had done him no wrong in this her charge and that he verily believed himself to be the Father of the Child and therefore came to them as his particular friends for their Advice in the case how to prevent the noise and scandal and great charge that was like to ensue hereupon and desired them to treat with the Young Womans Father and Mother about it and to offer them a certain sum of money to free him from all future charge from or by reason of this business In pursuance of this request this Informant and his friend addressed themselves to the Young Woman and to her Father and Mother The Young Woman with the greatest Asseverations and Protestations did affirm that she had never Layn with any man whatever but the said Mr. Fox and that he was the real Father of the Child Then they came to a Treaty with her Father about ascertaining the charge and agreed that Mr. Fox should pay thirty pounds to be for ever discharged from the said Child part of which sum was accordingly paid When they returned to Mr. Fox and had acquainted him with what agreement they had made for him with the Father and Mother of the Young Woman he seemed exceeding well satisfied therewith and returned them many thanks owning himself very much obliged to them both for their great care and pains in transacting this Affair for him and bringing it to an Issue so much to his content Mr. Evers the Priest belonging to the Lord Astons house was abroad whilst this business was in agitation but returning in few days before all the said thirty pound was paid was informed by Mr. Fox himself what agreement was made for him by this Informant and his friend as aforesaid Mr. Evers having thus understood the whole case told Mr. Fox that what he had done was not sufficient to take off the scandal from their Church for to his knowledge this story was much talkt of abroad and that with very severe reflections upon the Roman Catholicks in general and therefore as his Ghostly Father he would advise him what was to be done in order to the taking off so great a scandal from their Church and added that he had consulted Mr. Peters another Priest about it and that they were come to a resolve what method should be used and therefore required him to prepare himself for Confession Accordingly Mr. Fox came to Confession to the said Mr. Evers and owned the whole matter as aforesaid then Mr. Evers told him again he continuing upon his knees that the scandal which was hereby brought to their Church was very great and therefore for the taking it off and preventing further scandal for the future to their Church to my Lord Aston or to himself Mr. Peters and he had agreed upon this course viz. that he should go immediately to his Lord Aston and on his knees before his Lord and Lady with solemn Oaths and Asseverations deny that ever he had any thing to do with the said Young Woman in that nature and that he was altogether innocent of the Crime laid to his charge and that after this he should go up to the Chappel where the Congregation was met and there in like manner deny it with the like Asseverations and to confirm them in the belief of it he should then before them receive the Sacrament When Mr. Evers had finished these Instructions he gave him Absolution before he rose from his knees telling him That if he observed these Instructions he was absolved from the said Crime and therefore innocent of it altogether and might so declare himself as aforesaid All which Instructions in every particular the said Mr. Fox punctually observed His friend aforesaid being in the Chappel when he disowned the Fact with solemn Oaths and received the Sacrament upon it Here we have not only an instance what little credit is to be given to the Oaths and Asseverations of Papists but how they prostitute what themselves account most sacred namely Confession Absolution and the Sacrament of the Eucharist to their base and secular ends And if the preserving the Reputation of one Fellow or the avoiding the Censures which might be reflected upon the Papal Religion because of sin of one of the Members of their Communion which the Doctrine of their Church pronounceth at worst to be but venial could be esteemed motives and inducements weighty enough and sufficient for the Authorizing of Perjury and the prophaning the Institutions of their Religion can we then judge it strange or ought we to entertain it with any surprise that for the saving not only the honour of their Church but the Estates and Lives of so many of their Faction in England from the Just Imputations and deserved Punishments which so horrid a Treason as that now charged upon them must both render their Religion and Party obnoxious unto they should not only allow but oblige their Votaries to use the like Imprecations and Oaths towards the wheedling the unthinking and credulous sort of Protestants into a belief of their Innocency The second Instance I shall give of the Freedom they assume unto themselves of abusing the Faith of Mankind by Oaths and how for they are from reckoning it any crime to forswear themselves for the advantage of the Catholick Cause shall be that of a Souldier lately admitted into one of the Companies of the King's Guards under the Command of a Captain who is well known to be an abhorrer of such practice This Fellow having taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy the only Legal Test whereby the Government hath provided for the distinguishing betwixt Protestants and Papists among persons of that degree and Employ was nevertheless suspected by some of his Companions who knew what Religion he had been of before to be still a Papist and that he had only swallowed those Oaths for ends which he was willing to conceal but which according to the Romish Religion might sanctifie a prophanation of the name of God Accordingly having resolved for their own satisfaction and their better instruction what that vile Religion countenanceth men in to have a watchful and observant Eye over him they were so fortunate as
can make no impression upon men acquainted with Books or conversant and experienced in the affairs and transactions of the world Seeing it is easie for such to know that false Asseverations and Oaths are not only consistent with and justified by the Principles of the Papal Religion but that they are agreeable to what Popish Traitors and other Malefactors within the Roman Communion have practised upon less important Motives and Occasions and that likewise in their last hours when they were immediately after to appear before the Divine Tribunal And if the Romish Party in England were not Judically left to betray the highest Folly as well as perpetrate the greatest Villanies it were not possible that after the two Learned Answers which were published against the Speeches of the five Jesuits who suffered June the 20th 1679. And notwithstanding all the Infamy which hath thereby redounded to their Cause they should still take Sanctuary in Falshood and Perjury But having no other Vindication of their Innocency to betake themselves unto they must either acknowledge their Guilt to the eternal Reproach of their Religion and the hazard of their total Extirpation out of His Majesties Dominions or they must successively as they come to be arraigned and executed retreat to false and horrid Oaths and Imprecations for the preserving the credit of their Church and the protecting their friends from the punishments to which this Hellish Conspiracy hath made the greatest number as well as the most considerable of them obnoxious Accordingly the Late Viscount Stafford hath for the honour of Mother Church and the promoting the blessed Design of overthrowing the Protestant Religion and destroying such as profess it in these Nations been prevailed with to shut up the Course of a Traiterous and Criminal Life with most stupendous and astonishing Perjury by assuming the Impudence to protest and swear that he was Innocent of what he was brought to suffer for And all this after that the most Righteous and Impartial as well as the highest and most August Court in the World had on the fairest Trial and most convincing Evidence that ever Offender was convicted or sentenced upon found and pronounced him guilty § 2. Now though the Principles of the Papists be such and the Tyes they are under from their interest so strong that there is no hope or probability left that any regard to Truth or Justice should influence the consciences of any in that Communion to act otherwise should they be brought to tread a Scaffold or mount a Ladder upon the score of the Present Plot yet we will not Despair but that the Infamy which by uncontrollable Evidence we shall fix and entail upon the memory of the Late Viscount Stafford may prevent such as hereafter may come to suffer for this Conspiracy from the indiscretion of dying like Fools and men regardless as much of their Names here as of their Salvation hereafter But if that Infatuation and Obstinacy which hath hitherto prevailed over the Minds and Consciences of those of the Papal Faction should so powerfully continue upon them as to render that part of my Design unsuccessful yet I comfort my self with the hopes of being able so far to undeceive and instruct the rest of mankind as to preserve and secure them from giving faith and credit to Papists in any thing they shall say or swear for the future especially when their Personal Interest or that of their Church dependeth upon or is concerned in it And indeed this Plot is already both so far unvailed and laid open and so demonstratively confirmed and proved that none pretending to the name of a Protestant can bring into question either the Truth or Execrableness of it unless he be really a Papist and assume the appellation of a Protestant only as a safe and fashionable Vizard Moreover the Vindicating the Justice of the Nation and the clearing the Integrity and honour of that high and so much to be renowned Court of Judicature before whom the Late Viscount Stafford was arraigned and by whom he was with so great solemnity pronounced guilty and condemned is a matter worthy of our utmost Zeal and Diligence and the due performing whereof we shall alwaies esteem a piece of the greatest usefulness we were capable of applying our selves unto in this World In fine by discoursing this matter as it ought and placing things in that light and clearness which are due to them we hope to render the Conviction of those other Traitors who either already are or may come hereafter to be Impeached upon the account of this Conspiracy not only less liable to private Censures and Obloquies but more easie and dispatchable For there are some persons who though they fully believe a Plot that from the reverence which they would be thought to bear to the solemn Appeals which the Accused make to God of their Innocency are withheld from giving that entire credit to the Witnesses for the King which the Authority of the Deponents Oaths the coherence of their Testimonies the intrinsick Evidence of their Depositions the correspondence of one part with another and many material and circumstantial proofs seem to exact from them But though not only weak and well meaning men but persons of great prudence and circumspection and throughly acquainted with all the measures according to which Justice is to be administred and publick Trials of Offenders transacted may suffer themselves to be imposed upon by audacious Asseverations before the guile and falshood of them be discovered yet if they continue in their credulity after that the highest blasphemy against whatsoever is and should be preserved sacred comes to be detected and laid open they must not take it amiss if the generality of mankind not only charge them with easiness of belief and folly but father upon them Accusations that are more Gross and Criminal Nor is there any character so black but that they deserve their names should be eternally loaded with it who not only suffer themselves to be wheedled by Asseverations destitute of all grounds which should command respect and deferrence but which through the palpableness of their falshood ought to raise a detestation and horror in the minds of all those who maintain any veneration for God whose name is so audaciously and sacrilegiously prostituted to the attestation of lyes and perjuries § 3. And seeing the Papists have hitherto produced nothing towards their Vindication from the Plot that is material or consistent with it self but that those who have been brought to suffer for it have asserted their Innocency and denyed their guilt when in the Immediate prospect of Death and Eternity It will not therefore be an unfit remarque in our very entrance on the discourse of this matter that their criminalness is not only made Evident by the Testimony of many persons who through the hopes they enjoy of the continuation of their lives are capable of being tempted by the Expectation of profit and greatness but that it is
who did not And for one of my Lords two Witnesses namely Mr. Sambich his deafness might excuse him in saying he heard no such thing though at the same nearness to Mr. Dugdale when the words were spoken as Mr. Hanson or Mr. Ansell were And besides though his deafness hindred his hearing Mr. Dugdale when he communicated that morning the news of the Murther nevertheless he had so far arrived at the knowledge of it some time or other that day that he acquainted Charles Chetwyn Esq with it in the Afternoon as the said Charles Chetwyn Esq deposed upon Oath at the Tryal of the Jesuits and upon the occasion I have mentioned this Gentleman I shall crave Liberty to rectifie one mistake in the Printed Relation of that Tryal which is that whereas Charles Chetwyn Esq swore this was told him by Sambich on Monday as Edward Smith Esq and Bencher of the Middle Temple and Justice Warcup who were both present at the said Tryal are ready to depose yet through the fault either of the Printer or of him that took the Tryal Tuesday is set down in the Published Account But to proceed to Mr. Phillips the other witness produced to detract from the credit of Mr. Dugdale in this matter where we desire to observe that together with the denyal of his having heard any such words he denyed likewise his being at that Ale-house either that day or the following which as none about Tixall who know his constant custom of visiting Eld's once or twice a day can easily believe so he appears plainly to be a very bold and venturous person in taking upon him to say that he was not such a day in a house where he used constantly to resort and this after such a compass of time wherein without reflection upon the weakness of his memory he may be supposed not to remember what he either did or where he was so long before But besides this we have something else to add whereby the Authority of this Parson against a Protestant is everlastingly blasted and supplanted For whereas he thought to recommend his Testimony by pretending himself a Minister of the Church of England there is an Information given upon Oath before Justice Warcup against him that he the said Phillips declared his readiness to renounce the Protestant Religion and forsake the Communion of the Church of England providing a competent Annual Provision could be settled upon him for the maintenance of himself and his Wife and Children And pursuant hereunto he employed a friend to treat with my Lord Aston about it who being very fond of a Proselyte of such a character undertook to charge himself with the care of him and his family But at the same time under the influence of Father Evers counsel he advised him to continue his station for a season where he was for by pretending himself still a Minister of the Church of England he remains better qualified and more capacitated to promote the Romish Interest than if he should immediately pull off his Mask and vouch himself openly for a Papal Convert And surely no man can believe him to be a competent witness against the Credit and Reputation of a Protestant that is first willing to abjure his Religion upon so base motives and then proceeds upon as ill inducements to dissemble the Profession of a Religion which he hath declared himself unsatisfied in and ready to renounce He that is not afraid to deal falsly in a matter of so great importance as Religion will not scruple to transgress the rules of Justice and prevaricate from the lines of Truth in moral Concernments And especially when the acquitting himself as he did may be supposed his Probationership for his plenary admission into the bosom of the Roman Church and the Compensation he was to make for the annual Pension that was to be settled upon him nor ought it to surprise any Protestant or True Englishman that they have been able to muster up some few persons to detract from the esteem of Mr. Dugdale if we do but consider the Methods they have used by Bribery and Subornation to effect and accomplish it or that they have proceeded further than to lessen his Reputation namely by offers of money to engage men to destroy him and in reference to the first I shall produce the Testimony of Simon Wright one whom I briefly mentioned before this person being known to have been well acquainted with Mr. Dugdale for that he used in quality of a Barber frequently to trim him was accordingly applied unto by Mr. Plessington and proffered seven hundred pounds if he would appear as a Witness to take off his Evidence or if he would destroy and assassinate him And for his security as to the obtaining of the money if he would have complied with the proposal both Mr. Reeves an Apothecary in Chancery-Lane and Mr. Deway the Scriviner tendred him their several obligatory notes Yea they framed a Paper for him wherein he was to testifie that Mr. Dugdale had suborned and hired him to swear against Sir James Symons and Mr. Gerrard two Persons accused about the Plot which they prevailed with him by money and promises to set his hand unto and would have persuaded him to make an Affidavit upon it before a Justice of Peace the tenor of which Paper being directed to Sir James Symons was as followeth I can bless God with a safe Conscience declare upon Oath that Mr. Dugdale hath been unkind to me in taking his opportunity of my poverty by reason of a private meeting of us two by his appointment He did at that time preffer if I would swear against you and Mr. Gerrard he would protect me as one of the King's Evidence and I should not want money And now as this Paper alone is sufficient to detect the waies and methods they have used for overthrowing the Reputation of Mr. Dugdale so the Providence of God is to be acknowledged in the infatuation of my Lord Stafford who to the blasting of the Papal Cause and the evidencing of his and others guilt in the present Conspiracy produced it For being in their hands it was in their power to have suppressed it as it appears by the Testimony of Wright they did another Paper of much more consequence to which also they had suborned hired and wheedled him to set his hand And as if it had not been enough to endeavour to corrupt persons to swear falsly against him they have dealt with some to assassinate and kill him as appears not only by the Informations of the aforesaid Simon Wright who was to have stabbed him and by the Informations of Thomas Lander who they would have perswaded to put fire to the Room where Mr. Dugdale lay and to burn him in his Bed both which Informations are published lately by Thomas Symmons at the Prince's Arms in Ludgate-Street but also by the following deposition of Simon Ansell The Information of Simon Ansell as
together but had much Discourse concerning Religion And that Mr. Ireland by way of sounding his Inclination to the Papal Church asked him whether if their Religion were Established by Law and publickly owned in England he would not then embrace it and come over to their Communion To which the Gentleman replied That the Popish Religion was so repugnant to the first Principles of Reason that he could never abandon his understanding so far as to espause or entertain it but that if things should come to that pass as Mr. Ireland suggested he would submit to the Government in Popish hands but not to Popery So that there can be nothing more evident than that Ireland was in London when he calls God and Angels to witness and pawns his Salvation upon it that he was in Staffordshire Who could have believed that a Person not only pretending to be a Christian but of a sacred Order in the Church and trusted with the Dispensation of Sacred Mysteries and assuming the Conduct of the Souls of Men durst have had the boldness and impudence to dare Heaven and affront the Omniscient Majesty as well as abuse Mankind in so horrid a manner This is a new way of leaving the World with hopes and expectations of Happiness to renounce all right to and interest in future blessedness if Dissimulation and Perjury may not entitle them to it We may justly conceive that they think themselves dispensed with to Blaspheme the Name of God whensoever their doing so is subservient to the benefit and advantage of the Church of Rome And that they reckon such impieties will not only be forgiven them upon the account of the End which they are perpetrated for but become Sanctified and commence Meritorious However I think he forfeits his Discretion as well as proclaims himself unworthy the name of a Protestant that can believe the Asseveration of a Priest or Jesuit in reference to his own Innocency after we have so demonstratively detected Mr. Ireland as well as those we have already mentioned to be such horrid Impostors And we may also gather with what Resignation the Popish Laity subject themselves to the Commands of their Ghostly Fathers being so ready to Sacrifice their Souls to Eternal Punishments in their protesting that to be true which they know to be false rather than to dispute or decline obedience in whatsoever they require of them For by the amazing prevarication in the first Principles of Morality which we find those that they had mustered up from the Countrey guilty of in this matter we may very well conclude that they had implicitly trusted both their Reputations and Souls into the hands of their Priests And that they account it a Criminal Matter to enquire how they dispose of them § 10. Having thus far Detected not only the villanous Perjuries of Romanists which are of a more ancient date but made some fresh Reflections upon and given ample Discoveries of the blasphemous falshoods that several Executed for this late Plot have dyed guilty of We now proceed to lay open the unparallell'd Impudence and brasen Impostures of the late Viscount Stafford And the first thing we shall take notice of is this that he renounceth in his last breath all hope of Salvation if ever he were guilty himself or knew of any that were of the Crimes whereof he was Accused And yet by a Letter directed to my Lord Aston which was found in his Study at Tixall when searched and to which was subscribed Stafford and the Letter dated from Stafford October 8. 78. the Plot is both confessed under his own hand and his particular Interest and Co-operation in it acknowledged The words of which Letter were as followeth My Lord the Plot is discovered and we are all undone And I am going into Shropshire to stifle it as much as I can and I pray do you the same in Staffordshire This Letter was seised by Captain Thomas Lane a Justice of Peace and Deputy Lieutenant in Staffordshire And accordingly he Deposed before the Committee appointed as Managers for the Tryal of my Lord Stafford and was ready to have proved it openly in Court if he had been called thereunto But those worthy Gentlemen that were entrusted by the House of Commons to prosecute the Impeachment of Treason against Stafford did upon some prudential Considerations decline the mentioning of this matter And the rather because they had other sufficient Evidence for the Convicting of that Criminal And they were not willing to make any Critical Enquiry how this Letter under my Lords hand came to be suppressed or lost as it seems it was from it s not being Communicated neither to the Committee of Secrecy nor to the Committee of Managers of the Tryal But this Mr. Lane Deposeth That having shewn it to Mr. Mosely a Gentleman of Quality in the foresaid County and to diverse others who have attested the same before a Committee of Parliament he did transmit it to one of the Clerks of the Council and that he received a Letter concerning the receipt of it from one of the Clerks Had the Plot succeeded this late Lord would have been proud of it and endeavoured to derive glory to his Family from it but being discovered and it appearing so full of horror to all the sober part of Mankind they have no way left for the preventing the ruine of themselves and Posterities but though to the loss of their Souls to disclaim and abjure it Alass We needed no Witnesses to tell us of a Plot carried on by the Papists for many years past against our Religion the Caballing of the chief Factors of the Romish Party the raising Money upon their Estates at home and promoting Collections amongst the Papal Zealots abroad the putting themselves under the Conduct of Forreign Councils and the industriously providing and furnishing themselves throughout the whole Kingdom with Horse and Arms were so many uncontrollable Evidences of it to all Persons of ordinary Converse and Observation And the Depositions of such as have come in to make detection of this Conspiracy do so correspond with what most men have seen and took notice of that the utmost they amount unto is only to afford us a legal proof of that whereof we had before a moral assurance Can it be imagined that Coleman Throgmorton Leyborn should only be acquainted with so great and important a Design and that Powis Bellasis Arundel and Stafford should be ignorant of it Who knows not that the former were too inconsiderable to give either Authority to so weighty an undertaking or yield that assistance which was necessary to the effecting and accomplishing of it None below those of the highest Quality in the Papal Party were furnished either with Wisdom to conduct it Interest to obtain Forreign Countenance unto it or Treasure and Power to possess the meanest with the least hope of success Could Coleman judge that their Design made so happy an advance that they should quickly see the
NO Faith or Credit To be given to PAPISTS BEING A DISCOURSE Occasioned by the Late Conspirators Dying in the Denyal of their Guilt With Particular Reflections on the Perjury of UUill Uiscount Stafford Both at his Tryal and in his Speech on the Scaffold In Relation to Mr. STEPHEN DUGDALE AND Mr. EDWARD TURBERVILL By JOHN SMITH Gentleman Discoverer of the Popish Plot. LONDON Printed for Tho. Cockerill at the Three Leggs in the Poultry over against the Stocks-Market 1681. To the Right Honourable Heneage Finch Baron of DAVENTRY Lord High Chancellor of ENGLAND THE August Character which your Lordship bore and the Lofty place which you filled at the Tâ—yal of my Late Lord Stafford render it the indispâ—nsible duty of your Servant with the humblest prostration to deposit these Papeâ—s at your feet And if ever my Lord Chancellor Finch had a Theater adopted to these Qualifications of Nature and Acquisition which he is indued with It was then that he was furnished with an Illustrious occasion of displaying and celebrating of them And the most indelible Records of succeeding times will transmit to the admiration as well as instruction of future Ages with what Wisdom and Justice you acquitted your self and what Honour to the Envy of such as may be called to Sit there in the like capacity you entailed upon that High and Reverable Court The Speech which accompanied the Sentence pronounced upon the Criminal before you did at once declare the Courage as well as the Righteousness of him that spake it And for any now to doubt of a Popish Conspiracy against the King the Protestant Religion and the Government Established by Law in England is not onely to Arraign the most impartial as well as the greatest Tribunal under Heaven but to contradict a person who contrary to a thousand Secular Byasses proclaimed the Sentiments of his own Soul in publishing the Sentence of that tremendous Judicature Onely let me with all becoming humility suggest to your Lordship the Sensations and Resentments of the Papal Party namely That by the Condemnation of this one Conspirator you have not onely Impeached but in effect convicted the whole Body of the Romish Faction in England And for your Lordship henceforth to hope to skrene your self from the effects of their Exasperation and Rage but by a zealous prosecution of them according to the demerit of their Crimes were not onely to abandon your self to the neglect of your friends but the Triumph of your Enemies For among all the sins which are enrolled for venial by the Roman Church there is no provision of pardon for him that condemns a Votary to the Triple Crown or adjudgeth those to the Gibbet whose obedience to the Infallible Chair obliged them to destroy Heretical Kings and Kingdoms Nor was it to the diminution of your Glory that you made your Eloquence wherewith at other times you have blazoned many great and Noble Subjects vail in that Oration to the strength and uncontrollableness of Reason And did not the Formalities of Law require the Attestation and Testimony of Oral Witnesses the Arguments demonstrative of a Horrid Conspiracy wherein the Papists are imbarkt and involved which enliven that great and solemn Speech might without the accession of any other Evidence be sufficient to ground a Verdict upon of a most execrable Treason against the whole Papal Community in these Kingdoms The Nation is now instructed upon whom to charge the Burning of London and that from the mouth of him the Authority of whose Decrees give for the most part a terminative and final decision in more dubious cases only let me subjoyn that you have hereby kindled those sparks in the hearts of all English men as well as Londoners as nothing but the shedding the blood of the Authors and Instruments of that Conflagration by the hand of Justice will be ever able to quench or extinguish them My Lord that true Christian and Protestant Charity which taught you to give that Viscount an Interest in your prayers to God for the pardon of those Crimes above which the Law could not remit here below and who withall neither begged nor put any value upon them will I hope influence your Lordship to forgive the confidence of this Address Your Lordships most dutiful and obedient Servant JOHN SMITH Reflections on the Sincerity of the Papists Occasioned by the SPEECH of William Late Viscount Stafford On the Scaffold at Tower-Hill § 1. T IS matter of no small surprize that not withstanding the Discovery of a horrid Popish Plot against the King's Person the Protestant Religion and the Government Established by Law yet the Nation after the Expiration of two years since the first Detection of it doth still lie as much exposed to all the dangers which it threateneth as the first hour when it was revealed And that which encreaseth the amazement is that neither the advantages which we have by enjoying a Protestant King nor the Counsels and assistance which three several Parliaments have faithfully and chearfully contributed have been hitherto able to secure our Religion Lives and Liberties from the hazards which this Papal Conspiracy travelleth with and would involve us under But that which is most of all astonishing is the endeavour to discredit the belief of the Plot and this after it hath not only been so fully and legally made evident by the Papers and Letters of some of the Conspirators the positive and concurring Testimonies of many Witnesses the Murders and Assassinations committed upon several Magistrates as well as others for discharging their duty in the detecting of it but after it hath been put beyond all rational contradiction as well by the votes and resolves of so many Parliaments as by the conviction and Execution of divers of the Traitors And when the hiring and suborning infamous persons to defame and weaken the credit of the witnesses and the tampering with some of themselves to corrupt and make them retract their Depositions had failed them in the accomplishing what they proposed unto themselves they thereupon persevere to foment and cherish a disbelief of the Plot by arguments derived from the Curses and Imprecations whereby those that were convicted of and executed for it did in the affirmation of their Innocency affront the Justice of the Nation with their last and dying breath For having found all their other Arts and their manifold subornations to issue only in the prejudice of their Cause and the punishment of those whom they had employed they are therefore forced to stake the Reputation of their Religion and Church and the Safety of their whole Party upon the Oaths and Curses whereby those that were condemned have in the contempt and defiance of the clearest Evidence and most Impartial Justice endeavoured to outface us into a persuasion that they were guiltless and suffered unjustly Now though this may affect some easie and weak persons with an opinion that they died not so criminal as their Indictment and Sentence bore yet it
renounce and disown my Allegiante as due to the said pretended King of England or obediente to any of his inferiour Officers and Magistrates but do believe the Protestant Doctrine to be heretical and damnable and that all are damned who do not for sake the same and to the best of my power will help his Holinesses Agents here in England to Extirpate and Root out the said Protestant Doctrine and to destroy the said Pretended King of England and all such of his Subjects as will not adhere to the holy See of Rome and the Religion there professed I do further promise and declare That I will keep secret and private and not divulge directly or indirectly by word writing or circumstance whatsoever shall be proposed given in charge or discovered to me by you my Ghostly Father or any other engaged in the promoting of this pious and holy Design And that I will be active and not desist from the carrying of it on And that no hopes of rewards threats or punishments shall make me discover the rest concerned in so pious a work And if discovered shall never confess any accessaries with my self concerned in this Design All which I do swear by the Blessed Trinity and by the Blessed Sacrament which I now purpose to receive to perform and on my part keep inviolable And do call all the Angels and Saints in Heaven to witness my real intention to keep this Oath In Testimony whereof I do receive this most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist Now besides that there is nothing more probable or fuller of moral Certainty than that in a business should it be discovered of so fatal Consequence to their Religion and themselves they would use all Imaginable waies and means to bind the Consciences of those that were trusted with it from revealing and detecting what was committed unto them so the Methods which they took in Promoting former Plots and Treasons and for the prevention of their Discovery having been by the prescription and imposition of an Oath of Secrecy may give us all desirable Assurance that they were equally careful to â—â—â—der the detection of this and that accordingly they made use of some solemn Oath of secrecy to that purpose And that by the Engine of such an Oath they have endeavoured to setter the Consciences and stop the mouths of their Proselytes and Complices heretofore we are abundantly Informed in a book stiled A true and perfect Relation of the whole proceedings against Garnet the Jesuit and his Confederates which was Published by Authority Anno 1606 where we have the Sum of the said Oath thus conveyed unto us and recorded viz. You shall Swear by the Blessed Trinity and by the Sacrament you now purpose to receive never to disclose directly or indirectly by word or circumstance the matter that shall be proposed to you to keep Secret nor desist from the Execution thereof until the rest shall give you leave Which Oath was administred by Gerrard the Jesuit to Catesby Percy Wright Winter and Fawkes in the Second year of the Reign of King James and by Greenwell the Jesuit to Bates in the same year though in the following month And as this was an unquestionable Copy for our present Conspirators to write after so we may easily inform our selves from hence by virtue of what tyes those found guilty of the late Plot dyed in the asseveration of their Innocency for if we do but suppose them to have lived in the practical belief of their own Religion or that they were possessed with any hopes of attaining happiness in the way of it we must then perswade our selves that they would not depart out of the world in the violation of an Oath which they had so solemnly taken and which the principles of their Faith doth not only approve of but makes the keeping of it meritorious As to other Oaths they might be easily dispensed with both to make and break them but there was no Expectation of any dispensation for or absolution upon the violation of this Oath For can it be so much as once apprehended that after they have brought persons under a bond which they esteem so sacred and unviolable they should then indulge and allow them to transgress against an obligation so necessary to the compassing of their ends and in the punctual observation whereof they have stated so much of their Religion and the future happiness of their Proselytes To act dissonantly to this Oath which so admirably framed and calculated for the good of Mother Church and the grandess of the triple Crown were a perjury not to be expiated but to forswear themselves in subserviency to the gainful and Religious ends of this Oath is at once not only venial but worthy of Immortal Glory I readily grant that partly by the Antecedent Oath of Secrecy which they had so ceremoniously and augustly taken and partly by the circumstances under which the papal cause and faction laboured when they came to dye they were brought into a strait or dilemma of perjuring themselves on the one hand or upon the other But now can we reasonably think that they would perjure themselves by detecting the Plot when they knew that upon so doing they were both by the principles of their Faith and the Sentence of their Church to stand adjudged to Eternal Torment And ought we not rather to assure our selves that under the security which they had of happiness in the keeping inviolate their first Oath they would in defiance of all Truth attest God above and call Men below to witness they were altogether Innocent of what they were charged with For against the dread and apprehension of all that this might render them obnoxious unto they might secure themselves by a dispensation beforehand to do it or provide for their salvation by an Absolution afterwards or trust to their Martyrdom in so holy a Cause for the expiation of so small a Crime or at the worst they could but expect that their punishment in Hell for so beneficial a perjury to the Church should be only for a season and that the prayers of Catholicks the superlative prevalency of Masses and the boundless and unquestionable Power of Christ's Vicar who hath both the Keys of Heaven and Hell would soon release them thence and translate them to happiness § 5. But that we may the better understand how far Papists may lawfully not only endeavour by bare Affirmations to impose falshoods upon the world but forswear themselves for the good of the Catholick Church and the grandeur of the Papal Chair we will briefly unfold and lay open how far they allow themselves and are justified by their Writers and Ghostly Fathers to do so in subserviency meerly to their own credit and reputation or at most in order only to their own personal safety And without enquiring till afterwards upon what maxims of Divinity the Roman Casuists indulge their Disciples and Converts to do so we shall at present produce an
of Plunket and in the confessing that himself was guilty of the crime for which he was condemned yet we may be justly confident that his applications prevailed with Plunket and that through Bradys persuasions he dyed obstinate in the denial of what was not only proved against him but what himself had before acknowledged The other instance mentioned in the same Letter is a Narrative how that one Neile O Neile an Irish Papist being tryed before Sir Richard Reynell one of the Judges of the Kings-Bench in that Kingdom upon a Commission of Oyer and Terminer for a murther committed at Rathrum in the County of Wicklow and the fact clearly proved upon him for which he was accordingly condemned did nevertheless notwithstanding the fullness of the Evidence against him and that he himself had both in Prison and at his Tryal owned the fact to several persons at the Gallows utterly deny it § 7. But that it may more evidently appear that there is nothing in the Exit and manner of the late Traitors taking their farewell of the world that should surprise any true English man or thinking Protestant we shall endeavour to give an original Copy of it in the Practices of others who suffered for the like crimes in a former Reign And we will at present take it upon the acknowledgements of our adversaries that there was such a Conspiracy as the Gunpowder-Plot Though by the way it may be observed as an argument of what sincerity the Romish Party is of and how that all they say or print is only accommodated to the posture of times and seasons and calculated in subserviency to depending Designs in that many of the Papal Communion have had the Confidence to obtrude upon the World oftner than once that the Gunpowder Conspiracy was only a State Trick and Contrivance to make them seem guilty and criminal who were truly innocent But besides that none of all those who were then convicted and executed for it did so much as ever pretend that they were wheedled into it by the cunning and dexterity of a publick and Protestant State-Minister so it must be acknowledged that they were well disposed and prepared by vertue of Romish Principles and throughly inclined of themselves to the committing of Treason otherwise they had never entertained nor complyed with so horrid an overture as the destroying at once the King Parliament and Kingdom But that which I shall insist upon is the denial of their Guilt upon their Examinations and the falshood of their asseverations at their very death though there was unquestionable Evidence both of the Treason and how far the whole Papal Party was interested in it not only by the seisure of some of them when ready to accomplish the execrable villany and by the insurrection of others in Arms to have protected themselves from the Law and commenced a Rebellion but by the discoveries which had been made from their own scanty and partial Confessions upon Examination and by the freer discourses which they were overheard to use one to another in Prison when they little apprehended that there were any near to observe what they said And I shall the rather insist upon this because they who have been condemned for the late Plot and such who have undertaken the justification of their Innocency are pleased to tell us That those executed for the Powder-Treason did confess their fact at the time of their execution whereas they that have been executed for the present Conspiracy have at their deaths denied the fact and resisted all temptations of Pardon and Reward Nay the late Lord Stafford was pleased to alledge at his Trial that as it was so horrid a thing that it cannot be expressed or excused So he had been told that all who were engaged in that wicked fact were heartily sorry for it and repented of it before they dyed and that he never heard any of the Church of Rome speak a good word of it and that the men concerned in it did all acknowledge and confess it and begged pardon of the King and God and all good men for it and that therefore he thought it was not the interest of Religion but a private Interest put them upon it In which words there are no fewer than four egregious Falshoods which whether they be excused upon the account of the smallness of his Converse with men and Books or upon the score of the weakness of his aged memory or whether they be not chargeable upon the badness of his Conscience intoxicated by ill Principles I leave the Reader to judge and determine The first is That he never heard any of the Church of Rome speak a good word of it Whereas Widdrington assures us that Garnet had his Picture soon after his Execution set up in the Jesuits Colledge at Rome with this Inscription over it Verus Christi Martyr And if this be not enough to convince after ages what Opinion the Jesuites have and still maintain of that Plot we will farther add that both Ribadewira hath reckoned Garnet Southwell and Oldcorn all Gun Powder Traitors among the Martyrs of the Society of Jesus And Alegambe hath likewise inserted Garnet's and Oldcorn's names amongst the Martyrs of the Catholick Church and that Order Yea not only Father Parsons Rector of the English Colledge at Rome speaking of Father Garnet saies He was an innocent man and suffered unjustly and that he lived a Saint's life and accomplished the same with a happy death But the Pope himself preferred Greenwell and Gerrard two of the Conspirators that escaped the one to be a Confessor in St. Peters in Rome and the other to be his Penitentiary Now whether these were Testimonies of a detestation of the Plot or Evidences of the approbation which nothing but its miscarriage Prevented their declaring more publickly I leave all mankind to judge The second is That he hath been told that all who were engaged in that wicked act were heartily sorry for it and repented of it before they died Whereas Thuanus tells us that some of the Traitors having escaped to Calice and being pittied and assured by the Governour of the French King's favour and that though they had lost their own Country they might be received there how that one of them thereupon replyed that the loss of their Countrey was the least part of their grief but that which sensibly afflicted them was that they could not accomplish so brave and generous a design Nay Sir Everard Digby even when a Prisoner in the Tower for the Plot stiles it in one of his Papers since come to light a good Cause and that if it had succeeded there would not have been three worth the saving that should have been lost and that he had some friends who would have been in danger but that he had prevented it The third is That he thought it was not the Interest of Religion but a private interest put them upon it Whereas not
only Faux declared that he was moved into it only for the sake of Religion and Conscience because he thought the King not to be his lawful Soveraign seeing he was an Heretick But Sir Everard Digby professed upon his Tryal that it was not ambition nor discontent with his Estate nor malice to any in Parliament but zeal for his Religion and the hopes of restoring it in England The fourth and principal thing wherein my Lord Stafford did either mistake himself or greatly prevaricate was in these words That the men concerned in the Powder-Plot did all acknowledge and confess it and begged Pardon of the King and God and all good men for it Nor shall I here insist upon this that I do not see how it was possible for my Lord Stafford to be assured that all the Persons who were in it were known and found out or that he could ever throughly understand whether even those that confessed after their apprehension did not conceal much more than they discovered But I shall confine my self to two things whereof the first is this that the conspirators when under Examination did with Oaths and Asseverations deny what themselves had full knowledge of and whereof the State had sufficient Evidence For Garnet having by the pretended favour of his Keeper an opportunity allowed him to discourse with Hall and being the next day charged by several Lords of the Privy Council with divers things which had passed betwixt them two in that conference he not only denied the whole upon his Soul and the word of a Priest but with so many repeated Protestations and terrible Execrations that my Lord of Salisbury who was then present said it wounded all their Lordships hearts to hear him And yet when confronted by Mr. Fauset who was both a learned person and a Justice of Peace and by Mr. Lockerson one likewise of known Reputation who had overheard all they said having conveniently placed themselves before hand to that purpose and withal understanding that Hall had confessed what they had discoursed he then acknowledged what with so many asseverations he had immediately before denied and begged mercy of the Lords saying he had offended if Equivocation did not help him And that we may not think Equivocations and Perjuries peculiar only to the Jesuits we have an Example of the like carriage in Sir Everard Digby who being upon his first apprehension examined did with most solemn Protestations and all kind of Execrations deny his being privy to the Powder-Plot and yet being afterwards confronted by the Testimony of Faux who had confessed that being at Sir Everards house in the Country some months before the intended Session of Parliament that Sir Everard having taken him aside told him he was afraid the Powder in the Cellar was grown dank and that some new must be provided lest that should not take fire he did thereupon not only acknowledge it notwithstanding all his former Execrations to the contrary but when he came to be indicted he confessed it upon his Arraignment Whence we evidently see that they not only with horrid Oaths and astonishing Asseverations denied what they knew themselves guilty of but that the Confessions they made did not proceed from any tenderness of Conscience or remorse for what they had been engaged in but were extorted from them by the uncontrollableness of the Evidence and by improving the confessions of some of themselves to oblige others to an acknowledgement The second thing I would have observed in the Gun-powder Conspirators is that several of them went out of the world in the same manner that our late Traitors did denying divers things to their last which they knew themselves to be guilty of And of this to avoid prolixity I shall give but two Instances one whereof shall be that of Francis Tresham Esq who not only gave it under his hand but took it upon his Soul and as he hoped for Salvation within three hours before his Death that he had not seen Garnet the Provincial of the Jesuits in sixteen years before and yet Garnet himself afterwards declared that they had enjoyed frequent conversation with each other within less than the space of three years and that he supposed Mr. Tresham meant to equivocate in denying it Where was now the sense of the Omnisciency of God or the dread of the future Tribunal which the Advocates for the late Traitors derive their Topicks to persuade the world of their Innocency from Alas the reputation and Interest of the Catholick Cause and the Confidence they reposed in Equivocations Dispensations and Absolutions had stifled all such Impressions The other Instance shall be Sir Everard Digby who not only endeavoured to clear all the Jesuits from being any waies concerned in that Treasonable Plot but gloried in the venturing his Salvation and Happiness upon it Whereas they themselves to the eternal reproach of that poor Gentleman's memory confest and acknowledged it And as if this had not been enough to witness his own insincerity and to instruct future Generations what little Faith is to be given to Papists either living or dying he with the same Impudence and to his very last denied that ever Father Wally i. e. Garnet had been at Coughton with him or that he knew Darcy to be the same with Garnet or understood that he was a Priest Whereas it appeared that he was not only very well acquainted with him but even Garnet himself confessed that he had been at his house Let our many pleading Orators for the late Traitors continue now to argue from the Confessions of the Gun-powder Conspirators that they acknowledging their guilt while the others dyed in the denyal of theirs as those were criminal so these must be innocent Whereas we cannot desire a more convincing proof how little the Oaths and Asseverations of Papists in the very circumstances of dying are to be depended upon than the assurance which we have from Authentick Records of the behaviour of those engaged in the Gun-powder Plot whom we have mentioned And that no danger which might arise to particular Romanists may be conceived to have discouraged our late Conspirators I shall subjoyn the case which Catesby propounded namely Whether for the Promotion of the Catholick Cause against Hereticks the necessity of time and occasion so requiring it were lawful among many nocents to take away some innocents To which Father Garnet with the greatest seriousness and utmost fixedness of Judgment answered That if the advantage to the Catholick Party were greater by taking away some Innocents together with many Nocents then doubtless it was lawful to kill and destroy them all So that if we do but apprehend that they were possessed with the least probability of prevailing in the issue the lives of multitudes of their own faction that would have been last in the Interim were to be esteemed a small price for so great a commodity as the re-establishing Popery in
confirmed and established upon the Authority of Expiring and dying persons who as they felt and saw themselves out of all hopes of enjoying the pleasures of Life any longer or compassing riches or advancement to their friends or posterity so they ought to be judged delivered from the Impression of all sublunary Allurements in what they said and no man can suppose that any thing else should influence them to speak falsly Accordingly Mr. Bedlo in the view and approach of Death affirmed both upon the Faith of a Christian and as he hoped for Salvation that he had wronged no man by his Testimony but that whatsoever he had testified concerning the Plot was true Shall the Advocates for the Conspirators account themselves mightily advantaged in weakning the Credit of the King's Witnesses from this that there is not that Faith to be given to men not only in the possession of Health but having all Legal security of their Lives as there is to persons who both know that they must immediately die and that they are to appear before the great and righteous God who hath threatned to punish all Falshood and Perjury with unconceivable torments And shall not we esteem our selves mightily confirmed as to the truth of the whole Evidence concerning the Plot by finding that so considerable a Witness both in detecting the parts and degrees of it as well as those that were engaged in its contrivarce and prosecution should so solemnly seal what he had before deposed with his last and dying Breath Here is one that hath declared their Guilt in the same Circumstances wherein the advocats for Rome glory so much that the condemned affirmed their Innocency So that all their Harangues concerning the Credit that is due to the Asseverations of dying persons are much more applicable to our Belief of the Plot on the dying Testimony of Mr. Bedlo than it is possible they should be to the weakening our Faith about it upon their affirming themselves Guiltless who were so Legally Convicted and Condemned for it For their Concernment to Preserve the Reputation of their Religion Secure the Libertïes of many of their Party and the Hopes which they might flatter themselves with to save their own together with a Desire of Recommending their memories to the favorable Opinion of future Generations may be conceived Sufficient Grounds and Inducements to influence them to a Denial Whereas Mr. Bedlo had no Concernment of his own no Expectations of advantage to accrue to his Friends or Relations no hopes of avoiding approaching Death which might be conceived to prevail upon him to breath out his last words in the Affirmation of their Guilt Besides the Principles of their Religion are such as do both countenance their Denial and Justifie them in it whereas the Principles of the Protestant Religion wherein this Gentleman Dyed do both prohibit and condemn the asserting every thing that is false let the Motives be never so great and important The disparity between the Asseverations of the one and of the other is so considerable upon this single and alone Account that should it be admitted that their Circumstances were the same in all other things as well as in that of Death immediately in their view yet there can be no just Competition between the weight and Authority of what they said in the Attestation of their Innocency and what he affirmed in the Confirmation of their Guilt And it is remarkable that he not only Dyed in the profession of the Protestant Religion which precludeth all hopes of pardon to any that shall persevere in malice hatred lying and slandering but that during his whole Sickness he was in the Exercise of all seeming contrition and remorse and so far as any one could judge in the practice of sincere and unseigned Repentance for all the sins whereby he had offended God or injured Men. So that upon all that can rationally sway or determine our belief entire credit ought to be given to Mr. Bedlo upon the Declaration he made of their Guilt in the Juncture and Circumstance of Dying whereas there is nothing that can be justly or rationally alledged which without abandoning our selves to weakness and easie Credulity can obtain from us the giving the least Faith to them notwithstanding their affirming their Innocency in expiring Circumstances And therefore though the Publick hath sustained great loss by the removal of a Witness that could have not only testified against so many of the Conspirators but so particularly and with so many corroborating Circumstances yet the Deposition which he made in his last Sickness whereby in the prospect of approaching Death and in the belief and sense of his speedy appearing at the Tribunal of God he confirmed and ratified upon Oath all that he had declared before hath done more to establish the Credit of the Plot and ruine the Reputation of the Papal Party in the minds of all unbiassed men than ever he could have effected by never so many reiterated Testimonies against them at Bars and in Courts of Judicature § 4. Nor in the next place ought any man to be surprized that such of the Traitors as nave been convicted and condemned for this Hellish and Damnable Plot should Die professing their Innocency as to what they were condemned for seeing they bound and obliged themselves by such Oaths which they account most solemn and vowed by whatsoever according to the Principles of their Religion is esteemed more sacred than other that they would never discover the Conspiracy which they were engaged in For all those to whom this Bloody Design was communicated and especially such who were to be assisting in it had taken an Oath of Secrecy and the Sacrament upon it as all the Witnesses do inform us never to reveal or disclose what they were either engaged in or acquainted with And the tenor of this holy and Catholick Oath by which they most sacredly and indispensibly bound themselves was this as it was found very happily amongst Mr. Rusten's Papers a Priest in Sir Thomas Gascoyne's House I A. B. being in the presence of Almighty God the Blessed Mary Ever Virgin the Blessed Michael the Archangel the Blessed St. John Baptist the holy Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul and all the Saints in Heaven and to you my Ghostly Father do declare and in my heart believe the Pope Christ's Vicar General to be the true and only Head of Christ's Church here on Earth and that by virtue of the Keys of binding and loosing given his Holiness by our Saviour Christ he hath power to Depose all Heretical Kings and Princes and cause them to be killed Therefore to the utmost of my power I will defend this Doctrine and his Holinesses Rights against all Usurpers whatsoever especially against the now pretended King of England in regard that he hath broke his Vows with his Holinesses Agents beyond Seas and not performed his promises in bringing into England the holy Roman Catholick Religion I do