have heard you often express your hearty good will to root that Faction out of this Nation I hope your Zeal for the Protestant Religion is not a whit abated yet my Hopes are not without some Fears when I have it by some reported though I cannot give full Credit to it that your Lordship together with the Bishop of Canterbury do maintain R. L'estrange and encourage him in that vile Pamphlet called the Observator in which your Lordship may see the Justice of the Nation is arraigned and by Consequences of his own drawing the Blood of those that were executed upon the account of the Popish Conspiracy charged upon the Government and I do not find him lie under any Censure for that his vile Libel by your Lordship under whose Jurisdiction he is Is the Church in so low a Condition that she stands in need of Roger's Support Is the Government in such a state as none can cure it but he Is Episcopacy at such a point that it cannot be brought to its Pristine State without him Is the Ministry of the Church in such Contempt that none but he by his Penny-Observator can recover its Reputation and Credit How is all this done by Seditious Factious Scurrilous Lies by encouraging Popery by reviling the Protestant Interest by arraigning the Justice of the Nation by villifying the Discovery of the Popish Plot and endeavouring to expose the Discoverers by a heap of infamous Lies to the Nation as Impostors My Lord I am a Minister yea a Minister of the Church of England and have done her more Service than any Clergy-man in England and because I hate those Monsters that are amongst us who were bred in the Protestant Religion and have left this Religion and are reconciled to the Church of Rome and are by that means declared Traytors by our Law I am looked upon by our little Clergymen as a Dissenter from the Church of England But my Lord your Lordship hath I hope better Thoughts of me tho I am grieved to hear your Lordship should be concerned for a vile Observator that hath been so profuse as to call in Question the Truth of the Popish Plot of which your Lordship was convinced and satisfied and for the farther Discovery of which you were so diligent in Parliament and Council in your Examination both of Criminals and Witnesses I purpose to be heard in Council against this L'estrange in order thereunto I have written to Mr. Secretary Jenkins and in that Letter I have inclosed a Petition and Complaint against him and therefore I am an humble Suitor to your Lordship to do me Right and help me to my intended Hearing and if I cannot be heard I must print my Case which you know is an appealing to the People which some have not liked But what must I do I have born his scandalous Reflections so long that I can bear no longer and I conceive as I am a Minister I ought to have been protected by the Bishops and Prelates of the Church in whose Communion I am though I have been misrepresented by L'estrange and others of his Confederates therefore as your Lordship tenders the Justice and Honour of the Government I hope you will not only discountenance the vile Usage of me by L'estrange but also endeavour that he may be silenced for it s he and those of his Crew that have created such Animosities amongst the King's Leige People It hath been the Policy of the Synagogue of Rome to divide Protestants and he is the Tool they make use of to divide us There hath scarce been any one Sober Clergy-man of Note that hath escaped his Lash and what credit the Church can have by such an Elf I cannot conceive My Lord I will not detain you any longer but I shall only protest my Intergrity and Truth in what I have done in reference to the Popish Plot and I have had your Lordship's good word in that particular and question not but upon Consideration your Lordship will be a means of having Right done me in my Complaint 'T is true I lie under the King's Displeasure for what I know not to this Day I thank God I am not conscious to my self of any thing that I have said or done that might have done him any prejudice if I have I should be glad to understand my Error that I might make Reparation In a Word I shall study to appear My Lord Your Lordship 's Obedient Servant Titus Oates March 15. 1683. A Copy of Dr. Oates 's Letter to King Charles II. April 12. 1684. May it please Your most Excellent Majesty I Thought it my duty for the honour of Truth to whom all Men are Debtors and for my own Vindication to apply my self to your Majesty's Ministers and Counsellors for redress against the scurrilous Pamphlets of Roger L'estrange in which I find the Justice of your Majesty's Government arraigned for the Service I did in the Discovery of the Popish Plot. I am exposed by him and his Confederates to the Vengeance of those Men that carried on the Conspiracy against your Royal Person and Government but from them I could have no redress tho as I humbly conceive that the proper way for me to proceed considering the nature of my Complaint and the Circumstances under which I now am Your Majesty when this Popish Plot was first discovered was highly sensible of the danger your Person was in by reason of that Conspiracy so that you were pleased to press your Parliaments to examine it to the bottom and not only so but in all Humility your Majesty did address your self to the Majesty on High and commanded all your Loving Subjects to join with your Majesty in hearty and humble Supplication to Almighty God our Heavenly Father to give a Blessing to the then Discovery of the Popish Plot and to make a farther Discovery thereof and no Man but a Papist will judg any otherwise of your Majesty but that you were in earnest None Sir I say but such will so much as conceive you called Mock-Fasts hence it is that those Blasphemous Cut-throats did compare you to Ahab as I can produce in one of their Pamphlets And besides all this Sir Your Majesty hath been pleased to tell your Loving Subjects how fully you were satisfied in the reality of the Designs of the Popish Party and their Abettors against your Person and Government but by what means it is not yet known that Men have taken the boldness to arraign your Government and charge the Blood of those Jesuits and other Traitors that suffered in that Cause upon you and the Government especially Roger L'estrange who hath abused the Discoverers and Discovery of the Popish Plot And in his seditious Libel called the Observator he as I humbly conceive hath taken a great deal of pains to perswade the Nation that there was no Popish Plot but that it was a meer Fiction the Consequence of which I leave your Majesty to draw Certainly it
become may I say to a Miracle zealous of being the Author and Instrument of so glorious a Work ☞ That which we rely upon most next to God Almighty's Providence and the Favour of my Master the Duke is THE MIGHTY MIND of his most Christian Majesty I must confess I think his Christian Majesty's TEMPORAL INTEREST is so much attracted to that of his R. H. which can never be considerable but upon the Growth and Advancement of the CATHOLICK RELIGION that his Ministers cannot give him better Advice c. Now Gentlemen might not a Man have concluded that what you then read and find here repeated ought to have weaned your Party at least such of you as pretended to be of the Church of England for I well remember you scoffed at the Name of Protestant from your idolized Popish Successor What I could no King please such Churchmen as you but such AZEALOT as would not regard any thing in the World in comparison of overturning our Religion Could no one content you but a Prince whose Interest was avowed to be inseparably united to that of the Grand Tyrant of the Earth Who declared himself fully convinc'd that PARLIAMENTS were not only VNVSEFVL but very DANGEROVS to the JOINT INTEREST both of England and France None but him by whom the French King's Interest was to be secured in England None but him who undertook to give the greatest Blow to the Protestant Religion here that it ever received from its Birth None but him who should he once get above us after the Tricks we had then plaid him by the way he remembers we have plaid him a worse since WOVLD NOT TOTALLY FORGET the Vsage he has had at our Hands Finally could nothing please you but a King whose MIGHTY WORK as you were forewarned was to be no less than the Destruction of the Nations under the Notion of converting them and who was utterly to subdue our Religion as a PESTILENT HERESY One of whom our inhumane Enemies promised themselves greater Hopes than ever they had since the Death of cruel Queen Mary A Prince whom they boasted was become to a Miracle zealous of being the Author and Instrument of so glorious a Work as that of razing the Foundations of the Church of England Could I now believe that I discourse to rational Creatures and not to Brutes void of all Understanding I should hope to make you blush at your past Frenzies if not perswade you to cease doting on your old Bondage and hankering after the Flesh-Pots of Egypt to give over your Murmuring and no longer to foment Jealousies between the King and his People no longer to be throwing in Sparks of Discontent and endeavouring to blow them up into Flames of Mutinies and Rebellions Allow me to remember you in the Words of a loyal and learned Person that God has given our King a People who tho they may sometimes be practised upon to run into Vproars yet Loyalty is so inlaid in their Tempers and annealed to their Souls that the secret Enemies of our King and Peace could never yet make their Earnings out of them nay that God has converted our Danger into our Security that he has made the People not the Terror of the Government but of its Enemies That some ill Men have an ill and envious Eye upon the Throne but they fear the People Mr. Alsop's Thanksgiving-Sermon at Westminster 8 Sept. 1695. Run not then I caution you headlong to Destruction but be advised to consider what you are doing why will you be helping forward your Countries Ruine by labouring to subject it to that mighty Nimrod the securing whose Interest in England was the wicked Design so long since on foot 'T is evident to all the World that you under the Name of TORIES in which you gloried brought Church and State to the very Door of Destruction gave us the dismal Prospect of Slavery in our Persons Consciences and Estates and by your Procurement we beheld every thing that was dear and valuable to us upon the Brink of Subjection to a foreign Power and all by pleading for and adhering to your darling Popish Successor Nay 't is beyond Contradiction clear that you were blinded deluded and beguiled in that Point by the subtile Jesuits those Firebrands of all Europe Now seeing it has pleased God to bless us with the grateful Surprize of a Deliverance from such great Evils will you be perswaded to become a loyal quiet People disposed to Obedience To inforce this upon you as 't is your Interest as well as Duty I shall recount to you what was in vain laid before you when you first ran a madding after Popery and Slavery A sincere Lover of his Country then argued with you to this Effect You were then truly told that those who were for the Duke of York 's Interest were most certainly for these three Interests viz. 1. For the Popish Interest 2. For the French Interest 3. For Tyranny or Arbitrary Government term it as you will and by Consequence against these other three things 1. Against the Interest of the Church of England and the Protestant Religion 2. Against the Interest of England your native Country 3. Against the Interest of Parliaments and so against your own Freedoms as you were Englishmen You were then exhorted seriously to consider these things your Religion your Lives your Liberties your Estates your All being deeply concerned therein 1. You were rightly admonished that if you stood for the Duke's Interest you did undoubtedly so far stand for that of the Pope and would thereby give the greatest Blow to the Church of England it ever had since it was a Church The Matter was thus expostulated with you Can you once imagine that by bringing in a Popish Successor you will not inevitably set up Popery Will such a King think you have so great a Love for another Religion as his own or for those of another Profession whom he esteems Hereticks as for those of his own Nay then will it not naturally follow that he will advance the one and discountenance and depress the other Will it not be the only way to get into Office or Preferment to turn Papist What will the Effect of this be in a little time think you Will it not be a great weakning to the Church of England to have her Members allured and seduced from her and turn'd and kept out of Places of Trust Profit and Honour whilst her Enemies are placed in them Consider further whether in endeavouring to make a Papist Head of the Church of England you do not labour to make her a Monster for if our Head reckon us his Body rotten Hereticks where 's our Body Where will our Church be What Agreement between the Head and the Body Will it not inevitably run into Confusion Shall we have a Father of our Church who by his own Faith stands obliged to destroy her and is bound by the Romish Principles to deal with her
cannot but judg that they design nothing less than my Ruine in Revenge for that Service I did my Country in discovering their more than abominable and hellish Conspiracy against the Life of the late King the Protestant Religion and the Government as by Law established both in Church and State I thought it my Duty in case of any harder Usage than I have yet met with to put something in Writing which my Friends I hope will publish for the Satisfaction of my dear Country-men for whose Cause I have been a living Martyr exposed to the Rage and Reproach of a Generation of Men who neither fear God nor reverence Man whose Religion is either the worst of Religions or their Morals so debauched that they are fit to be of any Religion except that of Christ Therefore in the first place I do declare my self to be a Protestant of the Church of England as by Law established both in Doctrine and Discipline yet I must confess she stands in need of a further Reformation and it would be happy if that by the Removal of some Ceremonies useless and dangerous a way might be made for a more perfect Union amongst all English Protestants that our Hands might be strengthned against the Common Enemy the Papists in order to the rooting out of Superstition and Idolatry from amongst us that we may avert those Judgments from this Nation that do so highly threaten our total Destruction It hath been the greatest Grief of my Heart to see Protestants contending one with another about the meaner Parts of Religion and Worship whilst the Enemy the Popish Party stands by and adds Fuel to our Flames and nourishes the Quarrel till we have exposed our selves to be devoured by them and have wounded those amongst us who are weak in the Faith I could likewise wish that our dissenting Brethren would lay aside their Scruples in some things and comply with their Brethren in those Ceremonies that are innocent and harmless and not inconsistent with the Word of God and the Law of our great Lord Jesus Christ and that they that can conform for Christ's sake do not persecute their Brethren who through Tenderness of Conscience cannot partake with them in those Advantages that some of them have enjoyed to their Hearts Content Truly I have been so far from being inclined to persecute any for Conscience sake that I would not have had the least Thought of having or advising the Prosecution of Popery or molesting of any that are in Communion with the Church of Rome but that the Religion of Rome is a Conspiracy against God and Christ and Mankind for shew me a Papist that is thorow-paced I will shew you a Murderer of the People of God a Firer of Cities a declared Enemy to the Peace and Tranquillity of the Sons of Men. Now Men that are so united together against God and all Goodness our Religion Lives and Liberties must be rooted out and not suffered to continue amongst a well governed People for they make it their Business to debauch our looser sort of Christians and reproach and calumniate those whose Firmness to their God and the Gospel of Christ renders them Men above their Temptations tho by their Allurements some have been seduced to their Destruction Therefore as for the Popish Religion I do declare that I do detest and abhor it as a Religion whose whole Foundation is Blood Cruelty Murder and Rapine a Religion that stands in opposition to the Rule and Law of Jesus Christ And the Bishop of Rome whom they call Pope I believe to be Antichrist that exalts himself in the Temple of God above God and all that is called God the Son of Perdition and everlasting Wrath. But that which is expected of me is that I do declare my self fully concerning the damnable Plot carried on by the Popish Party for the Destruction of the late King and the Protestant Religion I must confess the Acquaintance I had with some considerable Papists in the Year 1670. made me to suspect a Design carrying on by them to advance their own Religion and to pull down ours but I little thought that they had a Design of murdering the King which in process of time I found out There was one Cotton that was at Mr. Guilfourd's in Kent that was often very pleasingly tempting me to come over to their Church for saith he it will not be long before you must either burn or turn therefore come over in time that your coming over may be looked upon as meritorious This Cotton since I understood to be a Priest of the Society of Jesus and one that was ingaged in the Popish Plot and with him I had a better and more intimate Acquaintance From him at first I found that the Popish Party had a Design of promoting their Religion and making what Proselytes they could in order to the inlarging their Interest and Power in this poor Nation I from that time had a great Desire to get into them to see whither their Designs tended being very fearful that they designed no less than the Ruine of our Religion and Government Nay this Cotton had the Impudence to tell me that the King was engaged with them to advance their Cause and Religion and was resolved to bring in Popery it being a Religion that was most consistent with Monarchy and that his Majesty was resolved to be like his Neighbour-Princes this was in the Year 1670 about Christmass Which Discourse I did discover to Mr. Walter Drury whom I did assist in the Service of his Cure at Sandburst in the County of Kent and he told me that that Mr. Cotton had talked as badly or rather worse to him but he had sufficiently told him his own so that Cotton was shy of having any farther Discourse with hâ—â— about those Matters and withal Mr. Drury having threatned to complain of him Mr. Cotton did withdraw from that Family and another came in his room In the Year 1672 I was acquainted with one Keimash who was very perswasive in his Arguments to have brought me over to their Church he then frequented Arundell-house in the Strand and was a Fellow that had insinuated himself into the Acquaintance of several Divines of our Church and bragged that he had reconciled above thirty Ministers of the Church of England but I found him a debauched lewd Fellow and so my Acquaintance ceased with him for it was a hard Matter unless in a Morning to find him sober I found him afterwards to have been Chaplain to the old Countess of Arundell with whom he lived several Years under the Notion of her Steward In the Year 1672 I left Mr. Drury's Cure and held a Living of my own which I resided upon for some time called Bobbing in Kent and from thence I went and served his Majesty at Sea as a Chaplain where I found many Difficulties by reason of Sickness of Body I refreshed my self at Tangire There was one Gerard an Irish Dominican that
upon the first sight of me required of me Whether the Catholick Religion was established in England this was in the Year 1674. in the Month of April and I told him No Why then said he the Dutch War is to no purpose Why said I was our engaging in a War against the Dutch to bring in Popery Well well saith the Friar you will see in time In some few Days we had notice of a Peace with the Dutch What then said he our great King of France is not at Peace with them and he must do the Work In the Year 1675 I had obtained an Interest with Henry Duke of Norfolk then Earl of Norwich and Earl Marshal of England who was very kind to me upon the Account of my contending earnestly for his Right of Presenting to a Living in the Diocess of Chichester to which Living the then Bishop a turbulent Man pretended a Right of Collating And in the Year 1676 I was made his Chaplain and I call the whole Family of the Norfolk Howards to witness to my Fidelity to him and to his Children tho I am but churlishly used by some of them for my Truth and Fidelity to my Lord and Master but God forgive them for their Ingratitude to me especially Charles Howard who owes me more than I shall mention here but I always had a Thought that Popery rendred a Man incapable of being grateful to his Friend I in the Service of the Duke of Norfolk came acquainted with several Priests and being then resolved upon a strict Inquiry into their Designs against us and our Religion and Laws and Liberties I met with one Berry a Priest that had been a Jesuit but had left that Order through some Discontent and Madness that had seized the poor Wretch as he hath told me He was a Scholar in Cambridg was a Minister in England if he told me the Truth then turned Jesuit and then as before left that Order and became a secular Priest and then came to the Church of England and was a Curate at Berking and since is gone to the Church of Rome again This Berry I found a poor zealous Man whose Zeal was far beyond his Knowledg and he fell upon me to come over to their Church and he brought me acquainted with Mr. Langworth a Jesuit who since is dead as he the said Berry hath told me and with Mr. John Keins a great Jesuit and one Mr. Morgan a Jesuit that lived with the Lord Powis in the Year 1676 1677 1678. till the Plot was discovered where he is now I know not I was by Langworth reconciled to the Church of Rome he was then Confessarius to the Ld Petre and his Family and upon my being reconciled I was brought to Mr. Strange the then Provincial of their Order who admitted me into the Society of Jesus when I was admitted it was resolved by the Jesuits that I should pass the time of my Novitiate abroad in dispatching Business for the Society which I chearfully accepted and therefore accordingly they provided for me When I had paid Mr. Luke Roch Commander of the Biscay Merchant Earnest for my Passage to Bilboa the said Strange then Provincial of the Order gave me 100 Pistols for my Supply in order for my Passage into Spain and for my necessary Expences there and ordered me what Money I should need exhorting me to be as good a Husband as I could for they had great Occasions for Money What Letters they sent by me I have set forth in my Narrative but when I had got a competent Knowledg of the Design I found the great Reason why they would murder the late King was because he had deceived them and in Spain they assured me he had been reconciled to their Church and that upon his Reconciliation the Society in Spain had contributed 3000 Pistols to his Support which was paid in by Father Courtney sometime Provincial of the Jesuits in England I say several Letters written to one Father Knot in which the late King did testify his Zeal for the Catholick Religion and promised to restore it whenever he should come to the Enjoiment of his Right in England and that till he had an Opportunity to do it they should have all the Connivance in the World and if the Case should be so hard with him when he came to the Crown that he could not bring about his Desires to make their Religion to be the Religion of the Government yet they should have an Indulgence that should be equivalent however they should not be excluded out of Offices and Employments under him and that they had his Heart and Soul When I found the late King not inclined to believe that he was to he murdered I did in private tell him these things and that the only reason why they did design to take away his Life was because that he had made such Promises to them and assured them he was theirs and that he was reconciled to the Church of Rome when beyond Sea as I had seen by his own Letters The King commanded me to take no notice of his being reconciled to the Church of Rome and declared to me upon the World of a King that now he did believe they had a Design to murder him acknowledging be had written those Letters I had intimated to his Majesty and withal told me if I had come to him privately and acquainted him with the Plot he could of himself have dashed it and though I designed well yet the Discovery of it had created a Jealousy in the People of him Then I acquainted him with his Letters to the Nuns of Ghent when he borrowed Money of them which they waited for several Years here in England now he in that Letter did declare to them he would restore their Religion when he came to his Right and that was another Reason that provoked the Party against him and that St. Germane a French Jesuit had a hand in the Murder of Killigrew's Man when he lay upon the Couch in his Majesty's Cloak Here the King interrupted me and commanded me to take no farther notice of that Business declaring he knew more than I could tell him in that Affair of Killigrew's Man but withal again repeated the great Jealousy the People had of him and that it was much encreased by ill Men that did labour to possess Peoples Minds against him and said unless an extraordinary Care were taken the Phanatick Party would rebel and very much inveighed against the Dissenters and thought himself in as much danger from them as from the Popish Party That upon the Discovery of several Papers found about January 167 8 9 at one Jolliff a Taylor 's I did observe that the late King Charles the First unless his Hand was counterfeited had commissioned several Irish to rise and withal I saw Instructions given to them to give the English no Quarter and I saw a Letter of his to a Titular Bishop the Bishop of Cassal as
most endeared Friend Jeffries to this Point at the time when he as Recorder of London pass'd Sentence of Death upon Langhorne and the five Jesuits his words were these Nor is there the least room for the most scrupulous Man to doubt of the Credibility of the Witnesses that have been examined against you And sure I am you have been fully heard and stand fairly convicted of those Crimes you have been indicted for Hearken once more and understand what the same Recorder Jefferies declared upon the Jury's giving their Verdict upon the five Jesuits it was this Vpon a long Evidence a full discussing the Objections made against it and a patient hearing of the Defence they made they are found Guilty And I do think that every Honest Man will say that they are unexceptionably found so and that 't is a just Verdict you have given Bear with me now before I conclude that I am your Remembrancer that in hope of stifling this Plot the Bloody Conspirators barbarously murdered a Worthy Magistrate Sir Edmundbury Godfrey who upon the 27th of Sept. 1678. took Dr. Oates's Information upon Oath and these inhumane Villains allowed him not to survive it above 14 days and I shall lay before you Scroggs's Declaration concerning it as made in the Trial of the five Jesuits While this Gentleman's Blood said he lies upon you it must be yet further told you that in what you did do you have given a Specimen of what you would do We have a Testimony that for promoting your Cause you would not stick at the Blood of Protestants you began with Sir Edmundbury Godfrey but who knows where you would have made an end It was this one Man you killed in his Person but in Effigie the whole Nation It was in one Man's Blood your Hands are embrewed but your Souls were dipt in the Blood of us all this was a Handsel only of what was to follow and so long as we are convinced you killed him we cannot but believe you would also have killed the King We cannot but believe you would make all of us away that stand in the way of your Religion A Religion which according to what it is you would bring in upon us by a Conversion of us with Blood and by a Baptism with Fire God keep our Land from the one and our City from the other To return says Scroggs ☞ The Letter that is found in Harcourt 's Papers does further confirm Mr. Oates in all the great and considerable Matters that he says that there was a Plot that that Plot was called by the name of a Design which was to be kept close and secret and this is an Evidence that cannot lie But after all I know you of the Jacobite Party will upbraid me that notwithstanding such strong Confirmation of all that the Doctor had witnessed and that by Evidence which could not lie it is well known he was afterwards convicted of Perjury So he was and I care not if I digress a little to remind you of the manner of doing it As an Introduction to it the virulent Pen of that Man of effronted Impudence L'Estrange I mean is employed to vilify nor only the Evidence but Parliaments nay the Protestant Religion it self Addresses of Thanks for the Violation of our Rights in the Dissolution of Parliaments were made and most graciously received the Presenters of them being usually honoured with Knighthood and rewarded with Preferment to Places of Trust and Profit I have the Name of one of you at my Tongue 's end but at this time for his Brother's sake I 'll spare him By these and such like Arts it became the common Cry of a profligate Party in every Corner of England Popery is better than Presbytery at least the Papists and Dissenters are equally dangerous if not all one 'T is therefore more than time that a Colledge be hang'd against a Pickering The Nation was almost put besides it self by the doleful Cry of Blood Blood Associations Conspiracies Rebellion Treason and what not that was frightful and terrible Rome it self could not possibly have ordered Matters better for the Service of Holy Church The Protestant Religion is now mock'd Parliaments derided the Witnesses of the Plot vilified and the Belief of any other than a Presbyterian Plot vanishes This Proceeding gave new Life and Heart to the Popish Conspirators and struck no small damp upon their Prosecutors Of the Witnesses some were bought off and others terrified from their Testimony But Dr. Oates being no way shaken but bearing with undaunted Courage and Constancy innumerable Reproaches and Slanders from the Pulpit and Press nay and from the Stage also Hell it self seemed to be engaged to discredit and batter down the Belief of his Evidence Knox and Lane to blast his Reputation were imployed to accuse him of an unusual but most heinous Wickedness that Plot not obtaining and Matters being prepared for placing unmasked Popery upon the Throne he was condemned in 100000 l. for affirming the Duke of York to be a Papist and thereupon secured against the desired Season for the Conspirators taking their full Revenge upon him The Way being thus prepared for the execution of their Design upon him on the 8th of May 1685. he was brought to Trial in the Court of King's Bench upon an Indictment for evidencing that there was a treasonable Consult at the White-horse-Tavern in the Strand the 24th of April 1678. at which Whitebread Fenwick and Ireland were present and that they there came to a Resolution to murder the King and that the Defendant carried the Resolution from Chamber to Chamber to be signed by the Jesuits whereas in Truth he was not present nor carried any such Resolution to be signed and so committed wilful Perjury I shall here lay down a summary Account of the Proceedings in this Trial and if the Reader be curious to have farther Information therein I refer him to a more ample Relation thereof in the Tract called A Display of Tyranny the first Part printed in 1689. The Names of the Judges then in Court were Lord Chief Justice Jefferies Mr. Justice Wythens Mr. Justice Holloway and Mr. Justice Walcot The Fame of the first will be ever remembred The second was advanced to a Seat upon the Bench for promoting and presenting an Address expressing an Abhorrence to petition for the Calling and Sitting of Parliaments Holloway had been very instrumental in the Murder of brave Stephen Colledge which entitled him to this Promotion And Walcot was a mean Wretch and by consequence a fit Tool to serve the Purposes of that Juncture The Names of the Jury pack'd upon him were Sir William Dodson Sir Edmond Wiseman Richard Aley Thomas Fowle Thomas Blackmore Peter Pickering Robert Bedingfield Thomas Rawlinson Roger Reeves Ambrose Isted Henry Collyer and Richard Howard Every Man then of your own Gang I assure you The King's Counsel were Attorney General Sawyer Solicitor General Finch Recorder of London Mr. North Mr. Jones
Executed upon your Petitioner's Evidence together with the Evidence of Others the Attainders of which Conspirators remain as your Petitioner believes upon Record That four several Parliaments owned the said Discovery and passed several Votes wherein they did declare that there was a horrid Popish Plot for the Destruction of your Royal Person and your Government and for the Subversion of the Protestant Religion as by Law established That Roger L'estrange Esq whom your Petitioner hears is again a Justice of the Peace tho turned out for several Misdemeanours in the Year 1680 hath defamed and arraigned the Justice of the Nation in ridiculing the said Popish Plot the Discovery and Discoverers thereof in a certain Seditious and Scandalous Pamphlet of his called the Observator and in several other Pamphlets That he the said Roger L'estrange pretends in some of those Seditious and Scandalous Pamphlets that he is authorized so to do by one or both your Secretaries That the said Scandalous and Seditious Pamphlet appears to countenance Popery in your Protestant Government and the Popish Party hath been much encouraged by the same to revile and threaten your Petitioner That your Petitioner hath born those Scandalous Reflections and Aspersions upon the account of his Discovery of the said Plot from the said L'estrange these four Years with Patience and had the Scandals only touched your Petitioner he would not have complained to your Majesty and this Board but since the said L'estrange scandalously vilifies the said Discovery and calls in question the Justice of your Government your Petitioner thinks fit to apply himself to your Majesty and this Board for Relief The Premises considered Your Petitioner humbly prays your Majesty and this Honourable Board to relieve him and his Evidence against the Seditious Calumnies of the said Roger L'estrange and not suffer your Petitioner to be left to be daily Oppressed and Destroyed for those Services which your Majesty and Council and Parliaments and Courts of Justice have owned And Your Petitioner shall as in Duty bound pray for Your Majesty's Health and long Life and happy Reign c. Titus Oates A Copy of Dr. Oates's Letter to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury March 15. 1683. May it please your Grace I Having received several Kindnesses from you when I was at Lambeth-House do upon that Score think that this may not miss your Hand nor I lose my end in writing at this Time in which my Lord be pleased to understand that for my own Vindication I have written to Mr. Secretary Jenkins and in his Letter I have inclosed a Petition and Complaint to the King 's most Excellent Majesty and to the Lords and Others of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council against one Roger L'estrange who in several of his Pamphlets called the Observator and other Seditious Pamphlets hath vilified the Discovery of the Popish Plot and in that I humbly conceive he doth arraign and reflect on the Justice of the Government And God having called you to the Great Office of an Arch-bishop and Privy-Counsellor I thought my Application to your Grace would not at all be Improper and therefore I thought I might lay before your Grace the hard usage I have received from the said L'etrange and his Confederate Villains that neither fear God nor reverence Man Your Grace I suppose hath not forgot that Four Parliaments did enter upon the Examination both of Witnesses and Criminals concerned in the Popish Conspiracy I was the first that appeared to detect that Villany and received the Thanks of the Council and the Lords in Parliament and it was looked on as such a piece of Service that Your Grace was of the Opinion that some Mark of Favour should be conferred on me But I was not studious of my own Interest but was always careful for which I bless God to do my Countrey Justice and have reaped the Fruits thereof even the Testimony of a good Conscience And whereas I have been hardly used for the Service I did in the Discovery of that Plot I think the Government is bound in Honour and Conscience and Justice and Truth to maintain their own Proceedings and justify me from the scurrilous Reflections of so vile a Fellow as L'estrange appears to be in those his Pamphlets He pretends in one or two of them that he hath leave from one or both his Majesty's Secretaries for so doing that I think ought to be reason enough for his being stopt in his Career and Scribling and be for ever Silenced together with Argument of his Fallacy upon the whole Government in that particular Certainly my Lord the Church must be in a sad Condition that stands in need of L'estrange for a Supporter the Religion Established by Law will be very contemptible if Roger's Penny Observator must give it Life I am sure our Bishops have given such Testimonies of themselves and their Power that there is no need of his scurrilous and scandalous Pen to maintain their Authority and Reputation Our Clergy must be judged by the Popish Party to be Men of little Understanding if they stand in need of him to be their Guide Hath he not fallen upon the most considerable Clergy-men in the City Men that do not stand in need of his Trash to equip them for the work of the Ministry I dare by your Grace's leave be bold to say that your Grace upon Consideration will abhor and loath such a Fellow upon the account of these and other Aggravations and seeing I have been useful in my Day I beg your Grace would be instrumental in doing me the Justice that is due to a Man a Christian and a Minister of the Church If I have done any Man wrong let me suffer if I am innocent as I must be accounted till convicted of some Enormity or Irregularity then let me be protected and not left to be oppressed and destroyed by my Enemies for the Services that your Grace hath formerly owned in Council and in Parliament and likewise his Majesty in several Proclamations to his People and Speeches to his Parliament My Lord I shall say no more but beg your Grace's Pardon and Blessing and tho I have misrepresented to your Grace I shall study to appear My Lord Your Grace's most Affectionate Servant Titus Oates March 15. 1683. My Lord I would have waited upon your Grace but since the Dissolution of the Parliament at Oxford your Servants have put Affronts upon me of which I unwillingly take notice which have hindred my paying my Respects to your Grace And likewise I understand that some Evil Instruments by lies and Falshood have endeavoured to lessen me in your Grace's Affections which I have patiently born rather than put your Grace and my Self to the unnecessary trouble of a fruitless Vindication of my Innocency A Copy of Dr. Oates's Letter to the Bishop of London March 15. 1683. My Lord WHen the Popish Plot was first discovered your Lordship was very zealous in the prosecuting Popery and I
will be so foul a Consequence that a Loyal Heart must tremble to consider it I should not have trotbled your Majesty had your Ministers taken my Complaint into Consideration and tho I was not thought worthy of being heard by them yet by their leaves I humbly conceive your Majesty's Proceedings have been so just and good in the executing of those that were in that Hellish Conspiracy that they deserve to be vindicated from these foul Aspersions cast upon them by Roger L'estrange and his Popish Crew and altho by unjust Reports and Misrepresentations I am out of your Majesty's Favour yet I may say if Oates had not been Loyal your Majesty had not been in the Land of the Living whatever the Popish Crew have suggested in their scurrilous Pamphlets against me for discovering their impious Designs against your Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion I sent a Petition to Mr. Secretary Jenkins but could not be heard and I have written to several of your Council but can have no Effects of my just Complaints though I am left to starve yet I may say I have deserved better of the Government than to live in danger of being knockt of the Head as I go along the Streets and for no other Crime but that of the 28th and 29th of September 1678 if I must perish for serving your Majesty and the Government I humbly pray that I may perish quietly and starve in Peace and not be put into a Bear 's Skin in order to be worried to Death by Popish Dogs whose Religion is nothing else but a Cistern of Immorality and their Immorality Treason in the highest Degree Therefore let any Man shew me a Papist and I can shew a Man that is or must when commanded by his Priest be a Traitor especially such a Papist who hath been bred and instructed in the Protestant Religion and is reconciled to the Synagogue of Rome such a Papist I hate and I trust in God to see such ruined unless that Vengeance be prevented by timely Repentance None Sir hath been used like me and this L'estrange hath as I am informed threatned to write against me till he hath writ me out of the World what the meaning is of such an Expression I humbly leave to your Majesty to consider I have in this inclosed a Petition to your Majesty and question not but you will be graciously pleased to take my sad Case into serious Consideration Sir from my Heart and Soul I love your Majesty and the Government established by Law and have I am sure given your Majesty as great Demonstration of my Loyalty and Duty as any one Subject you have in your three Kingdoms and therefore be pleased to give me leave to put your Majesty in mind of the sad Fate of Alphonso the late King of Portugal and how his Ruine was brought about your Majesty knows the Story better than I can express it and a Word is enough to so wise a Prince as your Majesty hath appeared to be I will not trouble your Majesty any farther but that God the King of Kings may bless your Majesty with a long Life and a happy Reign over us is and ever shall be the daily Prayer of SIR Your Majesty's most Dutiful Loyal and Obedient Subject and Servant Titus Oates London April 12. 1684. A Copy of Dr. Oates's Letter to King James the Second Aug. 12. 1688. May it please Your Majesty I Have no Friend that can attend your Majesty with my Petition or else I should not have made my Application to you in this Way it not being usual for Subjects to address themselves in such a Manner to their Prince Necessity drives me to it for contrary to all Law and Humanity I am miserably oppressed by Mr. Ellis the Marshal of your Prison of the King's-Bench who hath within a few Years last past declared himself to be of the Communion of the Church of Rome upon which together with his Authority I humbly conceive he takes Liberty thus to oppress me to revenge himself and those of that Communion upon me He kept my Servant from me tho it 's well known that by reason of my long and miserable Imprisonment I am lame and not able to help my self He stops all People at the Gate from coming at me by which means I must perish because no Succour can come at me unless Care be taken by your Majesty that a stop be speedily put to his Arbitrary Cruel Usage of me I humbly conceive the Causes of my Imprisonment do not lie before him His Business is to keep me in safe Custody and not to oppress me He demands Ten Guineas of me for Civility-Money which is not his due to receive nor in my power to pay for which he threatens me with Irons the Truth is the whole City crys out Shame of his manner of dealing with me and the more because of his Religion I am certain those of the Communion of the Church of Rome pretend to more Humanity than any other People but his Usage of me shews him rather a Turk than a Christian there will be loud Crys against him either at Term or in Parliament for his many Extravagancies in the Execution of his Office What the Causes of his base Usage of me are I humbly beseech your Majesty may be heard Face to Face before Sir Richard Allebone or in such a way as your Majesty shall think fit for at the present I am under great Apprehensions of being murdered by him which you may prevent if you please All which is humbly submitted to your Majesty by Your poor Prisoner Titus Oates Aug. 12. 1688. I am much impaired in my Health and I have done that which a good Subject ought to do so that if I am murdered my Blood will not lie at my Door but at their Doors that should do me Justice for Favour I expect none nor would I be so Ill a Man as to desire any but I cry aloud for Justice that I may not be murthered by a Man who imagines he may do good Service to those of the Romish Church to ruine me while I am in his Custody Therefore once more I pray for Justice POST-SCRIPT HAving affirmed in the foregoing Tract that both the Juries which found Dr. Oates guilty were Men of the same Gang and Kidney to explain my meaning therein I say that most if not every of them were Disciples of L'Estrange and by consequence Tories Children of Passive Obedience Abhorrers of Parliaments Addressers against them Betrayers of Charters and Anti-Exclusioners Nor could it possibly be otherwise for there was at that day a select List of about 200 such Men and no others packt to do the Court's Drudgery as will evidently appear by reading over the Names of the Grand and Petty-Juries which pass'd upon the never-to-be-forgotten Lord Russel Alderman Cornish and Mrs. Gaunt in the second Part of the Display of Tyranny I observe there is not found amongst them one of the Jury which was returned by our Bethel and Cornish and which brought in that honourable Ignoramus upon the Indictment against the Earl of Shaftsbury and I may well say that was in every respect the greatest Jury that was ever returned in England Out of this List were every of the Doctor 's 24 Jury-men pickt and every Man of the first Jury were in the Pannels which North and Rich packt upon my Lord Russel and nine of them were also return'd upon Alderman Cornish and Mrs. Gaunt of the second Jury four were returned upon my Lord Russel Alderman Cornish and Mrs. Gaunt three more upon my Lord Russel singly and the other five upon Alderman Cornish and Mrs. Gaunt divers of them actually served on those Juries and most of those who did not were challenged That I may now set the bloody Tragedy of that day in its true light and shew whence this accursed Practice of packing Juries sprang I shall transcribe a noted Prediction of one of the Guides of the hair-brain'd Tories Heraclitus Ridens who foretold soon after the unhappy Election of Sir John Moore to be Lord-Mayor that at or before 1683 they should have Juries for their turn And then talking to the Whiggs about Hanging told them They must come to 't and they should come to 't I conclude with another very remarkable Prophesy of the Guide of the Inferiour Clergy he at the very Juncture when it was resolved that North and Rich must be Sir John Moore 's Sheriffs foretold the direful Consequences thereof in his Observator of May 20 1682 Number 140 in these words If it should please God to send us SEASONABLE SHERIFFS and fair play for OVR MONEY there are set a foot so many Titles in competition for the Gallows that it would be a hard matter to settle their Claims and say who should go first And in his Observator of May 27 1684. he told us whom he esteemed his Seasonable Sheriffs He says Prithee Whig wilt thou set THEIR CORNISH and BETHEL THEIR PILKINGTON and SHUTE against our NORTH and RICH our DANIEL and DASHWOOD and say which of these Sheriffs are the likelier Men to juggle Protestants out of their Lives Had the poor depressed Whig in that day answer'd the Trepaning Tory this ensnaring Question it had been at the hazard of his Head But now being warranted by Parliament so to do I say that my Lord Russel and Alderman Cornish were barbarously murdered as was good Mrs. Gaunt under pretence and colour of Law which as my Lord Russel well observed is the worst sort of Murder and this I think was juggling Protestants out of their Lives with a witness I also say by the same warrant that the Prosecution of Dr. Oates for Perjury was a Design to stifle the Popish Plot and that the Verdicts against him were corrupt and the Judgments cruel and illegal and all this was accomplished by the same Set of Jury-men Thus to gratify Sir Roger to whom I pay no small deference I have set our Bethel and Cornish our Pilkington and Shute against their North and Rich their Daniel and Dashwood and shew'd him not only who were the likeliest Men to juggle Protestants out of their Lives but who they were that actually did it and so I bid him adieu Imprimatur R. L'S FINIS