persecution which they undergo is commenced against them for no other cause but barely that of their Religion so to give the French King his due he is so just as to acknowledg it and scorns to palliate the true cause of their Oppressions Banishment and Slaughter by pretending that they have conspired against his Person and Government and that their Assemblies for the Worship of God are intended for and employ'd in the stirring up Sedition He is so generous as not to mention the several Wars which those of the Reformed Religion undertook and managed for their own defence against Charles the Ninth Henry the Third and Lewis the Thirteenth but he tells them that they have been always very loyal to him and that he apprehends no trouble or danger from them on the account of their Principles only he is resolved not to suffer any in his Dominions who will not embrace the Popish Religion and that they must either renounce the Faith which they profess or submit to be destroyed It would require a Volume rather than a Paragraph to recount the many late Edicts which have been published against them and the several steps and methods which have been taken to ruine them without their being guilty of any other crime or provocation save their having withdrawn themselves from the Communion of the Church of Rome Thus the King hath not only demolished an infinite number of Churches and suppressed the exercise of Religion where it had for a long time been legally enjoyed but the Protestant Ministers are every where exposed to be proceeded against and punished whensoever any suborned wretch shall but depose that they delivered something in their Sermons that was scandalous upon the Church of Rome And they have not only ordered under great and severe Penalties That no Papist shall turn Protestant and that none who have forsaken the Protestant Religion tho' out of infirmity lightness or fear shall return to it again but they have also ordained That the Children of Protestants shall be admitted to abjure their Religion at seven years of Age and in case they have no mind afterwards to live with their Parents that their Fathers and Mothers shall be obliged to maintain them wherever they please to continue or be It were endless to recount the hardships which the Protestants in that Kingdom are under for besides their being turned out of all offices wherein they got a Subsistence for themselves and Families their Wives are not to be brought to bed but by Midwives or Chyrurgeons that are Papists nor their Children taught unless it be meerly to read and write save by Popish Schoolmasters Nay as if it were not enough to forbid them to be Stewards Bailiffs Solicitors Registers Clerks Notaries and to remove them from all Employments in the Affairs of the Finances or Customs and turn them out of all Military Commands by Sea and Land they have commanded all Chyrurgeons Apothecaries Watchmakers and divers other Artificers to shut up their shops which is in effect to require them either to turn Papists or to subject them to starve And to all the other miseries which that poor people are made liable unto for their Religion this is not the least that they will not suffer them to die in quiet but have enjoyned that when they are sick they shall suffer themselves to be visited by a Popish Magistrate in the presence of two Popish Witnesses without allowing any Protestants tho' their nearest Relations to be by And as we may easily apprehend that their errand is either to disturb them that they may not expire in quiet or by the utmost Cunning and Art to prevert them from departing in the same Faith which they had all their days professed so they think it not only a lawful but a meritorious Act to say that they died in the Faith of the Church of Rome tho' they know the contrary to be true And thereupon they take away all their Children to breed them in the Popish Religion and seize the Estate to preserve it as they pretend for the Children of such Catholick Parents In a word the sufferings and calamities of the Protestants in France are grown to such a height that many thousands have forsaken their native Country Relations Friends and Estates and the rest are ready to do the like were they not debarred all ways of departure and escape And as the severities exercised against those of the Reformed Religion in that Kingdom are but a Copy of what we in these Nations are to look for in case we should come under a Popish Prince so the time hath been that the Rulers of these Kingdoms and such as Minister at the helm of of publick Affairs would not have silently lookt on and suffered those of the same Faith with themselves to be thus oppressed and destroyed for no other Reason but meerly because they are Protestants Nor will it be hereafter to the Honour and Reputation of some people in the World That the first Edicts of any fatal Consequence to the Hugonets in France bore date in 1660. as if the French King had presumed upon the Connivence of his Neighbours and therefore adventured to begin the Persecution which hath been by several steps advanced all along since and is at last arrived at inexpressible as well unsupportable severities and rigours And I may say that it is not without grief and sorrow that they who love his Majesty are necessitated to observe how through the influence of ill men about him he hath suffered himself to be persuaded to neglect interposing so effectually in behalf of that people as was expected from a Prince professing the Protestant Religion and whose interest it is to show himself upon all occasions the Patron and Defender of all the Reformed Churches And whosoever they were that advised His Majesty to abandon the concerning himself in the favour of Protestants beyond the Seas they neither consulted the Glory and Honour of their Prince nor yet the Maxims which His Royal Father as well as others who have swayed the English Scepter were guided by And tho' no good subject can think of the Usurper Oliver Cromwell but with an abhorrency of the Crimes which he was guilty of towards the Royal Family and these Kingdoms yet all the World took notice and continues to acknowledg both with what Sympathy Courage and Zeal he appeared in behalf of the Protestants in Piedmont when their Prince the Duke of Savoy had employ'd Forces and given Orders to extirpate them and how by a Letter to the late French Cardinal he check'd and stem'd a Persecution which some Protestants in the South of France were likely to have fallen under The poor Hugonots did not only long ago foresee all that hath hitherto overtaken them but they likewise made some near His Majesty acquainted with it and were ready to have proposed such measures as would have been able to have prevented their own sufferings and the disturbance which the French Monarch
hath given since to Europe had they been believed and hearkned unto But alas instead of taking that poor people into our protection and care or entring upon those Counsels with other Princes which the preserving the Peace of Europe and the securing unto the French Protestants the liberty of their Religion called for all the Intelligences we received were communicated to the French King upon which they became not only discouraged from placing any confidence in our Ministers for the future but one poor Gentleman who had ventur'd to treat with a certain person near his Majesty had the misfortune to be broken upon the Wheel and some others are forced upon the like account to live in perpetual Exile from their Country And yet even they by whom they were betray'd dare not say that ever they found them enclined to depart from their Allegiance unto their own King or to enter into any Confederacies unbecoming good Subjects and natural Frenchmen but that all which they aimed at and were willing to have transacted about was only that in preserving their Loyalty to their Prince they might not be suffered to be sacrificed and rooted out merely for their Religion Nor are the Stipulations of Kings or the established Laws of Kingdoms any security unto Protestants for their Lives or their Religion if once the Papists esteem themselves furnished with a sufficient Power and a seasonable Opportunity to subdue and extirpate it or them For as the Pope can Absolve all such Princes from the Promises and Oaths which they make to their Subjects so it is a known Principle of the Romish Church That no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks And where the Prince by not having the whole Legislation in himself is restrained from repealing Old and Enacting New Laws at his pleasure he will either mould and influence those who have a share with him in the Legislation to a compliance in what he designs or he will venture at the trampling upon all Laws and through the efficacy of the Principles of the Popish Religion will pursue the Extirpation of Heresie in defiance of all Boundaries prescribed unto him by the Law For what greater assurance could the Protestants in France have for the Liberty of their Religion and the preserving unto them all the Rights and Priviledges of Frenchmen than they enjoyed by that Edict of Henry the fourth commonly stiled the Edict of Nantes from the City where the King was when it was concluded and yet notwithstanding that Edict they are treated as if they were neither Christians nor Frenchmen being deprived of all that was therein granted unto them and brought to suffer every thing which that Edict was purposely made to defend them from For whereas by the said Edict they have a great number of Churches allowed unto them for the open exercise of their Religion and it is ordained that it shall be left free for any Papist to turn Protestant and that those of the Reformed Religion shall be as capable of enjoying publick Charges Honours Royalties and of exercising any Art or Trade as the Roman Catholicks themselves shall be and that there shall be no difference betwixt Protestants and Papists as to the security of their Lives the ways and means of their subsistence their authority over and freedom of educating and disposing their Childred yet through an implacable hatred which Popery inspireth men with against all that differ from them in Religion they are rob'd of all that was therein established in their favour and subjected to all the mischiefs which the fury of their malicious enemies and the power of a Prince guided by Father le Chaise the Jesuit can inflict upon them And as the Edict of Henry the fourth tho confirmed by Lewis the thirteenth proves no security to the French Protestants against the present Persecution which they are groaning and perishing under so it is to be feared that the Laws which the Protestants in other parts of the world do trust unto for the preservation of their Religion Lives and Legal Rights will be as insignificant to the securing these unto them in case they should fall under the power of a Popish Prince or that the Counsels of Ministers Popishly inclined should prevail as the Edict of Nantes hath been to the Hugonots For it is observable that as the Scots have at all times testified as much Zeal for the Reformed Religion as any people in Europe have done so they took care to establish the continuance of it to them and their Posterity by as good Laws as any Nation in the world could yet upon finding how useless such Laws as I shall name are unto the ends for which they were made and enacted there is a wonderful Jealousie possesseth the generality of that Kingdom That nothing can preserve them from being enslaved again to Popery but His Majesties outliving the Duke of York For it is Ordained by the Law of Scotland That no man is to James 6. p. 6. Act. 9. bear any publick Office within that Realm but such as profess the Protestant Religion And that none who shall not make profession James 6. p. 3. Act 47. of the said Religion shall be reputed a Loyal and Faithful Subject to the King but be punishable as a Rebel And that whoever shall at any time happen to Reign and bear Rule over that Realm shall at the time of his Coronation and the receipt of his Princely Authority make his faithful Promise James 6. p. 1. Act. 8. Charles I. p. 1. Act. 4. by Oath in the presence of the Eternal God That during the whole course of his life he shall serve the same Eternal God according to the uttermost of his power as he hath required in his most holy Word revealed and contain'd in the old and new Testaments and shall according to the same maintain the true Religion then professed and received within that Realm c. And therefore seeing these Laws have not been so observed but that one who doth not profess the Protestant Religion hath contrary unto them wrought himself into the chief administration of Affairs there under His Majesty hath presided daily in Council and sate as the Kings Commissioner in Parliament they begin to apprehend that other Laws may prove as ineffectual for the securing the Protestant Religion to the Nation as these have been to the excluding one from the highest Places of Authority and Trust under the King who hath not declared himself for the Protestant Religion as the foresaid Laws do require Besides it is not to be questioned but that the Protestants of this Kingdom in the time of Edward the sixth thought they had gotten their Religion so established by Laws that there was no fear of the reintroduction of Popery whoever should afterwards ascend the Throne and yet Queen Mary was no sooner come to the Crown than contrary to the Law of the Land as well as her promise to the Suffolk men who had espoused her
prejudice Nay they have been not only connived at in the reintroduction of the vvhole Popish Hierarchy into that Kingdom and allovved the holding a Publick Assembly of the Papal Clergy by a Commission from the Duke of Ormond in the year 1666. for their Sitting but they have equally vvith His Majesties Protestant Subjects been advanced to several places of Civil Power and Trust so that when the Plot was to have been executed in England Anno 1678. there were no fewer than fifteen Sheriffs in Ireland who were either professed and avowed Papists or such as bred and educated their Children in that Religion And yet while this Forbearance and Tenderness have been expressed to the Papists such of His Majesties Protestant Subjects as in that Kingdom dissent from the Established Rites and Ceremonies of the Church have fallen under the misfortune of having an express Law made against them and divers Loyal Subjects who profess the Protestant Religion in all its Doctrinal Articles have been prosecuted to Fine and Imprisonment upon it And as to the Papists in England they were so far for many years after His Majesties Restoration from having any new Laws made against them that they never felt the weight of the old ones For saving the open exercise of their Religion whereof they have been restrained they enjoyed the same safety as to their persons and estates which the Kings Protestant Liege people did Nay many of them besides their having the personal favour of the Prince equally with others they were admitted into Places and Employments of Profit and Trust And tho by their late Hellish Plot they are made liable to some Tests or to be disabled from sitting in Parliament and rendred uncapable of publick Trusts yet notwithstanding the provocation which the Nation might have justly conceived against them upon the account of that Damnable Conspiracy there hath not to this day been any new Laws made against them for their Religion nor can they with any truth and justice complain of the rigorous execution of those which had been enacted before Whereas notwithstanding the agreement that is between all His Majesties Protestant Subjects in the Fundamental points of Religion those that are called Protestant Dissenters have not only been prosecuted since His Majesties Restoration upon ancient Statutes which were purposely made intended against none but Popish Recusants as well as upon that of the 35 of Queen Elizabeth which being also made upon the dangers that the Kingdom was in from the Papists as appears by the Speeches and Debates of the greatest Statesmen who were in that Parliament seems to have been originally designed against none but them vide Townsend Historical Collect. but there have besides been no fewer in one kind and othet than five several new Laws and these none of the gentlest enacted against them And while the Papists have hardly felt the severity of the Laws which are in force against Popish Recusancy the Protestants have unconceivably suffered by virtue of the Laws made against Dissenters from the Government Discipline Rites and Liturgy of the Church and upon a Law for Regulating Corporations whereof the most material terms were judged inconvenient burdensome and grievous when intended to have been imposed upon others in the form and manner of a Test Now having suggested these things both in the fewest words I can and with all imaginable regard and attendance to Truth we shall in the next place with the like sincerity and briefness intimate and recount what Plots Conspiracies and Designs the Papists have of late years been engaged in and pursued to the subversion of our Religion and the destruction of our Lives and Liberties notwithstanding the tenderness of the Government towards them and the excellent Laws which we are provided with and enjoy both for the security of all these unto us and for our protection from the Machinations of all Popish Enemies And tho' the methods wherein they have acted and the steps they have taken have been so secret as well as various that it is impossible fully to trace and display them yet so much is obvious to all who do not wilfully shut their eyes that by relating only what we demonstratively know we may be able to form a judgment concerning their Councels and Actings which lye more concealed and hid It is to the influence which the Papists have had upon our Publick Ministers that we owe the Enacting of those Laws which as they were directly calculated to ruin many of His Majesties Protestant Subjects so they have weakned the whole Reformed Interest in these Kingdoms by encreasing our Differences and inflaming Jealousies Heats and Animosities amongst us And if it was not from some of our Councellors being under their Guidance and Conduct that we embarkt in a bloody and expensive War with our Protestant Neighbours Anno 1665 both to the weakning them and our selves and the giving opportunity to a Popish Prince to aspire to a formidable growth It was certainly from the Power and Interest which they had in some trusted with the manage of our Affairs that the Triple League came to be dissolved an Alliance contracted with the French and a Second War wherein we were abandoned and betrai'd by our new Confederate begun Anno 1672. against the Dutch I will not deny but the Grounds and Causes of our quarrelling then with them might be weighty and just yet seeing it appears since by the Declarations which the French King caused to be made by his Ambassadors to the Emperour and the Pope that his invading them at that time by agreement and concert with us Was to extirpate those Hereticks and destroy Heresie I suppose our Ministers may not only find reason to believe that Popish Councels did more influence our Resolves and Affairs of State than they were aware of but to wish they had not encouraged His Majesty to that War and rather to have sought to adjust differences betwixt them and us in an Amicable way And since our being through that ascendency which the Papists have over some great Persons near His Majesty engaged in a close and strong Conjunction with the French King It is not to be imagined what advancement the Papists have made to the ruining of the Protestant Interest through all Europe as well as in these three Nations For as the Popish Clergy do universally apply themselves to the promoting the Grandeur Empire and Soveraignty of France in hopes that he will enslave all those to their Religion whom he subdues to an Obedience to his Scepter so they have all along by the impressions which they make upon our Ministers been endeavouring to prevail over us not only to remain Neutral while he is pursuing his Conquests but to contribute to his Victories by aids of Men and Ammunition Nor is it an inconsiderable step and advance which by keeping us linkt to France the Papists have made to the ruin of these Nations in that they have hereby caused a wonderful misunderstanding
and juncture against Phanaticks it being so apparent a weakning of the whole Reformed Interest in these Kingdoms and a betraying all the Protestant party into the power and hands of their worst Enemies And seeing none but the Papists can reap any benefit or advantage by it it must be they and none else that were the first Authors and continue to be the promoters of such Councels And as some of these Laws were procured by the means of Sir Thom. Clifford Sir Thom. Strickland and others who have since appeared to be Papists so it is not unpleasant to observe how they have endeavoured to get them either suspended or executed according as this or that have lyen in an usefulness to their Designs Nor can we otherwise believe but that as some of our Ministers obtain'd them to be dispensed with 1672. in favour of the Papists so others pursue the having them put in execution in 1682. out of friendship to the same people Thus the Laws which were pretended at first to have been made for the preservation of the Church of England have been from time managed to set forward the concernments of the Church of Rome and advance the projections of the Papists Accordingly we have beheld them suspended for divers years when both most of the English Clergy were earnest to have had them executed and when the execution of them seemed to lye in a subserviency to support the grandess of the Church But now when neither the Church can be able to subsist nor are any means left to the preservation of the Protestant Religion unless Moderation and Lenity be exercised to Dissenters we are made daily and sad Spectators of Oppression Spoil and Havock brought upon a quiet industrious and useful people by the execution of these very Laws And we may be sure the Papists hug and solace themselves to find that through the Ascendency which they have over some Publick Persons who influence all our Counsels they can apply the Laws to the ruin of many Protestants and in revenge for their having escaped their murderous and bloody hands engage the Government and Authority of the Nation against them Nor is it less than a matter of Triumph to them to think that when the Commons of England in Parliament assembled had not only read and committed a Bill For the uniting His Majesties Protestant Subjects but Resolved it as the Opinion of that House That the prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning to the Protestant Interest an encouragement to Popery and dangerous to the peace of the Kingdom they should not only be able to alienate and exasperate us more from and against one another than ever we were but procure one Protestant to prosecute another upon the Penal Laws to the scorn and contempt of the Wisdom of Parliaments and the proclaiming to all the world of how little esteem and value their Counsel and Advice are What effect these proceedings upon the Penal Law against Dissenters may have upon others who are not Phanaticks is not easie to be throughly apprehended but it is certain that the English are naturally inclined to censure whatsoever is extremely rigorous and to compassionate such as suffer merely for Religion not for Crimes against the peace and safety of the Government How soon did the Nation grow dissatisfied with the Cruelties of Queen Mary and even they who had no Religion themselves came to abhor the seeing their Countreymen burnt for Principles which had no influence upon the subversion of Thrones and disturbance of Societies Yea tho her second Parliament revived the old Laws against Hereticks yet the minds of men were so much altered in a little time that the Commons in the third Parliament of that Queen would not pass a Bill which was brought in for incapacitating those from being Justices of the Peace that were suspected to have been remiss in prosecuting Hereticks And it is remarkable that not only our late Parliaments were for the mitigation of the Laws against Dissenters and for the uniting all His Majesties Protestant Subjects but even the Long Parliament which had been the Authors of all the new Laws against Phanaticks saw a necessity if they would preserve our Religion and the Lives of Protestants from the dangers which threatned them by means of the Papists to take other measures than they had acted by before and to recur to Methods of Lenity Accordingly the House of Commons in the Session that was held February 1672. sent up a Bill to the Lords in favour of Dissenters and about the Union of Protestants Nor is it to be imagined what jealousies it raiseth in the minds of most people concerning what they and all Protestants are to fear in case of a Popish Successor by seeing many of the soberest in the Nation and who agree with the present Church in all Doctrinals of Faith and Essentials of Worship so severely treated and prosecuted under a Protestant King only because of their differing from those of the established National way in some little and inconsiderable things And by how much all this rigor against Protestant Dissenters is thought to have its rise from the counsels and importunity of the Duke of York by so much are all thinking men possest with astonishing apprehensions of the Cruelties which they must expect to undergo if he come once to wear the Crown For being universally supposed and taken to be a Papist and thereupon of a Faith altogether opposite to ours so we are not now to learn that the very principles of his belief will oblige him to extirpate all that will not own the Tridentine Creed Yea such people as dare speak their thoughts do commonly say That the reason why the Duke adviseth His Majesty to courses so contrary to the Meekness and Compassion of his Royal Breast as well as the whole tenor of his Reign hitherto is that he may darken and eclipse the Glory of His hitherto merciful Government and by putting him upon austerities towards subjects who profess the same Religion that their Prince doth justifie himself hereafter in all the Slaughters and Barbarities which by virtue of the malicious ferment of Popery he may be inclined to perpetrate upon those whose Religion he so implacably abhors as he doth that of Protestants But would it not be worthy of the serious consideration of those at the Helm That it is not only the Dissenters who suffer by the Execution of the Penal Laws but the whole Nation which participates in the profits and advantages of their Industry More especially all they who have any relation unto or such as manage any Commerce with them do all bear a common share in their Calamities And besides the recentments which will spring up in the minds of men by seeing an innocent people harassed whose Lives tho they do not imitate yet they cannot but commend will it not be apt to impress their hearts with secret
King And Mr. John Jenks deposeth That Mr. Ivey confessed to him how he had great offers made him provided he would swear against Protestants And Mr. Ashlock says that Ivy one day told him He had been with the said Lord and that my Lord Hyde had order'd him to send at any time to him and he should have money And the said Ashlock further adds That he saw a Letter directed to my Lord Hyde from Ivey which Ivey said was for money Now that Ivey was necessitous and the more likely to be suborned for money to swear any thing that was false appears not only by the Petition presented to my Lord Major the Court of Aldermen and the Common Council which he among others subscribed but more especially from his own Testimony in Court at the time when Mr. Rowse was indicted seeing he then owned That he had falsly sworn such things meerly because he could not otherwise get mony And that this Protestant Plot was hatched by this hired suborned Rascal and others who in order to promote the Interest and designs of the Papists had combined to asperse Loyal Persons with the imputation of Treason and to make the chief Protectors under his Majesty of our Religion and Liberties perish in the form and course of Justice does appears by what Mr. Sampson hath deposed upon Oath namely That John Macknamarra told him how he and Ivey having been with the Earl of Shaftsbury his Lordship had refused to discourse with them alone saying He never discoursed with any but in the presence of his Servants and that I being thereupon very greatly disgusted contrived by way of Revenge to swear High Treason against him Not but that the Design of accusing my Lord Shaftsbury of Treason was laid by others but Ivey being suborned to be a Witness against him he therefore sought an opportunity of speaking with his Lordship alone the better to obtain what he should afterwards say against him to be believed However having upon some instigation or other entertain'd a Resolution of swearing Treason against this Loyal and Noble Lord his next business was to procure others to fortifie his Testimony and second him in whatsoever he should say Accordingly he applies to Haynes assuring him in the names of several Lords That he should not only have his pardon but five hundred pounds provided as Mrs. Wingfield Haynes's Mother-in-Law told Mrs. Hall and Mary Richards he would fasten a Plot upon Protestants and swear against several Lords Nay Mr. Zell one of Justice Warcups present Darlings and whose Testimony he ought not to decline against Ivey having so lately made use of it in the Court of Verge to vindicate himself I say this Zell hath deposed upon Oath That Ivey would have perswaded him to swear High Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury and by way of Argument to influence him to a compliance told him That the E. of H. my L. H. my L. C. and Mr. S. were a Commitee to give assurances of Pardons and to allow Gratuites to all that would swear against that Lord and that there is a Presbyterian Plot. And tho' I am not willing to believe those great Ministers guilty of this which Zell says Ivey reported of them yet it is something strange that knowing it from Prints as well as otherwise they have not endeavoured to get that Rogue punished for defaming of them And I do verily think it would be as much for the Honour of the Government and for the Reputation of these States-men to have this fellow and the rest who have used the like Language concerning them either prosecuted by way of Action or Information as it will prove in the issue that the Attorney General is prosecuting one Baldwin for having published a Book called No Protestant Plot wherein so far as very good and wise men can see there is not any thing criminal unless it be a Crime to detect the Designs of the Papists against Protestants and to vindicate the innocency of those who as it hath appeared by the verdicts of Juries were falsly and unrighteously accused But to return I suppose from what hath been here declared and laid open concerning Ivey there will not many be found who are credible persons themselves that will look upon him hereafter as a credible Witness in reference to a Protestant Plot. Nor is the bringing the Lives of Innocents into hazard upon the Testimony of a wretch branded with so many capital Offences and who besides hath been so evidently tamper'd with to be any other way expiated or attoned for but by bringing both him and his Abettors to condign punishment The last Witness made use towards the proving the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury was Bernard Dennis a fellow as lewd in his Morals as any of the rest and drawn and procured to be an Evidence against Protestants by the same means and arts that they were Nor is he only an Irish man but of one of the most sottish bigotted bloody Clans's of all that Kingdom See proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of Shaft p. 48. And upon the best enquiry I can make there is not one Irish man of his Name in that whole Nation who is known to be a Protestant I should not have mentioned this if the fellow upon being ask'd whether all his Kindred were not Papists had not answered he could not say so And yet were he put to it he will not be able to name one Person neither in the County where he was born where Ibid. p. 32. he says there are so many of them nor in the whole Country besides that is not a Papist if withal they be not of the most violent and bloodily disposed sort And whereas he once told Mr. Wilmore they two being discoursing together about the principles of the Papists that the Papists valued no more the life of a Heretick than they did that of a Dog it is most probable that he therein spake the Sense of his Kindred and published what they had of old infused into him I will not enquire what Religion he is of at present seeing no form nor kind of Religion can give him a Reputation but he reflects dishonour upon whatsoever Religion he doth profess Only I wish that the Papists have not Sham'd him upon the Church of England that he may the better and under the fairer name Sham a Plot upon Protestants And who knows but finding a respect paid to his Testimony at the Tryal of my Lord Stafford because he there professed himself a Papist he might thereupon hope it would advantage him in being believed against a Protestant by listing himself in the Communion of the Protestant Church The forgery of this Plot would have been too obvious should Romish Priests have come forth as the principal Witnesses to prove the best Protestants in England concerned in a Conspiracy against His Majesty and the Government but the producing none for Evidence but Members of our own Church
does help to hide and conceal the Villany And I beg the rather pardon for my jealousie in this matter because tho' he told the Jury that he had been a Protestant since February last yet he never sought to be received into the bosom of the English Church till about the month of June which was near the time that the Mine which had been long before laid against Protestants was just ready to spring Nor were things so much better for the Protestant Interest and worse for the Popish Ibid p. 47. in February than they had been in November before that a fellow who makes Religion always subservient to his safety and gain and who had been a Papist in November should think of abandoning the Communion of the Church of Rome for to be taken into the bosom and embraces of the Church of England in February following But be he of what Religion soever he pleaseth I still say he is a wicked and flagitious fellow For whereas he acknowledgeth that in the course of his Travels he had been in Maryland as well as in divers other Countries he must give us leave to remember himself of and acquaint the world with a good token of it For besides several Debaucheries and lesser enormities he was guilty of there he was apprehended not only for felony in stealing a Watch but for Sacriledg in breaking into a Church and carrying away the Communion Plate But being I grow weary in raking so long in Sinks and Kennels I shall therefore wave the insisting upon these things or the deducing them to any further length Since he came hither he hath been always extreamly necessitous but never in greater penury than immediately before he started up a Witness in this new Plot. For as he wanted bread otherwise than as he was from day to day relieved by the Charity of such compassionate persons to whom he bewailed the miserableness of his condition so I have heard from a good hand that being arrested for Fifteen or Seventeen shillings he was so poor that he must have gone to the Counter if a Gentleman that passed by had not out of meer pity sent him a Guinee to discharge the Debt and the Serjeants Fees And how easie was it to corrupt and suborn such a fellow who as he had no Principles of Vertue or Honour to preserve him against the temptations wherewith he was assaulted so the pinching wants under which he laboured rendred him a prey to any that would hire him with ready money or give him any assurance of a plentiful subsistence Now it not only appears from the Testimony of Dr. Oats Mr. Boulter Mrs. Mary Cox Mrs. Norton and divers others that by his own acknowledgment and confession to them both Warcup and Fitz-Gerald had tempted him with great offers of Gold and Silver if he would depart from his Evidence against the Papists and swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury my Lord Howard and several other Protestants but it is likewise deposed by Mr. Samuel Oats that Dennis should say If the Protestants did not help him to money it would cause him to do that which he never intended But what need I insist upon the Depositions of others in proof that he had frequently confessed his being tempted with tenders of great matters to retract what he had sworn against the Papists and swear that the Protestants were embarkt in a Conspiracy against the King seeing he himself hath deposed all this upon Oath before Sir Patience Ward when he was Lord Mayor And as this may fully convince all that are not in the Plot themselves for the destroying such as are the chief Bulwarks under His Majesty of our Religion and Liberties that whatsoever this fellow hath sworn against the Earl of Shaftsbury or any Protestant else is all meer Fiction Romance and abominable Forgery so we have besides all this the Testimony both of Dr. Oats and Captain Yarrington That this wretch did protest unto them at the very time when he told them of his being tempted that before God he knew nothing whereof to accuse any Protestant in the world and that if he should do any such thing he should be the greatest Rogue under Heaven And as their way of living since and their boasting of having their Pockets full of money does plainly proclaim to all Mankind upon what motives they have perjured themselves and how well they have been rewarded for their false swearing so there is one George Dennis a Gardiner who deposeth That to his knowledg the Witnesses who swore against the Earl of Shaftsbury had an Hundred or an Hundred and Fifty Pound a man for so doing and that he might have had as much if he would have Sworn against the said Earl Having thus truely and briefly drawn and represented the Witnesses according to their just and true Features and having fully discovered the Combination which they and others are engaged in against our Lives and Religion and having particularly detected how these mercinary Wretches have been hired and suborned to swear a Plot upon Protestants which themselves and their Abettors have out of hatred to the Protestant Religion and English Liberties invented and forged against innocent persons I shall now leave them thus shown and exposed to undergo the punishments which these unparallel'd Villainies subject them unto and in the mean time till the Administrators of publick Justice shall esteem it their Duty and for the honour of the Government to make their Punishment as exemplar as their Crimes have been I do here set them up as proper objects of the abhorrency and detestation of mankind and persons not worthy to be believed by any honest rational Jury or Inquest And I shall only add that the late Grand Jury instead of deserving to be censured for returning an Ignoramus upon the Bills which these Miscreants swore unto they are rather to be blam'd for not immediately Indicting them of a Conspiracy against the Lives and Honour of Noble and Guiltless Persons Nor is it enough for a Grand Jury merely to reject a Bill which they find promoted from Malice and upon a Combination but they are bound both by the Laws of God and the Laws of the Land to Indict the Conspirators and all such as shall appear to have abetted them And whereas we have not only heard of several other Witnesses who either had or were ready to Swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury but have been told that several of their Names had been endorsed on the back of the Bill which was preferred against his Lordship who yet upon second thoughts were blotted out and expunged We shall only say that we think it needless to attempt the exposing of those whom the Managers themselves judged so infamous that they were ashamed to make use of them But as we may be sure that they produced all these whose Credit they could in any degree rely upon so had they brought an hundred more whom we might neither
THE THIRD PART OF No Protestant Plot WITH Observations on the PROCEEDINGS UPON THE BILL of INDICTMENT AGAINST THE E. of Shaftsbury AND A Brief ACCOUNT of the CASE OF THE EARL of ARGYLE LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwin 1682. To the READER 'T IS not more out of Respect to our own Innocency and the Honour of our Religion that these Papers come abroad into the world than it is from that Love and Respect which we bear to the King whose Interest in the hearts of his People is greatly supplanted and undermined by the courses which have heen lately taken to destroy his Innocent and Loyal Subjects upon a forged and groundless pretence That they are engaged in a Conspiracy against his Person and the established Government For some men whose crimes have made them obnoxious to the justice of Parliaments and the severity of the Laws could bethink themselves of no other way to escape the punishments which they have deserved but by possessing the King That the Peers and Gentlemen of England who are most likely to call them to an account while they are complaining of their Misdemeanours and Offences are themselves combined to destroy both the Regnant Prince and the Monarchy The hazards which our Names Fortunes and Lives are brought into do not so much afflict us as to see the King lose the Love and Confidence of his People at home be forced to abandon his Allies abroad and leave his Crown and Dignity as well as these Nations exposed to the Power and Ambition of a neighbouring Monarch Nor can we express greater Fealty to the King than by plainly informing him that he hath no Enemies save the Papists unless it be in the imaginations of ill men who to render themselves innocent would make others guilty And were they capable of being instructed to forbear the prosecution of their forged Plots upon the Baffles which they have received upon prosecutions supported meerly by perjury and falsehood we would have had that compassion for the honour of the Government and the safety of the Nation as to have suppressed these sheets But seeing they obstinately persevere in their malicious designs and are as industrious as ever to bribe and hire mercinary Rascals to swear Treason against the best and most loyal Subjects which His Majesty hath as well as against the chiefest Patriots of our Religion and Liberties We hope the world will pardon us in defending our own integrity and exposing their rage and wrath And let me assure them that while they fondly imagine they work under ground we are able to trace them in the steps which they take 'T is not above a week or two ago that by offers of five hundred pound a man they attempted to suborn several persons to swear Treason against the Earl of Essex the Earl of Shaftsbury and others Nay we could tell them of a Consult which they had to examine and digest the forged Evidence which by greatexpence and mighty labour they had procured how they went away wonderfully disturbed that it would not answer their desires nor support the design which they were upon As the people of England are not of a temper to suffer their throats to be cut in a way of massacre without a manly and generous resistance so they are not of a complexion to lose their Lives unjustly by a legal process without speaking in their own defence What we have here written is with a freedom that becomes innocent persons tho' we must acknowledg that we have fallen short in the air and stile that are proportionate to so just a cause The righteeousness and innocency of our case needs no pickquancy and it were but to obscure and darken our Loyalty to make it resplendent by colours But if our Enemies persevere in their ways of impudence we hope all mankind will acquit us if from henceforth we lay aside bashfulness and modesty ERRATA PAge 8. l. 20. r. ministred p. 18. l. 23. r. another p. 25. l. 17. r. procss p 26. l. 28. r. over all p. 27. l. 27. r. secure p. 32. l. 7. r. fill p. 44 l. 28. r. both p. 45. l. 14. r. superstructing p. 51. l. 18. r. process p. 58 l. ult del as p. 59. after bitterness put for p. 64. l. 23 and l. 24. r. crâ—dible p. 69. l. 6. r. Truth p. 71. l. 3. after with r. it p. 73. l. 7. dele â— p. 85. l. 23. after Rascal put p. 86. l. 17. after of put p. 87. l. 24 r. Mrâ— p. 89 l. 1. for conceived r. could Ibid. l. 21. for an r. a. p. 93. l. 28. for 〈◊〉 man r. that a man p. 103. l. 24. for both r. not only p. 104. l. 27. for ◠〈…〉 y. p. 131. l. 2. r. Memoir's p. 133 l. 26. for the r. this p. 139. l. â— before in add is p. 142. l. 20. r. time HOW much the Papists are not only justified in destroying those who differ from them in Faith and Worship but obliged by the Principles of their Religion to extirpate all Christians who have withdrawn from the Communion of their Church we may be easily informed if we would but give our selves the trouble of consulting the Canons of their Councils the Decrees of their Popes and the publick Writings of their most approved Authors Nor is there any crime or villany so tyrannous and barbarous but it becomes sanctified and is declared meritorious provided it be found subservient to so useful and pious Design as the rooting out those whom the Papal Church hath judged and pronounced Hereticks For besides millions of Men and Women professing and obeying the Gospel that have been destroyed in other Nations for no other offence but because they dissented from the Church of Rome there have several hundred thousands been murther'd kill'd and massacre'd in these three Kingdoms meerly because they could not believe as the pretended Church Catholick doth And as neither Obedience or Loyalty towards Magistrates nor Righteousness towards fellow-Subjects have contributed any thing towards the security of the Lives of Protestants when the Papists have apprehended themselves able and found that they were countenanced by Authority to destroy them so no Obligations by Oaths or Promises have been sufficient to restrain those of the Papal Communion from washing their hands in the Blood of Innocents but in defiance of all that ought to be preserved sacred they have first murder'd them and then not only gloried in their bloody and 〈◊〉 Exploits but in the falshoods and perjuries by which â—hey wheedled honest and credulous people within the Circle of their power and rage And while those of that Religion retain the same Principles which influenced men of the Romish Belief to such inhuman and barbarous Actions heretofore the Protestants of this Age have no reason to expect more mercy or fairer dealing from them than our Forefathers and Predecessors received at their hands And sure the Papists must esteem the Protestants of these Nations an Unthinking
they are then hector'd and menaced and in the Phrase of our English Cicero threatned with a new sort of advancement Their method is when they accost a person to insinuate into and perswade him that he must needs know something of the Earl of Shaftsbury's designs against His Majesty and that if he will be so ingenuous as to confess he hath an opportunity presented him both of enriching himself and obtaining the favour of the Government But then in case the party assaulted prove so just to himself and the person whom they would decoy and Wire-draw him to accuse as to tell them he is altogether ignorant of any ill design projected or promoted by that Noble Peer he is in the next place told that they have an Information of a dangerous Nature against him and that seeing by declining to inform against my Lord Shaftsbury he makes himself unworthy of the Favour and Pardon of his Prince he must therefore expect to feel the rigor and severity of the Law This was the course that was steered towards Captain Wilkinson and this was the way wherein Sir Richard Graham late High Sheriff of Yorkshire and Sir Jonathan Jennings a Justice of the Peace in Rippon used towards William Brownrigg And as all the Nation is sufficiently made acquainted with and is fully sensible of what Captain Wilkinson for declining to be a false Witnes became exposed unto so I shall here subjoin the Mittimus by which Brownrigg upon his refusing to come in as an Evidence against the Earl of Shaftsbury was sent Prisoner by Sir Jonathan to York Castle upon a pretence that there was an Information of Treason against him and that it was no more but a pretence or what is equivalent a false Information appears from their discharging him sometime after without any prosecution West Rid. Comit. Ebor. Whereas an Information upon Oath of a Treasonable nature hath been made against Mr. William Brownrigg of Knares brough Atturney at Law These are therefore in His Majesties Name streightly to charge and command you or some of you to take into your custody the said Will Brownrigg whom I herewith send you and him safely keep till he shall be delivered by due course of Law Given under my Hand and Seal the 30th day os August 1681. Jonath Jenning All men who have any knowledg of the Law of England will say this is a strange and unusual Warrant and for which Sir Jonathan deserves to be called to an account but the true reason why Brownrigg was Committed upon a general charge was because really there was nothing against him save that Baynes had given Information to some here who transmitted it to Yorkshire that Brownrigg had acquainted Mr. Stringer Servant to the Earl of Shaftsbury that there was a Design carrying on against the Life of his Lord. Upon the whole it plainly appears that this pretended Protestant Plot which the Nation hath been so alarm'd with and filled with the noise of is nothing but a mere Invention of the Papists and of some ill men who under the disguise of being for the Crown and the Church serve and promote their treacherous and wicked Designs and that the combination against our Religion Laws Lives and Liberties is as strongly and effectually carried on under a false Accusation of Treason as it was heretofore pursued upon the score and account of Heresie And besides several Informations which are to be met with elsewhere relating to the concernment of See no Protestant Plot part 1. p. 25. very great men in this Papal Intrigue there are many other Depositions come to our hands declarative of the same Conspiracy which to prevent the encreasing our Animosities and the making the Settlement of the Nation desperate shall be at this time withheld and remain concealed And therefore without any further displaying or prosecution of this we shall in the next place address our selves to the consideration of the Credit of those Witnesses upon whose Testimony the whole Fabrick and Structure of a Protestant Plot is founded and built And tho' we are told by the Reverend Judges That the Credibility of the Witnesses lies not before a Grand Jury but that they are to remain satisfied in having See the Proceedings against the Earl of Shaftsbury p. 33. matter that is treasonable sworn before them by Two Witnesses that are prima facie credibil where by the way albeit prima facie credibil be in the Print yet it is not in the Manuscripts which we have had the fortune and opportunity to consult I say notwithstanding that we are told thus by the Judges yet we apprehend our selves justified both by the Law of the Land and the common Reason os Mankind in taking upon us to affirm that no man is to have his Name Reputation and Honour upon a Presentment detracted from much less his Loyalty to his Prince Impeached upon an Indictment and thereby his Life and Estate brought into danger save upon the Evidence of persons of good Credit and moral Fame The very words of the Statute of the 13 Car. 2. upon which my Lord Chief-Justice Ibid. was pleased to say That the Indictment against the Earl of Shaftsbury was principally founded because it not only contains the Treasons declared in the Statutes of the 25th of Edw. 3. but enlargeth them in many particulars I say that very Statute requires that the Witnesses be lawful and credible Besides it is a plain contradiction that a person should be supposed credible who either never had or hath forfeited his credit No man is capable of proving a Crime Legally but he that is reputed Morally honest All Histories as well Sacred as Prophane tell us How men of depraved Principles being influenced by those in Power or bribed and hired by Rewards have conspired to Swear against the Innocent Thus was Naboth murdered at the instigation of the Court upon the Testimony of perjured and suborned Witnesses And as his Crime was his standing for his Legal Right and not surrendring his Property and Inheritance to the Despotical pleasure of the Prince so he was both Tried and Condemned in the way of a Legal Form Nor ought it to appear strange to find a guiltless person Accused by false Witnesses of Treason seing the Holy and Innocent Jesus was Indicted and Murdered for no less Crime and that by the mouths of two Witnesses of the very complexion and stamp with ours and procured in the same way Whoever hath read Tacitus or Suetonius will be supplied with Instances enough of the slaughter of the chiefest Patriots of the Roman Liberty who were destroyed by the Depositions of false Witnesses set on and authorised by the commands of Soveraigns and encouraged by Rewards from the State Yea so prevalent are Malice and Revenge in some Pride Envy and Emulation in others and the love of Profit and Gain in many that neither the most provident and severe Laws to the contrary nor the Wisdom and Circumspection of the
very well satisfied with it desiring only that he would add to the last clause of the body of the Petition these words viz. That they could not be supplied out of His Majesties Exchequer And that when he had thus perfected the foul draught to their satisfaction and ingrossed it he read it to them again with the same plainness and distinctness as before and that all of them did very well approve of it especially Mr. Turberville who was pleased to give it a particular Character Now whether we ought to believe Mr. Turberville who swears That he never read that Petition nor knew what was in it but that it was drawn by the order of Mr. Colledg or believe Mr Bellamy who affirms and is ready to depose upon Oath That Turberville and the rest gave Instructions for the drawing of it ordered the foul draught to be corrected by the addition of several important words had it read to them distinctly and audibly and gave their approbation of it I shall refer it to the judgment of all sober discreet and unbiassed men Nor is it unworthy of our observation that when the same Petition was objected against him at Oxford towards the invalidating his Testimony against Mr. Colledg he was provided with no such answer as this which he retreated to at the Old-Baily which forced My Lord Chief-Justice North to endeavour to relieve him by saying There was nothing in that Petition See Colledges Trial p. 47 48. that is a Contradiction to what he then Swore But I humbly conceive all men will not be of this Reverend Judges mind especially when they consider that Turbervile and the rest whose hands are to that Petition do not only therein declare how restless the Papists were in tampering with the Witnesses to corrupt them to stifle and discredit the belief of the Popish Plot but that they were labouring to obtain them to impute the same unto and devolve it upon Protestants And for the shift which Turberville hath since betaken himself unto it is nothing but an evasion either lately invented by himself or suggested unto him by those that Suborned him And yet the Silliness of it is as conspicuous as the Falshood For as it is incredible that any man should set his hand to a Paper which he had neither read nor knew what was in it so no man that should draw such a Petition provided he were wise would admit it seing it might give those very persons at whose desire he had done it an advantage of turning upon him to his prejudice The whole ground and foundation upon which Turbervile came to Swear a Protestant Plot are laid open See Colledge's Trial p. 48. and detected to us by Dr. Oats For the Doctor hath Deposed in Court that Turbervile justified his Swearing Treason against Mr. Colledg tho' he had said before that he would not give any Evidence against him Because the Citizens had deserted him and God damn him he would not starve Alas We poor Protestants thought our selves safe in our Innocency but behold a company of indigent and mercinary Rascals have resolved to Swear us into Guilt that they might obtain Bread Upon the whole it doth appear that the Testimony of Turberville ought to be esteemed of no validity And that the Jury could not in the case of my Lord of Shaftsbury do otherwise than they did notwithstanding the Testimony of this Fellow without becoming themselves unrighteous and unjust The next person that mounted as an Affidavit-man against the Earl of Shaftsbury was Mr. John Smith a person every way adapted to compensate the deficiency of truth in what he says with impudence in the manner of declaring it And because some who do not throughly know the man seek more especially to countenance the belief of a Protestant Plot from his Testimony we shall be the more careful to unmask him and give the world a representation of him in his just features complexion and colours What truely his Christian Name is or whether he have any or no I cannot certainly tell but I have made a shift of late to learn both his Sirname and his Country namely that the one is Ireland and the other Barry And seeing that See procedings against the Earl of Shaftsbury p. 69. he was not brought to acknowledg the name of Barry but after some tergiversation I do affirm that that is the only name he ought to go by if it were not the temper humour and interest of the man to walk always in a disguise And forasmuch as he hath been ambitious to seek a Reputation by pretending himself an English-man I do proclaim to all the world that he was born in Connaught in the Kingdom of Ireland 'T is so habitual for some to lie that no ties nor obligations can make them speak truth However he hath not so much dishonoured England by pretending himself a Native here as he hath our Lord Jesus Christ by giving himself out for a Christian For whereas England owns many Villains and flagitious persons for Natural Subjects and free Denisons Christ will acknowledg none for Christians that only make mention of his Name when they blaspheme it But if the world will account him for a Christian that swears as often as he speaks I say that in all probability notwithstanding whatsoever he pretends to the contrary he is truly and really a Papist For Mr. Sampson hath deposed upon Oath That John Smith Stephen Dugdale and Edward Turberville having sent for him to the One Tun Tavern in Hungerford Market on the 23d of September last Smith begun the Duke of York ' s Health swearing God damn him that he therefore both loved him and drunk his Health because he was a Papist I am so far from being angry at his drinking the Duke of York's Health that out of sincere love to His Majesty as well as the Protestant Religion I wish no man may ever have occasion to drink it under a higher Title All that I would observe is upon what motive and inducement Barry's love to his Royal Highness is grounded and built To this I shall only subjoin one proof more of what Religion whatsoever he pretends we ought to esteem him to be namely that he said at Newark He would sooner hang Ten Protestants than One Papist And his Reason was as considerable as his Assertion viz. because the Popish principles led them to Treason which the Protestant principles did not It would seem the fellow begun to apprehend that the Court would grow weary of his confidence and importunity and therefore he begins to commend principles which may justifie his being another Jaques Clement or a new Ravilliack And if he answer the Character I have received of him there is not a person alive who is more likely to supply the place and undertake the Province of the Four Ruffians who were disappointed and prevented in their design against his Majesty Anno 1678. than this lean long chapp'd Cassius
sort of people and very ignorant of the Transactions of their own as well as former days See the three great Questions concerning the Succession p. 19. otherwise they would not have the Impudence to affirm in Print That as there were but 277. that suffered in all Queen Maries Reign upon the pretence of Religion so above 200. of them were profligate Persons And that instead of the vast numbers alledged to have been massacred in the last Rebellion in Ireland There were slain on both sides during the whole Rebellion not above 36000. and this in a War set on foot for their Liberty and Estates not for Religion Whereas all men that are not wilfully ignorant know that the Irish never enjoyed more liberty as to their Religion or more security as to their Persons and Estates than immediately before they broke out into that horrid Rebellion wherein they perpetrated such salvage and bloody Cruelties as no part of the Pagan World could parallel Nor were the quiet and tranquility which they then possessed the fruits only of a Connivence from the Government but the effects of many Acts of Grace which had a little before past in favour of the Irish Papists And as that Rebellion sprung from no other cause but the obligations which those of the Roman Religion are under by virtue of the Doctrines and Principles of the Papal Faith to root out Hereticks so we are well assured from impartial Historians and authentick Records that they Murdered above Two hundred and fifty thousand in that Kingdom without any other provocation save that they were Protestants And instead of Two hundred seventy seven whereof above Two hundred are said to have been profligate persons that suffered during the reign of Queen Mary there were according to the truest account no fewer than 284. Honest and Conscientious Christians that in little above five years were burnt at the stake for the profession of the Gospel besides those that were driven into exile and such as dyed in prison meerly for being Protestants Nay the Author of the Preface to Bishop Ridley's Book de Caena Domini who is commonly supposed to have been Grindal that was afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury a person who by his circumstances and troubles in the time of that Bloody Reign and by his station and quality under Queen Elizabeth had as fair advantages as any of being informed concerning the number of those that suffered tells us that there were above Eight hundred put to most cruel kinds of death for Religion in the first two years of Queen Maries persecution Yea so pestilent and infectious a thing is Popery that when once it hath insinuated it self into and possest the minds of Princes it not only infatuates them to depopulate their Kingdoms by destroying and driving into banishment the best and most useful subjects of their dominions but it so far fascinates them as to make them forget their own protection and defence as well as to abandon the safety and preservation of those of their people that agree with them in the same belief and to chuse rather to expose their Crowns Territories and Subjects to be subdued and conquered by an Aspiring and Rival Monarch or to enforce their subjects pursuant to principles of self preservation to revolt and rebel than they will be persuaded and prevailed upon to exercise Indulgence Compassion and Forbearance to Protestants tho' at the same time they cannot but know that the people whom they persecute would sacrifice their Lives and Fortunes in the defence and service of their Persons and Dignities Thus the Second and Third Philips of Spain chose rather to embroil the Low-countreys in an expensive and bloody War and at last to lose the Obedience of Seven intire Provinces and see them shake off their dependency upon the Spanish Monarchy and establish themselves in an Independent and Soveraign Government than to allow and permit that People to differ and dissent in matter of Religion from the Church of Rome And as the Revolt of those Provinces which was occasioned meerly by the Persecution of Protestants proved at first the great obstacle to Spain's obtaining the Universal Monarchy which they were in a condition to have bidden fair for had not that War and the withdrawment of so many great and rich Countreys interposed so the expence of Wealth and Consumption of men which the Spaniards were at during those long and bloody troubles with the loss of the Provinces which renounced their Allegiance to Spain and erected themselves into a Free State hath laid the foundation of abridging the Interest of that Crown in Europe and is like to issue in the ruine and subversion of that Mighty and Large Monarchy Thus likewise the present Emperor notwithstanding the urgency of his Affairs through the impression which the French have made upon Germany rather than abate the persecution of his Protestant Hungarian subjects he hath hitherto chosen to venture the ruine both of the Empire and his own Hereditary Countreys And tho' that poor people have been always ready to render an intire obedience to his Imperial Majesty and strengthen and encrease his Armies with a brave and large Military Force to oppose and withstand his Enemies provided only that their Religion and Legal Rights might be secured unto them yet that Prince through the influence of the Popish Clergy and especially of the Jesuits hath preferred the exposing himself and all Germany to the Power and Ambition of France rather than gratifie the Requests of his Protestant subjects albeit the whole which they have demanded and insisted upon was stipulated unto them by the Oaths of his Ancestors And seeing his own Necessities and the sober Counsels of his best Friends have at last brought him to terms of Agreement with that people I shall only wish that they may not through the liberty which the Popish Religion giveth him of violating Promises made to Hereticks be departed from and forgotten as soon as the apprehension of the danger he is in from the French bloweth over and vanisheth I might also here add That there is a certain Gentleman in the world who tho' he have at present no other pretence to the Government of Affairs save what he enjoys by the Favour and Indulgence of his Prince yet through his being corrupted and infected with Popish Principles he seems to prefer the entangling Three Powerful and Opulent Kingdoms in Intestine Wars or the leaving them naked to the Invasion of a Mighty and Ambitious Neighbour than lose the opportunity of extirpating the Northern Heresie and reducing the Nations where his Counsels and Interest can prevail into a Vassalage to the Triple Crown And we may yet more fully satisfie our selves what we are to expect from Papists and what their Religion guides them unto and justifieth them in if we will but consider what the Sufferings of the Protestants in France at present are and what methods are pursued for the extirpating of them For as all the
Title and Quarrel against the Lady Jane she published a Proclamation to forbid and inhibit all Preaching and Expounding of the Scripture without her special License Which was to subject the Reformed to punishment if they offended whereas the Papists were sure not only to be pardoned in case they transgressed but were thereby in effect countenanced to restore the Romish Worship and Service And when a Parliament was called there was not only violence used in divers places to hinder the Commons from assembling to chuse and the election of several who were judged fit for the Queens turn promoted by force and threatnings but there were many false Returns made and some duly elected forcibly turned out of the House Upon which all the Laws against Popery came easily to be repealed and new Laws made for the suppression of the Reformed Religion and the persecution of Protestants Which as it serveth to convince all that have not wilfully shut their eyes against light and who are not resolved with a brutish obstinacy to withstand reason what we are to expect from a Popish Successor notwithstanding all the Laws which we enjoy for our security so the rage wherewith the Papists are at present transported and inflamed against the Protestants of these Kingdoms and the temper of the Gentleman whom they labour to see advanced to the Throne may cause us reasonably to fear and apprehend severer persecutions in case he should attain the weilding of the British Scepter than ever our forefathers under Queen Mary suffered or met withal For the Scheme which he hath set in Scotland while he is but a Subject and greatly restrained by the Wisdom Goodness and Authority of His Majesty from accomplishing half of what we are to suppose him inclined unto by his Principles may sufficiently satisfie all mankind what he is like to prove should he ever come to act with an uncontrolled liberty and have an opportunity to display the complexion of his mind His proceedings against the Earl of Argyle do not more surprise all the World than they proclaim how little he values the Lives of the Greatest and most Innocent Peers if they will not become subservient to his Interest and instrumental in his Popish and Arbitrary Designs And as the Earl's offering to explain in what sense he was willing to take the Test is a thing which no Law can justly forbid and which a Cobler might have done in England in the like case without being so much as liable to a rebuke so it is not unworthy of the knowledg of the World that he communicated the Explanation to his Highness beforehand and desired to know whether he might not be allowed to take it with the Proviso's which he afterwards mentioned in Councel And as the Duke did not prohibit but seem'd to permit at least to connive at what was proposed so it is remarkable that the said Earl was suffered to take his Place in Council after he had taken the Test in the sense which that Explanation did import But his Interest in the Kingdom and his stedfastness and zeal for the Protestant Religion administring matter of dislike and jealousie seeing nothing more material or really Criminal did occur were thought fit after some Nocturnal thoughts and private Consults to be laid hold upon for the ruining a Person vvhom as they could not manage to the service of their purposes so they dreaded the prejudice he might do them by running cross to their Designs Nor is the Earl of Argyles entertainment more severe in having that called Treason vvhich the common reason of mankind and all the Lavv of the World justifies than it is expresly contrary to the Lavv and Practise of Scotland to condemn attaint and forfeit any unless they either are or have been in actual Rebellion but such as are personally present or have had Warning given them to appear But the unpresidented Severity vvhich this Great and Wise Nobleman hath had measured unto him may be a Warning to all His Majesties Protestant Subjects what they are to expect if this Commissioner in Scotland arrive once to be King of Great Britain France and Ireland and how little the Laws which we so much rely upon will avail us if we be found to thwart his will and humour And as Laws are no security to Protestants against the Malice and Cruelty of the Papists when once they are armed with Force and Power sufficient to destroy them so neither the Liberty and Priviledges which the Papists are suffered equally to enjoy with our selves nor the Favours and Civilities which we have been ready upon all occasions to heap upon them can restrain or hinder our being ruined whensoever they are furnished with an opportunity to attempt and aceomplish our extirpation The Bloody Cruelties of Queen Mary to the Suffolk Protestants who in effect set the Crown upon her Head and the barbarous Severities exercised at present against the Hugonots of France who not only with the expence of their Treasure and Blood established Henry the 4th on the Throne of France when the Princes of Lorrain would have excluded him but by their Courage and Valour preserved the Soveraignty unto him that at this time persecutes them when the Prince of Conde would have wrested the Government out of his hand are so many uncontrollable Arguments and Demonstrations that no Merits or Services can secure Protestants from the Rage and implacable Malice which the Popish Religion inspireth men with And as the Irish Massacre ought never to be forgotten by the Protestants of these Dominions so it had this ingredient to aggravate the Barbarity of it that it was perpetrated at a season when instead of having any reason to complain of their usage by the English they were in the quiet possession of equal Priviledges almost with themselves But if we will descend to the present time and take a view of what the condition of the Papists hath been since His Majesties happy Restoration we shall easily perceive what an ungrateful generation of men they are and that they are not capable of being obliged by kindnesses For to begin with the Irish Papists who of all men deserved least lenity from a Protestant Government it is remarkable that notwithstanding the Rebellion wherein they had been ingaged and the infinite slaughters which they had committed in a time of Peace without the least provocation administred unto them yet there hath not any Law been made against them since the King's Return save one against their living in Walled Towns which was suspended by His Majesties Command expressed in a Letter to the Lord Deputy and Council from being put in execution And as to the ancient Laws which vvere in being and force against them that vvhole Kingdom swarming with Priests and Friers and their celebrating Mass every where with as much openness as the Parochial Ministers do preach the Word or read the Liturgy are undeniable Evidences how little those Laws have been applied to their hurt or
between His Majesty and his People and filled the best and wisest of the King's Subjects with jealousies that it is through a concert with that foreign Monarchy that Parliaments are either Called Prorogued or Dissolved And as the Papists in these Nations are emboldned by the Confederacy between us and France to maintain an intimate and dayly Correspondence with that Court so it is justly to be apprehended that they have made themselves sure of Supplies of Power and Succour from thence whensoever they shall judge it convenient to set upon destroying our Religion and altering the Government But besides all which they have either endeavoured or been able to effect towards the destroying us and the Reformation in these Nations through the influence which they have had upon Ministers of State and Publick Councels they have entred into Conspiracies for the overthrowing Religion and extirpating Protestants wherein we are inclinable to believe none have been trusted but themselves And as the Burning of London in September 1666. was the first plain and uncontrolable Evidence that the freedom of their own consciences and the private liberty of their Religion would not content them but that they were implacably bent upon the ruine of all His Majesties Liege people who differ from them in Principles of Faith and Worship so we are well assured that their Malice and Rage had not terminated in the firing our Houses but that they would have mingled the blood of the inhabitants with the ashes of their dwellings had not the courage and spirit of some of their own party failed them and had not the Citizens been awaken'd to a sense of their danger and appeared resolute to fell their Lives at a dear rate And tho we are most ready to believe that none had a hand in the contrivance and execution of that Villanous Design but the Papists yet the rescuing some out of the hands of Officers and others who had been taken in the very act of throwing Fireballs and dismissing divers without prosecution against whom the same Fact was sworn clearly argues that the Authors and Instruments of that horrid Crime had many great and potent Friends who were forward to protect them from the punishment and demerit of it But the Papists having miss'd the opportunity of cutting the throats of the Hereticks when they were under a consternation and amazement and finding that the Flames of London had enlightned many concerning their Designs who vvere before both secure and possest vvith more favourable thoughts concerning them and perceiving that notvvithstanding the Mercinariness of the Members of the Long-Parliament there vvas no hope of biassing them by Bribes and Pensions either to establish Popery by a Lavv or so much as give an universal Toleration to the Roman Catholicks they arrived at last to these Devillish Resolutions of Murdering the King and Massacring all the considerable Protestants in the Kingdom This vvas the Plot into vvhich all their Contrivances at last resolved and vvhich they had determined to have executed in the latter end of 1678. For the constant expence vvhich they vvere at in carrying on the Conspiracy being grovvn so burdensome that they could not much longer maintain and support it and the Parliament being after the breach of the Triple League and the formidable grovvth of France become less manageable to the subserving their more calm and leisurely Designs and finding vvithall that the Nation begun to fear and apprehend that the Papists had some extraordinary thing in agitation but especially the jealousie and dread they vvere in lest His Majesty might not live the Duke of York in vvhom they placed all their hopes of obtaining the re-establishment of their Superstition and Idolatry should he once ascend the Throne vvere the motives and inducements upon which they determined to defer and adjourn matters no longer but to put all upon one desperate and bold adventure Nor could they ever expect to be in circumstances which could promise them a greater moral certainty of success than they were in at that time For as the Power Forts and Strength of the Nation were either in Popish hands or entrusted to such whom they might so far rely upon as not to fear any considerable opposition from them so the Duke of York who is known to be a person as zealous for the Papal Cause as any of themselves was ready to have assumed the Crown and if not inclined to authorise directly what the Papists were to do yet forvvard enough as vvell as capable through his possessing the Regal Povver to fright Protestants into a quiet submission to the Svvords of their Enemies or declare them Rebels that should dare to arm for self defence And as there vvas no less than Twelve hundred thousand pounds payable at that time into the Treasury being the money vvhich vvas granted for the carrying on a War against France the thoughts whereof expired vvith the passing of the Bill so there vvas a formed Army of Thirty thousand men vvhich having been raised upon the same pretence vvould have been ready to have received and obeyed the Commands of the King that vvas designed to succeed And if the Romish Conspirators in conjunction with that Army should have proved too few to dispatch and extirpate the Hereticks in these Dominions all things were so well adjusted the Peace of Nimmeguen being at that time so near a conclusion that the French King whom for divers years the Papists have depended upon and accordingly interested him in all their Councils could without the abandoning his concernments abroad have assisted and supplied them with large and powerful succours Nor is it to be imagined how the murder of the King which as it was to have been the first Scene of this new Tragedy was also to have been charged upon the Phanaticks would have enraged one half of the Protestants against the other For having obtained Mr. Claypool to be imprisoned about that time in the Tower upon a forged accusation of his having said That he and Two hundred more had resolved to kill the King they thereupon reckoned that could they but succeed in the designs which they had formed against His Majesty the Protestant Dissenters would both undergo the scandal and odium of it and feel the revengful resentments of the Nation And then after that many of the Protestants had embrued their Hands and dyed their Swords in one anothers blood it was determined that the rest should fall as a Sacrifice to be offered up by the Roman Catholicks to the Holy See Thus according to the best Rules and most solid Foundations that men are to judg of the success of Designs they might very rationally think themselves secure of effecting and accomplishing whatsoever they intended Nor was the King ever in a more perfect security or they who were destined to be slaughtered with him less provided of means for their defence But God would not abandon his Worship and Truth nor surrender an infinite number of innocent
Laws by which the Phanaticks are Disturbed Fined and Imprisoned will not be found to have the Legality Force and Power that some men do imagine But the Papists who at the bottom are the promoters of the present Severities against Dissenters are no ways solicitous concerning the Inconveniences which may ensue all they aim at is to alienate the hearts of the People from the Government inflame Differences and Animosities among Protestants foster Jealousies in the King of the Loyalty of his Subjects and by all this to render us the easier a prey unto themselves And since the Romish Conspirators were prevented in the execution of the Design which they had so carefully laid and carried on with so much Industry Confederation and Expence at home and which had it succeeded they apprehended themselves secure of a Foreign Succour as well as a Prince of their own Religion to support and justifie as they thereupon found themselves rendred both obnoxious to the Justice of Parliaments and the angry Resentments of the Nation so they have been making it their chief business either to get their own Plot wholly disbelieved or to forge and sham one upon Protestants Accordingly when they could neither corrupt the Witnesses who had made the Discovery of their Villanies to retract their Testimony and renounce their Evidence nor were able either by the persons whom they had suborned here or those whom they had brought from beyond Sea to weaken and defame their Credit they do at last entirely betake themselves to the framing a Plot wherein they would have it believed the Protestants are involved and engaged for the subverting of the Monarchy and altering the Government And as the endeavouring to impose the belief of such a foolish and obvious Forgery upon the Government and the Nation is a clear demonstration of the Truth of their own Conspiracy and the desperate shifts which their Guilt and Fear have driven them unto so the entertainment which some have given to so dull as well as Romantick a Fable is both an undeniable Evidence that there were more accessory to the first Popish Plot than yet are publickly accused and that there are a sort of people in the Kingdom who are only sorry for the miscarriage of it We might very reasonably have thought that upon the detection of the Meal Tub Sham in the year 1679. the Papists would either have been discouraged to forge another perfectly of the same Figure and Make in the year 1681. or that the Government would have received the tidings of it with neglect and indignation For as it is the same Design whereof we are now accused that we were to have been charged with then so these very persons whom they have procured Witnesses to swear Guilty of a Design to seize the King at Oxford were the first in the List of Nobles and Gentlemen whom they were then to have Sworn against That they resolved to raise a Rebellion against His Majesty and mustered Forces to that purpose How strangely are we abandoned to the malice and will of our Enemies that the Papists having mist the destroying us by a Massacre they should be permitted by Perjuries and Subornations to pursue our ruine in forms of Legal Trial. And as the countenance which the vilest Miscreants have met withal who tho apparently suborned and hired have come forth to testifie a Protestant Plot is an unanswerable Argument under whose conduct and influence some of our Ministers are so the baffles which the Authors and Managers of this Intrigue have received upon the Three late Adventures and Essays which they made towards the proof of a Protestant Conspiracy do proclaim aloud what opinion all wise and good men have both of them and this whole Affair Now tho the judgment of so many Juries upon a full hearing of what our Accusers had to charge us with be a sufficient vindication of the innocency of all the Protestants of England in this matter as well as of those persons against whom the several Presentments were brought yet we bear that respect to the Honour of our Religion the Reputation and Integrity of the last Parliament as well as the Credit of our own Names that we cannot believe we have discharged our duty as we ought towards the World till we have both triumphed over the folly and exposed the malice of our enemies to that degree as to render them the objects of the scorn and hatred of all Mankind And as we suppose our selves in this Undertaking secure of the Approbation of His Majesty it being in favour of that Religion which He not only professeth but whereof He is the Defender and in behalf of as Worthy and Loyal persons as any in his Dominions so in performing this most necessary duty we fear not the anger of Ministers much less the barkings of little people being stedfastly resolv'd not to say any thing but what we can approve our selves before God and man for the truth of Nor can any without an open espousing the Designs of the Papists be offended that we should vindicate the Loyalty and Justifie the Innocency of Protestants which have been so impudently and maliciously aspersed Yea it would be a transgression against all the Rules of Justice and Equity to allow or connive at the branding and arraigning us in daily Pamphlets if they should not permit us the liberty to detect the Forgeries and Criminations by which our Honour and Lives are invaded and brought into question And while the Compendium the Jesuits Plea Staffords Memoirs and the Vindication of the English Catholicks from the pretended Conspiracy against the Life and Government of His Sacred Majesty escape the Censure and Animadversion of our Administrators of Justice it would imply an entertainment of undue thoughts concerning the Justice of the Government should we not instead of a Reprimaud expect their Approbation Nor will we believe that it was either by the Authority of His Majesty or the Honourable Privy Council that a Messenger and the Wardens of the Company of Stationers went to the several Printing-houses requiring them to publish nothing in favour of the Innocency of the Earl of Shaftsbury or in justification of the Ignoramus which was brought in by the Jury upon the Bill that was preferred against him but we rather ascribe the Order for so unpresidented and illegal an action to some officious Agent for the Papists or to some little Ministers who were apprehensive of seeing themselves laid open and detected being conscious of their own guilt in the countenance and encouragement they had given to this Forged Protestant Plot for which many Noblemen and Gentlemen were designed to have been destroyed For as there is no Law whereby the coming into mens Houses the making a search after Books or Papers which may be in the Press or the laying an Inhibition upon them of printing whatsoever they judg safe or convenient is or can be warranted so it seems no ways equal and fair to restrain any
seeing the words wherein alone the Treason must lye were owned to have been spoken above two year ago And for his being suborned by the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Shaftsbury to Swear Treason against the Duke of Ormond my Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Sir John Davies it is remarkable that he never testified any thing of that nature against them and what he did declare in relation to them or any others he referred himself for the truth of it to the Council-Books of that Kingdom or to such Depositions which had been either taken by the Council there or had been transmitted to them by others And as no man that is Master of sense and hath any knowledg of those two Honourable Persons will ever submit his Faith to receive so incredible a thing as that they should Suborn any man to swear falsly so Mr. Morley whose credit infinitely surpasseth that of the Witnesses who swore against him absolutely denies that they ever did or that he ever spake any such thing concerning them But they that can first invent and then get so absurd and impossible a thing as Transubstantiation received and believed may be pardoned both in forging and in hoping to vvin credit to things ridiculously foolish as well as abominably false Nor could so dull a Fable proceed from any but people of an Irish understanding neither vvill it obtain with any men but such as have renounced Reason as vvell as Honesty But there is yet a third and that a more signal Instance of the Papists endeavouring to involve the Protestants in Ireland under the guilt of a Plot against his Majesty and this displays and unfolds it self in the Accusation sworn against Mr. Hawkins The person charged is known to be an ingenious Gentleman and one vvho hath always acquitted himself as became Honour Discretion and Loyalty only it is his fortune to be a Protestant and was his unhappiness to be made acquainted vvith some of the Popish Designs against the Government which instead of furthering or concealing he communicated to My Lord Lieutenant That vvherewith he was charged doth in all things so quadrate with vvhat we have heard Svvorn against Protestants in England that we may boldly say they vvere all coined in the same Mint For one Mac-Gennis svvears That Mr. Havvkins told him he went for England to establish a Correspondency with my Lord of Shaftsbury and that be received a Commission from the said Earl for a Troop of Horse and one Mackoghlin deposeth That he was to be a Trooper under Mr. Hawkins and that he had three pounds from him towards the buying a Horse The very counterpart and direct parallel of what Booth informed against Capt. Wilkinson and vvhich he and Bains would have suborned the Captain to swear against the Earl of Shaftsbury and were both hammered in the same Forge But as the Devil and the Priests inspire the Papists with falshood and malice so God to over-rule and defeat their Rage and Treachery deprives them of common Wit and Understanding and gives them up to all prodigious folly and madness For as Mackoghlin never spake with Mr. Hawkins but once and that in the presence of another person and then he only endeavoured to have insinuated himself into his Acquaintance which Mr. Hawkins refused to admit him into so it is most certain that Mr. Hawkins never conversed with the Earl of Shaftsbury nor so much as at any time saw him And whereas it was sworn by Mackgennis That he should say he came to London to establish a correspondence with that Nohle Peer and that he received a Commission from him for a Troop of Horse The whole matter deposed is not only false but the condition which my Lord was at that time in being a Prisoner in the Tower shows the impossibility that such an Affair should be transacted between them at that season Neverthelss that Ingenious and Loya Gentleman was committed to the Castle of Dublin upon that Forged and Ridiculous Information and had not the Protestant Plot been so far detected as to be hissed off the stage by several Juries it might not only have cost Mr. Hawkins his Life but laid a foundation for superinstructing a Conspiracy upon wherein most Protestants of quality and zeal in that Kingdom would have been included and first or last charged with the guilt of it For there were no fewer than between Twenty or Thirty mustered up of a sudden to testisie a Protestant Plot persons who as they believe implicitely in matters of Religion they would likewise swear so for the Interest and Advantage of St. Patrick and the Holy Church And besides what they may reasonably be supposed to receive out of the Catholick Treasury for so seasonable and useful a Service as the Swearing innocent Protestants out of their Lives and Estates they had lately the confidence to petition the Council in Ireland that a maintenance might be allowed them from the State And it seems but just and equal that they should be afforded the same encouragement which those listed and employed upon the like Service in England have and that they should have some consideration for the sale of their Souls tho they will be so reasonable as not to keep up that Commodity to the price which it goes at and is valued here And whereas fellows not only of a meer Irish understanding and breed but such as had conversed all their days in Bogs and whose most refined and improved knowledg is how with handsomeness to steal Horses and Cows might be found deficient in art and cunning to manage this Meritorious work of Swearing with some consistency to themselves and one another there are some lately arrived there from hence who having been trained and instructed here by the grand Masters of the Forgery and Affidavit-School may be able to edifie and discipline those raw blades in the necessary Virtues of Perjury and Impudence and acquaint them with the laudable method of rehearsing the Depositions which had been given them to con without administring any symptoms of their speaking by rote But their understandings not being so docile and flexible as their Consciences they make daily some unfortunate and fatal misadventure And their having publickly accosted the greatest persons with rude and insolent Menaces and their having threatned to accuse every one whom according to their knowledg of the measures of the World they do but apprehend to have offended them they have already so enfeebled their Credit with all sorts of men that they are altogether become useless and unserviceable It is far from my intention to bring all the natural Irish under this Character for tho most of them who continue Papists would esteem it not only venial but meritorious to cut a Protestants throat yet there are thousands of them who from some principles of Mankind and Bravery do detest the destroying Protestants in the base and creeping ways of Subornation and Perjury And we desire to be pardoned for this
severe Censure which we have fastned upon the Rascality of the Irish Nation seeing besides the impressions we retain of them by the remembrance of the Irish Massacre and the fresher intelligence we have received of their regardlesness of Truth and Justice from the manage of themselves before the Court of Claims we have been lately enabled to form an opinion of the Herd and Hive of that people by the observations we have made of those few that have flown over hither and especially by the little Colony which Justice Warcup is Governour and Overseer of However as I rejoyce at the present stemming that Deluge of Sin and Misery which was there so nearly threatning innocent and loyal Protestants had not some baffle befallen those suborned Affidavit folk and did not a notorious infamy attend their testimony so I beseech Almighty God to prevent the consequences and effects which the countenancing such a course should it again revive and prosper would in all probability be followed and attended with For as the English Protestants in that Kingdom do throughly know the humour principles and inclinations of the Popish Irish and how absolutely they are under the conduct and at the disposal of their Priests so by being less numerous than the Papists they are both more apprehensive of and watchful against ruine and danger and cannot but construe this method of destroying them as much more pernicious than a new War or Rebellion in that Barbarous and Bloody people would be But tho the late Sham pretended Protestant Plot was so laid and contrived by the Papists as to comprehend under the infamy and guilt of it the chiefest persons in Ireland who profess the Protestant Religion or have any regard for the Liberties and Rights of Mankind yet the primary and main end of this horrid Papal design was to ruin and destroy the Principal Patriots of the Reformation and civil Liberties in England For upon the Fate of the Protestants here depends the safety or extirpation of all in these Kingdoms who profess separation from the Communion of the Church of Rome For the Protestants are not only most numerous here and best able to defend themselves in case a Massacre should be attempted upon them by the Papists but it was a Parliament in England that Voted and Published the reality of a present Popish Conspiracy that did proclaim to all the world the dangers which his Majesty and Loyal Subjects are in from men of Papal Principles that caused some of the principal Conspirators to be arraigned and condemned and which hath been endeavouring to hinder a Popish Successor from coming hereafter to ascend the Throne And therefore tho' few elsewhere that are either of any note for zeal to their Religion or worth saving for their ardour and courage for civil Right were to escape being entangled in the dangers and loaded with the reproach which they hop'd to bring upon all the Protestants of these Dominions by a forged pretence and charge of our being embark'd in a Conspiracy to depose the King and alter the Government yet it was mainly the Peers Gentlemen and others in England who are resolved not only to live and die in the Protestant Faith themselves but to do all they can to transmit it as an inheritance to their posterity that this Sham was calculated to retch and overthrow And albeit there have been but few hitherto named and accused yet could the Witnesses have been but once believed they would have soon sworn all into the same guilt whom either out of malice or for the facilitating the Introduction of Popery and arbitrary power they had a mind to get destroyed For whatsoever hath been either published in allowed Writings or affirmed in Courts of Judiâ—ature concerning the narrowness of this pretended Conspiracy and that they know of no Protestant Plot but that only a few discontented or desperate persons had been designing Treason against His Majesty yet the matter is in reality quite otherwise and this is only alledged to lessen the horror of people at first and to prevent the effects of their indignation should they understand the unlimitedness of Papal Rage Nor have the Contrivers and Managers of this Sham been Masters of so much Wit as to conceal the boundlesness of their Wrath and how extensive they purposed to render this Protestant Plot. For by making Oxford the Scene where the King was to be apprehended and that at a time when he was surrounded with all his Guards they do plainly tell all the world that had they obtained the Evidence to be credited and allowed in relation to any one person of quality they would have soon brought the Lives and Fortunes of thousands to lye at their discretion and mercy Admit but once that His Majesty was to be seised when encompassed with so great and well disciplined a force and it will necessarily follow that there must have been a very great number of Protestants engaged for the accomplishing of it Nay the very Depositions of the Witnesses themselves as they are communicated to the world in Print in the Tryal of Mr Stephen Colledg and in the Proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury do sufficiently proclaim that there were not only many Protestants of an inferior Rank but many of the principal Peers and Gentlemen in England that were designed to be brought within the circle and compass of this Protestant Plot. Nor is it likely that having designed to bring so many under the guilt of the Sham Meal-Tub Conspiracy they would now abate in the number which they purposed to destroy For besides the advantages which they enjoy through having Counsellers more to their gust they have either wheedl'd or brib'd many of our high-flown Church-men if not with a satisfaction to glory yet with an abject silence to connive at our ruin But the bounds which the Papists intended to set to their own malice in forging shamming upon the world that the Protestants had combined to depose the King may be best and most easily collected from the Testimonies of the Witnesses in the fore-mentioned Treatises Accordingly we are told by Dugdale That Colledg not only advised him to go with Horse and Arms to Oxford because he expected there would be See the Tryal of Stephen Colledg p. 19. something done there but he further says That he heard several Parliament-men talking before that Session of a disturbance that was likely to happen at Oxford and that it would be therefore best to leave some Parliament-men at home in every County who might manage the people And Smith not only affirms that Colledg told him how the Parliament was agreed to seize the King and that in order thereunto all the Parliament-men were Ibid. p. 28. to come to Oxford well armed and accompanied with Arms and Men but that the Earl of Shaftsbury should declare unto him how the Parliament-men who came out of the See the Proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of
Shaftsbury p. 19. Country were well provided with Horse Arms and Men and that if the King offered any violence to them they might oppose him for the like had been done in former times And Haynes deposeth That Colledg should tell him Vnless the King should suffer the Parliament to continue to sit at Oxford they would seize him and bring him Colledg's Tryal p. 30. to the Block as they did the Logger-head his Father yea that my Lord Shaftsbury should declare Vnless the King granted the Pardon which was demanded Proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury p. 37. for the said Haynes they would raise the whole Kingdom against him Booth likewise swears how my Lord Shaftsbury told him That he and others had considered with themselves that it was fit for them to have Guards at Oxford and that to this purpose he had establisht a matter of Fifty men persons Ibid. p. 21. of quality and that he had entrusted Capt. Wilkinson with the Command of them and in case any violence should be offered by the King they would repel Force with greater Force Now tho' all this be nothing but a bundle of forged lies yet it plainly declares that no fewer than all the men of quality in England who are zealous for the Reformed Religion and Civil Rights yea the whole Body of sincere Protestants were to be drawn and hook't within the verge of this Plot and all their Lives and Fortunes brought to lye at the favour of the Government upon the pretended guilt of it For no man can think that the blood of the Earl of Shaftsbury and my Lord Howard would have attoned for so general and universal a Conspiracy could they but once have enjoyed the good fortune to have had credit given to these fellows Testimonies The designs which the Papists proposed unto themselves in their forging of this Conspiracy were greater than to be compassed and accomplished by the murder of Three or Four men in the way of legal proofs For as nothing less was aim'd at by means of this Sham Plot than the destroying all who withstand the Introduction of Popery and the establishment of a Popish Successor so many hundreds were to be taken out of the way besides those apprehended and accused ere ever the people of this Kingdom could be expected quietly to submit to be Papists slaves But because the foregoing Depositions do only speak in general of a Conspiracy wherein the Parliament and Nobles were engaged in conjunction with my Lord Shaftsbury to apprehend and cut off the King we shall therefore give an account from the Attestations of others of some few more who besides those publickly named were to have been charged with and perished under the pretended guilt of this forged Plot. And as we are assured from the mouth of a Gentleman of great Reputation and good Quality that John Smith said to him he could swear Treason against a hundred Protestants so Thomas Samson hath deposed upon Oath That John Macknamarra told him that Edward Ivie Bryan Haynes John Smith and Edward Turbervile did intend to swear Treason against Sir Patience Ward Sir Robert Clayton Sir Thomas Player Mr. Bethel who was then Sheriff of London Coll. Mildmay others Yea to that confidence were the mercinary perjured Rogues arrived of their being able to destroy men upon the suborn'd Testimonies that had been dictated unto them that one Mr. Shewin informs upon Oath his having heard John Macknamarra and Edward Turbervil offer on the 11th of August last to lay a wager That Mr. Sheriff Bethel Mr. Best and divers of the London Jury which had brought in an Ignoramus upon the Bill against Stephen Colledg would be hang'd before Christmas last And that the world may be fully convinced how the Papists and the Tools of one quality and another which they work by designed to extend the guilt of this pretended Protestant Plot we shall subjoyn the Deposition of one Ashlock who said That Edward Ivie immediately after Colledg ' s Tryal told him That as they had gotten the said Colledg to be cast and condemned so they were resolved to have the Duke of Monmouth and other Lords to drink of the same cup and to taste Colledg ' s fate So that no man who is a Protestant ought after the knowledg of this to believe himself safe or that he is exempted out of the number of those upon whom the Papists under the pretence of a Protestant Plot hoped to have wreck'd their Malice and Rage For they that dare entertain thoughts of destroying a Prince whom his greatest Enemies can charge with no fault save that he is a Protestant and zealous for the King's preservation and glory are not to be supposed to harbour any thoughts of Compassion and Mercy towards Protestants of an inferior rank Shall neither the Honour which the D. of M. hath brought to His Majesty and the Nation by his foreign Atchievements nor the peace and establishment which he restored to the King and Throne by his prudent and valorous subduing Insurrections at home be sufficient to protect him from the danger and infamy of a Scaffold no more than they were able to secure him from being excluded his Father and Prince's presence and deprived of those Offices which his Merit rendered him worthy of had he not any nearness by Nature and blood to His Majesty to plead for him Will nothing satisfie the Romish Crew unless they can bring the King to forget the Affections of Father as well as the Justice of a Monarch and make him abandon a person to their treachery and implacable wrath whom he is obliged by the Laws of nature to protect as his son whom he is bound by the Laws of England to defend him as his Subject And as all men discern whose Interest hath been served and whose revenge gratified in all the mortifications of this Loyal and Innocent Duke so we can easily guess in whose behalf and for the promoting of whose concernments this whole Protestant Conspiracy was invented and forged And having succeeded so well already as by their meer importunities to alienate his Majesty from a person whom he once seemed to value and love they are encouraged to hope the King will be prevailed with by suggestions of Treasonable Crimes to sacrifice him to their indignation and ire Having now traced and pursued this forged Plot so far as to see that it was calculated for no less than the whole Meridian of Great Brittain and that all the Patriots of Religion and Laws in both Nations were to be destroyed under a pretence of being combin'd in it we are in the next place to view it in the complexion and figure wherein it opened and unfolded it self against the Right Honorable the Earl of Shaftsbury and those other persons who have been either Indicted or only Committed for an alledged accession to it And as the Papists very well know that none had more opposed and
disappointed them in all their Idolatrous and Arbitrary Designs and consequently deserved more to feel the first and early effects of their wrath than that wise and great Peer so they prudently foresaw that should they adjourn their Revenge against him till they had made an experience of the credit of their Witnesses upon some other considerable persons he would by his Abilities and Industry not only have easily detected and exposed the whole Intrigue but have broken the Machine by which they had projected both to overturn Religion and Property and extirpate Protestants in these Nations Accordingly they thought it their best course to assault him by way of surprize and to hurry him to Prison upon an Accusation of a Conspiracy which people would be astonished at the noise of but had not enjoy'd time to inspect and unravel And we may rationally conceive the Papists believed that the Convicting My Lord Shaftsbury upon a charge of Levying War and Conspiring to seize the Person of the King would be a kind of Moral Proof against every other person whom they should think fit to have afterwards accused of the same Crime For how easily would they have perswaded the world that a person of his great Sagacity and exact Conduct would never embark in so vast an attempt without a proportionate number of persons engaged with him who for their Power Quality and Interest might be supposed capable to effect and carry it And they would have pleaded that such whom his artificial Glosses and plausible Reasonings had not inveigled into Treason the esteem which he universally hath among all sorts of men that are not weary of their Religion and Liberties had sway'd and biassed them to an implicite concurrence in a Design which they took not time to consider and had not Abilities to comprehend neither the dangers nor consequences and issue of And how would every man have been exposed and ridicul'd that should offer to bring the reputation of the Witnesses into suspicion after they had been allowed for good and credible Evidence against a Peer of the Earl of Shaftsbury's bulk and figure Besides the Papists thought that the destroying this one Nobleman would have either frighted others to a compliance with them in their Designs or at least discouraged them from offering to withstand or control the Councels and Projections which they are upon of enslaving these Nations and extirpating our Religion These were the Motives and Inducements upon which they singled out this great person to have him the first man of Quality that should be Indicted of this pretended Protestant Conspiracy For having through the influence which they have over our Ministers and the power which some of that party have upon His Majesty proceeded so far as to prevail with the King to turn him out of his Councels and from the administration of his Affairs for no other reason that the world can take notice of but because he would not concur with them in their Designs against the Protestant Religion and the Establish'd Laws they hop'd that by attacquing him at last upon an Accusation of Treason he might fall a Sacrifice to their Malice and Revenge And as his loss of the Chancellorship with all the aspersions and obloquy that for divers years fell upon him are to be ascribed to his Zeal and Activity in promoting the Bill for disabling Papists from holding any Publick Employment which past in the Session of Parliament that begun Feb. 4. 1672. so all the Perseutions he hath lain under of late and all the dangers which his Life hath been exposed unto either by secret Assassinations or Legal Forms are to be entirely attributed to his inspection into the Popish Plot and the endeavours which he hath laid himself out in for preventing the Subversion of our Religion and Laws and the ruin of these Nations by the Romish Conspirators and his studying to defeat the hopes they have of compassing all at last by means of a Popish Successor Nor can there be a more indubitable and convincing Argument that this whole Protestant Plot under the pretended guilt whereof this incomparable person and great Peer was to have been destroyed came out of a Popish Forge and was formed and invented by the Romish Priests than that those of the Papal Religin abroad and especially the Ecclesiasticks had both the knowledg of it and discoursed it to others before the most inquisitive Protestants in England could arrive at any intelligence concerning it In confirmation of the truth whereof and for the ampler satisfaction of all mankind that the Papists were the Authors and Contrivers of this Conspiracy which they labour to sham upon Protestants I shall subjoin the two following Depositions which were made upon Oath before a Magistrate of London Edward Dover of Stepney in the County of Middlesex Mariner aged thirty years or thereabouts freely and upon his own motion maketh Oath That he the said Deponent being in the Port of Bruges in Flanders with his Ship and in the managing of his business there being in a publick house on or about the eighteenth of June last New Stile he met with one James Morgan which said Morgan is a reputed Popish Priest And being his Countryman and having had formerly knowledg one of another they entred into the more free discourse and among other this Deponent asked the said Morgan What News from England Is there an end of the Popish Plot yet To which the said Morgan answered What Plot There is no Plot but a Presbyterian Plot and that now the Lord Howard one of the greatest of them is clapt up for it and by that time you get home Shaftsbury will be also secured And further the said Morgan added that he hop'd ere long to Preach in a publick Pulpit in London or words to that effect Jurat Aug. 23. 1681. John Coleuart of the Parish of St. Katherines in the County of Middlesex Mariner aged fifty years or thereabout freely and of his own motion maketh Oath that being in Bruges in Flanders with his Ship in following his business there was in a publick house on or about the eighteenth of June last New Style where he met amongst others with a Popish Priest as he is reputed called James Morgan and discoursing with him of the several affairs of England and of the Popish Plot he the said Dâ—poâ—ent heard the said Morgan among other things say 〈…〉 but a Presbyterian Plot and that the Lord Howard was already secured for it and that it would not belong before the Earl of Shaftsbury would be also secured or words to that effect Jurat Aug. 3. 1681. And as the Papists were the Authors and Framers of this Sham Plot so they have chosen Tools every way adapted for the worst of Villanies to mâ—â—ge and conduct it For Justice Warcup the principal Broker for Witnesses and one of the chief Directors of this grand affâ—â—r is known both at the Council Board in the High-Court of Chancery to be a
have here offered from his own acknowledgments concerning his being suborned is enough should he be weighed as abstracted from any dependance upon his Brother John to render him and make him appear to be no less in this whole matter than a perjured and infamous Rascal And we pity our Adversaries as driven to very low shifts in that they had no other to produce to prove the chiefest men of England guilty of Treason but such foolish wretches as could neither conceal their own Mercinariness and Perjuries nor the Villanies of those who had suborn'd and corrupted them The next person whom the Managers of the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury thought fit to venture the Truth and Proof of the Charge against him upon is Edward Ivey one that is infamous to a very Proverb and who disgraceth the Name of a Gentleman by pretending to the Title and Appellation That he hath been Convicted and Condemned for Robbery appears from the Certificate which I shall here subjoin Somerset ss Ad Assisas General Goal Delibar Dom. Regis de prisonet in ea existent tent apud Civit Wellen. in pro eadem Com. Die Sabbat scil Nono die Augusti Anno Regni Dom. nost Caroli Secund. Dei Grat. Angl. Scot. Franc. Hibern Regis Fidei Defensor Decimo quarto coram Roberto Foster Mil. Capital Justic Dict. Dom. Regis ad placita coram ipso Regetenend assign Johan Archer Servie ad Legem Justic c. Whereas at this present Assizes one Edward Ivey was Indicted for robbing himself and his Sister Joan Plympton This is therefore to certifie that the said Edward Ivey was Convicted for the same Fact and had Sentence of Death passed upon him but afterwards had His Majesties Pardon Vera Copia ex per Fra. Stevens He that could be guilty in Robbing his own Sister will decline nothing that is Criminal if the committing it be but subservient to his Ambition or Covetousness For having violated the Obligations of Nature he can be under no confinement from subordinate Laws It were endless to recount the Enormities of his Life whereof almost every Action hath been a Scandal I shall therefore only detect those Villanies which he hath perpetrated to the rendring him infamous as well as the proclaiming him prodigiously wicked He was no sooner pardoned for one Felony but he committed another For having listed himself for a Trooper and gone to Portsmouth he there married a second Wife tho' his first was still living And finding it was discovered and that there was a Prosecution commencing against him he thereupon fled to Ireland being never heard of again in his own Country till he appeared as one of the King's Evidence concerning a Popish Plot. For His Majesty having promised in his Royal Proclamations that whosoever came in by such a time to detect the Conspiracy of the Papists against His Person and the Government should thereupon be pardoned this cunning Rascal thought with himself he might safely venture hither as reckoning that his Felonies would be included in his Pardon as well as his Treasons To this I might add his having lived some time this last Summer with a Woman whom he swore God damn him he was Married unto which Woman proved in the end to be another mans Wife and was accordingly taken out of Bed from him by her Husband on the second of October at Night But whereas He said upon Oath at Mr. Rouse's Trial that he came not over to England to discover the Popish Plot it is not only known to all who understand any thing of the late Transactions that this was his pretence and that accordingly he made a large Discovery but withal Mr. Samson also swears There was twenty Pound allowed the said Ivey by my Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to defray his passage hither in order to his revealing the Popish Plot. Who can blame a fellow of his Principles that hath a latitude to swear and forswear as he finds it for his interest if he disclaim the having come hither upon an errand which he is so little thank'd for and which is not likely to conduce so much to his profit as he imagined it would The forming a Protestant Plot and suborning others as well as coming in himself to swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury and other Patriots of our Religion and Civil Liberties is a design that will turn to better account and give him an esteem with some men beyond what ever the former dull Trade would have done And therefore it is a fiâ—ter end for one of his genius and stamp to bear himself upon as the grand motive of his Journey hither But whereas he Swore likewise the time when the Bill was preferred against Rous that the Earl of Shaftsbury did usually dictate to him the Information he drew up and Deposed concerning the Popish Plot There are divers persons and amongst others Mr. Sampson who do testifie they saw those Informations in his hand before ever he knew the Earl of Shaftsbury And seeing he further declared at the same time that some Informations which he had given in here against the Papists were wholy false and that he made Oath of them only because Mr. Rouse would not otherwise give any Money ought not all Mankind therefore to esteem him as a Villain and as one that is perjur'd upon Record Nor could any thing more amaze the thinking part of Mankind than that when this miscreant had declared himself perjured in open Court he should yet be produced again the next Sessions and that against no less considerable person than the right Honourable the Earl of Shaftsbury is But whether we are to ascribe it to excess of rage in some men against that Noble Peer or whether we are to attribute it to a Divine infatuation upon the Managers of the Bill of Indictment I cannot tell but I dare boldly say That both the Jury and hundreds in the Court besides were able to guess at the maliciousness of that Prosecution and to conclude within themselves That whatsoever was alleadged to render that excellent Patriot guilty of Treason was all forgery and groundless invention But that we may yet further expose this fellow Ivey and that at the same time unveil this whole Combination wherein some ill men have been engaged in order to the Subversion of our Liberties and Religion or against the lives of the greatest and most innocent protestants I shall in the next place observe that he both spake of such a Design while it was in agitation and forming and embark'd in it upon promises of Reward himself but endeavoured to corrupt and suborn others to joyn in the same Villany Accordingly Captain Yarrington informs That being one morning in bed at Mr. Stephen Colledges he there heard Mr. Ivey acquaint Mr. Colledg with a Desing that was then on foot for framing of a Plot against Protestants and that they were to be accused of a Conspiracy against the Monarchy and for deposing the
was pleased graciously to add that he should find him very just and kind in rewarding what he had done and suffered for him But what this Earl acted and underwent for the King when his Lordship's Father and almost all the Scotch Nation had either fallen in with or submitted to the Usurpers will better appear by a Paper under Middleton's hand which I shall here annex John Middleton Lieutenant-General next and immediate under His Majesty and Commandev in Chief of all the Forces raised and to be raised within the Kingdom of Scotland Seeing the Lord Lorn hath given so singular proofs of his clear and perfect Loyalty to the King's Majesty and of pure and constant Affection to the good of His Majesty's Affairs as never hitherto to have any ways complied with the Enemy and to have been principally Instrumental in the enlivening of this late War and one of the chief and first Movers in it and hath readily chearfully and gallantly engaged and resolutely and constantly continued active in it notwithstanding the many powerful Disswasions Discouragements and Oppositions he hath met with from divers hands and hath in the carrying on of the Service shewn such signal Fidelity Integrity Generosity Prudence Courage and Conduct and such high Vertue Industry and Ability as are suitable to the Dignity of his Noble Family and the Trust His Majesty reposed in him and hath not only stood out against all Inducements Temptations and Enticements but hath most nobly crossed and repressed Designs and Attempts of deserting the Service and persisted Loyally and firmly in it to the very last through excessive Trials and many great Difficulties and misregarding all personal Inconveniencies and chusing the loss of Friends fortune and private concernments and to endure the utmost Extremities rather than to swerve in the least from his Duty or taint his Reputation with the meanest shadow of Disloyalty or Dishonour I do therefore hereby testifie and declare that I am perfectly satisfied with his whole deportments in relation to the Enemy and their late War and do highly approve them as being not only above all I can express of their worth but almost beyond all parallel c. John Middleton What his after-Sufferings for His Majesty were and how he continued six years a Prisoner under the Usurpers for his Loyalty to the King I shall content my self to have only barely suggested them And as no man in all Scotland was more capable of serving his Prince both by reason of the greatness of his Parts the height of his Quality and the largeness of his Interest than this Noble Lord so no person of one degree or another hath at all times and in various Employments and Trusts more approved his Zeal and Loyalty to the King's Person and Government than he hath constantly done since His Majesties Restoration And if he have offended in any thing it is by an excess of compliance with his Majesties Will having as himself declared in his Speech at his Arraignment served him all along after his own way and manner Nor can any wise man believe that what he was accused of High-Treason for was either a Crime in it self or would have been charged upon this Earl as an Offence if His Majesties present Commissioner in Scotland had not upon some hidden and more important motive and inducement conceived an implacable hatred against him For the declining to swallow the Test abruptly and without such limitations as might give it both a determinate and a legal sense cannot be imagined to be more criminal than altogether to refuse it which not only many of the Conformable Clergy but divers Peers and Gentlemen without being accused of High Treason have done And surely it was more becoming a man of Honour and a Christian to declare plainly and openly in what sense he could and was ready to take it than to take it with a pious and devout ignorance as another Lord of His Majesties Privy-Council did And as the Council's publishing an Explanation of it is an unanswerable Argument that it required some Explication towards the reconciling it to its self and the Laws of the Land so wise men are apt to think that it is as lawful for a person to explain it for himself as for them to take upon them to explain it for others But it seems very strange that it should be Treason in the Earl of Argile to declare in what Sense he would take it when at the same time others have been allowed to put Senses and Constructions of their own upon it which were more remote from the meaning of the words than his were But that the World may be both able to judg of that Affair and of the hard and unpresidented usage which this Noble person hath met with I shall first subjoin the Explanation of the Test for which he was Accused and Condemned of High Treason Secondly I shall annex an Explication which he had prepared of that Explanation and which he threw into such a Texture with the words of the latter that being read interwoven together his purpose meaning and design will not only more clearly appear but justifie themselves to the minds of all rational men And I shall add in the last place the Opinion of several of the best Lawyers in Scotland concerning the Case of this Great and Loyal Peer The Earl of Argile's Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and I am very desirous to give obedience as far as I can I 'm confident the Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths Therefore I think no body can explain the Test but for himself I take it as far as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion And I do declare That I mean not to bind up my self in my Station and in a lawful way to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion and to my Loyalty And this I understand as a part of my Oath The Earl of Argile's Explication of his Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and have seen several objections moved by others against it and I am very desirous notwithstanding of all that I have seen or heard to give obedience in this and every thing as far as I can I am confident whatever scruples any man doth raise The Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths And because their sense and genuine meaning is the true sense and seeing the Test that is enjoined is of no private Interpretation nor are the Kings Statutes to be interpreted otherwise than as they bear to the intent they are made Therefore I think no body that is to say no private person can explain the Test for-another But every man for himself as he understands it to agree with and suit the Parliaments sense which is the true sense I take it notwithstanding all these scruples made by any As far as it is consistent with it self and which is indeed wholly in the Parliaments sense and true meaning which was the securing the Protestant Religion founded on the word of God and contained in the Confession of Faith recorded Parl. 1. Ja. 6. And I declare that by that part of the Test viz. that there lyes no obligation on me c. That I mean not to bind up my self in my station and in a lawful way still disclaiming all unlawful endeavours To wish and endeavour any Alteration I think according to my Conscience and Allegiance To the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion nor my Loyalty which I understand no otherwise but the duty and allegiance of loyal and faithful subjects And this Explanation I understand as a part not of the Test nor Act of Parliament but of my Oath that I am to swear and with it I am willing to take the Test if your R. H. and Lo. allow me it or otherways in submison to the Act of Parliament and your R. H. and the Councils pleasure am content to be held a Refuser at present The Opinion of the Lawyers about the Earl of Argyle's Case WE have considered the Criminal Letters raised at the instance of His Majesties Advocate against the Earl of Argyle with the Acts of Parliament contained and warranted in the same Criminal Letters and have compared the same with a Paper or Explication which is Libelled to have been given in by the Earl of Argyle to the Lords of His Majesties Privy Council and owned by him as the sense and explication in which he did take the Oath imposed by the late Act of Parliament and which Paper is of this Tenor I have considered the Test and am very desirous c. And likewise having consider'd that the Earl after he had taken the Oath with the explication and sense then put upon it it was acquiesced to by the Lords of the Privy Council and the Earl allowed to take his place and sit and vote And that before the Earl's taking of the Oath there were several Papers spread abroad containing Objections and alledged Inconsistencies and Contradictions in the Oath And that some thereof by Synods and Presbyteries of the Orthodox Clergy to some of the Bishops of the Church It is our humble Opinion that seeing the Earl's design and meanin in offering the said Explication was allenarly for clearing of his own Conscience and is of no contravention of the Laws and Acts of Parliament and doth not at all import the Crimes Libelled against him viz. Treason Leising-making Depraving of His Majesties Laws or the Crime of Perjury But that the Glosses and Inferences put by the Libel on the said Paper are altogether strained and unwarrantable and inconsistent with the Earl's true Design and the Sincerity of his meaning and intention in making of the said Explication FINIS