notwithstanding their Quality and the signal Services performed for their pretended King Many Instances might be given of this nature and a reasonable Man might have judged that the many Instances of those Slights and Contempts that have been put upon them should have convinced them of the Folly and Madness of any of those that pretend to the Protestant Religion and Church of England who should Espouse the Cause of a Man that hates their Religion and Liberties Can they think that the present Misfortunes that the late King James lies under would if he should be re-invested with Power frighten him to alter his Measures and Resolutions of invading our Laws and Liberties for time to come seeing that neither the abandoning of Wives Children and Estates nor the hazarding nay loss of Life in his Service can render him just and favourable to those Protestants who have made a Sacrifice of all these things to follow him and yet that these Men should be found in so Villanous a Conspiracy to Murder him that delivered the Nation What Tongue can speak for such brutish and sensless Wretches I must leave to the Judgments of wiser Men than my self And what can they expect from a Man whose Father's Misfortunes his Brothers Exile wherein he himself was a sharer have not wrought a Reformation in him Can we expect that ever he will be more cautious of violating our Laws intrenching upon our Liberties or subverting our Religion or that ever he will be made more pliable For if he denies Men that have followed him into France the Exercise of their Religion what hopes have they of obtaining and enjoying it whenever he shall return Nay what then must your Majesties Protestant Subjects expect who have renounced him and associated to defend your Majesty as our Lawful and Rightful King against this pretended King and all his Wicked and Trayterous Adherents But Sir give me leave a little further to plead with your Majesty concerning these People that certainly never give themselves leisure to think I am sure no Man in his right Wits but must judge it the highest degree of Stupidity and Folly that these very Men should expect good Terms from a Person who doth not only treat his Protestant Adherents very ill who have followed him in his Misfortunes but also whose Religion lays him under the necessity of using them thus What Obligations did our Church lay upon him when he was a Subject Did she not like a Prostitute save him from being Prosecuted for the Popish Plot and from being Excluded from the Succession to the Crown Who were so Hot in that point on his behalf as the then Prelates in the House of Peers and afterwards from being driven out of the Kingdom by the late Duke of Monmouth yet all those Obligations were of no more value with him than his Coronation-Oath which he violated without the least regret and spared not to invade the Protestant Religion in general but the Liberties of the Church of England in particular What wicked Traytors are these wretched Men that shall assist the Popish Party in their attempts to pervert the Church and to bring that about in effect which even to mention makes every Loyal Subject of your Majesties to tremble For certainly had these Conspirators been all of them avowed Papists your Majesties Person and Government had not been in that danger but some of them that have undertaken this Horrid Design are such as lye under no Temptations of Religion Men thought to be secure that these now the Mystery of Iniquity is revealed are found Men obliged by all the Sacred Ties of Malice and Ambition to assist in the advancing your Majesties Ruin and the Ruin of the three Kingdoms and much better qualified than others under the Name of Good Church of England Men nay Preachers of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance will not be shut out of this Hellish Conspiracy for Wranglers but will have a hand against your Majesty's Person rather than so Eminent a piece of Service shall go unperfected Give me leave therefore Sir with the greatest Duty and Submission to observe to your most Excellent Majesty the Excellency of that Religion they would subvert by shewing the Vileness of that they would introduce and the happy Government they would destroy in the attempt they have made upon your Majesty's Person These Conspirators that say they are Protestants cannot but own that we are exceeding happy in relation to our Religion since by your Majesty's happy Accession to the Throne that we are once more freed from the Romish Yoke which so great a part of Europe do yet draw and labour under that Popery is such a thing as cannot but for want of a Word to express it be called Religion nor is it to be mentioned with that Civility which is otherwise decent to be used in speaking of Differences of Humane Opinion about Divine Matters were it open Judaism or plain Turcism or honest Paganism there is yet a certain Bonafides in the most extravagant Belief and the Sincerity of an Erroneous Profession may render it more pardonable But this Popery is a Compound of all the three an Extract of whatsoever is most Ridiculous and Impious in them incorporated with more peculiar Absurdities of its own in which those were deficient and all this deliberately contrived and knowingly carried on by the Rascally and Villainous Clergy under the Name of Christianity The Wisdom of this fifth Religion in this last and most Insolent Attempt upon the Credulity and Conspiracy against the Liberty of Mankind seems to all Understanding Men principally to have consisted in their owning the Scriptures to be the Word of God and the Rule of Faith and Manners but wickedly prohibiting at the same time their common Use or the Reading of them by those of their Communion there being no better or more rational way to frustrate the very design of our Lord Jesus Christ who first planted by the miraculous Power and extraordinary Gifts of the Holy-Ghost than to forbid the use of them in such a Language as the People could understand for having the Scripture which by all Christians are avowed to be of Divine Authority but appointing it to remain in such hands as were intrusted to undertake and carry on their holy Cheat they had the Opportunity to vitiate suppress or interpret to their own advantage for the support of their Villainous Priestcraft those admirable Evidences by which the common People hold their Salvation and they having by this Fraud gained their Point there was from that time nothing so monstrous to Reason and so abhorring from Morality or so contrary to Scripture which they might not in prudence venture on The Idolatry of Adoring and praying to Saints and Angels and worshipping Pictures Images and incredible Miracles and palpable Fables to promote that Veneration The whole Liturgy and Worship of the blessed Virgin the saying of Pater Nosters and Creeds the Honour of Saints and Ave-Maries too not to her
witness his being reconciled to that Church by Father Richard Huddleston who was related to John Huddleston of whom the said King Charles had such a tender care and not only so but Receiv'd the Sacrament from Father Ireland the Jesuit in the Duchess of Portsmouth's Lodgings and the same day afterwards he receiv'd it according to the Usage of the Church of England it being the Sunday called Easter-day In the last place witness those Papers that were found under his own hand in his Strong Box all which testify his inclinations were bent that way and therefore how can any man wonder at his being careless of supporting the Protestant Religion Nay Sir I must not forget one Instance more of his being of the Romish Persuasion that is that most Excellent Memorial that he put in by his Protestant Envoy to the Court at Poland wherein there was a passage to this effect That he had a great Esteem of the Roman-Catholick and Apostolick Religion as being most consistent with Monarchy give me leave to Cite a passage of a Letter of his to the Governor of St. Omers when it was by Conquest reduced to the Obedience of the French King which was That he should take care of the Jesuits according to the Contract he had made with his Master they being men upon whom the hopes of England did depend Give me leave Sir to put you in mind of his promises he made to the Jesuits in Spain after he was reconciled to the Church of Rome upon their Contributing Three thousand Pistols for his support of restoring the Catholick Religion when ever he should come to the Enjoyment of his Right in England and not only to them but to the Nuns in Ghent when he borrowed Money of them for which they waited several Years Then I say he declared he would restore their Religion when ever he should come to his Right When the Princess Henrietta came to Dover you know what her Errand was to press the King to restore the Romish Religion here in England and that the breach of the Peace with the Dutch was then and there contrived by you and your Conspirators and consented to by the King and all in order to the reducing those State to the Catholick Faith And it was determined to begin the Publick Exercise of the Romish Religion in Ireland and to facilitate that work you may well remember who was sent over Lord Lieutenant Upon all these Considerations a Man may not now wonder at King Charles's carelesness in the Support and Maintenance of the Protestant Religion You well remember that you your self and your other Conspirators had begot in the King your Brother a full persuasion of the Truth of this Proposition That the Roman-Catholicks were the greatest favourers of Monarchy therefore in his Letter to the French King bearing Date June 1676. that he resolved to be like his Neighbours in Religion but you know that he was prevented by the Lord Arlington and the Parliament for which you were pleased to tell Father Lacheise in your Letter of July 1676. that the Lord Arlington and others by a Thousand deceits endeavoured to break the good Intelligence that was betwixt the King your Brother and his most Christian Majesty and your self to the end they might deceive you all Three and therefore the Parliament and the said Lord Arlington and his party were by you declared in that Letter as useless and dangerous for that the said Arlington and his Friends did work incessantly to advance the Interest of the Prince of Orange and the Dutch and to lessen the Interest of the French King Now the King your Brother being a man unsteady in his resolutions he sometimes failed your Brother of France as well as your self and other Conspirators 9. We in his Life-time saw there was no likelihood of his having any legitimate Issue to Succeed him in the Government Truly Sir I think I may say that was contrived by your Father Clarendon and your self and in it you intended the hurt of the People of England but God who governs the World hath made his want of legitimate Issue to be the greatest Blessing that ever England saw for by that means we have a King that well knows that it is most certain and evident to all men that the publick Peace and Happiness of any State or Kingdom cannot be preserved where the Laws Liberties and Customs Established by the Lawful Authority in it are openly Transgressed and Annulled more especially when the alteration of Religion is endeavoured and that a Religion which is contrary to Law is endeavoured to be introduced Upon which those who are immediately concerned in it are indispensably bound to endeavour to Preserve and Maintain the Established Laws Liberties and Customs and above all the Religion and Worship of God that is Established among them and to take such an effectual care that the Inhabitants in that State or Kingdom may not be deprived of their Religion nor of their Civil Rights which is so much the more necessary because the Greatness and Security both of Kings and Royal Families and of all such as are in Authority as well as the Happiness of their Subjects and People depend in a most especial manner upon the exact Observation and Maintenance of these their Laws Liberties and Customs This Sir is the Sentiment and Blessed Resolution of King William and this he and his Ministers put in Execution which is a blessed Change which we could not have lived to enjoy had Charles your Brother left any Issue behind him that had been capable of the Crown but that which you contrived for our Mischief is turned to our greatest Good for we have the best of Kings upon the Throne and the worst of Men taking of the Air at St. Germains 10. The late King Charles your Brother did obstinately refuse to enter into a League with those who intended to uphold and maintain the Protestant Religion This I must say of the Dutch that ever since they delivered themselves from the intollerable Yoke of the Crown of Spain their great aim and design hath been to promote the Interest of the Reformed Religion and have endeavoured to make Alliances with those Princes that were and are of the Reformed Religion and have endeavoured to make good these Alliances but how King Charles your Brother your self and the rest of your Partisans treated the Dutch ever since his Restoration to the Crown it is well known and how he in the compass of Ten years made Two ungodly Wars but as I said before I must say again The Dutch did most commonly send us home with broken bones Our Cause was Wicked and God gave us Success suitable thereunto and for what ends and purposes these Wars were made you and your most Christian Brother can very well tell but least Sir you should have forgotten those Wars give me leave to give you a brief note of them In the year 1665. it is well known that
shame and disgrace if ever they were capable of any that King was himself informed a little before he was executed that the Jesuits at a general Meeting at Paris in revenge for his condescending in the Treaty at the Isle of Wight to pass some Bills in prejudice of them and the Romish Religion had unanimously resolved by the Power and Interest and Influence that they had in and upon the Army to bring him to Justice and get him executed and accordingly when the stroke was given both one that was a Romish Priest and Confessor brandished his Sword and proclaimed that now their greatest Enemy was cut off and destroyed I suppose Sir you and your Party will be convinced if you observe a Passage from one that knew those Transanctions and see what he saith in his Letter to a Reverend Divine of the Church of England it bears date Aug. 9.1673 This I may safely say and will do it confidently That many Arguments did create a violent suspicion very near convincing Evidences that the Irreligion of the Papists was chiefly the occasion of the murther of that Prince the odium whereof they would file to the Account of the Protestant Religion However Sir your Popish Conspirators having not only escaped the legal Arraignments upon this account but having since the Restoration of K. Charles the IId been esteemed by your self and some other pretended Friends of that King they have thereupon arrived at more respect and to carry on your damnable Designs they have enjoyed more peace in their Persons and Estates than they were in possession of at any time since the Reformation 4. But how little they deserved this Honour and Peace both in their Persons and Estates you may see in a fourth Particular and that was in the Escape of the King your Brother from Worcester 1651. how did they above all men endeavour to betray and sacrifice that King unto the hands of his Enemies And who was to pay the 1000 l. promised for his being discovered and taken but Father Joseph Symmonds and Father Carleton Compton both Jesuits and whence that Money came Sir you well know as did the Queen your Mother for you know that your Mother and your self was in a plot against his Life that you might wear the Name and Title of a King as being the more likely to perform what your Brother had so lustily promised to the Popish Party It is true Sir that one or two of the Romish Persuasion amongst many loyal and faithful Protestants both Male and Femâ—le might then have contributed to that King's Deliverance but such Sir have been by your self and Party well chidden reproached and discountenanced and called Fools for this grain of Loyalty more owing to their English Blood than Romish Principles 5. Since my hand is in give me leave to add a fifth Instance of their Loyalty to your Family That Popish Lord is not unknown nor yet forgotten who brought a Petition to the late Protector signed by about 500 Principal Papists in England wherein they promised upon condition of a Toleration of the Popish Religion here by a Law their joint Resolution to abjure and exclude the Family of the Stewarts for ever from enjoying the Crown This Sir you know startled you when you heard of that Attempt a man that hath but an Irish Understanding may easily judge from hence of the Loyalty of that Party of men I would willingly Sir appear to any one of your dear Joys and stand by his Judgment in that Case 6. One Point more and then Sir I shall have done upon this Head and that is the Loyalty of your Popish Conspirators who to ingratiate themselves with the Government of the said Protector procured Manning to be a Spy upon your Brother and he was not only allowed well by that Party by your direction but also had a very Bountiful Pension too by the said Protector but he was in due time found out and executed by your Brother he was of the same Red Letter with your self and therefore when dead he had Masses sung for him as the usual Reward and Playster There were other Specimens of their Loyalty but I forbear to mention them now because there are some other things to be discoursed with you but this I say That we should have forgotten and forgiven all these soul Proceedings of your dearly beloved Popish Party and we should not have envied the Security they enjoyed or the Favours through your procurement they had attained to provided they had not abused them in joining with you to subvert the Protestant Religion and Government in turning the one into downright Popery and the other into French Slavery but alas good men and true such an opportunity of promoting the Catholick Religion was not to be lost they having a Prince converted to such a degree of Zeal and Piety as not to regard any thing in the World in comparison of the Conversion of England that hath a long time been oppressed and miserably harassed with Herery and Schism to accomplish which you would assassinate the King's Person destroy our City murther his Majesty's Subjects subvert our Religion and disturb the Peace of Mankind and your present Design that is discovered doth prove beyond all manner of objection and doubt That that Sir throw your Brother's and your grace and favour they did then carry on their Designs for advancing the Power of the Pope and French King to advance the Religion of the one and the Interest and Government of the other none daring to suggest the least thing to bring them under jealousie who would not be aspersed for being Maligners of the King 's best Friends and your Fellow-Conspirators till one appeared and took the Popish and French Interest by the Collar and gave it such a deadly wound that it could not recover it self to this day but you were even with him for it when you usurped the Government and so I conclude this Head 2. A second thing that gave you and your Popish Conspirators such an advantage for the carrying on you wicked Designs and Purposes was the unhappy Divisions amongst us poor Protestants for as the Conspirators improved that little Stock of Credit they had by being for Charles the First in the Civil War against himself and Parliament and the Priests Jesuits and Fryars made use of that Credit to reduce us to the Obedience of the See of Rome so you and the rest of the Popish Crew made use of our Divisions amongst our selves to carry on the same Design Now Sir there were two main things which did greatly administer to this unhappy Division 1. The Parties divided were come to a more equal Ballance as to numbers on each side respectively than at any Season heretofore For Sir consider this That during the Reigns of Q. Elizabeth K. James I. and K. Charles I. the Dissenters from the Established way of the Church of England were but few in comparison of those who were for Prelacy
by the House of the Conspirators supplying the French King with Men not a few but considerable numbers to the great discouragement of the Confederates engaged in the Common Cause against that proud Monster of Mankind So the Vote of May 23 1677. Resolved That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty That he would be pleased to enter into a League Offensive and Defensive with the States-General of the United Provinces and to make such other Alliances with such other Confederates as His Majesty shall think fit against the Growth and Power of the French King and preservation of the Netherlands And what was done upon all these Addresses truly very little but up starts a League made with the Dutch that was not worth one Farthing and how that Sham-League was kept we all very well remember But as a further proof of your Brother's Being unwilling to enter into any firm and hearty League with the Confederates engaged against the French King remember this Thâ—â— through yours and the Power the rest of the Conspirators had over him he could never be brought to enter into and be engaged in an actual War with France notwitstanding all the humble Applications made to him by Parliaments nay tho he passed a Bill to enter into a War with France and had the benevolence given in that Bill in order to the same yet a firm League was made with France the Interest and Religion of the French King and the King your Brother and your self being all one In the first place be pleased Sir to remember that the Parliament that was adjourned to the Third of December 1677. and then put off till the Fifteenth of January 1677 78 but that day being come both Houses met but by a Message to the House of Commons they are ordered to adjourn till the Twenty eighth and the pretended reason the then King gave or rather you and your Conspirators that his Majesty had matters of great Importance in order to the satisfaction of their Addresses for the Preservation of Flanders but it so fell out that things were not then so ripe as in a few days they would be therefore it was his Majesties Royal Will and Pleasure that the House do immediately Adjourn till the Twenty eighth of the same Month. The Message was very Grateful to the House of Commons and to many others who understood not the Conspiracy for the design was clear another thing than what they had conceived The day of their meeting comes and they are entertained with a Speech full of good Words yet he Reprimands them for their distrust and to shew them how they were mistaken they are told what a great care the King had taken of the Protestant Religion And in order thereunto he had concluded a Match with the Lady Mary to the Prince of Orange but you know Sir thaâ— it was full sore against his and your Wills a Prince Professing the same Religion wâ—â—â— us which by King Charles's good leave was a great mistake for I dare say that the Prince of Orange now our King never Receiv'd the Sacrament from the Church of Rome in all his days which to my certain knowledge King Charles did and afterwards Receiv'd it from the hands of a Bishop of the Church of England the self-same day But to go on with his Speech he told them that the Prince of Orange was a Prince ingaged in Arms to Defend the Common Cause of Chridendom and so he goes on and talks of Alliances and forgets not to call for a fresh supply that he might carry on his Alliances made and to be made Well Sir What was the effect of this Most Gracious Speech I remember that the House in return made an humble but a sharp Address and the Speech was not answered with Thanks in General but only in Particular relating to the King's care he had of the Protestant Religion which Address was Concluded on January 31st following In that Address they promise the King Supplies provided he would enter into an actual War with France and join in with the Confederates and Exclaim against the growing Greatness of the French King and that if it must be Peace that they would have the French King left in no better condition than he was upon the Conclusion of the Pyrenean Treaty I remember when this Address was made I was at St. Omers but we had news from Coleman how you resented it nay Sir it 's well known that the Address stuck terribly in your stomach as well as the Match between the Prince of Orange and the Lady Mary our Late Gracious Queen by which Sir you could not but easily perceive that the House of Commons had got some scent of the Damnable Plot that was carrying on against our Religion Laws and Liberty and your underhand-dealing with France and the Popish Interest But that men might not understand you too well your Agents were busy both in City and Countrey to nâ—â—â—ish a Report of Alliances with the Confederates and a War with France and so big they pretended to be of the War with France that they avowed the certainty of it both in words and in Print all this I say was to keep the Nation in horrid Ignorance To this end Sir you hired a Tool that had pawned his Soul for Bread to write against the French King but all was not gold that glistered there was no Money like to come because that the House was resolved to be satisfied that the Alliances were made and the War proclaimed This Sir you and your Party looked upon as a great hardship put upon the King and that the House of Commons took too much upon them but your Rogues made use of this Address to be a poor Cripple to beg Money even from France it self you know who undertook in that Affair to get Money from France upon the strength of that Address and was in a fair way of succeeding had not something happened between the Cup and the Lip In a word Nothing but War with France is talked of the French is content it should be a Bill passed for a War and Money was given the French King concurred with you in it a Law passes against the Importation of French Goods he wills that too for you had so ordered the matter that notwithstanding that Act by the diligent care of the Officers of the Custom-House there was more French Goods brought into the Custom-House than before But Sir you were not idle all this time for while the People of England were talking of War and Alliances you and your Conspirators were busie both at home and abroad oh the multitude of Messages that were sent to Rome and France and you know what Advice was given you that upon the account of the pretended War you should raise Forces for the Priests doubted not through the assistance of the Saints the work would be done you raised Forces and got Money tho for other ends than the Parliament gave it
Honour but of others The Publick Service which they can spare to God among so many Competitors in anunknown Tongue and intangled with such Vestments Consecrations Exorcisms Whisperings Sprinklings Censings and Phantastical Rites Gesticulations and Removals so unbecoming a Christian Office that it represents rather the Pranks and Ceremonies of a Jugler or a Conjurer The refusal of the Cup to the Laity the necessity of the Priests ' Intention to make any of their Sacraments effectual debarring of their Clergy from Marriage Interdicting of Meats Auricular Confession and Absolution as with them Practised Penances Pilgrimages Purgatory But above all their other Cheats and Rogueries in the Villainous Solecism of Transubstantiation whereby that Glorified Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which at the same time they allow to be in Heaven is Sold again and Crucified daily upon all the Altars of their Communion for God indeed may now and then do a Miracle but a Rascally Priest of their Synagogue can it seems work in one moment a thousand Impossibilities and this by a new and Anti-scriptural Belief compiled of Terrors to the Phancy Contradictions to Sense and Impositions on the Understanding The Laity of their Communion have turned Tenants for their Souls and in Consequence Tributaries for their Estates to an abominable nonsensical Priesthood But I confess my self under great Obligation to do their Synagogue right and I do humbly acknowledge to your Majesty that out of an equitable and vasâ—â—â—ble Consideration and Recompence of such a religious and faithful Servitude the Priests have quitted and discharged the People of all other Services and Dependence and given them full and perfect liberty from all Duty to God or Man insomuch that those of the Clergy who have been more learned and the managers and directors of their Consciences have so well instructed them in all the most villainous Arts of circumventing their Neighbours and of making a Jest of Heaven that were their Disciples as apt as their Spiritual School-masters there would for some Ages since have been a Period put to all true Piety and common Honesty and no other Endowments remaining with them but authorised Hypocrisy Licentiousness and Knavery had not the natural Worth of the better sort and the good Simplicity of the meaner in a very great measure preserved them for truly nothing but an extraordinary Temper of Soul and that too assisted by the Divine Influences of the Grace and Spirit of God could possibly restrain those within any Terms or bounds or laws of common Humanity who at the same time receive the Doctrin of their Casuists as the Oracles of God and own the Authority of the Grand Impostor at Rome to be of Divine Right as it is by him claimed and exercised This Man of Sin by his pretended Indulgencies says That he delivers the Souls of those that are of his Communion out of the pains of the other World So that what Man is he that believes that Doctrin that would not please his vicious Appetite that hath so good a Security He by his Dispensing Power annuls Contracts between Man and Man dissolves Oaths between Princes and of Princes with their Subjects and gives Allowance in Cases which God and Nature prohibits This Impostor and deceiver of the the Sons of Men as a Clerk of the Ecclesiastical Market hath set a Rate upon all Crimes the more villanous they are and the deeper their dye and abominable the better Commodities and the Votaries advance in the Price as for greater Rarities So that the worse they are in their Morals the better Customers they are to a lewd Priest just as if God had publish'd his holy Commandments on purpose to erect an Office for the Conscience-mongers of that cursed Synagogue And thus that Strumpet enlargeth her Borders encreaseth in her Numbers just as the Pagan Interest did the City of Rome by opening a Sanctuary to all Malefactors And why should it not be so if the Papal Power be of such virtue and extent as is by that Jugler of Rome so violently challenged He calls himself the Ruler of Angels Purgatory and Hell and saith That his Tribunal and God's are all one and hath proudly boasted that all that God can do he can do and what he doth is as God not as Man That he is the universal Head of the Church the sole Interpreter of Scripture the Judge of Controversies That he is above General Councils that his Power is Absolute and his Decrees are Infallible That he can change the nature of things making what is Just to be Unjust and what is Vice to be Virtue That all Laws are within the Cabinet of his Breast that he can dispense with the New Testament that he is the Monarch of the World and that he can dispose of Kingdoms and Empires as he pleases Now if there be one word of Truth in all this the Stiles they have given him at several times is not such an extraordinary piece of Courtship as we reckoned but it would be a piece of Rudeness in Men not to treat him accordingly The exercise of his Power and Dominion is in all points suitable to his Claim and Pretence he antiquates the Precepts of our Great Redeemer as things only of good Advice and not Commanded but makes it Mortal Sin for a Man only to doubt of any part of his Religion and with all the Insolence imaginable under pain of eternal Damnation demands the Obedience and Subjection of all Christian Princes and People to his Papal Authority and Power the denying of two things so reasonable as blind Obedience to his Power and an Implicit Faith to his Doctrin being the most unpardonable Crimes under his Dispensation He hath I confess been of late Years somewhat more retentive than formerly as to his excellent faculty of Disposing Kingdoms the thing not having succeeded so well with him in some Instances but he lays the same Claim still and hath the same Inclination and tho Velvet-headed hath the more itch to be pushing but however in order to any occasion he keeps himself in ure always by Cursing some Prince or other upon every Maundy Thursday nor is there any whether Prince or Nation that oppose his Usurpations but are marked out under the notion of Hereticks for Ruin and Destruction whensoever he shall give the Signal That word Heresie misapplied hath served the Romish Beast for many Ages to justifie or rather give a colour for so many Executions Assassinations Wars Devastations and Massacres by which his Faith hath been propagated of which our Times have not wanted Examples and more is to be expected for the future if these Conspirators can but at any time carry their Point for by how much any thing is more false and unreasonable so much more Cruelty is requisite to establish it and to introduce that which is absurd there must be somewhat done that is Barbarous and Inhuman But nothing of any Sect in Religion can be more recommended by all these indearing
a Field as any of external Felicity wherein to exercise their own Virtue and to reward and encourage it in others In a word your Majesty hath enlarged our Liberties in consenting to the Bill to Regulate Tryals in Cases of High-Treason in which there are large Immunities granted to any that fall under that black Circumstance that their Lives may not be at the mercy of a Mercenary Judge or Judges if God should in his Judgment leave poor England to such Men But your Majesty hath begun and I question not but your Royal inclination will carry you on to compleat our security from such Vermin Therefore to conclude what a Government is this we enjoy than which nothing can come nearer the Divine Perfection The Monarch enjoys a capacity of doing all the good imaginable to Mankind but under a disability of doing any thing that is Evil. This Scheme of the Civil Government the Late King did well know and therefore in Council on the day of his Accession to the Crown he was pleased to say That the Laws of England were sufficient to make the King of England as great a Monarch as he could wish or desire so that your Majesty may see that he could own that the Greatness of the English Monarchy had its Birth and rise from the Laws Who then would have lessened himself as he did by breaking in upon those very Laws that had made him Great And who would have broken so excellent a Government as made him Secure and Happy And what Subject of England Papist or Protestant that would lose such Immunities and Privileges by joyning in with that unhappy Man to destroy themselves Were they so in love with King James that they were not satisfied till they had him Nay he and they waded through King Charles's Blood that he might Reign Why then did they not keep the terms of the Government which would have been the most effectual way of continuing him on the Throne Besides all this we cannot forget that the Parliaments under Queen Elizabeth King James King Charles the First and King Charles the Second made it Treason in whosoever that should attempt to Seduce any one of the meanest of your Majesty's Subjects to the Church of Rome And the Long Parliament held in the time of Charles the Second to all Penalties of the Statute Law added an incapacity for any Man to say that that King was a Papist or an introducer of Popery What Lawless and incapable Miscreants were these What wicked Traytors were those Men who did indeavour to pervert the whole Body of Protestants and to bring that about in effect which even to mention was penal at one Italian stroke attempting to subvert the Government and Religion to kill the Body and damn the Soul of the Nation Your Majesty finds to this day there are such a Set of Men in this Nation who have undertaken and have made it their business under your Majesties happy legal and perfect Government by the intended destruction of your Royal Person to introduce a French Slavery and instead of so pure a Religion that your Majesty ventured hard to preserve to establish the Roman Idolatry either of which Crimes are of the highest nature for if we look upon the Government if the Murther of your Royal Person be a fact so horrid as no Man can find words enough to declare his detestation and abhorrence of it how much more then is the Murther of your Royal Person with an intent to Assassinate the Kingdom And Sir none will deny but that to alter the Monarchy of these Kingdoms into a Republick is High Treason So by the same fundamental Rule the Crime is no less to Murther your Royal Person in order to make the Monarchy Absolute Sir I beg your Majesty's leave to tell you that my Heart is much enlarged to your Majesty I beseech your Majesty that your Royal Heart may be for this one time enlarged to me in your Grace and Pardon for this trouble I now give your most excellent Majesty Let me undertake upon serious inquiry to give your Majesty some satisfaction who these Men are that have from the Year 1660 to this day attempted to Subvert our Government and our Religion Had these Men been the old honest Cavaleers that fought for Charles the I. or suffered much in the time of Charles II. it would have been allowable in them as oft as their Wound did break out at Spring or Fall to think of a more Arbitrary Government as a sovereign Balsom for their Aches or to imagin that no Weapon-Salve but that of the Moss that Grows on an Enemies Skull could cure them or could they to have kept their Hands in ure have fought their Cause over again since they saw they were neglected and left to Starve yet their Age and times they lived in and their unjust usage they met with from two Kings might have pleaded something on their behalf in mitigation of Damages But Sir give me leave to make this Remark to your Majesty concerning those Gentlemen that they were and are still if any of them remain too Generous too good Christians and Subjects too affectionate to the English legal Government to be capable of such an Impression whereas these Conspirators that carried on the design of subverting our Religion into Popery and changing the Government into downright Slavery are such as have not one drop of Cavaleer Blood or no Bowels at least of a Cavaleer in them but such as starved the Cavaleers to revel and surfeit upon their Calamities making their Persons and the very Cause by pretending to it themselves almost Ridiculous Or had these Villains been all of the Popish communion and avowed so to be give me leave to say it over again to your Majesty your danger would have been the less their Religion would in some measure have been answerable for the Errors and Extravgancies they might have been guilty of to promote it but these render their intended Villany more black they were Protestants and of the Church of England too that joyned with Papists to Assassinate your Royal Person What can any Man say for them Your Majesty knows what to do with them These Villains because I perceive they lye under a great difficulty to find Accomplices enough at home to Mutiny and Rebel and Murther your Majesties true and loyal Subjects therefore they put themselves under the Banner and Pay of the French King to compleat their wicked designs and purposes to bring a foreign Enemy to Invade us that King being endowed with all those which in a French Prince or in an Abdicated King may pass for Vertues but in any private Man they would be Capital and moreover so abounding in Zeal for Popery and Slavery above all other Princes that none else could engage both Body and Soul in such a Villanous Undertaking to which Consideration adding that their Interests are both one and the one is and the other would be the Master of
Was this Sir to carry on the War or to go on in making of Alliances you know it was that Popery and the French Government might be advanced both at one and the same time so that Sir I have justified that head the unwillingness of King Charles's entring into and keeping League with those who would uphold and maintain the Protestant Religion but chose rather to make Alliances with France yea and keep them too with a King that had a mighty mind to destroy it 11. I come to the last Passage that I proposed in the beginning of this Memento to treat about and that is this That as long as King Charles lived what a dismal and difficult task had this Nation to suppress you and your wicked Popish and Popishly affected Accomplices and that when he died you were like to be his Successor and therefore the Commons took this into serious consideration and upon the whole that the state of Religion was desperate and that the Popish Conspirators would certainly be advanced and that there would be nothing less than the Nation to all intents and purposes ruined therefore I pray Sir remember the Vote passed Ap. 27.1679 Resolved Nemine Contradicente That the Duke of York being a Papist and the hopes of his coming to the Crown such hath given the greatest incouragement to the present Conspiracy and designs of the Papists against the King and the Protestant Religion Sir This Vote would have ground and beaten an ordinary Subject to Powder but it had not that effect upon you and your Party your Party was so prevalent at that time your Popish Party I mean that you and your Conspirators threw off all these Difficulties with scorn and impudence enough for it is plain enough that the Popish Party had such an influence upon King Charles as to favour them notwithstanding the notoriety of those Crimes both they and you stood charged withal For 1. The Popish Party had a great interest at Court upon the pretence of their pretended Loyalty in the time of the Civil War between Charles the First and his Subjects And again some few of them were instrumental in the escape of his Son Charles the Second from Worcester and the seeming readiness that was in that Party for the Restoration of the said Charles the Second in the Year 1660. this gave them not only a share of peace and Quiet under Charles's Government but procured from him a farther degree of respect unto them by this means they had a very great advantage of carrying on their Designs against the Interest of the Nation and Peace of the Government and this was the Argument Sir that you used for that part of your Banditti in order to join your Forces and strengthen your Party Give me leave Sir to observe to you how wicked a thing it was in you to embolden such a party of Rogues to ruin the Nation you used to say they were always loyal and therefore how many times did you procure great Indulgences from the Government against the express Letter of the Law for them while the rigor of the Law was let loose upon other Dissenters who yet continued more quiet and loyal under their Pressures and Provocations than those under Favours and Caresses and did not the King your Brother hazard the Hearts and Affections of his best Subjects and much of Royal Honour if ever he had any in appearing for his Indulgence of March 15. 1671 2 with frustration to engage if possible these everlasting holy Cutthroats but where was the Loyalty of these your Popish Conspirators For 1. Was it not at their instigation when they were in a Conspiracy against the Peace of this Nation with that Arch-Traytor Laud that was sometime Archbishop of Canterbury that the Uniformity of Service that was in England was against all Law Justice and Conscience pressed upon the Kingdom of Scotland which occasioned that breach with that Nation that was not without great difficulty and vast expence made up to the dishonour of King Charles the First and the English Nation You cannot but remember you have been informed who were the Prime Sticklers upon the occasion of that Service-book and other strange Impositions laid upon that people to foment the War between the two Kingdoms For in your Letter to Ashby the Rector of the English Colledge at St. Omers dated March 17 1676 7. to supply you with a dozen of such men as were used in Scotland in 1637 1638 1639. that would not stick at any thing to carry on the Catholick Cause in which you said that his Majesty of France your Brother and your self were ingaged for you then did want them and upon the receipt of your Letter the Scotch Colledge at Doway was consulted and 12 men were dispatched over for England for what Ends and Purposes you know well enough But to return to the Point in hand The Priests that were sent into Scotland in the time of your Father Charles the First you have been informed that they were sent by Cardinal Richlieu into that ancient Kingdom to enflame the Differences between the two Nations and the Motives upon which that great Incendiary was so earnest to kindle a War in the Dominions of your Father were sufficiently understood by those that lived and were actually engaged in publick Negotiations who have been so just as to leave them upon record to future Generations and they were the very same Motives that you and your Party made the grounds for the subversion of the Protestant Religion and our English Government these were your loyal Men that would have brought in a Religion upon us by a conversion of us with Blood and a Baptism with fire but the Good Lord I hope will keep the Land from the one and this great City from the other 2. Your Conspirators were men of undoubted Loyalty and this Englishmen will believe if you can make them because of their great zeal in commencing and carrying that never to be forgotten bloody Massacre in Ireland wherein so many thousand Protestants lost their Lives and were by your Hell-born Cut-throats basely and barbarously murthered Nay as a testimony of their Loyalty they renounced your Father's Authority and the Authority of his Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom and assumed the Royal Authority to themselves owing only a dependance upon the Pope and his Nuncio yet these men for that piece of barbarity were by you and your Brother recommended to several Princes as men that had ventured their Lives and lost their Estates for promoting the Catholick Apostolick Religion in Ireland by the direction and express Command of your Royal Father of blessed Memory and many of them in their old age were at your Brother's request and yours made Priests to get Bread for that piece of Service 3. The Loyalty of your Conspirators did highly appear in that accession they had to the Death of Charles the First they did contrive it and this hath been made appear to their
and the Rites and Ceremonies required by Law in their Worship and Service of God so that there being little or no jealousy of any danger to the Church of England from the Protestant Dissenters how zealous soever they might be in their way yet the watchfulness of the Prelates and their Curates were chiefly exercised upon those of the Romish Communion But the Protestant Dissenters since are like to the People of Israel in the Land of Egypt very much multiplied to that degree that they are come nearer to the other Party than heretofore they did the main care therefore of the Prelates and their inferior Clergy together with old Roger their Guide did much abate towards their old Friends of the Church of Rome and exerted the same to the Protestant Dissenters 2. But another great Cause of the dividing the Protestant Interest was the very severe but just Entertainment the Prelates with the Scandalous and Ignorant Clergy met with from the Protestant Dissenters in the late Times of Reformation when they were restored by the return of your Brother from Exile they measured the same again to the Protestant Dissenters when they had the Law on their side and your Grace and Favour into the bargain they remembred all the old Scores by which great Animosities and Heats have been between Party and Party the Prelates aiming then at the ruin of the Dissenters for aiming at the reformation of Prelacy and Superstition By this I say a difference is risen that in all humane probability can never be made up We cannot but from hence very easily not only by Reason but by Experience gather the great use you and the rest of the Popish Party made of them to carry on their Designs for the subverting the Religion and Government of this Nation For as the pretence of these Divisions hath been made use of as an Argument to pervert such as knew not that the Divisions of your Synagogue of Rome are more numerous and their Fewds more irreconcileable than ours so subtile have your Conspirators been by winding themselves into all Companies nay mustering themselves in all Parties endeavoured both to heighten the Differences to make their Annimosities not only hotter but more immortal and while the one Party of Protestants have been crying out against the other for their Schism and the other crying out against them for their Superstition and Persecution you and your Party to the reproach of both were undermining that holy Faith which they equally center in and carrying a Design of destroying the one as well as the other they being in you esteem both equally Hereticks 3. A third thing that contributed much to your bringing of Popery and Slavery into these Kingdoms was the general Prophaneness and Debauchery which had overspread these Nations beyond what in any former Reign had been observed Sir You in this by and with the Consent Advice and Example of the King your Brother and your Conspirators followed the Counsel of Cardinal Mazarine in the Year 1654. at Paris when the Popish Party were but at a low ebb in England That the only way to accomplish the Work in England was to debauch them first and make them Atheists and when that was done they would soon make good Papists for this you well knew and so did your Popish Party That a prophane debauched Person is truly of no Religion and therefore indifferent to seem to be of any as Interest and Temptation sways him so it is plain that no man cares to be of that Religion which condemns all those Ways and Practices which he is resolved to pursue with his utmost vigour Do but take notice that the Popish Religion was such as would allow them in all those wicked ways to which their vicious Inclinations led them and doth secure them from the horror and dread of Eternal Wrath and Vengeance for your Religion maketh those to be no Sins tho committed by some against the express Command of Christ himself If they are such things as the Word of God hath set a mark upon as enormous then they are made Venial Offences only and if they are Sins which your Synagogue calls Mortal which are indeed the most daring and prodigious Enormities through their Doctrines of Pennance and Absolutions and Papal Indulgences you are secure from the Pains of the damned in the other World By this means Sir you and your Conspirators increased the number of your Converts and strengthened your hands so far that you boasted to Beddingfield your Confessor That you did not doubt but in a very few years to have such a number of Catholick Gentlemen and others tha you feared not but to have a Catholick Army sufficient to suppress the Factious Protestant Party in case they should rebel this saying of yours Beddingfield the Jesuite communicated to the Jesuites at Wild-House upon the 24th of April 1678. Nay Your Zeal was such for the Popish Religion that poor Mr. Jones your Chaplain-Naval and Domestick for opposing Popery was by you turned out of his Imploy and left as a Sacrifice to that wicked Prelate of Winchester Dr. Morlay for saying That it was his fault that your Dutchess turnest Papist and that the said Morlay might have prevented the Dutchess of York 's being seduced to Popery if he pleased and that her turning Papist was to be laid at his door You therefore would not for a long time pay him his Wages tho that most Christian Prelate had sued him upon the Statute de Scandulis Magnatum to the poor man's utter ruin for his Living was extended and he left to perish for want of Bread And he had never received his Arrears due to him in your Service had I not shamed old Sir Allen Apsley publickly in Westminster-Hall for it you pretending it was referred to him Moreover I told him If he did not pay Jones I would fetch it out of his old Bones it was a time Sir when Men began to observe your steps and perceive your Designs so Jones much against your Will got his Money and after that Jones had suffered several years Famine from that Villanons Old Priest of our Church and he could not hold his Living from him any longer he most Graciously delivered Jones from the extent but Jones being so ill used by Morley he died within a year or two after he had his Living restored but by the way Sir by the Dutchess of York I mean her that was the Daughter of the Earl of Clarendon sometimes Lord Chancellor but the two Ladies your Daughters were by God's Providence saved from being corrupted by you and your Conspirators Now Sir it remains that I tell you or rather put you in mind what Steps your Conspirators took to ruin these Nations they were Sir your Favourites and of the same Religion and of the same Interest with your self for you having made such Advantages from the three Heads before-mentioned and by these means strengthened you Hands to dispose you to do the Three
to that of England Holland and the Reformed Churches of Europe to the Support of the Protestant Religion which You and the French King were to destroy by the Name and Title of the Northern Heresie I pray then what signifies a Nephew and a Son-in-law in such a Case as this Can any Man that ever knew you believe that natural Affection should interpose and prevent your destroying him since your natural Affection and Bigotry were and are still no Strangers in England or Holland Consider once more and then I have done with this Point You may remember that the French King did most generously offer you the use of his Purse to assist against the Designs of those that were Enemies to you and that Monarch Nay you know he protested That those that opposed you he should look on them his Enemies and you did as well protest That those who opposed him you would look upon them as your Enemies and it was the Opinion of the French King that the Parliament of England was neither in his Interest nor yours and you entirely agreed with him in that Thought of his so that it was your Opinion that it was necessary for you both to make use of your joint and utmost Credits to prevent the Success of the Parliaments Evil Designs against you both What Designs against you and the French King Yes Designs against you and the French King nay that which is more a dangerous Plot. Who are the Plotters And what was the Plot my Lord Arlington was at work without ceasing to advance the Interest of the Prince of Orange and the Hollanders and to lessen that of the French King And that he and several others were endeavouring to break the good Intelligence between Charles the Second the French King and your self wherefore you earnestly solicited the French King to assist with the Help of his Purse to prevent such Rogueries Thus Sir you make a Tripple League and set it up in Opposition to another In the one King Charles the French King and your sweet Self are engaged in the other the Parliament of England the States of Holland and the Prince of Orange are engaged The French is to furnish you with Money which is the Sinews of War the Parliament are declared Enemies King Charles stands as a Cypher only and therefore the French King and your self put your selves under the solemn Engagements to perform what was stipulated and strenuously to assist each other against the Designs of your and the French King's Enemies for that there was a dangerous and desperate Design on foot to advance the Prince of Orange and to lessen the French King And therefore can any think that it was unreasonable in you to endeavour to destroy him since his Advancement was of such a desperate and dangerous Consequence to the French King your Self and Romish Religion These things duly considered no Man that hath his Thoughts and Judgment keeping pace with each other but must from the Premisses rationally conclude That you and your Incendiaries must have a design of destroying the Prince and his Party and Protestant Interest in Holland notwithstanding any Excuses you may make to the contrary or your Party for you II. IRELAND Since Sir you have not left so good a Name in Holland as you might have pretended to it is much to be feared that upon enquiry your Name and Memory will not be very precious here in Ireland If you please to give me your Company thither I 'll assure you if you deserve it you shall have my good Word from thence for all the old Favours I receiv'd from you in the Day of your Power here amongst us but I suppose I shall find sad havock there made by you and your Plotters of the Protestant Religion and of the Civil Rights Liberties and Customs of the English and Protestant Interest Sir it pleased King Charles the Second to send the Lord Roberts as his Vicegerent into Ireland who was a warm Man and not at all Popishly affected and therefore not for your Turn or one that would gratifie the Conspirators in any one Point of countenancing Popery and therefore you procured him to be removed so that Ireland was put into such Hands as your Heart and Soul could wish for For whoever was Deputy or Lieutenant your Conspirator Boyle an Archbishop was the Governor a Fellow ' tho' of the Communion of the Church of England yet was a well-wisher to the Romish Mathematicks So Ireland was in a fair way to be Over-run and Ruined to all Intents and Purposes by yours and the Procurement of the Jesuites Upon the Removal of the Lord Robarts afterwards Earl of Radnor you remember who succeeded him and what Promises was made by this Successor and what Terms you required from him and how he complied and who it was that recommended this new Lieutenant as a Person fit to all Intents and Purposes to execute your Designs These things are worthy of consideration I assure you for we have considered them and what could be done in so little time as our King hath had many of those Abuses have been corrected and amended This Tool brought the Kingdom of Ireland into a sad condition by encouraging the Popish Recusants who are the profess'd Enemies to the Protestant Religion and English Interest by his or rather your Encouragement they grew more Insolent and Presumptuous than before that Tool of a Lieutenant came there which was of a dangerous Consequence to that Kingdom and the Protestant Religion and English Interest And it was like to have proved Fatal to that Kingdom had it not been in some measure prevented by the sending in his room that Great and never-to-be-forgotten Earl of Essex whom you and your Party procured to be Murthered in the Tower to make the Murther of the Good Lord Russel less difficult 1. For in the First Place in the Month of January 1672 3. you procured a Commission of Enquiry into Irish Affairs containing many Powers that were new and extraordinary not only Prejudicial to the English whose Estates and Titles were liable to be questioned but in a manner to Overthrow the King's Acts of Settlement which Commission you caused to be pursued to the great Charge and Attendance of many of the Protestants there And by this means you shook the Peace and Security of the whole Kingdom of Ireland It is well known Sir that you gave the Jesuites great Hopes of making a fair Step to establish the Romish Religion and old Gray the Jesuite in a Letter of February 1672. exhorts the Fathers at St. Omers to be very thankful to God that he had put it into the Hearts of the King and Duke to remember the sad Estate of the Catholick Religion in Ireland and that now there was some Hopes of Establishing it there since the Lord-Lieutenant was so well disposed towards it by the especial Care of His Royal Highness II. You were pleased to cause the Popish Party to be armed
in that Kingdom and some of them were Commanders to others Instructions were given from Richard Talbot then your Agent there by your Order for those of the Roman Catholick Party to furnish themselves with quantities of Arms and this your Conspirators said were to keep the English in order This Sir can be proved whenever there is occasion No Man can think that Sir Ellis Leyton a Papist that was Secretary to the Government by your especial Grace and Favour should not pursue the same Instructions that your Agent Talbot had received Nay give me leave to tell you That your dear Brother was highly engaged to reduce that Kingdom to a Popish Establishment according to the Agreement he had made with Madam your Sister to whom he had promised to begin the Establishing the Roman Catholick Religion in Ireland and that High-Mass should in a short time be sung at St. Patrick's in the City of Dublin the Metropolis of that Kingdom It is true Sir Ellis Layton was a lewd Fellow but there was none that did your Business in jest so well as he did for the time of his residence in Ireland For under the Notion of Ridiculing the Irish he promoted every Man that was a Papist if he had but common Sense and a Place open And it is well remembred what vast Quantities of Arms and Ammunition were daily sent from England to that Place and considerable Quantities both from France and Spain which your Party used to say would do more good towards the Establishing the Catholick Religion than so many Bibles And great care Sir was taken by you to secure the poor Irish Catholicks in the North that the Planters of Ulster and the Scotch should give them no disturbance that is in plain English they should themselves stand still and be peaceably murthered by your Irish Cut-throats 3. How many Popish Judges Justices of the Peace Sheriffs Coroners Mayors Sovereigns and Portriffs were made by your Princely Care in that Kingdom And was this for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the English Interest there No certainly it is well known by several Letters of yours to Richard Talbot and Sir Ellis Layton that the Reason why you gave such Instructions was to crush and ruine the Protestant Religion and the English Interest in that Kingdom for you having Popish Judges and Popish Sheriffs you would quickly find Popish Juries and Irish Witnesses to swear any thing against the Protestant Nobility and Gentry that stood in opposition to your Proceedings in that Kingdom Then Sir what Security had a Gentleman of his Estate when Judges Sheriffs and Witnesses were against him The many Instances of the Wrongs and Oppressions done to the Protestant English Gentlemen the Records of your Villainous Court of Claims can tell how they were sworn out of their Estates and Fortunes by your Rogues and Banditti I am certain that this Point being gained by You and your Conspirators it proved very Fatal to Ireland 4. You took great care of the Church too not of the Protestant Church but of your Popish Titular Archbishops Bishops Vicar-Generals Abbots and others that had Power from Rome to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction that they should be established in particular Sir your old Friend Peter Talbot the pretended Archbishop of Dublin and your old Friend James Lynce Archbishop of Tuam both of them had been notoriously disloyal to the King your Brother in that they had long lived in Disobedience to him and in Contempt of his Laws But to cure that you procured a Pardon for them both which Boyle the Chancellor passed under the Great Seal by your special Command and Direction nay you hectored your Brother when he was unwilling to pass Talbot's Pardon and challenged his Promise and Agreement made at Dover at the Interview with Madam his Sister and yours And Sir that all things might appear with some Face of Grandeur a Meeting of all the Popish Archbishops Bishops Vicar-Generals Abbots Priors and Priests for the settling and establishing their Clergy both secular and regular which was connived at by your Tool of a Lieutenant upon which the Popish Party grew so insolent that a Protestant went in danger of his Life amongst them nay to preserve their Stock in many Places they were forced to pay Tythes to the Popish Priest as well as to the Protestant Minister But when the Earl of Essex was sent over with much difficulty some small Check was put to these insolent Carriages of the Irish Papists Tuam fled and Talbot withdrew for a while or rather absconded themselves and the Publick Popish Schools were put down and many secular and regular Priests did depart the Land For which Sir you hated the Earl of Essex and Plunket you also despised because he said It was not Prudence for Catholicks to live in Contempt of Law and therefore you may remember how and by whom his end was promoted and with what zeal you and your Party sent him out of the World he was of the same Opinion with Cardinal Howard that in whatsoever Business Talbot was engaged he ever spoiled it and he was impudent and false to his Party for which the Jesuites turned him out of the Society but that he might not in discontent leave the Church of Rome the General of the Jesuites procured of the Pope that he might be made a Bishop But this Sir I will assure you That if Talbot when he was taken in Ireland had been taken in England he would have done You and your Party a signal Piece of Service for Coleman had certainly given Evidence with him against you So that your traiterous Correspondency with France and Intentions to destroy the Prince of Orange and the Protestant Religion within these Realms and all over Europe would have been so fully detected that it had been almost impossible for you to have escaped the hand of Justice Of this Sir I can give a particular Account if ever there should be occasion And Plunket himself gave you such an Item of Talbot's Intentions in that Point that Coleman's Death was hastened and Talbot dy'd strangely in Prison and so you escaped to do more Mischief And how well you rewarded Plunket for his Good will towards you is well known and all to oblige your Cut-throat Jesuits to whom they were mortal Enemies 5. On the 26th of Febr. 1671. It is remembred that for the better Encouragement of the Irish Papists and that they might many of them live in greater Bodies together you procured Letters from King Charles your Brother and a Proclamation to give Liberty in General to all Irish Papists to live in Corporations against the Act of Settlement and to be excused from all those Oaths that were required from those who were duly licensed according to the true intent and meaning of that Act And your Agents Siâ— Ellys Leyton and Richard Talbot were very vigorous to see those Letters and Proclamations put in Execution Then the Irish flocked into Towns
both in their Estates and Families that Scotland was a Field of Blood through many Barbarous Murders that you by the Hands of your Party Committed there Some of your bloody Crew here especially the Tyrant Lauderdale were exceeding glad of the News of these poor Protestants Rising and your Popish Conspirators and their Motly Protestant Admirers and Abettors did prick up their Ears at the News and concluded the Day was their own Our English Popish Army was to cut their Throats first and then the Throats of all English Men that stood in their Way afterwards And Lauderdale highly valued himself upon this Rising for Posts came every day to White-hall to bring the News of their Increasing boasting that now the Fanaticks had shewed themselves in their Colours and that it was by that strict hand that he had kept over them in Scotland that had been the Cause of their being quiet so long hoping by this to get Honour for his prudent Management when all Mankind knows that his Management was with a Design to make them take up Arms And it was you and he that raised that Devil but Sir you know whom you had appointed to betray them Sir you were in Flanders thither the News was sent to you not because you were ignorant of the Contrivance but it was a Watch-word for your Return But that you might lay this Devil which you and your Conspirators had raised and kill two Birds with one Stone therefore you pitch'd upon the Duke of Monmouth that he might destroy the Protestants there and that his Person might either fall in Scotland or his Reputation be ruined here at home therefore by your Advice or rather Direction he is ordered for Scotland in all hast for it was the Grief of your Soul to see him the Darling of the Protestants of both Kingdoms Besides Sir you knew that if he went Armed into Scotland without Assent of Parliament in both Kingdoms by an Act made in the Reign of Charles the Fâ—st was High Treason and therefore the Consequences might be fatal to him every way However he went by the general Consent of the Council and was well received in Scotland by Vertue of his Commission given him and draws the Army in Scotland together and faces these poor Wretches and indeed as Matters had been managed in Scotland it was a great Question if the Forces in Scotland would have been prevailed with with so little Difficulty to be commanded to go out against these innocent and oppressed Country-men of theirs had it not been to go under the Command of the Duke of Monmouth who marches up to the Enemy they by their Petition desire Liberty of Religion and offer to lay down their Arms it being given out by your Party that the Duke of Monmouth had a Power of giving them Terms but that could not be done by him for your Blood-hounds never intended they should have any Quarter given them therefore he had not that Power in his Commission of granting any Terms as was promised him Nay if I am not mistaken after that he had left London the Instructions that he had to grant Terms were recalled before ever he arrived in Scotland so that some of our Counsellors intended well and though all things were promised not long before to be acted before their Faces above-board yet they were mistaken for all the chief of their Consults were privately acted amongst your Popish Crew the French Ambassador and your Priests at the Duchess of Portsmouth's Lodgings and to give them a Reputation the honest Part of the Council sitting as Cyphers all was done as by an Order of the King and Council Well what then The Duke of Monmouth engaged with these poor Creatures but your Rogues and Trickers and Officers amongst these poor Souls soon left them before the Battle was begun so that the Pains of Reducing them was not very great nor hazardous and divers of these poor Protestants were murdered upon the place by one Oglethorpe an eminent Cut-throat yet alive notwithstanding they cried for Quarter which was promised them but how well that Promise was kept was seen many hundreds of them having been murdered in cool Blood under a Colour of Law as if they had been Traytors So that the Duke comes home a Victor in the sence of some and a vanquished Person in the minds and affections of others who would not out of Love to him have had him engaged with such an ill Company of Cut-throats in such a thing in Scotland they knowing it hazardous in many Respects however for his own Security he procured his Pardon for that Action But that Pardon though it was an Act of great foresight in the Duke yet the Judgment of Heaven pursued him for as he contributed to the Murder of so many poor Protestants by the Help of Popish Cut-throats so he himself was murdered and his Friends by you and your Popish Cut-throats It will not be amiss Sir to put you in mind of your Cut-throat Lauderdale of whom you made such use and who complied against his Understanding Judgment and Conscience if he had any with you and your Brother in all those Villainous Acts and Barbarous Inhumanities in Scotland I will now shew the Opinion that our English Parliament had of that Monster of Mankind 1. Remember Sir the Address of the House of Commons to the King your Brother on April 23. 1675. for then they found that some persons in great Employment under that King had fomented Designs against the Interest of the Subject intending to deprive Great Britain of its ancient Rights and Liberties that thereby they might the more easily introduce the Popish Religion and Arbitrary Government to the ruine and destruction of the Subjects thereof amongst whom they had just cause to accuse for a promoter of such Designs the Duke of Lauderdale because it had been testified in their House by several Members of Parliament That in a Hearing before the Council in the Case of Mr. Pennystone Whalley who had committed Mr. John James contrary to the King's Declaration of the 15th of March 1671 the said Duke of Lauderdale did publickly affirm in the presence of the King your Brother and before several then attending the Board that the King's Edicts were to be obey'd for that they were equal with the Laws and ought to be observ'd in the first place thereby justifying the said Declaration and the Proceedings thereupon and declaring his Inclination to Arbitrary Councels in terror of all good Protestants This Sir was not all but they had a farther confirmation of this Opinion by two Acts of Parliament of a very strange and dangerous nature which they had found in the printed Statutes of Scotland the first whereof was in the third Session of the first Parliament held under the King your Brother Cap. 25. and the other in a second Parliament Cap. 2. the like had never passed since the union of the two Crowns and were contrary to an Act passed
long and large Attestations therein made against the Merchants of the several Factories concerning the Matter of Fact before mentioned and other Letters were dispatch'd to Daniel Armstrong at Valladolyd and John Cross then at Madrid in which they were order'd to confirm this Attestation made or to be made by the Fathers in England and of the English Seminary at St. Omer's and of the said Stapleton together with that of the said Fonseca the abovenamed Spanish Agent who then lived at Bruges in Flanders Therefore 1. In this Villanous Contrivance to disturb the Nation in the Spanish Trade your Servant Coleman was very active in your Name and on your behalf and engaged that your Letter to Villa Hermosa should be procured 2. It is well known that your Brother and your self were so engag'd with the French King that it was all one to you what became of the King of Spain's Concerns in Flanders but you were both grieved to see the English Nation enrich'd with the Trade it had with Spain for during the time of the Riches and Plenty of England it would be very difficult for you and your Conspirators to bring in Popery and Slavery upon us 3. What Agents you make use of to carry on this Wicked Design to ruine Trade Even Fonseca that hated the English Nation and much envied her Greatness and that she might be in a condition to be brought under the French Yoke you tamper with him that tho' a Spaniard by Nation yet he was wholly in the French Interest 3. A third Instance that I shall remember you of by which you intended to ruine our Trade and that was in the adulterating debasing and clipping the Coin of this Kingdom It may be said by you and your Partisans That it is very hard you should be charged with this vile Act but Sir it can be prov'd that the Merchants Goldsmiths Brokers Bankers and the other Traders that the Jesuites dealt with all was by your Advice and Direction and that your Servant Coleman had in your Name promised them the management of the Mint So that your Conspirators were to be the Judges of good and bad Mony and were to manage the same to the best advantage for your Cause and several Materials for Coining was provided by Smith your Agent and lodged at Mr. Longhorn's Chambers in the Temple And this Sir I must observe to you for publick Good that there hath been few or none that ever hath been executed but hath been of your Religion or Interest That our Mony hath been abused is notorious And all this you did in order to impoverish the Kingdom and destroy its Trade 4. A fourth Instance of you and your Traytors to disturb the Trade of the Kingdom was the Fire of London I have treated of that already As it was the Habitation for several Thousands of good Protestants that stood in opposition to Popery and Slavery and as by the destroying this City you endeavoured to weaken the Protestant Interest so now give me leave to tell you it was with this design to ruine the Trade of the Nation for you know that London was the Metropolis and Fountain of Trade and when she was destroy'd you could not but conclude that the Trade must be disturbed with which the other parts of the Kingdom were made happy through the great devastation that the Fire that was carried on by your Wicked Instruments had made IV. A fourth Project that you had to accomplish your Wicked Designs was the Attempt of maintaining of a standing Army contrary to the Laws and Liberties of England in the times of Peace and labour'd that point much with the King your Brother to lay down the legal Force of this Kingdom viz. the Militia as useless to the Government and therefore you and your Party advis'd him to lay them down and to have Forces in every County under Pay and they were to be your Conservators of the Peace And Sir had the Revenue of the Crown been able to have born the Charge you your self projected a standing Army to keep the People in due Obedience Now what that due Obedience was I shall not need to explain to you for it was a standing Army alamode de France nay they were to have the Power of the Civil Watch in the Night which you said would excuse many ancient useless Men from that Service And for the accomplishment of your wicked Enterprize you advis'd that the greater part of the Army should consist of French and Irish and that the Officers of this Army should consist of as many Roman Catholicks as could well be gotten to serve in that Army and you had several of that sort of Cattel that you kept in half-pay in readiness whenever your Brother should have agreed to your Advice It was not for want of Good will but for want of Mony that your Design did not then take 5. A fifth Project that you had on foot to enslave the Nation and that was the advising and contriving with your damnable Conspirators the seizure of the Charters Franchises and Liberties of the Cities Towns and ancient Corporations of the Kingdom It was Sir your self and your Conspirators that invaded the Privileges and seized on the Charters of most of the Towns that had a Right to be represented by their Burgesses in Parliament and by over awing some of them you procur'd Surrenders of them to be made to the King your Brother by which the Magistrates deliver'd up all their Rights and Privileges to be dispos'd of at his pleasure and the pleasure of your self and Conspirators Upon this you procur'd new Magistrates to be placed in those Places as would carry on your wicked designs and purposes of advancing Popery and Slavery 6. It was your Advice together with your Conspirators that put the late King your Brother to turn out of the Commission of the Peace and the Lieutenancy of the Counties all such who had been zealous for the defence of the Protestant Religion and Liberty and had appear'd vigorously against Popery and Arbitrary Power as persons disaffected to the Government both in Church and State and represented them as Fanaticks and Favourers of such by which means you got in Men of Villanous Morals and such heartily joyned in with your Conspirators to ruine the Protestant Interest and to overthrow the Laws and Liberties of England This was done in the year 1679. 7. Notwithstanding some of your Conspirators represented you as a person whose Judgment was for Liberty of Conscience yet because the Protestant Dissenters appear'd earnestly in the asserting the Laws and Liberties of England and gave Countenance to the Discovery of the Popish Plot to King Charles your Brother who was in it in every part and particular thereof excepting that of his own Murther you and your Conspirators stirred up that King to raise a terrible Persecution against those men by which means you were the ruine of some Thousands of Families who by the severity of