ΕΙΚΩΠΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ ΤΕΤΑΡΤΗ OR THE PICTURE OF THE Late King James Further drawn to the LIFE In which is made manifest by several Articles That the whole Course of his Life hath been a continued Conspiracy against the Protestant Religion Laws and Liberties of the Three Kingdoms In a Letter to Himself The Fourth Part. By TITVS OATES D. D. LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Richard Baldwin 〈◊〉 the Oxford-Arms Inn in Warwick-Lane MDCXCVII TO His most Excellent Majesty WILLIAM III. By the Grace of God And the Choice of the Good People of England Of Great Britain France and Ireland Rightful and Lawful KING Defender of the Faith and Restorer of our LAWS and LIBERTIES As well as the Victorious PROTECTOR of Oppress'd Europe TITVS OATES D. D. His Faithful Dutiful and Loyal Subject and Servant most humbly dedicates this ensuing MEMORIAL ΕΙΚΩΠΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ ΤΕΤΑΡΤΗ Or The Fourth Part of the Picture of the Late King JAMES SIR I Know you expect I should be as good as my word and truly so I will to the utmost of my poor power because of the great regard I have for your Person Cause and Interest and before I enter upon any more lines of your sweet face in order to perfect your Picture let us take a dish of drink together and give you a true state of your interest here in England and when we consider the excellent qualifications of your Hell-born Crew here you may easily conclude what a nasty pickle you and my old Landlady are in and that I shall do in these six particulars 1. Your Cattel here have acted their parts in tampering to make parties against the present Government which parties were to have been made either of your Friends or your Enemies the former are such a parcel of Cowardly Rascals that to tell you the truth as they quitted your Father in the time when he had most occasion for them so they did you witness your friends both here and in Scotland too notwithstanding the application they made by your especial direction to Sir Timothy Stiff-Jaws when old Preston's hopeful design was baffled by the vigilance of the present Government nay I doubt not but that they might by Scotch Robin have made some effort of that nature upon some of our Dissenters but alas it was to no purpose for they understood their Interest as well as an old friend of yours did of cheating your Brother of a tickling summ you know for what use and therefore all attempts if ever any were to all intents and purposes fruitless and vain well I pray what tools did you make use of very sorry ones upon my word a sort of people whose persons were neither known nor had they credit for a two-penny Loaf persons not able to make you a party worth the mentioning nor can I by the best enquiry I can make tell who set them on work or what Warrant or Authority they have for what they do for if one should ask Sir Timothy Stiff-Jaws to whom as I said before they were to make application he would swear by my Landlady's white hand that he knew never a Rogue of them all and would not lose his good Preferment as long as there was a shilling to be got though I must tell you that in spight of the Whore his neighbour he hath quitted his Post since a penny could not be got in it with any great matter of content he is now at Grass and waits dear Sir for a comfortable minute that he may have my Landlady by the hand again without disturbance I suppose he might make you under-hand half a dozen poor Curs and these the Rogues call a Party and a Party for you and upon the strength of these Fellows impudence your nonsensical Crew shamm'd a simple Declaration from you bearing date from St. Germains which did you more hurt than the Fishermen of Feversham could do for their hearts blood Well when your gracious Declaration came Lord What a stir they made with it and publish it they would hand over head without any regard had for the Publishers and disposers of the same or the least thought of making any provision for those willing Vermin that lay at the mercy of our Government to be drawn hang'd and quartered for such an eminent piece of service and some of them have taken a civil swing tho much ado before they could be perswaded to it You was not pleased to put us off with one Declaration but a second and a third was issued forth bearing date from St. Germains in which you lovingly declared what great and good things they should have the Lord knows when if they would but meet you the Lord knows where But I pray Sir why did you reflect upon the ingratitude of some of your old Friends Alas alas you did not well consider that they might be got into good employments in which they were to Battle their sweet Bodies for a convenient season or it may be if some of them had been so scandalous that they could not get into an employment of considerable trust they were got behind the Hangings with a comfortable Pension to the end that they may use King William in that Post as they did you when you employed them Nay sweet Sir now I think on 't there is your old Friend Sir Simkin you know who turned Whig to betray the Whigs to your Brother and then he turned Tory to betray your Brother to the Whigs then turned Papist to betray your good Worship what could you do with such a Spark if he should take the other turn but keep him behind the Hangings to do some job or another tho it cost you two or three thousand pounds per annum for Secret service for in my conscience Rhiming Jack Carryl and the rest of your doughty Crew at St. Germains would scarce sit at Council-board with him he would be so scandalous he saith he is a man of good parts and wouâ—d himself sign a Certificate even upon Oath since honour hath so long been a stranger to him yet none of your poor humble Curs now with you would be seen in his company for forty shillings a man lest he should betray you once more Come let me ask you one civil question if you should be King of Poland or Jerusalem or Ushant or Bell Isle Would you ever admit him so much as Clerk of your Kitchen truly you must have the Grace of a great deal of good Nature to believe him worthy of such an Employ for since he hath made so many turns let him have nothing with you but that of a Turnspit he being too lend for any else yet for all this this Case-hardened Coxcomb that brags of doing great feats for the support of our Government hath pretended to such an Interest with you and my very good Landlady that one would think that he was ready to make another turn and some of your Cattle here would fain make us believe he is doing
that your being a Papist and the Hopes you gave the Popish Party of coming such to the Crown had encouraged them in this wicked Conspiracy and though in Civility to your Brother they did not impeach you for your Treasons yet they thought it necessary to prevent your coming by a Bill of Exclusion but on the contrary had not your Designs been discovered the Nation must have sunk by your Trayterous Designs and have been ruined without any impossibility of recovery but tho' the discovery had not its desired Effect yet it did so much affect you that when you invaded the Throne by the murther of your Brother that you could not make that considerable Progress in your Work for then you saw plainly you had received a deadly wound of which you could by no means be cured for the Nation saw who they were you had espoused and therefore they were aware both of you and them and made your own Conspiracy to be a Plague to you Obj. But you may say how can this be a good Ground or Reason for the discovery of such a design When there was but few that believed it and that the King your Brother laught at the Plot as a matter wholly Fabuloâ—s and that the Parliaments were but a parcel of Factious Men and therefore what could the Nation judge of those Men that I espoused since the matter of Fact was false with which they stood charged To this I answer 1. It is well known that your Brother laughed at the Plot and would have made some to have believed that it was Fabulous but he well knew that he was engaged in every part of it but that of his own Life and that he was too conscious to himself he had disobliged you and your party by being so loose and negligent in the performance of those promises he had made to you and your Party and to get a sum of Money from the Paliament he would let the Parliament worry your Friends nay rather than go without it he would himself give your Cause a gentle Stab witâ—ess his passing the Test Bill in the year 1673 and refusing to sign Coleman's Declaration in the â—â—rs 1674 1675 1676. But suppose that he did laugh at the Plot he hath laugh'd at the Sacrament of the Altar and would be witty upon the Superstition of the Church of Rome yet at that very time he was a Papist and had receiv'd the Sacrament of the Church of Rome nay he was many times prophanely witty upon the Gospel it self and would speak very slightly of Religion you know he was a witty man and could make a Jest of any thing in the World But who shall we believe Charles Stuart or Charles King of England Shall we take notice of what he said in his private Capacity before what he said in his publick Capacity I tell you Sir I must and so must any man in the World that hath but a grain of Sence take that to be his that he spake in his publick Capacity and this well consider'd will satisfie any thinking man Ans 2. I pray observe your Brother's Proclamation Octob. 30 1678 where he called your Conspiracy a Bloody and Trayterous Design of Popish Recusants of which Sir you were the Head against his Person and Government and the Protestant Religion Again in his Proclamation of November the 20th 1678 did he not declare That the Popish Priests and Jesuites lurking within the Realm had contrived and set on foot divers trayterous Plots and Designs against his Person and Government and the Protestant Religion by Law establish'd Again observe Sir his Proclamation for a Fast March the 28th 1679 where he declar'd That through the impious and malicious Conspiracy of the Popish Party there was a Plot not only intended to the Destruction of his Royal Person but the total Subversion of the Government and of the true Protestant Religion within the Realm by Law establish'd Obj. There might be a Conspiracy against the Religion and Government of England but not against the King's Person Ans That is a Contradiction in plain terms for how could the Religion of a Nation and the Government be subverted but by the destruction of its Head See what my Lord Chancellor saith in his Speech to both Houses of Parliament Mar. 6. 1678 9 wherein he assures both Houses That His Majesty's Royal Person hath been in danger by a Conspiracy against his sacred Life maliciously contriv'd and industriously carried on by the Seminary Priests and Jesuites and their Adherents who thought themselves under some Obligation of Conscience to effect it and having vow'd the Subversion of the true Religion amongst us found no way so likely to compass it as to wound us in the Head and kill the Defender of the Faith Can any one that believ'd the King your Brother to be a Protestant think that a number of Men should conspire against his Religion and not destroy his person that was a Defender of it And on the other hand those who knew him or judged him a Papist had incurr'd the Displeasure of that Party by his notorious Miscarriage to them in his many breaches of Word and Royal Promise as I have mention'd before Ans 3. to the main Objection That few believed the Popish Plot Which is as false as any thing can be true for the Plot was believ'd as I shall shew in its proper place And as for the Parliaments being a number of factious Men it was your usual Dialect and we know what Love you had for Parliaments therefore what you say in that case you may wipe your Sâ—out and hold your Tongue for what you or your Party says against them passes for nothing So that I may again say that there was a necessity of discovering of that Plot in order to shew to the whole Nation what those men were with whom you herded and were engag'd in order to our destruction and I insist the more upon it because of the great Loyalty to which they pretended and for which they were countenanc'd by your Brother and you in opposition to all Law and Reason whilst other faithful men with their Families were left to perish for want of Bread who had serv'd your Father your Brother and you without the least recompence for their Service and that the Nation might be undeceiv'd in that respect as well as in others that they might see they were no Changelings but were full of the same Devil their Forefathers had and if they did conceal him it was for want of an Opportunity and they were about to shew what they would be at but I was beforehand with them and then the Nation was fully satisfied concerning their Loyalty What! do you grin and shew your Teeth I am sure you cannot bite no more than your dead Dog Mumper I pray let us have your Thought for once I warrant you you have some impertinent Question to ask it may be you still insist upon being satisfied why
Party 10. A great number of Officers that were Papists had been imployed and several under half Pay and many other Things of the like Nature All which Particulars laid before your Brother in this Address justify the Credit the Evidences of the Popish Plot had in Parliament But that I may not leave you so I pray peruse the Address it self it was a Swinger I 'll assure you and much to the purpose The humble Address of the Commons in Parliament assembled Presented to his Majesty Munday the 29th of Nov. 1680. May it please your most Excellent Majesty WE your Majesty's most Obedient and Loyal Subjects the Commons in Parliament assembled having with all Duty and Regard taken into our serious Consideration your Majesty's late Message relating to Tangier cannot but account the present Condition of it as your Majesty is pleas'd to represent in your said Message after so vast a Treasure expended to make it useful not only as one Infelicity more added to the afflicted Estate of your Majesty's faithful and loyal Subjects but as one result also of the same Counsels and Designs which have brought your Majesty's Person Crown and Kingdoms into those great and imminent Dangers with which at this Day they are surrounded and we are the less surprised to hear of the Exigencies of Tangier when we remember that since it became a part of your Majesty's Dominions it hath several Times been under the Command of Popish Governors particularly for some Time under the Command of a Lord impeach'd and now Prisoner in the Tower for that execrable and horrid Popish Plot that the Supplies sent thither have been in a great Part made up of Popish Officers and Soldiers and that the Irish Papists amongst the Soldiers of that Garison have been the Persons most countenanced and encouraged To that part of your Majesty's Message which expresses a Reliance upon this House for the Support of Tangier and a Recommendation of it to our speedy Care we do with all Humility and Reverence give this Answer That although in due Time and Order we shall omit nothing incumbent on us for the Preservation of every Part of your Majesty's Dominions and advancing the Prosperity and flourishing Estate of this your Kingdom yet at this Time when a Cloud that hath long threatned this Land is ready to break upon our Heads in a Storm of Ruin and Confusion to enter into any further Consideration of this Matter especially to come to any Resolutions in it before we are effectually secured from the imminent and apparent Dangers arising from the Powâ—r of Popish Persons and Counsels we humbly conceive will not consist either with our Duty to your Majesty or the Trust reposed in us by those we represent It is not unknown to your Majesty how restless the Endeavors and how bold the Attempts of the Popish Party for many Years last past have been not only in this but other your Majesty's Kingdoms to introduce the Romish and utterly to extirpâ—te the Protestant Religion The several Approaches they have made towards the compassing this their Design assisted by the Treachery of perfidious Protestants have been so strangely successful that 't is matter of Admiration to us and which we can only ascribe â—o an over-ruling Providence that your Majesty's Reign is still continued over us and that we are yet assembled to câ—nsult the Means of our Preservation This bloody and restless Party not content with the great Liberty they had a long time enjoyed to exercise their own Religion privately among themselves to partake of an equal Freedom of their Persons and Estates with your Majesties Protestant Subjects and of an Advantage above them in being excused from chargeable Offices and Employments hath so far prevailed as to find Countenance for an open and avowed Practice for their Superstition and Idolatry without controul in several Parts of the Kingdom Great swarms of Priests and Jesuits have resorted hither and have here exercised their Jurisdiction and been daily tampering to pervert the Consciences of your Majesty's Subjects their Opposers they have found means to disgrace and if they were Judges Justices of the Peace or other Magistrates to have them turned out of Commission and in contempt of the known Laws of the Land they have practised upon People of all Ranks and Qualities and gained over divers to their Religion some openly to profess it others secretly to espouse it and most conduced to the Service thereof After some time they became able to influence Matters of State and Government and thereby to destroy those they cannot corrupt The Continuance or Prorogation of Parliaments has been accommodated to serve the Purposes of the Party Money raised upon the People to supply your Majesty's extraordinary Occasions was by the prevalence of Popish Counsels imployed to make War upon a Protestant State and to advance and augment the dreadful Power of the French King though to the apparent Hazard of this and all other Protestant Countries Great Numbers of your Majesty's Subjects were sent into and continued in the Service of that King notwithstanding the apparent Interest of your Majesty's Kingdoms the Addresses of the Parliament and your Majesty's gracious Proclamations to the contrary Nor can we forbear to mention how that at the beginning of the same War even the Ministers of England were made Instruments to press upon that State the acceptance of one Demand among others from the French King for procuring their Peace with him That they should admit the publick Exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion in the Vnited Provinces the Churches there to be divided and the Popish Priests to be maintained out of the publick Revenue At home if your Majesty did at any time by the Advice of your Privy Council or of your Two Houses of Parliament command the Laws to be put in due Execution against Papists even from thence they gained Advantage to their Party while the Edge of those Laws was turned against Protestant Dissenters and the Papists escaped in a manner untoucht The Act of Parliament enjoining a Test to be taken by all Persons admitted into any publick Office and intended for a Security against Papists coming into Employment had so little effect That either by Dispensations obtained from Rome they submitted to those Tests and held their Ofces themselves or those put in their Places were so favourable to the same Interests that Popery it self has rather gained than lost Ground since that Act. But that their Business in hand might yet more speedily and strongly proceed at length a Popish Secretary since executed for his Treasons takes upon him to set a foot and maintain Correspondencies at Rome particularly with a Native Subject of your Majesty 's promoted to be a Cardinal and in the Courts of other foreign Princes to use their own form of Speech for the subduing the pestilent Heresy which has so long domineer'd over this Northern World that is to root out the Protestant Religion out of England and
of his to the French King bearing date in June 1676. in which he saith to this Effect That if he could be assured of a Pension that might continue he should not continue that way of governing viz. by frequent Parliaments which at the best was but a clamorous Rabble that took upon them to direct Kings but as he was resolved to be like his Neighbours in Riches and Grandeur so he was resolved to be like them in Religion too This was the Effect and Substance of that Letter that was shewed to me by John Keins and Basil Langworth but said Keins the French King was too old to be cullied out of his Mony by a man that was so uncertain All these things I communicated to the King your Brother in private in the Princes Lodging in White-hall who gave me Thanks for not communicating these Things to the Parliament and told me that he was now fully convinced of the Reasons and Grounds the Papists had of taking away his Life and the Prince said I pray God continue your Majesty on that Opinion for now you may see they are a â—ort of people that are not to be endured in a civil Government Good God said the King your Brother is this the kindness that is to be shewed me for all the favours that I have shewed that people At which his Majesty wept the Prince then bid me withdraw and sent for me the next day and conjured me not to communicate one word of the Discourse I had with the King for saith he it will be neither safe for the King nor you nor any of us if this should be reported And also his Highness the Prince had often enjoyned and engaged me that when I met with any thing that might reflect upon the King to be sparing there because the Publication of those things might tend to alienate the King's Heart from the frequent use of Parliaments without which the Kingdom could never rid it self from the apparent Danger of Popery But when the Prince saw how the Parliaments and the whole Nation were treated by him and your self and villanous Party he heartily repented of his Injunction laid on me and so did I of my Promise made to him there were three great Reasons why it was necessary that this Plot should at that time be discovered 1. That the Life of the King your Brother might be preserved if he had so pleas'd 2. To shew to the World what a sort of men you herded withal and what we were to expect from you when ever you should come to the Crown 3. To prevent iâ— possible your coming to the Crown since you were in your own Nature such an Enemy of our Religion and Government 4. For the Discharge of my Conscience to God and my Country and that such Malefactors might be brought to publick Justice 1. That the Life of your Brother might have been preserved if his Majesty had been so pleased in order to this it was highly necessary that the Kingdom should be awakened to provide in all legal and due ways for the Protection of the person of the King your Brother you may if you will remember that you had brought the Nation into such a Lethargick State and Condition as did not only amaze those that loved it but encouraged also those that hated it they were much out who thought that your villainous Crew had laid their Designs aside when your Brother sent out a sham Proclamation against Priests and Jesuits or when the Pensioners had given Popery a broad side in the House of Commons in order to make their Measures come in the more freely or when the last Bill passed in the year 1673 though that Bill did them no manner of Service in the World but hurt Alas good Sir you and your Villains by these sleepy proceedings of the then Parliament were prick'd on to be the more industrious in the pursuit of your wicked Designs you and your Accomplices had so stated your Case that there could be no retreat and rather than you would be deseated of your Hopes you and your Villains were resolved to pawn your Lives and Fortunes and your all upon your great Adventure for you had laboured too long in the Design which you had brought to bear so well to lose in a moment the Fruits of Seven Eight or Ten years Toils and Endeavours for suppose Sir the Protestant Party should have been so good natured as to have forgiven you and your Accomplices yet you could not have relyed upon their mercy because you had proceeded so far in this Conspiracy and therefore you being well fraught with such a Cargo of Guilt what could be expected from you but your being desperate to the last degree And therefore since you knew that not Lawrel but Hemp was the reward of Treason your Party were resolved not to be dismayed at the Horrour of your Treasons but were rather inflamed to revenge your selves upon the Parliament that sometimes barked against Popery and Arbitrary Power you knew very well what you and your Villains had deserved and rather than â—amely to suffer the publick Justice of the Nation you were resolved not to be without the Aid and Assistance of a Forreign Power and every man that was not a Stranger to Conversation could not but hear what large Contributions were provided for you in all Popish Countries upon which you and your party were notoriously impudent which was no sign of your Innocence but of your Villany and the Assurance you had of compleating the Nations Râ—ine and though they had brought the King your Brother to that State that he would not believe if any Malecontent should discover your Designs either against him or the Government both in Church and State yet there was none but in that Day before any discovery was made saw the Design in general and that your Brother as well as you was engaged in it and because he had forseited his Credit with you and your Accomplices your Popish Party thought him not â—it to live and therefore since the Case waâ— so it was then necessary that the Government should not only disengage him from that wicked Enterprise and that he might not perish it was necessary that your Designs against him in particular should also be detected 2. Another Reason of this discovery was to shew to the world what sort of Men they were with whom you herded and what we were to expect from you when ever you came to the Crown for you that was a Traytor to the Kingdom by those cursed Designs of yours when you was a Subject would of Consequence be a Tyrant whenever you mounted the Throne many that judged you a bigotted Papist did not conclude you a Traytor till your designs were discovered and then they could expect nothing less of you than an Arbitrary and Dispotick Reign when you should come to wear the Crown hence it was that upon the discovery of the Popish Plot that the Parliament voted
sâ—wing such mischievâ—us Tares as these in the wholesom field of our Church of England and to guard the Vâ—spâ—tted Spâ—use of our Blessed Lord from that fâ—ul Accusation with which she justly chargeâ— other Churches of teaching their Children Loyaâ—ty with so many Reserves and Câ—nditions that they shall never wanâ— a Distâ—nction to justify Râ—bellion nor a Text of Sâ—ripture aâ— good as Curse ye Merez to encâ—urage them to be Traiâ—ors whereas our truly refâ—rmed Church knows no such Subâ—â—â—ties but teaches according to the simplicity of Christianity to submit â—â— every Ordinance of Mâ—n for â—odâ— sake according to the natural Signification of the Wâ—â—ds without Eâ—â—â—vocation oâ— Artificial Turns In order to which having thought to dissolve that body which we have these many years so tenderly cherished and which we are sure consists generally of more Dutâ—sal and Loyal Members we were forced to Prorogue our Parliament till November next hopeing thereby to cure those disorders which have been sown amongst the best and Loyallest by a fâ—w malicious Incendâ—aâ—ies But understanding since that such who have sowed that seditious Seed are as industriously careful to water it by their Cabâ—ls and Emissaries instructed on purpose to Poison our People with discourses in public Places in hopes of a great Crop of Confusion their beloved Fruit the next Session we have â—ound it absolutely necessary to dissolve our Parliament though with great Reluctancy and Violence to our Inâ—lination but remembring the Days of our Royal Father and the progress of Affairs then How from a cry against Popery the People went on to complain of Grievances and against evil Councellours and his Majesties Prerogative until they advanced into a formal Rebâ—llion which brought forth the most dâ—re and fatal Effects that ever were yet heard of among any Mâ—n Christians or others aâ—d withal finding so great a resâ—mblance between the Proceedings then and now that they seem both brâ—th of the same Brains and being coâ—siâ—m'd in that conceipt by observing the Actions of many now who had a great share in the Management of the former Râ—bâ—llion and their Zeal for Religion who by their Liâ—es gives uâ— too much reason to suspect they have none at all we thought it not sâ—fe to dally too long as our Royal Father did with Submissions and Condescentions endeavouring to cure Men infected without removing them from the Air where they got the Disease and in which it still rages and encreases daily for fear of meeting with no better success than he â—ound in suffering his Parliament to Challenge Power they had nothing to do with till they had bewitch'd the People into fond desires of such things as quickly dâ—strâ—y'd both King and Countrey which in us would be an intolerable Error having been warn'd so lately by the most execrable Murther of our Royal â—ather and the unhuman Vsage which we â—ur self in our Royal Person and Family have suffered and our Loyal Subjects have endured by such practices and least this our great Care of this our Kingdoms quiet and our own honour and safety should as our best Actions have hitherto been be wrested to some siniâ—â—er Sence and Arguments be made from it to scare our good People into any apprehensions of an arbitrary Government either in Church or State we do hereby solemnly declare and faithfully engage our Royal Word that we will in no case Ecclesiastical or Civil violate or alter the known Laws of our Kingdom or invade any Mâ—ns property or liberty without due course of Law But that we will with our utmost Endeavours preserve the tâ—ue Protestant Religion and Redress all such things as shall indifferently and without Passion be judged Grievances by our next Parliament which we do by Gods bâ—essing intend to call before the end of February next In the mean time we do strictly Charge and Command all manner of Persons whatsoever to forbear to to talk sedâ—tiously slightly or â—rreverentâ—y of our dissolving the Parliament of this our Declaration or of our Peâ—son or Government as they will Answer it at their Perils we being resolv'd to Prosecute all Offendors in that kind with the utmost Rigour and Severity of the Law and to the end that such Licentious Persons if any shall be so Impudent and Obstinate as to Disobey this our Royal Command may be detected and brought to due Punishment we have Ordered our Lord Treasiâ—er to make speedy Payment of twenty pounds to any Person or Persons who shall discover or bring any such Seditious Slight or Irreverent Talker before any of our Principal Secretaâ—ies of State There was another Letter that was sent to Laâ—haise and that is as follows Mr. COLEMAN'S Long LETTER SInce Father St. German has been so kind to me as to recomend me to your Reverence so advantagiously as to encourage you to accept of my Correspondency I will own to him that he has done me a Favour without Consulting me greater then I could have been capable of if he had advised with me because I could not then have had the Confidence to have permitted him to ask it on my behalf And I am so sensible of the Honour you are pleased to do me that though I cannot deserve it yet to shâ—w at least the sense I have of it I will deal as freely and openly with you this first time as if I had had the Honour of your Acquaintance all my life and shall make no Apology fâ—r so dâ—ing but only tell you that I know your Character perfectly well though I am not so happy as 〈…〉 your Person and that I have an Opportunity of putting this Letter into the hands of Father St. Germâ—n 's Nephew for whose Integrity and Prudence he has undertaken without any sort of hazard In order then Sir to the plainness I profess I will tell you what has formerly passed between your Reverence's Predecessor Fâ—ther Ferryâ—r and myself About three years ago when the King my Master sent a Troop of â—â—se Guards into his most Christian Majesties Service under the Command of my Lord Durâ—ass â—e sent with it an Officer called Sir William Throckmorton with whom I had a particular Intimaâ—y and who had then very newly embrac'd the Catholick Religion To him did I constantly Write and by him address myself to Father Ferryer The first thing of great Importance I presumâ—d to offer him not to trouble you with lesser matters or what passed here before and immediatly after the Fatal Revocation of the Kings Declaration for Liberty of Conscience to which we owe all our Miseries and hazards was in July August and September 1673. when I constantly inculcated the great danger Catholick Religion and his most Christian Majesties Interest would be in at our next Sessions of Parliament which was then to he in October following at which I plainly foresaw that the King my Master would be forced to something in prejudice to his Allyance with France which I saw so evidently and particularly that we should make
might have saved him if he had pleased to have taken it for Sir it was Evident that your being a Papist was the Fountain of all the Atâ—empts of your Popish Cuttâ—roats upon his Life and the main rise of all those dangers to which his Person was Exposed and not only so but you it appeared from that Letter was heartily engaged in the said Design to Remove the great Obstruction that delayed your Work the mighty Work upon your Hands to Convert three Kingdom and Subâ—â—â— the Northern Heresie truly it was a mighty Work for that which you and your Cutthroats called Heresie was then not only the Religion of the Kingdom but it was become a great parâ—â—â— the Policy thereof and an essential ingâ—edâ—ent of the Constitution of our legal Government and therefore Sir it would have been Impossible for you and your party to have supplanted our Religion which was and is still our legal Right without overthrowing all those Laws which sâ—cure it to us So that having you on their side were the King once dead their Religion would be exalâ—ed to its greatest Grandâ—ur and Flourish in these Nations as much as at any time since the Conqueâ—â— is in effect to say that our whole Government should be overturned and all our Laws subverâ—â—d which iâ—â—itled us to the Protestant Religion truly when these Things wâ—re disâ—â—vered to the Parliament it was thought that your Brother and his Parliament would have mâ—â—e Provision in order to the Nations Security buâ— this I must sâ—y That if in the aforesaid Letter there was any thing worthy of Consideratiâ—n iâ— dâ—th appâ—â—r that if there had â—â—en any such Provision made you and your Accâ—mplicâ—s did 〈◊〉 design any â—enâ—fit to Accâ—uâ— to us but on the other Hand the 〈◊〉 of our Laws and the removal of the Obstruction of all your Designs 2. Noâ—withstanding your despâ—ir of being able to Establish your Romish Faiâ—h and Worship as long as â—our Brother lived by reason of his Unsteadiness and what not yet your Secretary was considâ—nt of seeing all this Accomplished you had never greater hopes since your Queen Maries Time than at that Juncture you might as well have told uâ— That you were resâ—lved to Remove him but you and Coleman in the two last years Letters were Pâ—â—in and Pithy and there you tell us That you were resolved upon the Point Nay Coleman was so sure of his Point That he told Godfrey that is was out of the Power of Mâ—n to Baffle the Design and laughed at the Discovery as a very Vain undertaking but this and other Hints at several Times cost Jusâ—ice Godfrey his Life for if he had lived he could have testified very much of what he had revealed to him and had promised to make a considerable Discovery of your Sirs Proceedings in his Correspondences and Negoâ—iations abroad 3. If that we had the Benefit of the two last years Correspondency we should have found how Strong and Powerful your Confâ—deracy had been against the Protestant Religion and Interest within these Kingdoms for it could not be the Jesuits alone nor your foreign Combination that could give you the hopes of such a Change in the Government or had you not intended the Death of the King your Brother and Coleman himself owned in one of those Letters that all his former Correspondency was but fooling till they came to resolve of removing the main hinderance to the effecting their Design 't is true you had the Engagement of the most Eminent Persons of the Kingâ—om that were of that Communion but they were not a foundation sufficient for you to build your hopes upon of Establishing Rome's Religion and French Slavery till you had destroyed the King your Brother for as long as he lived he did through his Cunning and Cowardize put many Remoras in your way he was good at undertaking but when any thing came to be put in Execution then he commonly quitted the Pit as loving to sleep in a whole skin whether with or without his Whores nay rather than he would have the least Trouble he could part with the Popish Religion which he loved most of all 4. That though your Brother was of your Religion and had been a Dog in a String to you in all your accursed Plots and Conspiracies even to merit the greatest care and duty from you yet because for the lucre of 1250000 l. he had mâ—de Concessions against your party that pleased you not therefore like your self you were filled with Rage and vowed to revenge your Self upon him all which we should have seen in wordâ— at Length the old Lord Anglisey had them in keeping but you had wheedled your Brother to take that Paladium out of his Costody and to put it into Sir Philip Floyds in Order to preserve them for the Parliaments Consideration then sitting but there were so many Passages that would have Exposed you to the Censure of a Parliament even to the Hazard of your Head and many of your Brothers Faults would have been Published in the said last two years Correspondence that it was rather thought fit to Commit them to the Flames or otherwise to Stifle them than that they should be made Public we had Sir Philip Examined before the Committe of Lords that then sat in the Lord Privy Seals Lodgings and then he promised to give Them and the House of Peers Satisfaction concerning the said Letters buâ— the Parliâ—ment was dissolved and through your Procurement the use of Parliaments laid aside then I and my Friends persued the Villainâ— to the Councel he was so Guiâ—ty in that Affair that the then Villainous Councel did think him fit to be removed and he was for some time suspended but you never left your Brother till he was restored aâ—d so all was lost and the Nation could never have the Benefit of the Discovery those Letters had made of your villainous Undertaking in Relation to your Brothers Blood but you dâ—d the business at last and invaded the Crown and held it till you run away so that at long 〈◊〉 you made us an amends for all the Villainies you had Committed 7. A seventh Testimony was the Lord Barkshires Letters they were so Plain that the said Noble Lord thought fit to Rub of as not being able to Sâ—and the rest of them and upon his Death-Bed did Confess the Design that was then carrying on by you and your Accomplices for the Great and Fatal Blow I Challenge all the World that heard those Letters read in the Committe of Lords then sitting in the Lord Privy Seals Lodgings whether there could be a 〈◊〉 Demonstration of your Conâ—piracy I am sure all that heard them preâ—ended at 〈◊〉 time to be fully sâ—tisfiâ—d and 〈◊〉 Confidenâ— were your Brother now alive he would no◠〈◊〉 the world that 〈◊〉 Letters hastened the Proâ—ogation and Dissolution of the long Parliament and of the sending you into Flanders 〈◊〉 the Sâ—orm that threatned you was blown over for no sooner
Family should be brought to publick Justice within the Memory of Man that would be an unpardonable Fault but what could not be done in 78 was done in 88 and so it 's all one in the Original only a parcel of honest Men were murdered to please your good Worship that you might not bid England Farewell with dry Lips but Sir some of your Ignorant Crew might ask why you would consent that it might be so much a Plot of the Jesuites truly Sir the necessity of Money to pay your Popish Army and Sir John Whitelips thought you would do well to consent to that or else you could not have found a Cripple in all Westminster no nor in White-Hall or the Cockpit and a Cripple you must have or not one Penny would be given therefore the Project was tryed to see what a Cripple the Popish Plot would make therefore when your Brother had opened old Veracity with his Lockram Jaws began to tell the Parliament of a Plot ay and a Plot of the Jesuites and the old Coxcomb made such a Stir with the Plot as if be were resolved that the Plot was to be a Cripple for nothing else but to countenance you and your Cattle in some further Roguery or to get Money at least but the Parliament instead of resolving upon Money they joyn together with the Lords and resolved if possible to get to the bottom of it and turning it over and over they found my Testimony to be very full against five of your Popish Lords and the Earl of Barkshire's Letters made a Sixth notoriously Guilty but he did in 1678 fairly rub of for he was as much affraid of being called to an Account by the Government as you in 1688 was of being called to an Account by the Prince of Orange notwithstanding your being born free your Popish Lords were the Viscount Stafford the Lord Arundel of Wardour the Earl of Poâ—is the Lord Petre and the Lord Belasys against these I was a witness and therefore I shall put you in mind of what I testifyed against those Impudent Traitors and I will give you a Particular of the Charge I gave in against every one of them As for Stafford I will not trouble you with any further matter against him but put you in mind that he was to have been your Paymaster General of your Popish Army and no doubt but he might have been as dexterous in that Affair as your old Greasie Guts was who I think is famous to this day for nothing but his cheating of three Kings and to give him his due I think there is no great hope of his being better unless his young Mistress's Pranks can do any good upon him as for old Stafford you had dipt him in and the poor Fellow hath paid the Debt due to his Faults and therefore I shall say no more of him 1. The said Lord Arundel in a Memoâ—ial of his to Thomas Whitebread that was hanged for this Conspiracy which was to be turned into Latin and sent to the Memorial of the Jesuits wherein an Account was to be given to the said Father General of the Progress that was made in the Affairs of England for the carrying on of the Design or the mighty Work you then had upon your mighty Mind and mighty Hands which Memorial consisted of these nine Particulars 1. That he with others of your Council at St. James's had procured several zealous Protestants who Persecuted the Papists to be turned out of the Commission of the Peace in Wiltshire and several other Counties in the Kingdom and that care would be taken to clear the Commissions of such Men as should not stand well affected to the Catholick Party 2. That the Laws made since the coming in of the King your Brother relateing to Religion excepting the Test Bill did rather tend to the disadvantage of the Phanatiques then Catholicks 3. That the Lord Powis had endeavoured to procure several Governours in and about Wales and had procured some to deliver up their Government into the hands of Catholicks when others in the Dominion of Wales by giving them several Summs of Money and that he did not Question but that he should procure the Interest of the Isle of VVhite and Portsmouth because that Sir Robert Holmes would appear in any Circumstance his Lordships humble Servant and a word was enough to the Wise and to Encourage them he was pleased to tell them that he was so sure of Portsmouth that there would be no resistance when the French Fleet should come 4. That most of the Justices of the Peace then in Commission especially about the North were Men easy to be drawn on to Countenance the Proceedings of the Catholicks 5. That the General of the Jesuits should be assured that Sir William Godolphin your Ambassador in Spain had been very true to the trust Committed to him by the Fathers of the Society of the Kingdom of England and Ireland 6. That the Lord Arundel would venture his Life and Fortune to Satisfye the expectations of the General of the Society of Jesus and the whole Order That a Stone should not be left unturn'd to promote the Catholick Religion and if that you had not complied with them as you did they would have served you the same Sauce as they designed for your Brother for that they were as sure of the Aid and Power of the French King as ever you was and would have compleated their Design without you had not you given them fresh Instances of your Resolutions to bear up in the Cause then in hand and to tell you the truth they could have been contented that you had been more â—it for their purpose than indeed you were and the Reason the Lord Arundel gave was because that you was not a Man either â—it to Govern or Receive advice but what you wanted in Understanding you made up in your Zeal and therefore they were the more willing to join with you but your Brother had cheated them so often that there was no trust to be put in him 7. That he was confident that they might begin to build Colleges and erect Schools before a Year to an end and that he himself had procured several Catholick Schoolmasters to be connived at especially a School near to VVinchester the Masters name of which was Taytour 8. That he wondred that he had received nothing from the Pope when as there were such assurances made to Mr. Coleman by Cardinal Howard in the Month of July 1677. 9. That he was an humble Servant to Father General and the whole Society and desired that his Humble Duty might in a most especial manner be Presented to him and thanked him for his last kind remembrance of him 10. That though he had spent several Hundreds of Pounds upon repairing his House in Wiltshire yet he would not be wanting to appear in carrying on the Design This Memorial you were Privy to excepting to assign that Clause in the sixth Particular
very Obsequious to the Strumpets that were about him yet do but observe what Credit the Parliament of England gave the Witnesses and that through the Power of Truth and Energy that was in the Testimony they gave 1. Upon the Testimony they received from me when I was a single Testimony upon the first of November 1678 the Lords and Commons past this Vote viz. Resolved Nemine Contradicente That upon the Evidence that hath already appeared to this House that this House is of Opinion that there hath been and still is a Damnable and Hellish Plot Contrived and Carried on by the Popish Recusants for the Assassinating and Murthering the King and for the Subverting the Government and Rooting out and Destroying the King To which Vote the Lords agreed Nemine Contradicente 2. The Lord Chancellour Finch that famous Tool reported upon the 28th of November 1678 the effect of a Conference desired by the Commons that upon hearing of the Testimony of Mr. Bedloe and my self that they were in an Amazment when they considered in what danger the Person of the King your Brother was and his Government whereupon they prepared an Address to be presented to the King your Brother to which they desired the Concurrence of the House of Lords and they had the Concurrence of the House of Lords in the said Address and it was accordingly presented to the said King on the 29th by both Houses so that you and your Villains may see that the Discovery of the Popish Plot was not so small a Matter as you would seem to make of it 3. Observe the Address of Parliament on the 21st of March 1679 in which the Parliament did lay before the King your Brother the great Sence they had of the sad and Calamitous Condition of this Kingdom occasioned chiefly by the Impious and Malicious Conspiracies of the Popish Party who had not only Plotted and intended the Distruction of the King your Brother but the total Subversion of the Government and the true Religion established amongst us and therefore they Prayed that a Day might be set a part for Fasting and Prayer and accordingly a Day was set apart but I suppose though you knew of that Day you nor none of your Villains ever kept it 4. Observe the Vote of the 24th of March 1679 Resolved Nemine Contradicente by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and by the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled That they are fully satisfy'd by the Proofs that they have heard that there now is and for divers Years last past hath been a horrid and Treasonable Plot and Conspiracy contrived and carried on by those of the Popish Religion for the Murthering of his Majesties Sacred Person and for the Subverting of the Protestant Religion and the ancient and well established Government of this Kingdom To which Vote Sir give me leave to remind you of the Impeachment of the five Popish Lords upon which Impeachment the Lord Viscount Stafford was tried and found Guilty and suffered the Pains of Death as a Traytor to the King and Kingdom and so fully satisfyed was the Parliament of the Integrity and Truth of the Witnesses that they intended to have proceeded against the rest of the Traytors that none of them could have escaped the Justice of the Nation had not they been dissolved in a most Arbitrary manner 5. Observe the Proceedings of the Parliament against Nathaniel Reading Esq who Corresponded with the Lords in the Tower that stood Impeached for the Popish Plot in their Address to the King your Brother upon the 8th of April 1679 in which they set forth the Inquiry they had made into the Hellish Design that was carried on by the Papists against the Person and Government of the King your Brother and upon Examination they found that he the said Reading had used his utmost endeavours to prevent and suppress the Kings Evidence and as much as in him lay to stifle the Discovery of the said Plot and and thereby to render the same Fallacious and of no Reality and by such undue Means to prevent the Malefactors from coming to Justice therefore they prayed that a Commission of Oyer and Termâ—er might be issued forth for the trying of the said Reading for that Offence Reading was tried and was found Guilty and therefore would have you take notice of what was said by the then Lord chief Justice North when he gave Judgment upon the said Reading I will tell you says he your offence is so great and hath such a Relation to that which the whole Nation is concerned in because it was on attempt to baffle the Evidence of that Conspiracy which if it had not been by the mercy of God detected God knows what might have befallen us all by this time and still the Parliament have it under their Consideration how to prevent any farther mischief by it but this Villain of a Cut-throat had the grace to join with your Brother and you to stifle it as I shall shew you in the next Part of this your sweet Picture 6. Observe the Address of the House of Commons upon the 14th of May upon the Assurance that the King your Brother had given the then Parliament of his constant Care to do every thing that might preserve the Protestant Religion and Government they did upon the said Assurances represent to the King your Brother the deep Sense they had of the state of Religion and shewed the King that the Papists by their Designs against his Person and Government which the said Parliament was resolved to defend gave themselves hopes of Success therefore the Parliament were resolved to apply themselves to the making such Laws as might defeat those Popish Adversaries of their Hopes of gaining any Advantage by any Attempt they should at any time Form against the Person of the King your Brother 7. Another Instance of the Credit the Discovery of the Popish Plot had you may see in this Address of the House of Commons to the King your Brother The ADDRESS to his Majesty from the Commons Saturday Nov. 13 th 1680. May it please your most Excellent Majesty WE your Majesty's most loyal and obedient Subjects the Commons in this present Parliament assembled having taken into our most serious Consideration your Majesty's gracious Message brought unto us the Ninth Day of this instant November by Mr. Secretary Jenkins do with all Thankfulness acknowledg your Majesty's Care and Goodness in inviting us to expedite such Matters as are depending before us relating to Popery and the Plot. And we do in all humility represent to your Majesty that we are fully convinced that it is highly incumbent upon us in discharge both of our Duty to your Majesty and of that great Trust reposed in us by those whom we represent to endeavour by the most speedy and effectual Ways the suppression of Popery within this Kingdom and the bringing to publick Justice all such as shall be found guilty of the horrid and damnable Popish
Plot And though the Time of our Sitting abating what must necessarily be spent in the chusing and presenting a Speaker appointing grand Committees and in taking the Oaths and Tests appointed by Act of Parliament hath not muâ—h exceeded a Fortnight yet we have in this Time not only made a considerable Progress in some Things which to us seem and when presented to your Majesty in a Parliamentary Way will we trust appear to your Majesty to be absolutely Necessary for the Safety of your Majesty's Person the effectual Suppression of Popery and the Security of the Religion Lives and Estates of your Majesty's Protestant Subjects But even in relation to the Tryals of the Five Lords impeached in Parliament for the execrable Popish Plot we have so far proceeded as we doubt not but in a short Time we shall be ready for the same But we cannot without being unfaithful to your Majesty and to our Country by whom we are intrusted omit upon this Occasion humbly to inform your Majesty that our Difficulties even as to these Tryals are much encreased by the evil and destructive Counsels of those Persons who advised your Majesty first to the Prorogation and then to the Dissolution of the last Parliament at a Time when the Commons had taken great Pains about and were prepared for those Tryals And by the like pernicious Counsels of those who advised the many and long Prorogations of the present Parliament before the same was permitted to sit whereby some of the Evidence which was prepared in the last Parliament may possibly during so long an Interval be forgotten or lost and some Persons who might probably have come in as Witnesses are either dead have been taken off or may have been discouraged from giving their Evidence But of one mischievous Consequence of those dangerous and unhappy Counsels we are certainly and sadly sensible namely That the Testimony of a material Witness against every of those Five Lords and who could probably have discovered and brought in much other Evidence about the Plot in general and those Lords in particular cannot now be given Viva voce Forasmuch as that Witness is unfortunately dead between the calling and the sitting of this Parliament to prevent the like or greater Inconveniences for the future we make it our most humble Request to your Excellent Majesty that as you tender the Safety of your Royal Person the Security of your Loyal Subjects and the Preservation of the true Protestant Religion you will not suffer your self to be prevail d upon by the like Counsel to do any thing which may occasion in Consequence though we are assured never with your Majesty's Intention either the deferring of a full and perfect Discovery and Examination of this most wicked and detestable Plot or the preventing the Conspirators therein from being brought to speedy and exemplary Justice and Punishment And we humbly beseech your Majesty to rest assured notwithstanding any Suggestions which may be made by Persons who for their own wicked Purposes contrive to create a Distrust in your Majesty of your People that nothing is more in the Desires and shall be more the Endeavours of us your faithful and loyal Commons than the promoting and advancing of your Majesty's true Happiness and Greatness In which the Parliament laid before the King your Brother these following Particulars 1. The grateful Sense they had of his Care in his Message to them by Jenkins his Secretary inviting the Parliament to expedite the Matters that were then before them relating to Popery and the Plot. 2. That they were convinced that it was a Duty incumbent upon them to suppress Popery and to bring to Justice all such as should be found Guilty of the horrid and damnable Popish Plot. 3. That the King by his frequent Prorogations and Dissolutions of his Parliaments had rendered the Tryals of the Popish Lords more difficult by reason that a material Witness was dead 4. That the Person of the King your Brother was not safe till the Criminals in the Popish Plot were brought to Justice 5. That notwithstanding the wicked Suggestions of your self and villanous Party they were resolved to be true and faithful to the King your Brother 8. Observe the Address of the House of Commons to the King your Brother on the 29th of Nov. 1680. upon the Message he sent to the House of Commons about the Affair of supplying Tangier in which they laid before the King these following Particulars worthy of your remembring 1. They laid before the King that since Tangier had become part of his Dominions it had been formerly under the Command of Popish Governours but more particularly it had been for some time under the Command of a certain Lord that stood impeached by Parliament and a Prisoner in the Tower for the execrable and horrid Popish Plot. 2. That the Supplies sent thither were made up of Popish Officers and Irish Papists and that the Popish Party there were the Persons most countenanced and incouraged 3. The restless Endeavours of the Popish Party within this Kingdom to introduce the Romish Religion and to extirpate the Protestant Religion 4 The Assistance they had received from some perfidious Protestants in the Approaches they made for the Compassing their Designs viz. The Devil's Brokers and their nasty Passive Obedience Vermine that it was a Wonder of Wonders they had not dispatched old Pious for some time before 5. That the Popish Party made use of their being discharged from Offices by their not taking the Test to give themselves up to the practising their Idolatry and Superstition without controul in many Parts of the Kingdom and great Swarms of Priests and Jesuits had resorted hither in order to carry on the Plot and exercised their Jurisdiction and had been daily tampering to pervert the Consciences of the Subjects of England and the Judges and Justices of the Peace that had opposed them were in disgrace and turned out of the Commission in contempt of the known Laws of the Land and if they could not corrupt Men they attempted nothing less than to destroy them 6. That several Papists to serve a Popish Turn had not only taken the Oaths but subscribed the Test and held the Offices themselves or else there were those put in that were so favourable to the Popish Interest insomuch that Popery had rather gained Ground since the making the Test Act than lost 7. The Correspondences that your Secretary held with Cardinal Howard and the Courts abroad 8. That when the Plot began to be discovered the Popish Party began to smother it by the Murther of a Justice of the Peace within one of the King's Palaces 9. That the Papists reckoned the Life of the King your Brother the only Obstacle in the way and having you in their Eye whom they had gained to their Religion and Interest they were resolved to begin with the Assassination of the King your Brother and to carry it on with the Murther of the Protestant
thereby to make way the more easily to do the same in other Protestant Countries Towards the doing this great Work as Mr. Coleman was pleased to call it Jesuits the most dangerous of all Popish Orders to the Lives and Estates of Princes were distribâ—ted to their several Precincts within this Kingdom and held joynt Councels with those of the same Order in all Neighbour Popish Countries Out of these Councels and Correspondences wus hatched that damnable and hellish Plot by the good Providence of Almighty God brought to light above Two Years since but still threatning us wherein the Traytors impatient of longer delay reckoning the prolonging of your Sacred Majesty's Life which God long preserve us the great Obstacle in the way to the Consummation of their Hopes and having in their Prospect a proselyted Prince immediately to succeed in the Throne of these Kingdoms resolved to begin their Work with the Assassination of your Majesty to carry it on with armed Force to destroy the Protestant Subjects in England to execute a second Massacre in Ireland and so with ease to arrive at the Suppression of our Religion and the Subversion of the Government When this accursed Conspiracy began to be discovered they began to smother it with the barbarous Murther of a Justice of the Peace within one of your Majesty 's own Palaces who had taken some Examinations concerning it Amidst these Distractions and Fears Popish Officers for the Command of Forces were allowed upon Mâ—sters by special Orders surreptitiously obtained from your Majesty but counter-signed by a Secretary of State without ever passing under the Tests prescribed by the aforementioned Act of Parliament In like manner above Fifty new Commissions were granted about the same time to known Papists besides a great Number of desperate Popish Officers though out of Command yet entertained at half pay When in the next Parliament the House of Commons were prepared to bring to a legal Tryal the principal Conspirators in this Plot that Parliament was first prorogued and then dissolved The Interval betwixt the Calling and Sitting of this Parliament was so long that now they conceive Hopes of covering all their past Crimes and gaining a seasonable Time and Advantage of practising them more effectually Witnesses are attempted to be corrupted and not only Promises of Reward but of the Favour of your Majesty's Brother made the Motives to their Compliance Divers of the most considerable of your Majesty's Protestant Subjects have Crimes of the highest Nature forged against them the Charge to be supported by Subornation and Perjury that they may be destroyed by Forms of Law and Justice A Presentment being prepared for a grand Jury of Middlesex against your Majesty's said Brother the Duke of York under whose Countenance all the rest shelter themselves the Grand Jury were in an unheard of and unpresidented and illegal Manner discharged and that with so much haste and fear lest they should finish that Presentment that they were prevented from delivering many other Indictments by them at that time found against other Popish Recusants Because a Pamphlet came forth weekly called The weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome which exposes Popery as it deseâ—ves as ridiculous to the People a new and arbitrary Rule of Court was made in your Majesty's Court of King's Bench rather like a Star-chamber than a Court of Law that the same should not for the future be printed by any Person whatsoever We acknowledg your Majesty's Grace and Care in issuing forth divers Proclamations since the Discovery of the Plot for the banishing Papists from about this great City and Residence of your Majesty's Court and the Parliament but with trouble of Mind we do humbly inform your Majesty that notwithstanding all these Prohibitions great Numbers of them and of the most dangerous Sort to the Terrour of your Majesty's Protestant Subjects do daily resort hither and abide here Vnder these and other sad Effects and Evidences of the prevalency of Popery and its Adherents we your Majesty's faithful Commons found this your Majesty's distressed Kingdom and other Parts of your Dominions labouring when we assembled And therefore from our Allegiance to your Majesty our Zeal to our Religion our Faithfulness to our Country and our Care of Posterity we have lately upon mature Deliberation proposed one Remedy of these great Evils without which in our Judgments all others will prove vain and fruitless and like all deceitful Securities against certain Dangers will rather expose your Majesty's Person to the greatest Hazard and the People together with all that 's valuable to them as Men or Christians to utter Ruin and Destruction We have taken this Occasion of an Access to your Majesty's Royal Presence humbly to lay before your Majesty's great Judgment and gracious Consideration this most dreadful Design of introducing Popery and as a necessary Consequent of it all other Calamities into your Majesty's Kingdoms And if after all this the private Suggestions of the subtle Accomplices of that Party and Design should yet prevail either to elude or totally to obstruct the faithful Endeavours of us your Commons for the happy Settlement of these Kingdoms we shall have this remaining Comfort That we have free'd our selves from the Guilt of that Blood and Desolation which is like to ensue But our only hope next under God is in your Sacred Majesty that by your great Wisdom and Goodness we may be effectually secured from Popery and all the Evils that attend it and that none but Persons of known Fidelity to your Majesty and sincere Affections to the Protestant Religion may be put into any Employment Civil or Military That whilst we shall give a Supply to Tangier we may be assured we do not augment the Strength of our Popish Adversaries nor encrease our own Dangers Which Desires of your faithful Commons if your Majesty shall graciously vouchsafe to grant we shall not only be ready to assist your Majesty in defence of Tangier but do whatsoever else shall be in our Power to enable your Majesty to protect the Protestant Religion and Interest at home and abroad and to resist and repel the Attempts of your Majesty's and the Kingdoms Enemies 9. Observe the Vote against your self which was made April the 27. 1679. That the Duke of York's 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 Upon which Sir a Bill was brought in and is as follows A Copy of the Duke of York 's BILL WHereas James Duke of York is notoriously known to have been perverted from the Protestant to the Popish Religion whereby not only great Incouragement hath been given to the Popish Party to enter into and carry on most Devilish and Horrid Plots and Conspiracies for the Destruction of his Majesty's Sacred Person and Government and for the Extirpation of the true Protestant Religion But also if
sort of Vermine that are branded for infamous Rogues and so it is no great matter what they say but for the generality of Protestants they have received the Discovery of the Popish Plot with Hearts that were thankeful both to God and their Deliverers And let me tell you for all your Sneering that our sober Protestants are Men of as much Learning and Knowledge and as acute in Judgment as ever your Party were since the Usurpation of the Bishop of Rome Sit down and once in your Life time look like Men. Protestants are Men free from silly Superstition Men of a clearer and more noble Religion which inspires a clearer and a more Illuminated Reason that ever Popery could ever pretend to do and truly you and your Party must Imagine that the sence of the Protestant Party within these three Kingdoms was so stupid that they could not understand Truth from Fals-hood without the assistance of your gracious Vindication but Truly you had better have let the business alone for you and your Popish Crew have so weakly defended the Point of your Innocency that you have Spoiled your Cause but you have your Reward for the great peice of Service you did your selfe and Party and so good Night Mr. Innocency and let us heare what you have further to say to this Charge in hand why the World should not believe you and your Party guilty of carrying on that Horrid Design to Murder the King your Brother and subvert our Laws Liberties and Religion Obj. 2. You and your Papists used to say that it is not the Clamour of the Hainousness and Horrour of a crime impuâ—ed but the Guilt and cleare Conviction of a crime proved that renders Man accountable to Justice What a prâ—tty sort of an Irish Evasion you have found ouâ— One would think that Tom Jenner or Franck Wyâ—hens or old Robin Wright your famous Chief Justice had been teaching you some weak Rudiments of that little cunning they had to help you in the time of Need but whether they had or have not it s much alike to me let me aske you this one fair Question Did Coleman and the rest of those Traytors that suffered for that Conspiracy lie only under the single imputation of a Crime Were not some indicted fairly tryed fully heard and were not wanting to themselves in the least to make their Defence Nor did the Courts Judicatures want patience to heaâ— them and they were upon full Evidence Convicted and Condemned others impeached in Parliament by the Commons of England why sure Mr. Wise-acre you will not make this a single Imputation Nay I will appeal to Jack Carâ—yll himself if this be not many degrees beyond a single Imputation come Sir by your leave and the leave of Mrs. Pugg and his Welsh Highness it was no Clamour that prosecuâ—ed your Villaines but by a Proof allowed by all the Courts of Justice and by the High Authority of both Houses of Parliament bring but half so much proof of your Honesty for ought I know you may yet do mighty things for your Self and Party Obj. 3. That as Treason is the worst of Crimes so is the stain of Innocent Blood when shed by Perjury hard to be washed of Ans. I suppose you â—udge this to be a Peice of Newes I pray Sir was it not put into the last Paris Gazette or into your friend Dyers News Letter I suppose you thinke the Sons of Men here as ignorant as you and your Party have been foolish and Knavish but to put the Matter out of doubt you and your Crew say no thing but what all the World knowes already But where was â—your Proof of any Act of Perjury Committed its true you by your St. Omers Boyes did make three or four Attempts up on me and by a number of Whores and Rogues you battered at me twice and you were defeated and your forces fled to the place from whence they came in six or seven Years after when my Witnesses were Dead or durst not Appear and you having two Villanous Juries you made a fresh Attack Rallied all your Forces and then you carried your Point by the help of your four â—ambskin Rogues then sitting in the Kings Bench and you paid dear for it it cost you 3037 l. 9 s. 6 d. besides the Subornation Money old Hodge received to make him and his inferiour Bumms merry and for half the Money with such Judges and two such Juries a Man might have Convicted twenty Men of a far greater and better Reputation in the World then ever I could pretend too nevertheless I defie the worst of my Enemies to charge me with any hard Thing that was in my Power to have avoided But pray Sir what was my being in Town or my not being in Town in the Month of April or Irelands being in Town or not being in Twon in the Month of August 1678 to the whole Discovery of the Popish Plot though Truth of both those Points for which you like a Villain Suborned Witnesses against me so that I suffered the greatest Barbarities that ever were heard of or seen since the supposed Conquest What I say was all this to the purpose to Colemans Letters and those of the then Lord Berkshire that Confest upon his Death-Bed the whole Conspiracy therefore you and your Party shall not need to make such a stir about the Convicting of me of two pretended Perjuries but you might as well have Convicted me for being one of my Lord Mayor of Londons Coach Horses or Jack Gibbons for writing a Traytorous Letter against your Brother that was never blessed with the Gift of Writing and Reading in his whole Life time yet he was Accused upon Oath by some of your Suborned Crew and lay in Prison upon the said Accusation for six Months and you would have blessed the poor honest Man with a decent hanging had not the Villany of your self and Party been detected but as I said before so I say again I shall stand by the Truth of what I have Sworn to the last Minute of my Life and could you have brought five Parliaments to have owned and justified your Honesty and your keeping your Coronation Oath you took or should have taken you would not have been driven ouâ— of your native Country from the enjoyment of your Crown you acquired by the Murther of your own Brother to be a Fugitive and Vagabond as a just reward for all your Perjuâ—y and villanous Conspiracy against the Religion Laws and Liberties of these three Kingdoms Therefore you have no such Cause if the matter were well examined to make such a noise about Perjury and my being Convicted for Perjury nor nor Mr. Prate-apace your broken Colonel nor Mr. Wind and stink your Logger head of a Warden nor Dr. Tickle-pitcher his Name-sake no nor Mr. Pass-maker That was so lewd that he was capable of nothing but the Priesthood for being to bold with a certain Seal of a Friend of his when he
some Reputation with these Coxcombs he hath flattered several people into a vain attendance and dependance upon Risings and Descents till the poor Dogs have spent themselves to their Shirts in waiting and preparing for their days of Jubilee and after many disappointments upon the back one of another they have brought themselves under a fatal despondency of any Relief at all and since Sir your contest is at an end I will tell you that had I been of your Party and Interest I should in spight of Scotch Robin and all his Politicks have advised you to have taken the Counsel of Sir Sweetface Tellpenny who would have told you the vanity of applying to wrong persons and in wrong methods and by wrong instruments You thought the method you used would take but alas instead of that some of your Rogues have been taken and made wry mouth at the West end of the Town for their pains and old Sir Timothy Stiff-Jaws if your people had but made due application to his Worship he would have told them that you ought to have retrenched your number at St. Germains and inspected into their Ability Credit and Morals and that you ought to have drawn your Commissions into fewer hands and fixed upon some men of Honour Quality and Interest to order and communicate in chief and not leave themselves to the mercy of so many forward and impertinent pretenders and hangers on who would certainly betray you as soon as they were pinched Now Sir you may remember that you bless'd us with two or three Declarations but all to no purpose but if upon the declaration of War between us and the French your mighty Ally instead of your Declarations had himself published a Manifesto to all the Princes of Europe in your favour and if he had protested that he aimed at nothing but your Restoration and to settle you in the legal possession of your Throne without the least encroachment upon the Laws of the Land or the Religion Liberties and Properties of the people without proposing to himself any other recompence than in the Conscience of so meritorious a work this might have gone a great way I 'le assure you had he and you but reputation in Europe but of two ordinary Porters especially if it had been so explicitly and exactly drawn as to make no room for a Reserve but the truth of it is you and he had so often violated your Words and Oaths that such Declarations would only have served for Bum-fodder and would have signified as little as your pimping Manifesto's did to the Popish and Protestant Princes of Europe You would have me deal plainly with you I suppose if you would not 't is all one I shall not be afraid to proceed to the Thirtieth Article therefore sit down and hear your charge with all the patience that becomes so foul a Criminal and then the World will abhor you as a detestable Wretch and England will be pittied by all the Princes of Europe in that we would not exclude you from inheriting the Imperial Crown of this Realm Your Villains do threaten me but I shall not be afraid to lay down the truth with all freedom and if I suffer for it it is no great matter for it is no new thing for me to suffer for acting the part of an honest man ARTICLE 30. 30. You stand charged with the fomenting a Popish Plot or Conspiracy for the Alteration of the Religion and Government and Countenancing those that were charged to be in that part that did relate to the life of your Brother Charles the second for the management of this Article 1. I will show what was done in order to this incouraging men to undertake and to engage in this design 2. What steps were taken in the design in order to effect it 3. Who assisted in it 4. Who were engaged here at home 5. The design it self 6. Concerning the discovery of it 7 I shall show you what evidence there was to prove it 8. What Credit it obtained in the Nation 9. Of what great use the discovery might have been to King Charles the Second if he had pleased to have managed himself according to the Counsel of Parliament and the Patriots of the Protestant Religion 10. What were the consequences of the discovery of the Popish Plot and how fatal it was to their Popish party 1. I will shew you what was done in order to the encouraging men to undertake and engage in this design the design bespoke it self for nothing but a cursed Jesuit and men of the same principles who might to all intents and purposes be the more paced in this holy undertaking of that villanous party The Jesuits that in conjunction with your self and wicked party of Papists and Popishly affected persons undertook this affair You know Sir that you no sooner was by the providence of God and the earnest desire of the people of England restored to the Land of your Nativity but the Popish party began to bestir themselves for the restoration of their Religion therefore they apply themselves to the Jesuits and Jesuited Priests and men of Arbitrary principles and protested their zeal for the Restoration of the Catholic Religion but they durst not enter upon any design in the years 1660 and 1661 till they were sure how the Parliament would steer their Course in relation to the uniformity of service here in England who should carry the point whether the Bishops or the Dissenting Protestants and therefore it was resolved by the Jesuits that nothing should for that present time be undertaken but the drawing in of some men into Conspiracies and to provide Rogues lustily and heartily to swear Treason against them in order to the destruction of some and to bring others into disrepute with the Parliament that they might be kept under by some severe Laws that might be made against them to the end that they might be in no condition to give any opposition to them in their designs that should be by them formed for the effecting so blessed a work besides all this they at that time were not sure of your Countenance because for several years you made a sort of profession of the Protestant Religion and received the Sacrament of the Lords Supper according to the usage of the Church of England with the King your Brother and he himself was not married and they thought it convenient that nothing should be so much as proposed till they might have the countenance of some Popish Consort and then it was thought that they might act the more safely if the King could be engaged in a War against the Dutch which they longed for with much impatience But Sir I must descend into some particulars and therefore I will undertake these two things 1. I will put you in mind of what happened to encourage the Popish Party in undertaking their villainous designs against the Protestant Religion and Government 2. I will shew you what encouragements you
happy days under his Reign quite blotted out the remembrance of the villanous designs that were carried on in the time of your Grandfather and Father for the destruction of the Protestant interest and furthermore like Court-Parasites flattered him and you stiling your Father the Martyr for England's Church and Government The King your Brother being restored he began to be as Arbitrary as either his Father or Grandfather had been before him and the Kingdom lay under a necessity of submitting to him rather than run into a new confusion and disorder or revile the old ones for the misery they brought upon the Nation The memory of these times were so odious to these Flatterers that if the Parliament took notice of any of their Irregularities or mismanagement of the Government they were presently charged with running back to the Parliament that sat down in the year 1640 and they seeing the King restored without any terms thought it was necessary to form a Council consisting of a number of men that were to meet at Somerset-house in order to get something in favour of poor Catholicks and this was to be a standing Council for that purpose To this Council the Jesuits both at home and abroad were to make their application from time to time as occasion should require and they having such an encouragement as this they could not but reasonably expect some great thing from your Brother because of the Oaths and Protestations he had made to them of restoring their Religion or at least to give them all the Indulgence imaginable till he had an opportunity of setting up that Worship of theirs as the publick Worship of the Nation which they thought must of necessity come to pass the one or the other since he was not restrained by any Preliminaries at his admission to the exercise of his Kingly power this fatal mistake of the Parliament was the cause of much joy to the Jesuits for upon this Courtney within a Fortnight after your Brothers coming in was dispatched away to St. Omers to give them an account of what a prospect they now had of advancing the Catholick Cause and what a Council was pitched upon to meet at Somerset-house to manage the Cause of poor Catholicks in order to their ease in respect of Religion and what preferments several of the leading men of that perswasion were like to have at Court So Sir this was the first encouragement your party received through the want of some necessary restrictions to have put upon your Brother in order to have secured the Nation from Popery and Arbitrary power A second encouragement the Popish party had to oblige men to undertake and engage themselves in their villainous designs against the Protestant Religion and Government of this Nation was your Brothers neglecting the old Cavaliers that if they had any Religion it was that of the Church of England These men had been great sufferers not only upon your Father's account but also upon your Brother's to the ruine of themselves and families indeed they thought and that very justly that upon the Restoration they should enjoy Halcyon days But alas through yours and the advice of old Chancellor Clarendon they were in a worse state than they were before for these poor miserable Wretches having Mortgaged their Estates to redeem their Sequestations the remainder paid the Taxes to the King and the interest of the Mortgage notwithstanding all this they are not at all countenanced by the King who one would have thought should have made them his chief favourites if he had retained one dram of gratitude He had favourites it 's true but none of the old Protestant Cavaliers you will say then who were his Favourites you may remember that his Favourites were those of the Popish party in conjunction with a party of men who knew not his Father but humoured him in his sensual pleasures and they were of the Female as well as of the Male Sex who were a sort of Favourites his Father was not acquainted with nor in short do I find that he had ever any regard for his Fathers memory in that he so basely left those who had not only ventured but lost all in his Fathers service and these men having great Antipathy against the Papists for carrying all before them in the Court at Oxford in your Fathers time were much brow-beaten by these Popish Favourites and they being discouraged were in no capacity to contend the point with that villainous party at Court so that they in your Brother's time carried all before them in spite of fate The poor Dissenters they durst not stir the Bishops severely chastizing them for their severe usage of them in the times of the Civil War and the high Church-party run in with this Popish party as men that had deserved well from the King and whose Religion and theirs was of nearer a kin than that of the Dissenters so that your Popish party having such a Reinforcement from high Church-men were considerably strengthened and taking the advantage of your Brother's neglect of the old Cavaliers who hated them they found by this means so much encouragement as to engage a number of men to undertake with them in their cursed designs 3. A third encouragement the Popish party had upon your Restoration was the great ascendency your Mother had over the King your Brother for she being a Daughter of France inclined him to her side so that he no sooner left Brussels but he quitted Spain and embraced the interest of France and an Alliance with that Crown and she living ten years after his Restoration so fixed this as an habit in him that all his life after he could never get rid of it notwithstanding all the provocations of the French King to the contrary who upon the great inclination there was in your Brother and you to him became a mighty protection to the Popish party By the way Sir give me leave to observe to you that it was a most inhumane thing in your Brother and you to quit the Spaniard who entertained you both when the French had in a most barbarous manner and with all the reproach imaginable expelled you both and joyned with the then Lord Protector against you to ruine you and your whole Family again observe how unjust it was considering what protestations and promises both your Brother and you had made to the Crown of Spain of making and keeping a strict alliance offensive and defensive that you might be revenged of the French King for his false dealing with you yet contrary to all your promises and protestations it is remembred what success the French Ambassador had with your Brother in his negotiations for though he did not make any league with the French against the Spaniard yet he and the French King dealt with the Spaniard as if he had been an open enemy nay Sir that he might not fall short of his respects to his Brother of France he most willingly waved a Treaty
of Commerce the said Lord Protector had made to the great advantage of the English Nation and graciously left his people to be treated in their trade to France at the pleasure of the French King In a word your Brother was no sooner sixt at Whitehall and you at St. James's but the French King was become your Confident and the King of Spain slighted which as it was against justice and humanity so it was against the maxims of Policy and Prudence the French Nation being natural Enemies of the English and the next Neighbour to it and of all Nations the most formidable all these considerations should have made you to have made a firm alliance with Spain at that time for their condition was very low being brought to that sad state in a great measure upon the account of your Family both in your Grand fathers and Fathers Reigns insomuch that notwithstanding the largeness of the Dominions of that King yet out of them all he could not find an Army to fight against the Portuguese this I must say that God did visit that Crown with severe Judgments for their unjust dealings with the Americans both in respect of the War they made with them and the cruelties they exercised towards them You will say the King of Spain was poor yes so he was and the Proverb was good That Vermin will quit a falling house you well knew that the Popish party could not bear up in their undertakings in the design of changing our Religion into Popery nor our Government into Slavery upon the Credit Purse and Interest of the King of Spain but upon the Purse Interest and Credit of the French King your party thought they might with the better success and with more ease accomplish their wicked designs and purposes against the Religion Laws and Liberties of these three Kingdoms Let me tell you Sir that notwithstanding all the efforts the Popish party made in the years 1660 and 1661 they all proved abortive for they have not their expectation fully answered for they wanted some considerable person to head them but you know your Brother and you thought it convenient to be plaguy Godly for a little time and therefore the Red-Letter-men were to expect a little longer 4. That all might not be lost for want of looking after your Mother comes from France to give those of the Church of Rome some countenance and to be head of that Council that was appointed to sit at Somerset-house you know the pretence of her coming over was a Treaty with her Son about the Marriage of Madam her Daughter with the Monsieur of France but the real cause was to make earnest solicitations on the behalf of the Popish party that they might in some measure receive the benefit of those promises your Brother and you had made to them and to most of the Popish Princes in Christendom upon their account and though you could not engage your self to appear bare-faced you at that time wearing a Protestant face as did also your dear Brother the King so that she to encourage them came over and resided here in England for some time and that the interest might be strengthened the Marriage of her Son the King with the Daughter of Portugal was no less designed than that of her Daughter with Monsieur Give me leave to tell you in this affair the Queen your Mother did testifie more love to her Daughter your Sister than she did to the King your Brother and more like a Daughter of France than a Queen Mother of England by her coming over she did not only secure the interest of France in England but she secured all the Popish party to be true to the French interest and secured the French King to be their great friend that would not cease to do all good offices between them and his dear Brother the King of England and they might be assured of you in a short time and also by her coming a great number of Priests Jesuits Monks and Fryers came over who were caressed with part of the Treasure of the Nation amongst whom was one Kirton a Fryar that had two hundred pound a year Pension given him the pretence was that he was an excellent Chocolate-maker for your Brother the King She also spurred on the Council that sat at Somerset-house to use that diligence that became them that they might answer those ends that their meeting together required This plainly shews what encouragement the Popish party received by the coming of your Mother from France 5. Your Brothers Marriage with the Daughter of Portugal was another considerable encouragement for though she brought no considerable Fortune to the Crown yet still she strengthened the French interest the French King in order thereunto proposed and promoted the Match for never was one word said of it till the Arrival of the Queen Mother and then you know that affair was driven on with all the Zeal imaginable insomuch that if any of the Church of Rome that were of the Spanish Faction had offered any thing against the Match with Portugal he or she or they were in danger of being forbid the then Court at Somerset-House Sir Kenelm Digby was one of the Council at Somerset-House and he was in danger of losing your Mothers favour and his place at that board only for expressing himself not with the due respects that she expected to the intended Match with Portugal and the Lord Castlehaven was forbidden her presence for asserting that Match could never tend to the Honour and Advantage of the English Nation and the late Duke of Norfolk though he was a Papist and Loyal enough yet because he was not of the French Interest and was against the Match your Mother did but look sowrely upon him nay you may remember that for some time all the Honour he could get was but to be made the Son of a Duke and it was some time before he could obtain that mark of Royal Favour The Match was concluded on and over came that peice of Portugal Flesh for His Majesty's use and she was no sooner arrived and fixed at St. James's but behold another Council was appointed there upon the account of the Catholicks and so they had now two Councils one at St. James's and one at Somerset-House and truly all things run on merrily on their side they having two Queens to Espouse their Cause then finally you were reconciled to the Church of Rome and so your Brother and you being both of a Religion what greater incouragement could that villainous party of Men expect and then came all the Ambassadors Envoys Agents they had the Priviledge of open Chapels so that London it self was made a Nursery for Popery 2. You now may see what encouragements the Popish party had to engage in the design of changing our Religion and Government in order to bring in Popery and Arbitrary power when you being reconciled to the Church and See of Rome did establish a third Council
on the behalf of the Popish party which became wholly yours they owning you for their head your business therefore was to strengthen their interest at Court by having the King your Brother always ready to heap his favours upon them and to enlarge their Interest in the Country by obtaining such Immunities for them as no Protestant Dissenter could ever obtain in all your Brother's Reign notwithstanding they were more quiet under their pressures and provocations than the other were under your Brother's favours and caresses your party before your arrival at your last reconciliation to the Church of Rome had met with these encouragements to engage men in this design I pray Sir let us compare Notes a little and let us see what encouragement you gave those that were ingaged in the design of subverting our Religion and Government give me leave to put you in the mind of these in their order 1. The first encouragement that you gave them you procured them employments in the Government nay if it were a place but of 20 l. per Annum a poor Catholic was preferred before another if he stood in competition with him you did espouse that party with that zeal which put your friend Coleman into a sort of a Religious extasie when he considered what a Prince God had given them who was become to a miracle zealous of being the Author and Instrument of so glorious a work of converting three Kingdoms and by that perhaps the utter subduing of a pestilent Heresy which hath domineered over great part of the Northern part of the World a long time and that there were never such hopes as in this time notwithstanding the opposition you were like to meet withal and truly Sir I could not blame Coleman for this rapture of his for the providing for your friends was a good sign of your conversion to that degree of Zeal that Secretary of yours spake of Now Sir the getting of your friends into employments did strengthen their hands that they might be fit for business or else Sir Patrick Trant might have continued in the Black-guard for ought I know to the day of his Death but your conversion converted him not only to your Church but also converted him from being a Black-guard-boy to wear a great name and place I pray Sir to what end was Sir George Ratcliffe to have had a Patent for to be a Baron of England but that the Popish party might be more strengthened in the North that the little ones might be encouraged and their numbers encreased by the protection he might give them in your name you were so successful in this that you boasted to Beddingfield and to others before him that were your Confessors that you did not question but that in a short time you could raise an Army of your Cotholick friends to establish the Catholick Religion Obj. Why might not the Son of Charles the First shew himself greatful to Roman Catholicks and procure them an Interest at Court had not they an universal esteem for their Loyalty to Charles the First and Charles the Second Why in such a heat good Sir where was the Loyalty of your Servant Manning where was the Loyalty of those that petitioned Cromwel for Liberty of Conscience and promising in lieu of so great a favour to destroy your Family alas Sir here is Loyalty for you besides all this behold it was they that had a hand nay a great hand in your Fathers death where was the Loyalty of the Irish murderers that renounced your Fathers Authority after they had performed his Gracious Command of murdering of one hundred and fifty thousand Protestants 'T is true they went into your Fathers Interest but not to serve him but to be protected by him from the Justice the Parliament would have inflicted on them for the wicked War they had in conjunction with that Villain Laude fomented against the Scotch and had also contributed to the same and not only so but had commenced that wicked War of the King your Father against the Parliament of England they were the Authors of our Civil War But Sir suppose they had been great sufferers upon your Father's account was that an argument why they were so well provided for alas Sir if that were an argument why was it not an Argument for the old Cavaliers no they were too generous to engage in any design against the good English Government for they thought that when they engaged with Charles the First that they had fought for the Protestant Religion and Liberties of England and therefore many times wondered the Papists herded with them and were much displeased to see Popish Councils and Councellors perferred before their Faces and they scarce suffered to have the Kings Ear therefore Sir you know well enough these men were not sit for your work and service on the other hand you were sure of the faithfulness of your Popish crew their Religion being security enough to you that they would engage in the design with you and therefore they were to be encouraged These Rogues had not one drop of Cavalier Blood in them no not one drop of any Blood but that of the Whore of Rome the poor Cavaliers were therefore to be starved and these fellows suffered to Revel and Surfeit upon their calamities this was the first encouragement they received from you viz. their Interest at Court 2. Your second encouragement you gave them was the check that you gave to those who opposed them especially the old Cavaliers for Sir you may remember that upon the coming in of the King your Popish party made them themselves very fine nay they resolved that none should be so fine as they but the old Cavaliers were resolved not to be out-done but they would be as fine though they did not live to pay the Taylors but when they showed themselves at Court your Brother and you scarce knew them though the Papists at that time had all the demonstrations of affection shew'd them to the great astonishment of the poor Cavaliers but when they had recovered themselves they fell into a desperate rage with the Papists asking them what they did there and began to arraign them for their former Rogueries but you was pleased to tell one that had signalized himself in your Father's service that it was not for him nor any other to malign the Roman Catholicks who had been your Brother's best friends and therefore we might easily see since that few or none durst appear so against them to suggest any thing that might bring them under the least jealousie lest they should be said to asperse the only friends of the Government and I truly have stood amazed that the little Credit the Papists had got by shrouding themselves under the protection of the King your Father should be so highly improved nay it was scarce credible till the World saw the design in which with you they were engaged then we plainly discovered the reason why they that
thing without being made privy to the same but also all Arlington's friends at Court lay under your great displeasure but some of them who had as much Courage as you had Wrath dealt plainly with you in the point and told you that your Daughter was not to be look'd upon as yours but as the King's Daughter and Child of the Kingdom and so that your consent was not much to be considered in the disposal of her but only the Interest of State but this was not at all satisfactory to you and your French Pensioners and Popish Crew because you all foresaw by that that the Protestant Interest would be strengthened and the French and Popish Interest hurt and Arlington would render himself the darling of the Parliament and the Protestant Interest and the States General of the United Provinces Well Sir you may remember that this trusty friend of yours the Lord Arlington set forth upon this Errand upon November the 11th 1674 and returned not till the sixth of January during his absence Old Veracity and Duke Lauderdale and some other of your French Pensioners who were the Persons of considerable credit with the King your Brother and did pretend to be united to you These Villains set up their Throats and roared declaiming loudly and with the greatest violence against poor Arlington and his actions and truly they gave you such hopes in his absence to blow him up and his whole party at Court so that as Beddingfield told me you passed the time pretty comfortably you expecting by these trayterous impliments to have routed him and all his Creatures and in so doing they drew you on to believe that upon the ruine of the Lord Arlington they could do you Service and the French King and that they could with the greatest ease imaginable manage and deal with your Band of Pensioners but protested to you till they could get rid of him they had not courage to speak to the Parliament for fear they should not succeed nay your old White-hair'd Friend whose gratitude to the Duke of Buckingham was so notorious told you that if you could not get rid of Arlington that the Parliament would sit again in spight of them all and further acquainted you that if the Parliament should come to hear of this that they had used their endeavours against their sitting would prove an unpardonable Crime that neither the French King nor you no nor your Brother could save them from punishment these Villains knew the greatness of their Crimes and therefore they were forced to play an odd trick with you now and then to save themselves harmless but you whose nature and property was never to forgive was forced at this time to dissemble with them by your pretended acquiescing in their judgments tho' full sore against your proud Stomach and if you remember Arlington was too many for all your Party for if I am not out he would not have you to treat with the Parliament in his absence for on the Tenth of November the very day before his departure he so managed his Affairs the Parliament was put off till the thirteenth of April 1675. What overtures these two Lords made in relation to the match I cannot well tell nor will it be much to the point if I could but when they had done that for which they were sent they returned home but alas the creatures found themselves not able to prevail against Arlington by those means and arts they had then tryed they resolved now upon counsels which were to out-run him in his own course which accordingly they undertook and became as zealous men for the Protestant Religion and Liberty and Property as ever the Lord Arlington could pretend to have been before and in pursuance thereof perswaded the King your Brother to issue out those severe Orders and Proclamations against your Brethren in the Faith which you knew came out in Feb. 1674 5 by which you see they even they your own French Pensioners did what in them lay to extirpate your own dear Religion and to Banish your Brethren out of the Kingdom what ungrateful wretches were these to pursue such counsels as were in opposition to your Worship Had you advanced these Vermin O yes and they had professed much duty and service to you what Scoundrels were these so basely to leave you Come don't cry your friend Coleman knew who it was that would support you in order to this presently an Express was dispatched over to France and trusty Jack Smith was dispatched away to the Most Christian Turk and oh what Complaints you made to his Father Confessor of these Rogueries and truly it was high time to enter upon new thoughts how to preserve you in this juncture of affairs from the deceits of these men upon whom you used to depend very much for the support of your Cause alas Sir what would you have them do they had for a long time been acting in your designs till they were as obnoxious to the people as the Devil could make them it was therefore highly necessary that they should do some small matter to render themselves a little grateful to the Parliament provided there was a necessity of its sitting at the time appointed and you know that nothing was so pleasing to the Parliament as brushing of Popery s Jacket a little notwithstanding all this the sence of their Guilt was such that they had rather have seen the Devil than a Session of Parliament and therefore they would have been glad to have found out any expedient to have put it off though they durst not for their ears engage in it openly themselves But Sir what was all this but shamming the Nation for all this while like State-Moles they were hard at work under-ground to secure you for what they had done openly against your interest and the interest of the French King their point Sir was to whet your zeal for the dissolution of the Parliament and that they had been somewhat severe against the Saints of your cursed Church only to make way for a dissolution and that an objection of the people might be fairly obviated viz. that the dissolution of the Parliament was in favour of Popery which clamour theyt old you was prevented before-hand by the severity they had used against it Upon this you sent to the French King as before and made your propositions in good earnest for it was but in vain to trifle since you saw your self shammed you could but judge what sort of Cattel you had to do withal and what you had to trust to if you lay at their mercy and that you now must trust in the mighty mind of his most Christian Majesty then you made your application to him and like a good Boy you promise heartily to perform what was required from you he complies with you and so you were safe you had his Purse and so you were easie and Coleman his 20000 l. and so all was well and what could
you desire more truly Sir it was not well enough yet for not only Arlington put a great many tricks upon you and your French Pensioners had not been so close to you as they might have been if they would have put on Courage enough these you thought you might have weathered but alas Sir here was a Parliament yea a Parliament in the way that had done a thousand Rogueries against you and your party Truly Sir I pity you much what was to be done in this case I have you much in my heart for all your barbarous civilities you have shewed me yet I cannot in the abundance of my grief for you forbear laughing to see what a sad pickle you were in but as angry as you were with Arlington you could not avoid grinning at your tools to see what a distress you had brought them to for if they left you you were resolved to destroy them and if they engaged with you the Parliament would do the like therefore nothing could save you and your interest but the dissolution of that haughty Parliament Come chear up in the midst of these troubles and afflictions the old enemy of mankind stood by you for the Cause was not so low but you found a revivate you know that the French King did dispatch Letters to your Brother and pressed him to a dissolution of the Parliament and promised him a good Pension provided he would never call another was not here a friend at a pinch well what did you do in return of this favour Truly you make him a French Grimace and promise that you will improve this Royal favour of his truly it was but fit you should for there was a necessity that you should be rid of the Parliament for your Pensioners had plaid you several Jades tricks and had been very resty for several Sessions so that you could neither make them lead nor drive therefore by the advice of your Council at St. James's the French King was heartily applied to and pressed with much earnestness to write his thoughts freely to the King your Brother which you know he did and a summ of Money was sent as an earnest of the French Kings affection to your Brother and now you were in hopes all would do well but April comes and the Parliament met and no Parliament dissolved but another prorogation you upon this was very warm with your Brother upon the matter and how could he answer this to the French King At last your Brother dealt freely with you as the French King had done with him and told you that he could not tell which way to incline the Arguments indeed you and your party had used as also the French King for the dissolution were exceeding strong and not well to be answered and the Arguments for its continuance were as strong but to your great grief there was one standing Argument that carried the King your Brother on to continue them and that was this if he did try them once more they might give him Money if they did then your Brother would have gained his point and Portsmouth hers if they did not then your Brother told you he could dissolve them upon their refusal and be as he was so that he told them he was in a possibility of getting Money by their continuance But did you not see the cheat of your Brothers Argument and if you had had any Brains you would have turned the Argument upon him and have told him plain that a dissolution would have certainly procured Money and the certainty of three hundred thousand pound a year was better than the bare possibility of getting Money by the continuance of the Parliament Your Brother repented of his refusing the French Kings offer for in the year 1676 a gracious Compliance of Governing without Parliaments a la mode de France But the French Kings Maw was not set that way at that time but you good man according to your Propositions got what you aimed at in order to have your party ready to rise to do the work and tho the French King could not dissolve the Parliament he went thorow-stitch with you to dissolve both our Religion and Government this was the first great support you had 2. You had the General of the Jesuits that was another great support in your design for you did not only make application to the French King but also to him the said General of the Jesuits divers Letters were written at which time the state of the Jesuits was such that they could not contribute much they were content to part with what they were able but there was a necessity of a great Sum to begin the War to which end they were very confident that his most Christian Majesty notwithstanding the great and chargeable War in which he was ingaged against the Confederates would do what in him lay for the Restauration of the Catholick Religion in England and that therefore his Reverence was applied to do his part you may remember that Coleman your Secretary not only in your name but I suppose also by your Order did make application to his Reverence about the same Affair you did not wait long but you had the Sum of Eight Hundred Thousand Crowns that was transmitted to Coleman your Secretary by Bills under the name of Dr. Gibbs a Physician that lived at Rome and they was paid at four payments the Bills were received by one Busby a Merchant then living in London and some other of your faithful Crew in that City and at that time you may remember that the said General of the Jesuits was with much difficulty perswaded to take upon himself the Signing Commissions that were to be Issued for the Offices both Civil and Military and Ecclesiastical too so that no damage might accrue to you in case any should be so wicked as to discover the Design and that this thing might appear in its self improbable and at the time of the advice of the Monies being returned he was pleased to signifie the same to Barrillon at which you were much offended that he had not done it to your Secretary this particular passage may satisfie all mankind that you were resolved to quit the Cause with as much Honour as you could but notwithstanding when the Plot was discovered the Word saw that it was not the General of the Jesuits that was so much the leader of this Conspiracy tho' heartily engaged in it as your self and the French King and that his Signing the Commissions was but a blind to screen you from the publick Justice of the Nation and also to defend your Villainous Ally from the vengeance of the whole Protestant Interest of Europe in which quarrel those Princes that were not of the Romish Church would have not have stood neuters in so Just a Cause 3. The Bishop of Rome was another Support for when the said General of the Jesuits had undertaken the point relating to Money and had transmitted the same he
assured the Fathers of the Society here in England that the then Pope would not be wanting when any considerable progress was made in that undertaking you know what it was and it shall be laid before you in its proper place that you might not fail of the Popes assistance you had Sir Henry Tichhorne whom you constituted an Agent at Rome to negotiate your affairs with the Pope and Cardinal Howard was always ready to do his part but was much concerned to see that you made such use of Peter Talbot who was an impudent false fellow and always spoiled the business in which he was engaged and that the Pope did not much approve of Talbot's being made privy to any thing of weight but alas nothing could wean you from him and therefore it was to no purpose to perswade you but come to the point there was never yet any Conspiracy carried on but that Romish Prelate hath been at one end or another of the same I pray observe Sir what disturbances and fatal mischiefs the claim and exercise of the Papal Authority and Jurisdiction hath occasioned both to Princes and People that were of the Church of Rome therefore you might have reasonable hopes that the Pope would give you his assistance to convert three Kingdoms that had so long groaned under the burthen of Heresie and Schism for certainly when you were pleased to communicate your zeal to accomplish so mighty a work he had the same mighty mind which he expressed by his Tears when he read your Letters not for Grief but for the great Joy that the good old Gentleman had conceived for the great progress you had made in the advancement of the Catholick Religion and withal engaged to write to the French King to persevere in his good intention of furthering so good a work which Letters were carried by Tichborne and were graciously and most humbly received by Lewis your friend who was much encouraged when he saw your Brother and you blest with such an Ally Barrillon acquainted your Brother with the Pope's zeal for his being delivered from the Parliament it is well known that he closes in with every part of the design but that of his own life that your party did not communicate to him lest he shauld have begged their pardon and not have consented to be so far engaged I dare say you could not blame him it is necessary to put you in mind that Coleman made the same propositions to Cardinal Howard as you had done to the French King and he by your direction signified the great sence you had of the friendship of Lewis your Ally and of the great readiness there was in you to make such improvements of that his friendship with all those good Offices that you were capable of all which was by him the said Cardinal to be communicated to the Bishop of Rome nay he pressed the said Cardinal to use his Interest with the Pope to press the French King to engage the King of England if possible to dissolve that Parliament that was so great a Bar to your carrying on your design for the advancement of the Catholick Religion and in order to this work the Pope was accordingly pressed and he wrote to the French King to press the King your Brother to dissolve the Parliament and further to encourage him with the offer of his Purse as he had done to you but the Pope when the Cardinal discoursed him concerning a new Parliament judged no Parliament of England would ever engage in the design of restoring the Cotholick Religion therefore he thought that what was to be done must be without a Parliament and that the French King ought to consider what an advantage it would be to his greatness to be liberal in a work of this importance for whereas an old Parliament hath been hurtful to the Catholicks a new Parliament can never be supposed to do them any good therefore the good old Gentleman would by no means hear of a Parliament and so his opinion and yours was much alike but wondered at the Earl of Arlington concerning whom he was pleased to say in his Letter to the French King that he was represented to him to be a good Catholick notwithstanding the heavy charge you brought against him the said Arlington to his most Christian Majesty and withal the Cardinal by the express command from his Holiness did assure you of his Holiness his Friendship and withal he sent you his Benediction And when your design was ripe and almost ready to be put in execution the Fathers were assured that the Bishop of Rome would supply you with a competent summ of Money when he was satisfied that you had made some progress in the mighty work that you had upon your hands and truly Sir it was an expression of very great zeal in the Bishop of Rome if you will consider how he supplied the Emperour against the Male-contents in Hungary tho the Apostolic Chamber was then much in debt as it was a signal manifestation of his zeal to stand by you with his Purse so it is a proof not to be denyed that he was a mighty assistant to you in this mighty work 4. You had the Crown of Spain for your assistance in this mighty work for though Don John of Austria and the then Queen Regent of Spain was at difference about some things in relation to the Government and their own private interests yet they both agreed to joyn with you in this work of changing both the Religion and Government of this Kingdom and Circular Letters were by them both dispatched throughout the dominions of Spain and with some difficulty they raised two hundred thousand Dollars for the service of that part of the design which was to be carried on in Ireland and was paid by some Irish Merchants residing at Galloway at which Coleman was angry and thought that you ought to have had the management of the Money since that you were at the head of the design of restoring the Catholick Religion in the three Kingdoms but you reprehended Coleman since the Merchants there had paid in the Money to the Popish Arbhbishop of Dublin who was ready at your command to transmit the Money whenever you should see iâ— necessary and besides all this your Brother had a great desire at that time to borrow that very Money of you which you could the more readily deny whilst it was out of your power 5. Another support you had for the carrying the mighty work upon your hands was the Crown of Portugal and Russel the English Bishop of Portlegrah pressed the Prince of Portugal to contribute to the carrying on of the great design then in hand and had his Messengers sent about to the Religious of that Kingdom when you had raised for you the summ of fifty thousand pounds and a certain Lady was much concerned that no greater summ could be raised thence since she had prevailed with the Generals of the respective
thrive since you had the benefit of such admirable assistance so that reasonably you could expect nothing less than the extirpation of the Protestant Religion and the total overthrow of England's Liberties 4. You had a certain Queen that had received very great affronts from you know who her Bed invaded and defiled by a parcel of Whores and it was high time for her to declare her resentments by engaging her self in the Conspiracy especially since Mother Church was to be advanced and Heresie which had so long domineered in these Northern Countries to be extirpated she knew what assistance you had from aboard and therefore Good Lady she would not be behind hand at home especially since she could no otherways be revenged for all the wrong that had been done her She was brought upon the Stage for it but he that was most concerned thought he could do no less in point of Honour to preserve her though it was from the publick Justice of the Nation 5. You had your Female Companion which was pinn'd upon the Nation by the Advice and Counsel of Lewis your Ally who in order to secure your Brother and you to his Cause and Interest adopted her a Daughter of France and was to pay her Portion she was a main instrument to encourage Popery and Slavery and what intercourse there was between you and the See of Rome upon the Marriage with that hopeful piece of Houshold-stuff I have already shewed you in my first memorial the band of Pensioners had such a foresight of the sad consequences of that Marriage that they made many Votes and did Address the King your Brother to prevent the consummation thereof as appears in the Journals of the said Parliament and her carriage when she was Dutchess of York and when she wore the Name Stile and Title of Queen was a sufficient proof of her intentions to advance the design of subverting our Religion and changing the Government and murthering the King the Jesuits your trusty friends can well tell to this day 6. You had the standing Court-Whores that were engaged with you for this let me tell you that whoring and consuming the Treasure of the Nation were Crimes that were to be pardoned but their being State-Whores was the thing that rendered them in their day to be a greater grievance to the Nation for they were put upon your Brother to betray his Councils to Rome and France and it was by their aid and assistance that you compleated that mighty part of converting these Kingdoms by poysoning him for though he was a Papist yet not Papist enough to hold the Throne and what steps you took in his time you took by their assistance and sometimes you met with unexpected delays so that you could not preserve alive the work that was upon your hands and therefore it was resolved that he must dye that the work of the time might go on without contradiction or delay your Jesuits resolved upon it in the years 1676 1677 and 1678 the Whores agreed to it in 1677 8 upon the Marriage of the Prince of Orange with your Daughter 7. You had your Brother engaged with you in the whole design but that of his own life and I suppose you could not expect his consent to that part of the Conspiracy and therefore to prevent his Jealousie of that you forged a plot upon the Dissenting party and began with the Lord Claypoole who was committed to the Tower and you had two of your Popish Cut-throats ready cut and dried to have sworn him out of his life and several others so that you might destroy the King and lay his Death at the door of the Dissenting Protestants and in this Sir you happily failed when I appeared to take your Cause and Design and laid it before the Parliament who were willing to save your Brother's Reputation if it had laid in their power and his Life if he himself had been pleased graciously to consent to it but he would not and therefore through the blessing of God you did his business as effectually as if Sir George Wakeman had done it himself This I put down to shew you that since he would not let the Parliament preserve his life the destroying of which was one of the two good things that ever you did the other was your running away 8. You had our high Church brokers that through their folly and madness against poor Dissenters turn'd Pimps for nay prostituted themselves and their Cause to Rome and France rather than the Honest Party of England should escape the gracious Vengeance you designd for them Did they not to serve your Cause and Interest preach Sedition and villiâ—ie the Reformation promote Popery assert Popish Principles decry the Popish Plot and turn'd the same upon the Protestants and endeavour'd to subvert the Liberty and Property of the Subject and the Rights and Privileges of Parliaments In a word many of these Devils brokers they appear'd to all sober thinking men a very scandal and reproach to their Function And that I may clear this point I will instance in some of them by Name that the World may see these sort of Rogues how they help'd on Popery and Arbitrary Power to which they were by your Brother and you engaged and for the doing of which they had your Brother's Countenance and yours 1. The first I shall bring upon the Stage was old Sheldon a whoring wicked Fellow and in his younger days was as lewd as his Gown could make him It is well known that there was none greater than he and your Servant Coleman none more ready to satisfie your former Dutchess that she might turn Papist without any danger to her Soul This Sir was at your instance And to him 2. We joyn Morley that wicked Bishop of Winton that urged the Dutchess with the necessity of obeying her Husband and that there was but little difference between the two Religions and he hoped to live to see an Accommodation between the Church of Rome and the Church of England 3. Your old Friend Gunning he was a Fellow of rare Principles and of him I shall say nothing he having shewed himself in his own colours in the House of Lords in his time 4. Let me add old Cosins that met with his Friend a Papist after the Meeting at the Savoy upon the Return of your Brother and you to the ruine of the Nation and swore God damn me Old Boy we have sav'd Bell and the Dragon and we will not be long before we make your Church and ours to meet that we may be revenged of these Fanatick Rogues And 5. I will instance in Guy Carlton the Bishop of Chichester that said at the Bishop of Ely's Table in the hearing of Bishop Gulston and Gunning He had rather have Poperty than Presbytery in England for the Difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome might be composed but it was impossible that ever the Presbyterians and the Church of
England should ever be reconciled At which words Bishop Gulston took offence and departed There were others of the same Kidney but your inferiour Clergy were without number there was your Thompson of Bristol and your rascally Chaplains and others Rogues of a deep dye These I say Sir were your reverend Assistants in the mighty Work upon your hands though they did not foresee the evil Consequences of this their Carriage in reference to the Interest of England both as to its Religion and Government Nay I hope they did not fully see into your Designs if they did you I hope will judge of them according to their Merits 5. You being so well guarded and regarded you were in a little time resolved to set up and shew your self and wicked Party what you would be at but Sir I took pity upon you and would not let you discover your self and therefore I laid it open and the Design of your Pope French King General of the Jesuites and the Society and your Brother and your self which was the reduction of England Scotland and Ireland by the Sword to the Romish Religion and the French way of Government To effect this glorious Design you and your Brother gave the then Pope Authority to entitle himself to the Kingdoms of England Ireland and Scotland to have the absolute Power and Government of the Church In order to this he dispatched his Legate into Ireland and Cardinal Howard was to have come for England and your Brother 's trusty and well-beloved Cuckold and Councellor was to have had a Cardinals Hat and was to have gone for Scotland to have taken Possession of the Ecclesiastical State of that Kingdom in the behalf of the Bishop of Rome the two others were to do the like in England and Ireland Moreover sir by your Brother and you it was contrived and agreed on that the General of the Jesuites should derive a pretended Power from the Bishop of Rome with which Project the French King was highly pleased According to this Project the Bishop of Rome did grant a Commission to the said General of the Jesuites and this Authority the said General did derive to Thomas White the Provincial to issue forth the Commissions of him the said General of the Jesuites and accordingly be with the Counsel of the Jesuites in London did issue forth such Commissions to Captain-Generals Lieutenant-Generals and Colonels Lieutenant-Colonels Majors Captains and the Advocate-General Richard Langhorn and to your Secretary of State Coleman you have a whole List of them in my Narrative already printed and published for your special service altho' not by your Royal Command Further to carry on your wicked Designs your Jesuites by the same Authority consulted concerning your Brother and because he was not a Galloper in your Cause he was by them condemned to death and that was to be executed either by stabbing shooting or poysoning him To this your Servant Coleman was privy and say you know nothing of the matter if you dare to this part of the Conspiracy The Court of Claims in Ireland if they had then been sitting would have declared him Innocent upon your Letter as they did the Marquis of Antrim upon your Brother 's nay Sir if they had carried their Point then you were to have received the Crowns as forfeited by your Brother to the Pope as of his Gift and you was to have been obliged to have such Prelates and Dignitaries in the Church and such Officers in Commands and Places civil naval and military as he had and should commissionate and you had agreed both with him and the French King to extirpate the Protestant Religion and to consent to the Assassination of the King your Brother and to massacre by the help and assistance of the French King the Protestants to Fire our Towns that stood in opposition to these cruel designs of yours You agreed to pardon the Assassines Murderers and Incendiaries and in case you died without Issue male these three Kingdoms were to be made three Provinces of France and become Subjects of that Crown for ever Here your Brother and you were engaged to the French King And that the Prince of Orange might not pretend to the same he was also condemned and designed against by Name by the Proviso and Consent of the Pope French King your Brother and your self and how you appear'd in the Design against him I have already set forth in my first Memorial to you Truly you your self must not have escaped if you had not heartily comply'd to follow such Steps and Counsels as should have been at any time proposed by your Counsellors at St. James's You have here laid before you the design in short and it was a black one God knows and What say you to it now Sir if you will let the little Gentleman of Wales learn to read I have a good Schoolmaster for him he may see here the true Picture of your sweet self which he may spell over by degrees for I would not have the Boy have too much load at a time laid upon him lest he should be disabled from serving the Tyler his true Father with a Hod of Mortar or so in order to its conformable Livelihood 6. Concerning the discovery of this Plot of yours 't is fit a word should be spoken to that point because I believe the revival of this Story will much oblige you and your ragged Crew at St. Germain's and your Saints you have left behind you You may remember that your design prosper'd so well and your damnable Arâ—y were so insolent that notwithstanding the fair pretences your Brother and you used for the keeping them up and your old Parliament briber put your Brother upon the asking of more Mony and no War with France notwithstanding they had so largely paid for the War they had advised to be begun with that mighty Monarch and they consider'd that an Army without a War would be of dangerous and pernicious consequence to the Nation therefore they agreed to this Vote in answer to your Brother's Speech made to them some time before Resolved That the House taking into consideration the state of His Majesty's Affairs and the great charge and burthen His Majesty and the Nation lies under by the Army now in being we humbly are of opinion that if His Majesty pleases to enter into a War with the French King the House is and always will be ready to support and assist in that War but if otherwise then they will proceed to the consideration of providing for the speedy disbanding of the Army And truly dear Sir you could not well blame the Parliament for this Vote for your design in general did to them appear notwithstanding the plausible Arguments your Villains used for the keeping up of that Popish Army tho' you know this disbanding the Army was not the thing you aimed at for you never designed it from the first moment that it was raised for it being Officer'd to your
surrender'd and to aggrandize the Merriment there comes over some great Personages from France and were very much pleased with the Court and the secret Devices suddenly to be put in execution after the next meeting of Parliament was agreed on all was well with you the Whores â—risking about Nell and her Mistris and the rest were as merry as the Maids and all your roguing Banditti hugg'd themselves with the great Happiness they were to enjoy Well Sir I do believe they were merry about their Mouths and they had a great deal of reason for all things went on in a sweet harmony and so it did at Belshazar's Feast till the Hand appear'd writing upon the Wall and then they were all confounded and amazed So it was with you for in the midst of all your Merriment in the Month of August all on a sudden a black Cloud appear'd which did prognosticate a Storm to fall upon you even in the height of all your Expectations and tho' it seem'd to you and your Cut-throats to be but a Triâ—le and small at the beginning yet by degrees it encreased extreamly and that was the most secret Devices of you and your Conspirators for your introducing Popery and Arbitrary Government came in some small measure to be discover'd by an old hearty Friend of yours but you had your Penniworths out of his Carcass for his Service in that particular Well to be plain with you it was my own dear self that makes this modest Address to you and if any one say that ever I gave you one good word in my Life I will be his humble Servant that proves it Before I quit this Point I must answer two Questions that have been ask'd me by several persons 1. What was the Opportunity I had of making this Discovery and 2. Why or to what end I made the Discovery 1. What the Opportunity was that I had of making the Discovery And truly this I must say and take Shame to my self the course I took to get into the Secrets of the Jesuites was no way warrantable from the Word of God for I dissembled my self to be a Papist and yet was none one that pretended Zeal for their Religion and at that time was an avowed Enemy to them and their Religion I have asked God forgiveness and all true Protestants I am sure God hath pardon'd the Sin of his Servant since he had no other thing before his Eyes but the Good of his Country and the Honour of God tho' I confess to do the least Evil that the greatest Good might come of it is unlawful and I am sure there is no true Protestant in England but what will not only forgive my doing that Evil in joyning with the Church of Rome to discover the Designs carried on by you and your Conspirators but will stand by my Truth that I did at that time discover I have reason to bless God for that they have given good Testimony of their Zeal for the Cause of God upon my account and reliev'd my Necessities and visited me when sick and in Prison and were not asham'd of my Chain But I would not have any man to think that tho' God was pleas'd to bless my poor Labours for the good of the Publick to follow my Example in joyning with that cursed Communion tho' his design be never so honest lest God in Justice leave him to the Counsel of their own Wills But it may be you are impatient and therefore I shall hasten to my intended business which is to declare my self fully to you concerning the Opportunities I had of discovering the cursed Intrigues of the Jesuites and the cursed Plot you carried on for the destruction of our Laws Liberties and Religion I must tell you that the acquaintance I had with some considerable Papists in the Year 1670 made me suspect a Design carried on by them to advance their Religion and to pull down ours but I little thought they had a design of murdering the King which in process of time I found out there was one Cotton that was at Mr. Guildford's in Kent this Gentleman was a free-spoken man and would be often tempting me to come over to their Church For said he it will not be long before you must either burn or turn therefore come over to us in time that your Coming may be meritorious This Cotton I in time found out to be a Priest of the Jesuites Order and one that was engaged in the Popish Plot and when I was engaged Sir with your Coleman and the Society I had with him a better acquaintance From him at first I found that the Popish Party had a Design then on foot to promote their Religion and were making what Proselytes they could in order to enlarge their Interest and Power in this Kingdom I from that time had a great desire to get into them to see whither their Designs tended being very fearful that they design'd no less than the total subversion of our Religion and Government for this Cotton had the Impudence to tell me That your Brother was engag'd with you and the Catholick Party to advance your Cause and Religion and was resolv'd to bring in Popery it being a Religion that was most consistent with Monarchy and that your Brother was resolv'd to be like his Neighbour Princes This was in the Year 1670 about Christmas which Discourse I discover'd to Mr. Walter Drury whom I did assist in the Service of his Cure at Sandhurst in the County of Kent and he told me that Mr. Cotton had talked as plainly or rather worse to him but he had sufficiently told him his own so that Cotton was shy of having any farther Discourse with him about those matters and withal Mr. Drury having threatned to complain of him Mr. Cotton did withdraw from that Family and another came in his room In the Year 1672 I was acquainted with one Keimash who used very perswasive Arguments to me to have brought me over to their Church he then frequented Arundel House in the Strand and was a Fellow that had insinuated himself into the acquaintance of several Divines of the Church and bragged That he had reconciled above thirty Ministers of the Ch. of England but I found him a debauch'd lewd fellow and so my acquaintance ceased with him for it was a hard matter unless in a Morning to find him â—ober I found him afterwards to have been Chaplain to the old Countess of Arundel with whom he liv'd several Years under the notion of her Steward In the Year 1672 I left Mr. Drury's Cure and held a Living of my own upon which I resided for some time call'd Bobbing in Kent and from thence I went and serv'd the King at Sea as a Chaplain where I found many difficulties by reason of sickness of Body I refreshed my self at Tangier where was one Gerard an Irish Dominican that upon the first sight of me enquir'd whether the Catholick Religion was establish'd in England
this was in the Year 1674 in the Month of April I told him No. Why then said he the Dutch War is to no purpose Why said I was our engaging in a War against the Dutch to bring in Popery Well well said the Fryar you will see in time In some few days we had notice of a Peace with the Dutch of which I told the said Fryar What then said he our great King of France is not at peace with him and he must do the work In the Year 1675 I had obtain'd an Interest with Henry Duke of Norfolk then Earl of Norwich and Earl-Marshal of England who was very kind to me upon the account of my contending earnestly for his Right of presenting to a Living in the Diocess of Chichester to which Living the then Bishop a turbulent man pretended a Right of Collating and in the Year 1676 I was made Chaplain to the said Duke of Norfolk I think the whole Family will bear witness of my Fidelity to him and his Children In the Service of the said Duke I came acquainted with several Priests and being then resolv'd upon a strict enquiry into their designs against us our Religion Laws and Liberties I met with one Berry a Priest that had been a Jesuite but had left that Order thro' some discontent and madness that had seiz'd the poor Wretch I found him a poor zealous man whose Zeal was far beyond his Knowledge but this Berry brought me acquainted with Mr. Langworth a Jesuite and John Keins and Will. Morgan that was then Priest to the Lord Powys both Jesuites who gain'd my Consent to go over to the Church of Rome and truly a few Arguments prevail'd with me because I had a deâ—ire to see what they were doing so that in some measure I might prevent that impending danger that seem'd to threaten England with no less than an â—â—recoverable ruine But this as I said before was my great Evil tho' my design in it was honest just and good and Sir you know that it did turn to a good account and would have turn'd to a better account had not I met with your Opposition who was concern'd in all and your Brother in every part but that of his own Life But in short I was by this Langworth reconcil'd to the Church of Rome he was Father-Confessor to the Lord Peâ—re and his Family Upon my being reconciled I was brought to Richard Strange then Provinciate of the Jesuites who admitted me into the Society and when I was admitted it was resolv'd by the Jesuites that I should pass the time of my Novitiate abroad in dispatching business for the Society which I cheerfully accepted as an advantageous Opportunity of doing that for which I was reconcil'd and admitted into their Order and therefore accordingly they provided for me When I had paid Mr. Luke Roach Commander of a Biscay Merchant bound for Bilboa the said Strange the Provincial gave me One hundred Pistols for my supply in order for my passage into Spain and for my necessary Expences there and order'd me what other Monies I should need I then apply'd my self to a certain Nobleman who was privy to my being reconciled to the Church of Rome and had much pressed me to it in order to see what Work your Rogues were at He paid into my hands â—oo Guineas which I chang'd here in England and receiv'd Bills upon Father Swinaâ— the Procurator-General for the English and Irish Jesuiâ—es who paid me in Dollâ—rs â—o my Hearts content What Letters they sent by me you shall have â—n account of in their proper place And when I had got a competent Knowledge of their Design then on foot which was to murder your Brother because he had so often deceiv'd them for they assur'd me he had been reconcil'd to their Church and that upon his Reconciliation the Society in Spain had contributed 3000 Pistols to his support which was paid in by Father Couâ—tney some time Provinciate of the English Jesuits I saw several Letters written by your Brother to one Father Knot in which the King your Brother testified his Zeal for the Catholick Religion and promis'd to restore it whenever he should come to the enjoyment of his Right in England and till he had an Opportunity to do it they should have all the Connivance in the World and if the Case should go so hard wiâ—h him when he came to the Crown that he could not bring about their desires to make their Religion to be the Religion of the Government yet they should have an Indulgence that should be an Equivalent and however they should not be excluded from Offices and Imployments of Trust and that they had his Heart and Soul In a word I was engag'd with the Jesuites two Years and I found it high time to discover what I had learnt from them and your Servant Coleman who you know was a main Agent in this Hellisâ— Design I had a hopeful Prospect of being countenanc'd by your Brother and you and sometimes the thoughts of the Difficulties I was like to meet withal would make me tremble I apply'd my self to my noble Friend of whose Mony I had spent One thousand Pounds in the Discovery and he bid me be of good courage and I should carry my Point to the confusion of them all I also communicated the business to Dr. â—ongâ—â— and â—e to Mr. Christopher Kirkâ—y and Mr Kirkâ—y communicated the same to the King and intrusted the then Lord â—reasurer 〈◊〉 the discovery 〈…〉 that the Discoverer should keep in wâ—th the Jesuites and observe theâ—â— Motions and from time to time discover wâ—at he had learned from them But Kâ—â—kâ—y could not but see your Brother's coolness in the Affair therefore to justâ—â—e himself on the sixth of September he had my Narrative attested by my Oath before Sir Edmund-Bury Goâ—frâ—y and when you and the whole Court came from Windsor I was before Godfrey the 28th day in the Morning being Saturday and swoâ—â— to a compleat Narrative of the Popish Design and at Night I attended the Privy-Council where I gave an account of so much of the whole Affair as was convenient so the whole Board saw that the Jesuites and Papists who were in strict Alliances with the other Conspirators to root out the Protestant Religion and Government And tho' all the Conspirators of the French Interest were in the Grand Plot yet you know there were some of the Jesuites and Priests and Noblemen and Gentlemen of the Romish Communion in conjunction with your self had no Patience to stay the ordinary course to establish Popery and Arbitrary Power which the other Rogues had resolved upon at White-hall to be done in its due time and to go on gradually being well assur'd of your Game if it was not spoil'd thro' rashness and therefore some of your French Pensioners were not made privy to the Secrets of somâ— of the Priests and Jesuites Councels at St. James's Weld-house and elsewhere for you know
oblig'd the House to send for the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs privately who sign'd Warrants for the apprehending several Popish Lords and committed them to several Prisons about the Town And another Gentleman being under consideration which at last came to an Accusation and an Impeachment for that it was found out by his Letters the Intrigues he held with your Ally for Mony to procure a Peace and deceive the Parliament which Letters were preserv'd and brought into the House by the procurement of a worthy Gentleman since a Peer of the Realm who had wisely kept them against a rainy day upon which many of the open case-harden'd Rogues began to trudge beyond the Seas and some of your Plotters found it too hot for England to hold them for the Murther of Justice Godfrey stuck upon our Stomachs without the least prospect of being digested and several of his Murtherers did travel for fear of being call'd to an account for that bloody piece of Villany or of being in the Plot to murther the King And to give you your due you did bestir your self and that the Journeys of these your Villains might be more easie you had a couple of good-natur'd Rogues that made no Bones to oblige you with a cast of their Office that these Vermin might not be stopt in their way by which they would have endanger'd themselves and you too and lost their Cause in which they had been true Drudges to your Brother and your self You did also take more than special care for the securing a jolly number of Jesuites who were blest with the same Fortune by the Assistance of your aforesaid Hell hounds to get over the Herring pond I commend the Diligence of the English Gentlemen of the House of Commons but the Sons of Zerviah were too many for them for the Ministry at that time of the day to serve you were willing to help their Brethren in Iniquity and as the Parliament were ready to detect the black piece of Villany you and these Rogues were engag'd in the Court and the Conspirators were as diligent to conceal if not on the contrary far to outdo them in supplanting the Discovery Truly to give the House of Lords their due they acted with as much Prudence as the Commons they appointed a secret Committee consisting of five or six Lords and by this Committee whilst it was a secret one and whilst they kept their Examinations private they did discover your sweet self God bless you and the Queen-Dowager to be in the bottom of the Design And the Duke of Buckingham having for some considerable time had a Scheme of the Conspiracy from my self he well understood how to manage the Discovery to a Hairs breadth and he certainly did it with admirable dexterity and committed all men of whom there was the least suspicion by which method several things were discover'd to that Committee which would otherwise never have come to light and especially about the Murther of Godfrey This Sir struck a mighty Terror into the Hearts of several of your Vermin that made them both fear and tremble and some of them whose Hearts God had touched as you say in your reverend Letter from Rochester began to think of discovering your wicked Designs against the King your Brother and our Religion Laws and Liberties and the Murther of that innocent Magistrate What News next I think it is a Question may be ask'd without your making that sowre Face you will turn my Stomach presently if you do not accept of this Goodwill of mine with a more cheerful Countenance therefore without the Ceremony of making that Fridays Mouth let us go on and let me observe to you that the Nation was in a great confusion and expected nothing less but that you and your Cut-throats would begin your Church-work of converting this Nation by a Baptism of Blood and this great City by a Baptism of Fire and that we might be preserv'd as well from the one as the other the Parliament resolv'd to have the Nation in a posture of defence and to raise the Militia throughout the Kingdom and therefore prepar'd a Bill for that purpose for the Militia to be in Arms for so many days which Bill passed both Houses without difficulty but you and your Hell-born Crew seeing this great Zeal and sweet Harmony between both Houses and that they were resolv'd as well to defend the Nation as to â—ecure us from farther Mischief you by the Advice of your Counsellors who had the Impudence to stay behind made use of this Stratagem to divide your Brother from the Houses and put a stop to the passing the Bill for you were filled with Horror of the Militia's being raised lest your Rogues should be put out of their Traces and be a means to frustrate all your designs After the Parliament was risen you possessed your Brother with the danger of the Bill and whatever he did he should not pass it for it was too great a Trust to be reposed in the People and that it would be of a sad consequence to himself No Sir you were out the true danger would have been yours and not the King 's and your Brother knew it well enough and he therefore was as willing to deny the passing the Bill as you and your Rogues were to have him The Bill being rejected your Brother was troubled at the Parliaments resenting the refusal of the passing so necessary a Bill then he began to wheedle with the Parliament and declar'd that he was ready to assent to any Bill that he should have tender'd to him for the security of the Kingdom by the Militia so that the whole power of calling or not calling continuing or not continuing them together during the time limited was in him and that he might be the sole Judge of the publick Security So we thank'd him for nothing and the business fell Come on then here was by this time a Mess of sad Tydings for here a second Witness appears and brings in a more full Discovery of Godfrey's Murther this Witness was your old Friend Mr. Bedloe who was employ'd or was at least privy to the Intrigue and had been greatly employ'd to carry on the Plot beyond the Seas by the Priests and Jesuites so that now your dear Friend's Testimony was in a most unexpected manner corroborated and confirm'd Upon his coming in you and your Crew were much out of countenance and cast down but it was not for your Party to stand still and therefore to work you go and endeavour to discourage him and cry down his Evidence and to baffle him upon his Knowledge of the Rooms in Somerset-house where the murthered person lay but in good truth it did you no manner of Service for the Parliament was then sitting and the secret Committee of Peers had got his Examination so that by Bedloe's fresh Evidence all but your Conspirators and your self were well pleased And he having been now throughly examin'd both as
to the Murther and Plot made such Discoveries that the two Houses began to look about them with more diligence and caution than ever in regard it plainly appear'd that you as well as the Jesuites were at the bottom of all this Villany or the Wheel within the Wheel which some of your Protestant Rogues were not privy to Well here you have an account of the Discovery Prance confesseth the Murther Dugdâ—le comes in and Jennison and Smith and many others I shall speak of them in their proper places Methinks you droop take a Glass of true Nants and give Mrs. Pugg another if it be not good for her Milk it may be good for her Water and so it 's all one bring the Sucking bottle to the little Welch Cub that we may have no noise for if he doth I will call for Will. Fuller your Puggs Page of Honour to jerk the young Kâ—ave if he be not quiet for he is as intimately acquainted with his true Mother if the Gentleman says the Truth or can speak Truth as your sweet self I suppose he was one of your Privy-Councellors once at St. Germain's and may pretend to have Authority in that case But I must stick to my point and come to a second thing I promised and that is to shew the reason of this Discovery 2. Was there such a Design on foot to destroy the King extirpate the Protestant Religion and subvert the Government and ought not this to be discover'd What if the Queen-Dowager were in it and you and the Court-Whores and the Court pimps and Court-Bawds and some of the Ministers of State and Justice and your villanous Council at St James's must they not be detected Were we to be afraid to speak the Truth No Sir it was not high time to speak Truth Yes Sir it was high time and more than high time But yet your Brother good man to save you and your party did in the month of November 1678 offer me at Secretary Coventry's Apartment the Bishoprick of Chichester and also promised me the Favour of advancing me if I would desist this Enterprize as he call'd the discovery of the Popish Plot assuring me that it would not be for his Service because of the heat it would put the people into and further told me That the Parliament would forsake me and not do any thing for me and if I had a Thought of complying with him I should meet him at the Prince's Lodgings but I went to the Prince and told him what the King had said who when he heard me give him an account of what the King had offer'd me and upon what terms The poor man said the Prince doâ—h court his own Ruine the most of any man I know And the Prince advis'd me not to meddle nor make with any thing of that Nature for said the Prince either he will cheat or expose you or if he be real there is an old Wife in the case who will be set on you to draw you off from the good work you have began or perhaps to do that which is worse and so I refused that offer and let me tell you farther that upon the discovery of the Plot several Papers were found at the House of one Jolliff a Taylor I did observe that CHARLES I. of Blessed Memory had commissionated several of the Irish to Rise and withal I saw the Instructions that were given to them to give the English no quarter and I saw a Letter of your Fathers to the Bishop of Casal as near as I can remember wherein he promised his Catholick Subjects that if he were driven through the necessity of Affairs to cause a Cessation of Arms it should not be for the Disadvantage of his Irish Catholick Subjects but to let them have a little time to breath so that they might be the better able to serve him and themselves against the Factious English there if there should be any remaining amongst them all which were carried to White-hall and what became of them I know not I saw also in those Papers found as aforesaid at the House of the said Jollife several Passes given to those of the Rebels that fled out of Ireland upon the reducing of that Country and notwithstanding they had shed much Protestant Blood they were by your Brother and you recommended to several Ministers of the Court of Spain and several other Princes of the Romish Religion as persons that had served your Father in reducing their Country to the Obedience of the Catholick Church and that had contributed much to the destroying of the English Hereticks that had planted themselves in that Kingdom Give me leave to observe farther to you that the Jesuits did tell me that the coming over of the Princess Henrietta was in order to make way for restoring the Catholick Religion here in England and that the Breach of the peace with the Dutch was by you and her contrived and by the late King consented to in order to reduce those States to the Catholick Faith and that it was thought fit to begin the Exercise of the Romish Religion in Ireland and to grant a general Toleration here in order to which sixteen hundred Priests of all orders were sent over from divers Nations and that the most of 'em were kept here on a maintenance for secret Service and others by your self in half Pay as disbanded Officers but this being all defeated by Parliament by your Brothers Assent they were much irritated against the King your Brother and so was your sweet self and furthermore the Jesuits acquainted me that the King your Brother had dispatched an Envoy to the King of Poland to engage him in the Catholick League for at that time the Catholick Princes as he said were resolved to extirpate the Protestant Religion and that the French King and your Brother and your self were Heads of this League which League they said your Brother had not carefully kept and observed but had given way to his impertinent Parliaments but that they might not hinder this good Design the French King had agreed to your Request of 300000 l. per Ann. for 3 years if by any means your Brother might be dispatched out of the way there being no manner of trust to be put in him and that he was not only unfaithful in all his Promises and Oaths made to them the said Jesuits and Catholicks but was an Apostate from the Catholick Religion and therefore not to be endured any longer This Negotiation of the mony Part of the Conspiracy and killing your Brother was carried on by the Lord Powy's and the late Earl of Berkshire and Coleman and St. Germain the Jesuit by and with the advice of the Jesuits and those of your Council at St. James's and your good worthy self It will not be inconvenient to put you in mind that your Brother was a mortal Hater of the Protestant Religion and the way of Governments by Parliaments for do but observe a Letter
if it were so necessary to have it known that your Crew were not men of that Loyalty they pretended why then were not the Witnesses better receiv'd by the King your Brother who the last moment of his Life was satisfied of the Innocency of the Roman Catholicks Truly Sir there were several reasons why the King your Brother it may be might not receive the witnesses so well and believe them as he ought to have done 1. Because he was engag'd in the whole Conspiracy of introducing Popery and Slavery but was not privy to that part which related to his own Life 2. Your Brother lov'd to appear a Prince of Mercy and Clemency tho' he had not one dram of those Princely Virtues but what his meer Cowardice compel'd him to 3. The Nature of the Evidence given 4. The Interest of the Conspirators These you shall have in due time and not before tho' you cry your Eyes out 3 Reason why it was necessary that your Conspiracy should be discover'd was to prevent your coming to the Crown for certainly it could be neither safe nor proper to set a Popish Head over a Protestart Interest especially since you had made so many Attempts upon the Protestant Religion to destroy it and in order to its destruction made such an Alliance with France as I have at large already made out in which I think you are as fully expos'd as your Heart and Soul can wish and therefore Sir I think you noâ— your Party can never blame those Parliaments that intended and attempted your Exclusion when you was Duke of York 4 That I might discharge a good Conscience and that such Malefactors might be brought to publick Justice It is well known Sir that the King your Brother was a Favourer of the Popish Interest as being the greatest Favourers of Monarchy and he was pleas'd himself to offer to reconcile me to that Party and told me That if I would engage upon the word of a Minister not to bear any Testimony against those I had accused before the Council but would be rul'd by him I should have Ten thousand pounds to buy me an Annuity and if I would I should retire to any College in either University and live there quietly urging to me that a Parliament would never gratifie me and that it was in his power only to shew me Favour and therefore advised me to follow his Directions and if I did it would be impossible for me to miscarry To this I thus reply'd I humbly thank your Majesty for your Grace and Favour and I should willingly accept of your Royal Offer were it not the highest Breach of Trust reposed in me by your Commons in this Parliament besides Sir said I your Nobles in the House of Peers must and so will all Mankind judge me the worst of Men if I should so basely desert my Cause It is plain that the Popish Party have a Design against your Majesties Life and all our Lives Liberties and Religion and therefore by the Grace of God I will stand by the Cause to the uttermost of my power to the last minute of my Life I bless God for the Grace of Perseverance I have discharg'd a good Conscience and tho' I was left by your Brother and persecuted by you yet your Villains were some of them brought to publick Justice and made Examples for their many notorious Treasons against the Religion Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom 7. I now come to shew you what Evidence there was to prove this Conspiracy that you were engag'd in for the destruction of the Person of the King and for the bringing in of Popery and Aâ—bitrary Power Your Popish Traytors were so impudent in their ways that there was no manner of difficulty of finding Proof against them had but your Brother and you stood Neuters but you were both equally engag'd with Lewis the French King to bring in Popery and Slavery But that it may appear to all the World that the Popish Plot was not short of being duly proved but on the contrary it was made so plain and evident that the Lords and Commons of England did receive the Proofs and the Evidence upon no terms could be contradicted therefore now I shall produce the Evidence of the Guilt of those who were accused to be concern'd in the same 1. The constant bloody Principles of the Church of Rome was a Testimony sufficient to have convicted them of being guilty of such a horrid Conspiracy for do but remember how that Apostatical Synagogue of Satan will not bear with any Kingdom Common-wealth or Community of Men that differs from them in Matters of Religion and declares against them as Antichristian and Idolaters but those who so declare are immediately pronounced Hereticks and de jure they are excommunicated as such according to the Council of Lateran in the time of Pope Innocent the third and by an Edict of Pope Paul the fourth in the Year of our Lord 1558 and if that be not sufficient you may remember that we are in the Bulla Coena Domini which your Holy Father at Rome causeth to be read every Maunday Thursday and there we are solemnly cursed and thereupon Sir your bloody Party and your self and all other Papists living under the Dominions of Protestant Princes were not only discharg'd from all Allegiance to Protestant Princes but all of you were and still are bound by the strictest Bond of Conscience upon pain of being damn'd to depose such Heretical Princes And Vrban the third hath taught you and them that they are so far from being guilty of Murder that they are obliged to kill any who stand excommunicate and are bound to extirpate Hereticks as they would be esteem'd Christians themselves Nay further do but observe the Bull of Clement the tenth wherein you may if you please see plainly that it is a Crime of the deepest dye for a Roman Catholick to be loyal to a Protestant Prince nay such are publickly cursed in the view of the World so that it is apparent that no Protestant Government can be safe where such a number of Men have a Being and are in any manner countenanc'd Again Bellarmin your great Cardinal tells you in words at length and is so impudently plain that a man of an Irish Understanding may know his meaning his words are these Hereticks are to be destroy'd Root and Branch if it can possibly be done but if it appears that the Catholicks are so few that they cannot conveniently with their own safety attempt such a thing then in such a case it is best to be quiet de Laicis Lib. 3 Ep. 22. Lest upon opposition made by Hereticks the Catholicks should be worsted And from hence Bannes another of the Supporters of your murdering principles hath no other Apology to make for the English Papists why they do not forcibly rise up against a King and his Subjects proâ—essing the Protestant Religion but that they are not powerful enough for such an
Undertaking and therefore the Attempt would be to their own prejudice and damage So that ever since the English Nation was blest with the enjoyment of your happy return to England the whole Protestant Party only held their Lives at your Courtesie and the Courtesie of your Cut-throat Papists till you were in a condition by numbers and strength to destroy and extirpate them I cannot by this time but admire your good-natur'd Bloodhounds that did for seventeen Years together forbear to destroy us it was because that one of our Lives would have cost three of yours You may remember Sir that in the Year 1678 you had got at several times from 1674 to that Year about 20000 Men that were able to draw the Sword of your own Religion to reside in and about London who were under your pay to rise as soon as the word was given which word was the Death of your Brother the King they being Officer'd with your Popish Crew were to have joyn'd with your Army that was encamp'd at Hoâ—nslow-Heath and in order to this the French King had promis'd you to land an Army in Ireland and another in England at the same time when you were resolv'd to push for it and then we should have tasted of the Good nature of your Popish Crew as our Friends in Ireland did in your Father's Reign It is to be observ'd that you wanting numbers at home and knowing that 20000 men were not sufficient to do the mighty Work upon your hands which was the extirpation of Hereticks and the ruine of the Protestant Party but wanting a back for your edge you therefore applied your self to France for his Aid and Assistance which you had obtain'd sooner had not that bloody Monster been engag'd in a villanous War with his Neighbors but as soon as he had made a peace with them then you were resolv'd upon the aforesaid mighty Work but by that time your Designs were discover'd and the French King was obliged for that time to change his measures and so were all the Popish Princes of Christendom Your villanous party of the Synagogue of Rome did at that time judge it convenient to draw in their Horns and conceal these foregoing principles or suffer them for a season to lye dormant by them Yet to give you your due you never suffer'd us to be any considerable time without some Testimony of your Good-will to us to shew us how ready you and your Cut-throats were to do thâ—â—e meritorious Offices of converting us with a Baptism of Blood and of Fire But God I hope will keep this Land from the one and London from the other 2. This brings me to the villanous Practices of your Church and your Party in all Ages which are living Testimonies against your villanous Crew to this day I pray call to mind the vast numbers of Christians that have been butcher'd by the Roman Inquisition of which it is reported that Pope Paul the fourth should say That the Authority of the See of Rome depended upon it and that it was settled in Spain by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost not that which came down from Heaven but that which was sent to Rome in a Cloak-bag Remember what infinite slaughters were committed upon the Servants of Christ by the Crusades and Holy Wars Authentick Authors tell us That in France alone Ten hundred thousand Persons were slain in the persecution against the Waldenses and upon no other occasion but their dissenting from the Church of Rome What think you of the Parisian Massacre by which in a few days there were murder'd above Forty thousand persons for no other reason but because the Church of Rome had adjudg'd 'em Hereticks I could give you â— thousand Instances of their Attempts abroad but my point is to put you iâ— mind of their Attempts here at home I pray call to mind that upon the Reformation of Religion in the time of King Edward the sixth how many Rebellions were raised against the King and the then Government at the instigation of the Priests and Fryars It would not be amiss for you to read at your leisure the Chronicles of England that testifie the same the number of the Rebels may be judg'd by the account we have of those that were slain and those that were taken Prisoners at some of the Defeats that were given unto them Of those that did rise in Devonshire and Cornwal about Five thousand were slain and taken Prisoners and in the Râ—bellion in Norfolk and Suffolk about Five thousand were slain that were in Rebellion in those Counties besides those who were taken Prisoners and the Rebellion in Yorkshire in which many were destroy'd After the death of King Edward the sixth you may remember that Queen Mary mounted the Throne tho' some say that she was in her own nature merciful yet her Religion obliged her to those Cruelties which left an indeleble stain upon her Memory For her sake as well as for your own the Commons of England endeavour'd to exclude you We remember also that tho' her Reign was but short yet like yours it was very bloody for in the campass of three or four Years there perish'd in the Flames near Three hundred and as many if noâ— more perish'd in Prison through Torment and Famine and all barely upon the score Religion Upon her Death and upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the Crown Religion was again reform'd and notwithstanding the hard usage she had met withal from the Popish Party and the Cruelty that had been us'd upon the poor Protestants she not only buried all resentments but was willing to suffer the Papists to live quietly both in the enjoyment of their Estates and in the private exercise of their Religion Surely you then cannot but with the greatest Horror consider by how many ways the Pâ—pists attempted to destroy her Person and overthrow the Government by Assassinations Conspiracies Rebellions at home and Invasions from abroad In pursuance to their bloody Designs Pius the Fifth did not only excommunicate and damn her and all her Protestant Subjects but likewise curst all the Papists that should give any Obedience to her or her Laws the whole Bull proceeded upon her being a Heretick and the said Pius in a most holy and reverend manner deprived her of all her Dominions and Dignities and absolved all her Subjects from any Obligation of Allegiance and included them under the same Curse tho' Papists that should yield any subjection to her And have not your villanous Crew exemplified this Doctrine by their Practices obeying the Commands of their Roman High-Priest for I may say the Treasons against that great Queen were more in number than the Years of her Reign but through the Goodness of God all their wicked Designs and Purposes were defeated and she died in peace much lamented by all her Protestant Subjects King James your Royal Scotch Grandfather succeeded her the same course they took with him Parsons that impudent
and let him read over the Canoâ—s and Decrees of your Church and Councils see the Decree of Pope Vrban We do not esteem them Murtherers saith that godly Prelate who shall happen to kill a person that is excommunicate out of Ardour and Zeal to thâ—â—r Mother the Catholick Church 2dly Gâ—ve me leave to observe to you what impudent Lyars your trusâ—y and well-beloved Councellors and Conspirators the â—ive Jesuites were that blest the Gallows in the Year 1679 and danced a singular Courant when they came to Tyburn They said that there was but one Jesuite that ever maintain'd that Doctrine and that was Mariana Truly Sir you knew that was an impudent Lye with which they jump'd out of the World and the People that saw them take their last Leaves of old England believ'd them much alike in other parts of their last words for they that would dye with so great a Lye as that would not make bones of twenty more rather than fail for Aâ—dâ—rton the Rector of the College of Rome and Campton the Minister of the College and Green the Procurator and Souâ—hwell that was Assistant to Father Oliva the then General Father Buckley good man that was like to have been hang'd for Buggery in Spain not because of the Sin but because it was made publick these you will say were Preachers only but none ever wrote for it but Mariana Was not Tolet a Jesuite And I pray see what he saith he was an honest man I assure you these are his sweet words That Subjects are not bound to maintain invâ—â—aâ—e their Oath of Allegiance to an excommuâ—icate Prince Was not Bellarmin a Jesuite and doth not he affirm that the Pope hath the same Right and Power over Kings as Jâ—â—â—jâ—dâ— had over Athaliah Was not Greâ—â—lentâ—a a Jesuite and doth not he in his Writings affirm That the Pope may deprive Heretical Kings of all dominion and superiority over their Subjects Was not Creswell a Jesuite and doth not he affirm that if a Prince be not of the Romish Religion he loseth all right and title to govern and that his Subjects are discharg'd from all Obligation of Obedience and that he may be proceeded against as an â—nemy of Mankind Was not Francisâ—â—s Varona Constantinâ—s a Jesuite doth not he in his Apology for John Chastele who wounded Henry the fourth of France your Grandfather tell us That it is lawful for a private man to destroy Kings and Princes condemn'd of Heresie Is not this point so evident that de Haâ—lâ—y the first President of the Parliament of Paris who both knew the Doctrine of the Jesuites and had seen the woful Effects of it in the murder of two Kings of France publickly avow'd it to be their common Doctrine in all their Writings That the Pope hath a Right to excommunicate Kings and thereupon their Subjects may with Innocence assault and destroy them What a sort of a weak Memory you may have I know not but of this I am sure that our English Nation which thro' God's Blessing you may â—ever see more unless it be to a very glorious purpose have not with your five hang'd Jesuites learnt the knack of Forgetfulness so as not to remember that Cardinal Aâ—en wrote a Book to prove that Princes excommunicate for Heresie not only might but were to be deprived of their Kingdom and Life And was not William Parry thereby provoked to kill Queen Elizabeth which tho' before at Rome he had resolved to do yet he was hesitating in his Mind about it till encourag'd by that Book Do you think that England hath forgotten that Father Gifford instigated one John Savage to kill the same Queen upon the Bull of Pius quintusâ—â— And to conclude this second Observation it was remarkable at the same time that they might be the less suspected and that Queen the more secure they wrote a Book wherein they admonish'd the Papists in England not to attempt any thing against their Princess but to fight against their Adversaries only with Christian Weapons viz. Tears Spiritual Reasonings Prayers Watchings and Fastings 3dly Give me leave to recommend a third thing to your consideration and that is Tho' this be a common Doctrin in the Church of Rome yet in the years 1672 73 74 75 76 77 78. it was more earnestly pressed than at any time before and indeâ—d they had then great occasion to put that Doctrin in practise And since it was with speed to be transacted it was not sit their Votaries should go about the Work uninstructed Thus when the Murther of your Grandfather Henry the Fourth of France was determin'd Father Generâ—t a Jesuite instructed John Chastele in this damnable Doctrin of your Hell-born Church and Father Fayre did the same by Francis Veron to dispose his godly Soul for the same work yea when they were ready to perpetrate the same Villany upon that great Prince the very Sermons of the Jesuites were all framed to instigate Men to such an impious Attempt so that Ravilliac when examin'd about the causes why he stab'd the King answer'd That he might understand them by the Sermons of the Preachers I pray call to mind how that twelve Missioners in the year 1677 were sent into Spain and were by the Jesuites oblig'd to reâ—ounce their Allegiance to the King your Brother and were taught by Daniel Armstrâ—ng that the said Oath was heretical antichristian and devilish and they having resolv'd upon your Brother's death with you the said Armstrong did on the 29th of September 1677 in his Sermon to the said Missioners declare That Charles the second King of England was no lawful King but came of a spurious race that his Father was a black Scotchman who by Trade was a Taylor and not Charles the first and that he was a Bastard And you may remember that George Coniers the Jesuite was order'd to preach upon the day dedicated to Thomas Beckâ—t to preach against the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and that he should exhort the Fathers to stand by the new Provincial in the Great Work that you and the Society had in hand And your old Friend Blundâ—l had his places where he against the good time taught several young Men treasonable and mutinous Doctrines against the Interest and Person of the King your Brother John Keins on the 13th of August 1678 preach'd a Sermon to twelve Men in poor habits yet Men of Quality by the whiteness of their Hands in which Sermon he deliver'd this villanous Doctrine That Protestant and other Heretical Princes were ipso facto deposed because such and that it was as lawful to destroy them as an Oliver Cromwel or any other Usurper At which Sermon Sir I was present not designedly but by chance 4thly I must observe that a Man that is not thorow paced in all the points of these Villains is in danger of being expos'd to the Vengeance of their Cruelty for I find that tho' they knew you in all points to be a Roman Catholick
yet if you had not come up to the point of killing your Brother you must have been destroy'd as well as he and I do believe that they never was sure of your arriving at that pitch of Courage for I will tell you that there were some of the Blackwan Papists that were for the destroying of you both but their Counsel was rejected for that you were heartily engag'd in that part of the design which related to your Brother's death but they always fear'd that you would not be much capable of their Counsel and Advice whenever you came to the Crown but truly you deceived them all for you Thanks be to God proved as thorow paced a Tyrant as our Hearts and Souls could desire and it was that and only that which did deliver us from you 5thly Give me leave to add a fifth Observation which is well worth your Judicious Consideration for I know you to be a man of great Sense and Ingenuity therefore it will not be amiss to put you in mind and observe to you they did not only preach against all the Princes of Europe in general but against your Brother in particular that he was an Heâ—etick and therefore condemned to what to Death by whom By the Jesuits all over Christendom and the whole Church of Rome for what cause Because he had engaged to set up the Catholick Religion and had broke his word he had received the Sacrament on Easter Day in the morning from Ireland your Jesuit and then from the Church of England at noon he had wounded the Catholick Cause to death by the Test Bill therefore in the first place they declared him a Bastard then a Heretick and then commanded their Young â—ry not to pay Obedience to an Heretical Prince and had I not been Privy to their Design I should have argued thus with my self that since there are so many Protestant Kings and Princes in Christendom why then should they aim thus at the King of England more than the rest of the Protestant Princes but truely I found that it was but a brave Adventure The Jesuits and you well knowing that the rest would follow of Course for they used to say that neither of the two Northern Crowns were worth there contending for till England was gained and if England was once subdâ—ed to the Catholick Faith the rest could not hold out against them therefore as a Prologue to that the war against Holland was commenc'd that with more ease they might extirpate Heresie and had that Potestant State been ruined what could the rest of the Princes of Europe do against France and England these were the Summ and Substance of the debates of your Councellours at St. James's which we had from your Servant St. Coleman you may say what reason had these men to propose to themselves this Advantage whence was this to arise to this I answer 1. You was the next in view after Charles the second that was to sâ—cceed to the Crown and you being a Papist it was no matter of surprize to me nor do I think that it is now to any rational thinking man that they to further and hasten your Succession should with you conspire the destruction of the King your Brother who was the only Obstacle in your way to the Throne I hope thâ—â— you have some about you that are not so unacquainted with the History of England as not to know that your Great Grandmother the Queen of Scots was engag'd with the Popish Party in several Conspiracies against Q. Elizabeth in order to the said Queen of Scots coming to the Crown she being next in descent to the said Queen Elizabeth and truly as long as the Scottish Queen lasted our Queen Elizabeth was never out of Danger Hence it was that our Fore-fathers were so sensible of the Queens Danger which made them to enter into an Association throughout all the Kingdom even in an interval of Parliament in which Association they mutually obliged themselves in case the said Queen Elizabeth should be taken off by any undue means to avenge it upon the Papists and they were not for this taunted at bythe Queen for a parcel of Factious and Rebellious Rogues but received as her dutiful and loyal Subjects and the Parliament passed it into a Law by the Consent of the said Queen Truely Sir your Rogues well knew that should they lose that Opportunity and Advantage of your being a Papist and having Hopes of your Coming such to the Crown for the Re-establishment of the Popish Religion they might never enjoy such an Opportunity again these your Villains perceived that the King your Brother was in all Humane Judgement more likely to live longer than you therefore it was highly necessary to anticipate the course of Nature and not trust matters of such Consequence as the Restoration of the Romish Religion to such a Contingency as your Brothers dying in a natural way before your sweet self nay rather than they would be ouâ— your Popish Astrologer was consulted and the Judgement that he gave was that the King in the Course of Nature would out-live you then you and your Party were resolved that he was to be cut off that his Life might not prevent the great Glory of Englands having a Catholick King which would be of such Advantage to the Holy Chair that you and they purposed to employ such Case harden'd Villains as should not boggle at striking the fatal Blow and though you was pleased to smile at that time upon some that called themselves Proteâ—tants yet they found themselves out in their Accounts when you came to the Crown they saw that they had foolishly sâ—attered themselves with the vain Hopes of having high Church secured for Sir you well knew that it did not become a Man of your Religion to be a Slave to your Word and Faith especially to those you judged Hereticks 2. They well knew that you was not only of the Popish Religion but that you was bigotted to that Religion give me leave to wipe that â—notty Nose of yours with a little passage of your St. Câ—leman God hath given us a Prince said that Holy Traytor who is become to a miracle zealous of being the Author of so glorious a Work Now Sir that Work this great Saint and Martyr of your making Points at was the Conversion of three Kingdoms that was the mighty Work upon your Hands and as you had a mighty work so you had a mighty Zeal for the carrying on that work I am Sir of an Opinion that your Cut-throats would have been contented to have had a Papist of an indifferent Zeal upon the Throne provided they would but have kept him Steady but to have such a Prince that was converted to that degree of Zeal as that he valued nothing in the world in Comparison of his Religion was of far greater Consequence to them than the High Church Cox-combs at that time were sensible of there have been Kings that have been
of the Faith of the Church of Rome that were not of the Faith of the Court of Rome and therefore though they gave all manner of Encouragement to the Romish Religion yet by great Caution and Vigilance they have very much prevented the undermining the Temporal Authority they had over their Subjects Our former Kings of England though they were of that Faith and did countenance their Subjects in that worship yet they would not let them be enslaved by any pretended Papal Jurisdiction but your Villains were blessed with a man that would not only allow the Bishop of Rome his rascally Worship but also allow him to enslave the Nation with a Power he challenged in the temporal Government this your Cut-throats were assured of and therefore they would not in good manners to your great Zeal be in the least behind hand to joyn with you to hasten the Exit of your Brother who would by no means keep pace with them to their horrid Designs and therefore they judged that he was their only Let or Hinderance in compleating that mighty work 3. You was not only a Papist but a bigotted papist and being such you put your self under the Conduct of the Jesuits this Confederacy of yours with those zealous Sons of the Synagogue of Sâ—than could not be otherwise than very fatal to the Kingdom as to its Religion and Government and the person of the King your Brother for you arriving to that Pitch of Zeal and putting your self under their Conduct they in gratitude to you could not but endeavour the hastning your Accession to the Crown of which you were as ambitious as they were zealous and therefore you both joyned to destroy your Brother that was converted to the Religion of Rome but not zealous enough in driving on the Jesuits Designs had you Brother's Zeal been as fierce as yours he might have been cooling his Heels at St. Germains as well as your self and good Company there It was not for want of good will to your Religion but for want of a galloping Zeal which was no ways consistent with his voluptuous Living that you and these villanous Jesuits and the Popish Party conspired his death these were the three Advantages on which your Cut-throat Party did build their Hopes which made your Jesuits in the most considerable part of the Kingdom and in many places abroad to preach their King murthering Doctrine the better to prepare those of their Communion to joyn with you in the Fatal Blow that you and your Council at St. James's had designed to give the King your Brother 6. A sixth Testimony that appeared against you and your Party was the Trayterous Correspondencies that was maintained in order to carry on a Rebellion in Scotland and Ireland for Scotland your Villains took the Advantage of the great Heats that were created in that Kingdom by the dreadful Tyranny of Duke Lauderdale who acted by your Director and used all those Methods that might provoke a Rebellion and your Servant Coleman who had a great Interest in Lauderdale was often with him by which the Jesuits understood what Measures to take and a Party was appointed to incense the Villainous Bishops of that Kingdom against the poor Protestants there whereby their Lives were made very miserable and the Usage of their Ministers who by providence were driven upon the Coasts of England and came to the House of Lords where an Account was given to the Parliament that sat in the year 1678 in the month of December and the Parliament took their Cause into Consideration and dismissed them of their Irons and Thumckins and addressed your Brother against Lauderdale and as you had a Party of men that acted their part with the Episcopal Party in Scotland thus to vex and torment the afflicted Protestants in Scotland so your Jesuits they entertained another party of Rogues of the same Complexion to assocIate themselves with these poor Protestants in order to keep up their Animositie against the Prelatique Party withal urging them that they at that time had a fair Opportunity to vindicate their Liberty and Religion and that it could not be done but by the Sword and whereas that the King had received many of their Addresses yet he was so addicted to his pleasures that he neither would nor could take little or no care of redressing their intolerable Grievances and the great Cause of their ill Usage proceeded even from the King himself by which Sir it appeared their great Design in Conjunction with you was to weaken your Brothers Interest in that Kingdom for they urged that if they did not stir in time they would be put under some Forreign Force which would be more vexatious to them and you found your Design so well that your Jesuits received an Account from Scotland dated Feb. 7. 1677 that all Diligence was used to put the Potestants in that Kingdom of Scotland upon opposing Duke Lauderdale and his Villains and questioned not but that all things should be so ordered that a Rebellion should be raised in Scotland and a little before you went down to Windsor you knew that Messengers were sent down to Scotland to press the poor people to a resentment of the Tyranny they lived under by the Male-Administration of Duke Lauderdale and such that were of the Ministry in that Kingdom and especially since they could not obtain the Liberty of Conscience notwithstanding all their humble Supplications to the King therefore the Sword must do it a Rebellion at last you obtain'd in order to destroy these poor Wretches the Consequence of which was the total enslaving that Kingdom the better to fit it for its Submission to the Romish Religion As for Ireland I have already at large not only in this but in the first Memorial laid open your Practices in that Kingdom 7. Call to mind Colemans Letters and say that you knew nothing of them if you dare there it is said that you had a mighty work upon your Hands no less than the Conversion of three Kingdoms Come Sir deal freely was it to be brought about by Arguments from the Scripture no Sir I did never find the Knowledge of the Scriptures abound in the most learned of them all we have scarce a Protestant Cobler but is able to cope with if not to baffle a Romish Priest it could not be that these three Kingdoms could be converted by these sorts of Arguments with which your Cut-throats were little acquainted and their preaching is generally too silly and empty to prevail with Protestants to change their Religion unless some few weak Debauchees and weaker Whores Well you were to convert three Kingdom I pray how was not your Conversion and Conviction by enlightening the eyes of the Protestant Party by a Faggot and by the powerful and irresistible Arguments of the Dagger those Letters of Coleman's tell the world that the design prospered so well that there was no doubt but that it would be managed to the utter Ruine of
the Protestant Party Truely Sir Coleman's Letters were such pregnant Proofs of your villanous Designs and his Declaration drawn up and prepared for your Brothers Signature were testimony enough without the Addition of any further Evidence but I will put you in mind of some short Notes of that Saint of yours and then set down the Letters as they have been published for the Satisfaction of Mankind by which Sir it is manifest that by your order under your self he was the great Director of the Affairs of the Popish Party here in these three Kingdoms as you may see by the Correspondence he maintained with the Pope himself by the means of Cardinal Howard and his Correspondence with the Popes Internuncio at Bruxels and Father Sheldon at Doway and the Monks there and with your dear Fathers at St. Omers to whom he gave an exact Account of the debates of your Council at St. James's and of the Affairs of the Government at White-hall â—ay let me tell you that your Brother the King had such an Opinion that when you had obtained a Promise from him of dissolving the Parliament he would have none but Coleman to draw it up but he being of the Opinion of Lewis of France that Princes by no means ought to be slaves to their Promises the dissolving of the Parliament was moved in hopes of gaining Mony from them to supply his Wants he had such an Interest with Lachaise that he did obtain the summ of 20000 l. for himself and 300000 l. for you and the promise of 300000 l. a year till you could bring your designs to bear and an Army was through his Sollicitation promised to be landed in Ireland and England as soon as peace was concluded between the French King and the then confederate Princes as being the time that his most Christian Majesty would be at leasure to assist you in this mighty work of converting these three Kingdoms you know then the dragooning Apostles were to come over to preach here in order to convert us to Romes Religion and the French Government by these â—ou were to do the work with the Assistance of your Cut-throats at home both in England and Ireland Now Sir it will not be amiss that we offer to your Consideration the Letters themselves with which Sir you cannot but be highly pleased since they were the Hopes of your Family if the design specified in them had taken effect first then here is the long Letter that this blessed Saint and Mâ—rtyr wrote to Father Lachaice SInce Father St. Germain hath been so kind to me c. This Letter puts us in mind of the great Correspondence that this Villain held with one Ferrier by your Order in Order to subvert the Laws Liberties and Religion of these three Kingdoms and the said Ferrier going to his place St. Germain a notorious French Jesuit recommended Coleman to Father Lachaice for to renew this Correspondence that did for some time â—â—ase by reason of the death of the said Ferrier there are several things in this Letter that are remarkable as 1. That the sending of the Troop of Horse Guards into the service of the French King and the Care that was taken to send with it an Officer called Sr. William Throgmortoâ— with whom Coleman had a particular Intimacy this was the person that Coleman made choice of by whom he might correspond with Ferrier This Throgmorton was once a dissolute Protestant and being a person but of a mean or a broken Fortune was by Coleman perverted to the Church of Rome and as a reward for his coming over to your Church he was made an Officer in this Troop of Guards but indeed he was rather sent a Spy upon the English Gentlemen and when he died Nevil Pain took that Province upon him and gave an Account to Court and especially to your self as William Throgmorton had done before of their Carriage 2. I observe that the recalling of Liberty of Conscience was fatal to you and your Cut-throats to that you did owe all your Miseries and Hazards and therefore Sir I hope that you will allow me that great Truth which I delivered to you that Liberty of Conscience was the first great Step your Brother and you made to establish the Roman Catholick Religion here for nothing hurts it like the recalling of that Indulgence and making peace with the Dutch provided it had been a good one though Aâ—â—ington when he was Embassadour there perswaded the French King for some time that your Servant Coleman was much out in his Politicks as well as your self 3. That Peace was much to be desired between the French King and the Confederate Princes of Europe and that nothing could procure a good one for the French King but the Dissolution of the then Parliament who tho' they had been laterally by you and your Rogues well bribed to give many an ill Vote yet at last they began like English Men to fly in the Kings Face and roar against Popery especially upon an empty Pocket and if Fortune had not sent them a seasonable shower or two in a Session to cultivate their Inclinations to act according to the bent of the then Court and till this peace was made between the French King and the Confederates little could be done towards the revival of the Catholick Cause after its recovering that fatal stroke by recalling the Liberty of Conscience and setting up that damnable Doctrine of a Protestant State Purgatory which hindred many an honest Apostolical Cut-throat from having a Place at Court but you will say Why should the Dissolution of our Parliament procure a Peace The Reason is plain for the Confederate Princes had unluckily got an Interest in our theâ— Parliament as bad as it was and they depended more upon their Power and Interest they had in that Parliament than in any thing in the world and I will give you a Reason for that because from them the Confederate Princes received the greatest Encouragement to continue the War and so that in case the Parliament were dissolved the aforesaid Confederates would be necessitated to a peace upon the Terms the French King should give which would facilitate his joyning with you in the blessed Conversion of these three Nations and subduing the Northern Heresie that had so long domineer'd in this Northern World so that the Troops of Guards and the other Forces that were sent into the Service of the French were only to learn the way of converting these three Kingdoms and also to the end that they might joyn with your French Apostles in that Work of which you so earnestly desir'd to be the Author and Instrument Of this I said before Coleman by the means of the Earl of Arlington when he did reside at the Court of France was much discourag'd and was forced to leave off for a time to argue the case with the French King by Ferryer and took up the post of railing at Arlington but railing did not do
by their seditious and false Constructions of what we had so candidly and sincerely done for their Good and surprised with a Vote of our House of Commons against our Writs of Elections which we intended for their Satisfactions against many presidents of ours or without any colour of Law of their side denying our power to Issue out such Writs addressing to us to Issue out others Which we consented to do at their request choosing rather to yield to our Subjects in that Point than to be forced to Submit to our Enemies in others hoping that our Parliament being sensibly touched with that our extraordinary Condescention would go on to consider the public Concern of the Kingdom without any further to do But we found another use made of our easie Compliance which served to encourage them to ask more so that soon after we found our Declaration for indulging tender Consciences Arraigned voted Illegal though we cannot to this day understand the Consistences of that Vote with our undoubted Supremacy in all Ecclesiastics recognizing by so many Acts of Parliament and required to be Sworn to by all our Subjects and Addresses made to us one after another to recal it which we condescended to also from hence they proceeded to us to weaken our self in an actual War and to render many of our Subjects of whose Loyalty and Ability we were well satisfied inoapable to serve us when we wanted Officers and Souldiers and had reason to invite as many experienced Men as we could to Engage in our Arms rather than to Incapacitate or Discourage any yet this also we gratified them in to gain their Assistance against our Enemies who grew high by these our differences rather than expose our Country to their Power and Fury hoping that in time our People would be confounded to see our concessions and be ashamed of their Errours in making such demands But finding the unfortunate Effects of our Divisions the following Summer we found our Parliament more Extravagant at the next meeting than â—ver Addressing to us to hinder the Consummation of our dear Brothers Marriage contrary to the Law of God which forbideth any to separate any whom he hath joyned against our Faith and Honour engaged in the solemn Treaty obstinately persisting in that Address after we had acquainted them that the Marriage was then actually ratified and that we had Acted in it by our Ambassadour so that we were forced to separate them for a while hoping they would bethink themselves better at their meeting in January instead of being more moderate or ready to consider our wants towards the War they Voted as they had done before not to Assist us still till their Religion were effectually secured against Popery Aggreivances redressed and all obnoxious Men removed from us which we had reason to take for an absolute denyal of all Aid considering the Indefiniteness of what was to proceed and the Moral impossibility of effecting it in their Sences for when will they say their Religion is effectually secured from Popery if it were in Danger then by reason of the insolency of Papists When our House of Commons which is made up of Members from every corner of our Kingdom with invitations publicly posted up to all Men to accuse them has not yet in so many years as they have complained of them been able to Charge one single Member of that Communion with so much as a Misdemeanor or what security câ—â—ld they possibly expect against that body of Men or their Religion more than we had given them Or how can we hope to live so perfectly that Study and Pains may not make a collection of Grievances as considerable as that which was lately presented to us than which we could not have wished for a better Vindication of our Government or when shall we be sure that all obnoxious Men are removed from us when common Fame thinks fit to call them so which is to every body without any proof sufficient to render any Man obnoxious who is Popishly affected or any thing else that is ill though they have never so often or lately complyed with their own Tests and Marks of Distinction and Discriminations finding our People thus unhappily disordred we saw it impossible to prosecute the War any longer and therefore did by their advice make a Peace upon such conditions as we could get hoping that being gratified in that darling Point â—hey would at least have paid our Debts and enabled us to have built sâ—me Ships for the future security of our Honour and their own Properties but they being transported with their success â—n asking were resolv'd to go on still that way and would needs have us put upon the removing of our Judges from those charges which they have always hitherto heâ—â— at the wâ—â— and pleasure of the Crown out of our Power to alter the ancient Laws of trying of Peâ—â—s and to make it a Premunire in our Subjects in a case supposed not to sight against our self nay some â—ad tâ—e heart to ask that the Hereditary Succession of our Crown which is the Foundation of alâ— our Laws should be changed into a sort of Election they requiring the Heir to be qualified with cerâ—ain conditions to make him capable of succeeding and out-doing that Pâ—pish Doctrine which we have so long and so loudly with good reason decryed that Heresâ—â— incapacitates Kings to Reâ—gn They would have had that the Heir of the Crown marrying a Papist though he continued never so orthodâ—x himself should forfeit his Right of Inheâ—itance not understanding this paradoxical waâ— of securing Râ—ligion by destroying it as this would have done that of the Church of England which always taught obedience to their Natural Kings as an indâ—spensable duty in all good Christians let the Religion or Deportment of their Pâ—ince be what it will and not knowing how soon that impediment which was supposed as sufficient to keep out an Heir might be thought as fit to remove a Possâ—ssâ—ur And comparing that Bill which would have it a Prâ—muniâ—e in a Sheriff not to raise the Posse Comâ—â—atus against our Commission in a case there supposed though we our self should Assist that our Commission in our Person for not being excepted is â—mpâ—â—ed with the other made by this very Parliament in the 14th year of our Reign which all our Subjects or at least many of them were obliged to Swear viz. That the Doctrine of taking up Aâ—ms by the Kings Authority against his Person was detestable and we soon found that the design was level'd against the good Protestant Religion of our good Church which its Enemies had a mind to blemish by slâ—â—ing in sâ—â—â—y thâ—se daâ—â—nable Doctrines by such an Authority as that of our Parliament into the profession of our Faith or Practices and to expâ—se our whole Religion to the Scorn and Reproaâ—h of themselves and all the World we therefore thought it our duty to be so watchful as to prevent the enemy
Peace with Holland that I urg'd all the Arguments I could which to me were Demonstrations to convince your Court of that Mischief and press'd all I could to perswade his most Christian Majesty to use his uâ—most endeavour to prevent that Session of our Parliament and proposed Expedients how to do it But I was answered so often and so positively that his most Christian Majesty was so well assured by his Embassador here our Embassador there the Lord Arlington and even the King himself that he had no such apprehensions at all but was fully satisfied of the contrary and lookt upon what I offered as a very zealous mistake that I was forced to give over arguing though not believing as I did but conâ—idently appealed to time and Success to prove who took their measures rightest When it happened what I foresaw came to pass the good Father was a little suprized to see all the great men mistaken and a little one in the right and was pleased by Sir William Throckmorton to desire the continuance of my correspondence which I was mighty willing to comply with knowing the Interest of our King and in a more particular manner of my more immediate Master the Duke and his most Christian Majesty to be so inseparably united that in was impossible to divide them without destroying them all Vpon this I shewed that our Parliament in the circumstances it was managed by the timerous Councels of our Ministers who then governed would never be useful either to England France or Catholick Religion but that we should as certainly be forced from our Neutrality at their next meeting as we had been from our Active Alliance with France the last Year That a Peace in the Circumstances we were in was much more to be desired than the continuance of the War and that the Dissolution of our Parliament would certainly procure a Peace for that the Confederates did more depend upon the power they had in our Parliament then upon any thing else in the World and were more encouraged from them to the continâ—ing of the War so that if they were Dissolved their measures would be all broken and they consequently in a manner necessitated to a Peace The good Father minding this Discourse somewhat more then the Court of France thought fit to do my former urg'd it so home to the King that his Majesty was pleased to give him Orders to signify to his R H my Master that his Majesty was fully jaâ—isfyed of his R. H's good intention towards him and that he esteemed both their interests but as one and the same that my Lord Arliâ—gton and the Parliament were both to be lookt upon as very unuseful to their interest That if his R H. would endeavour to dissolve this Parliament his most Christian Majesty would assist him with his Power and Purse to have a new one as should be for their purpose This and a great many more expressions of kindness and confidence Father Ferryer was pleased to communicate to Sir William Throckmorton and Commanded them to send them to his R H. and withal to beg his R. H. to propose to his most Christian Majesty what he thought necessary for his own concern and the advantage of Religion and his Majesty would certainly do all he could to advance both or either of them This Sir William Thorckmorton sent to me by an Express who left Paris the 2d of June 1674. Stilo novo I no sooner had it but I communicated it to his R. H. To which his R H. commanded me to answer as I did on the 29th of the same month That his R. H. was very sensible of his most Christian Majesties friendship and that he would labour to cultivate it with all the good Offices he was capable of doing foâ— his Majesty that he was fully convinced that their Interests were both one that my Lord Arlington and the Parliament were not only unuseful but very dangerous both to England and France That therefore it was necessary that they should do all they could to Dissolve is And that his R. H's opinion was that if his most Christian Majesty would Write his thoughts freely to the King of England upon this Subject and make the same proffer to his Majesty of his Purse to Dissolve this Parliament which he had made to his R. H. to call another he did believe it very possible for him to succeed with the assistance we should be able to give him here and that if this Parliament were Dissolved there would be no great difficulty of getting a new one which would be more useful The Constitution of our Parliaments being sucâ— that a new one can never hart the Crown nor an old one do it good His R. H. being pleased to own these propositions which were but only general I thought it reasonable to be more particular and come closer to the point we might go the faster about the work and come to some issue before the time was too far spent I laid this for my Maxim the Dissolution of our Parliament will certainly preâ—ure a Peace which proposition was granted by every Body I Conversed withal even with Monsieur Rouvigny himself with whom I took liberty of discoâ—rsing so far but durst not say any thing of the Inteligence I had with Father Ferryer Next that a Sum of Money certain would certainly procure a Dissolution this some doubted but I am sure I never did for I knew perfectly well that the King had frequent Disputes with himself at that time whether he should dissolve or continue them and he several times declared that the Arguments were so strong on both sides that he could not tell to which to incline but was carried at last to the continuance of them by this one Argument If I try them once more they may possibly give me Money If they do I have gain'd my point If they do not I can dissolve them then and be where I am now so that I have a possibility at least of getting Money for their Continuance against nothing on the other side But if we could have turned this Argument and said Sir their Dissolution will certainly procure you Money when you have only a bare possibility of getting any by their Continuance and have shewn how far that bare possibility was from being a foundation to build any reasonable hope upon which I am sure his Majesty was sensible of and how much 300000 l. sterl certain which was the Sum we propos'd was better than a bare possibility without any reason to hope that that could ever be compassed of having half so much more which was the most he design'd to ask upon such vile dishonourable terms and a thousand other hazards which he had great reason to be afraid of If I say we had had power to have argued this I am most confidently assured we could have compassed it for Logick in our Court built upon Money has more powerful Charms then any other sort of
reasoning But to secure his most Christian Majesty from any hazard as to that point I propos'd his Majesty should offer that sum upon that condition and if the condition were not perfomed the Money should never be due if it were and that a Peace would certainly follow thereupon which no Body doubted his Majesty would gain his Ends and save all the vast expences of the next Campaign by which he could not hope to better his Condition or put himself into more advantagious Circumstances of Treaty then he was then in but might very probably be in a much worse considering the mighty opposition he was like to meet with and the uncertain Chances of War But admitting that his Majesty could by his great strength and Conduct maintain himself in as good a Condition to Treat the next year as he was then in which was as much as could then reasonably be hoped for be should have saved by this Proposal as much as all the Men he must needs lose and all the charges he should be at in a year would be valued to amount to more than 300000 l. sterl and so much more in case his Condition should decay as it should be worse then it was when this vvas made and the Condition of his R. H. and of the Catholic Religion here vvhich depends very much upon the success of His most Christian Majesty delivered from a great many frights and real hazards F. Ferryer seem'd to be very sensible of the Benefit all parties vvould gain by this Proposal But yet it vvas unfortunately delay'd by an unhappy and â—edious â—it of sickness vvhich kept him so long from the King in the France Comte and made him so unable to vvait on his Majesty after he did return to Paris But so soon as he could compass it he vvas pleased to acquaint his Majesty vvith it and vvrote to the Duke himself and did me the Honour to vvrite unto me also on the 15th of September 1674. and sent his Letter by Sir William Throckmorton vvho came express upon that Errand In these Letters he gave his R. H. fresh assurance of his most Christian Majesties friendship and of his Zeal and Readiness to comply with every thing His R. H. had or should think â—it to propose in favour of Religion or the business of Money And that he had commanded Monsieur Rouvigny as to the latter to Treat and deal with his R. H. and to receive and observe his Orders and Directions but desired that he might not at all be concerned as to the former but that his R. H. would cause what Proposition he should think â—it to be made about Religion to be offered either to Father Ferryer or Mounsieur Pompone These Letters came to us about the middle of September and his R. H. expected daily when Monsieur Rouvigny should speak to him about the subject of that Letter but he took no notice at all of any thing till the 29th of September the evening before the King and Duke went to Newmarket for afortnight and then only said that he had Commands from his Master to give his R. H. the most firm assurance of his Friendship imaginable or something to that purpose making his R. H. a general Complement but made no mention of any particular Orders relating to Father Ferryer's Letter The Duke wondering at this proceeding and being obliged to stay a good part of October at Newmarket and soon after his coming back hearing of the Death of Father Ferryer he gave over all further prosecuting of the former Projects But I believe I saw Monsieur Rouvigny's policy all along who was willing to save his Masters Money upon assurance that we would do all we could to stave off the Parliament for our own sakes that that we would struggle as hard without money as with it and we having by that time upon our own Interest prevailed to get the Parliament Prorogued to the 13th of April he thought that Prorogation being to a day so high in the Spring would put the Confederates so far beyond their Measures as that it might procure a Peace and be as useful to France as a Dissolution Vpon these Reasons I suppose he went I had several discourses with him and did open my self so far to him as to say I could wish his Master would give us leave to offer to our Master 300000 l. for the Dissolution of the Parliament and shewed him that a Peace would mâ—st certainly follow a Dissolution which he agreed with me in and that we desir'd not the Money from his Master to excite our wills or to make us more industrious to use our utmost powers to procure a Dissolution but to strengthen our Power and Credit with the King and to render us more capable to succeed with his Majesty as mâ—st certainly we should have done had we been fortified with such an Argument To this Purpose I press'd Mounsieur Pompone frequently by Sir William Throckmorton who returned hence again into France on the 10th of November the day our Parliament should have met but was Prorogued Mounsieur Pompone as I was informed by Sir William did seem to approve the thing but yet had Two Objections against it First That the Sum we proposed was Great and couâ—d be very ill spared in the circumstances his Most Christian Majesty was in To which we Answered That if by his Expending that Sum he could procure a Dissolution of our Parliament and thereby a Peace which every body agreed would necessarily follow His Most Christian Majesty would gain his Ends and save Five or Ten times a greater Sum and so be a good Husband by his Expence and if we did not procure a Dissolution he should not be at that Expence at all for that we Desired â—â—m only to promise upon that Condition which we were content to be Obliged to perform first The Second Objection was The Duke did not move nor appear in it Himself To that we Answered That he did not indeed to Mounsieur Pompone because he had found so ill an effect of the Negotiation with Father Ferryer when it came into Mounsieur Rouvigny 's hands but that he had concerned himself in it to Father Ferryer Yet I continued to prosecute and press the Dissolution of the Parliament detesting all Prorogations as only so much loss of time and a means of strengthning all those who depend upon it in Opposition to the Crown the Interest of France and Catholic Religion in the Opinion they had taken That our King durst not part with his Parliament apprehending that another would be much Worse Second That he could not live long without a Parliament therefore they must suddenly Meet and the longer he kept them Off the greater his Necessity would grow and consequently their power to make him do what they listed would increase accordingly And therefore if they could but maintain themselves a while the day would certainly come in a short time in which they should be
able to work their Wills Such Discourses as these kept the Confederates and our Male Contents in heart and made them weather on the War in spight of all our Prorogations Therefore I press'd as I have said a Dissolution until February last when our Circumstances were so totally Changed that we were forced to change our Councels too and be as much for the Parliaments Sitting as we were before against it Our Change was thus Before that time the Lord Arlington was the only Minister in Credit who thought himself out of all danger of the Parliament he having been Accused before them and Justified and therefore was Zealous for their sitting and to increase his Reputation with them and to become a perfect Favourite he sets himself all he could to Persecute the Catholic Religion and to oppose the French To shew his Zeal against the first he revived some old dormant Orders for prohibiting Roman Catholics to appear before the King and put them in Execution at his first coming into his Office of Lord Chamberlain And to make sure work with the second as he thought prevailed with the King to give him and the Earl of Ossory who marryed two Sisters of Myne Heere Odyke 's leave to go over into Holland with the said Heere to make a Visit as they pretended to their Relations But indeed and in truth to propose the Lady Mary Eldest Daughter of his R H. as a Match for the Prince of Orange not only without the consent but against the good Liking of his R. H. in so much that the Lord Arlingtons Creatures were forced to excuse him with a Distinction that the said Lady was not to be looked upon as the Dukes Daughter but as the Kings and a Child of the State was and so the Duke's consent not much to be Considered in the disposal of her but only the Interest of State By this he intended to render himself the Darling of Parliament and Protestants who look'd upon themselves as secured in their Religion by such an Alliance and designed further to draw us into a Close Conjunction with Holland and the Enemies of France The Lord Arlington set forth upon this Errand the Tenth of November 1674. and returned not till the Sixth of January following During his Absence the L. Treasurer L. Keeper and the Duke of Lauderdale who were the only Ministers of any considerable Credit with the King and who all pretended to be entirely Vnited to the Duke declaimed Loundly and with great Violence against the said Lord and his Actions in Holland and did hope in his absence to have totally Supplanted him and to have routed him out of the Kings Favour and after that thought they might easily enough have dealt with the Parliament But none of them had Courage enough to speak against the Parliament till they could get rid of him for fear they should not succeed and that the Parliament would Sit in spight of them and come to hear that they had used their endeavours against it which would have been so Vnpardonable a Crime with our Omniporent Parliament that no Power could have been able to have Saved them from Punishment But they finding at his Return that they could not prevail against him by such Means and Arts as they had then tryed resolved upon New Councels which were to out-run him in his own Course which accordingly they underâ—oâ—k and became as fierce Apostles and as zealous for Protestant Religion and against Popery as ever my Lord Arlington had been before them and in pursuance theâ—eof perswaded the King â—o issue out those severe Orders and Proclamations against Catholics which came out in February last by which they did as much as in them lay to extripate all Catholics and Catholic Religion out of the Kingdom which Councels were in my poor Opinion so Detestable being lâ—velled as they must needs be so directly against the Duke by People which he had Advanced and who had professed so much Duty and Service to him that we were put upon new Thoughts how to save his R. H. now from the Deceits and Snares of those Men upon whom we formerly depended We saw well enough that their design was to make themselves as grateful as they could to the Parliament if it must Sit they thinking nothing so acceptable to them as the persecution of Popery and yet they were so obnoxious to the Parliaments displeasure in general that they would have been glad of any Expedient to have kept it off though they durst not engage against it openly themselves but thought this Device of theirs might serve for their purposes hoping the Duke would be so alarm'd at their proceedings and by his being left by every body that he would be much more afraid of the Parliament than ever and would use his utmost power to prevent its Sitting Which they doubted not but he would endeavour and they were ready enough to work underhand too for him for their own sakes not his in order thereunto but durst not appear openly and to encourage the Duke the more to endeavour the Dissolution of the Parliament their Creatures used to say up and down That this Rigour against the Catholics was in favour of the Duke and to make a Dissolution of the Parliament more easy which they knew he coveted by obviating one great Objection which was commonly made against it which was That if the Parliament should be Dissolved it would be said That it was done in favour of Popery which Clamour they had prevented beforehand by the Severity they had used against it As soon as we saw these Tricks put upon us we plainly saw what men we had to deal withalâ— and what we â—ad to trust to if we were wholly at their mercy but yet durst not seem so dissatisfied as we really were but rather magnified the Contrivance as a Device of great Cunning and Skill all this we did purely to hold them in a belief that we would endeavour to Dissolve the Parliament and that they might rely upon his R. H. for that which we knew they long'd for and were afraid they might do some othâ—r way if they discovered that we were resolved we would not At length when we saw the Sessions secured we declared that we were for the Parliaments meeting as indeed we were from the Moment we saw our selves â—andâ—ed by all the Kings Ministers at such a rate that we had Reason to believe they would Sacrifice France Religion and his R. H. too to their own Interest if occasion served and that theâ— were lead to believe that that was the only way they had to save themselves at that time For we saw no Expedient fiâ— to stop them in their Carrier of persecution and those other destructive Councils but the Parliament which had set it self a long time to dislike every thing the Ministers had done and had appeared violently against Popery whilest the Court seemed to favour it and therefore we were Confident that the Ministers
having turned their Faces the Parliament would â—o so too and still be against them and be as little for Pâ—rsecution then as they had been for Popery before This I underâ—ook to manage for the Duke and the King of France 's Interest and assured Mounsier Rouvigny which I am sure he will testify if occasion serves that â—â—at Sessions should do neither of them any hurt for that I was sure I had power enough to prevenâ— mischief though I â—urst not engage for any good they would do because I had but very few assistances to carry on the â—orâ— and wanted those helps which others had of making friends The Dutch and Spainaâ—d spared no pains nor expence of Money to animate as many as they could against France Our Lord Treasurer Lord Keeper all the Bishops and such as call'd themselves Old Cavaliers who were all then as one man were not less industrious against Popery and had the Purse at their Girdle too which is an Excellent Instrument to gain Friends with and all Vnited against the Duke â—â— Patron both of France and Catholick Religion To deal with all this Force we had no Money but what came from a few private hands and those so mean ones too that I dare venture to say that I spent mâ—re my particular self out of my own Fortune and upon my single Credit than all the whole Body of Catholickâ— in England besides which was so inconsiderable in comparison of what our Adversaries commanded and we verily believe did bestow in making their Party that it is not worth mentioning Yet notwithstanding all this we saw that by the help of the Nonconfâ—rmists as Presbyterians Independents and other Sects who were as much afraid of Persecution as our selves and of the Enemies of the Ministers and particularly of the Treasurer who by that time had supplâ—nted the Earl of Arlington and was grown sole manager of all Affairs himself we should be very able to prevent what they designed against us and so render the Sessions ineffectual to their Ends though we might not be able to compass our own which were to make some brisk step in Favour of his R. H. to shew the King that his Majesties Affairs in Parliament were not Obstructed by reason of any Aversion they had to his R. H 's Person or apprehensions they had of him or his Religion But from Faction and Ambition in some and from a real dissatisfaction in others that we have not had such Fruits and good Effects of those great sums of Money which have been formerly given as was expected If we could have made but one such stâ—p the King would have certainly have restored his R. H. to all his Commissions upon which he would have been much greater than ever yet he was in his whole Life or could probably ever have been by any other Course in the World than what he had taken of becoming 〈◊〉 c. And we were so very near gaining this Point that I did humbly beg his 〈…〉 â—o put the Parliament upon making an Address to the King that his Majesty 〈◊〉 be pleased to put the Fleet into the hands of his R. H. as the only Person likely to give a good 〈◊〉 of so impâ—â—tant a Charge as that was to the Kingdom And shewed his R. H. such Reasons â—â—â—â—rswade him that we could carry it that he agreed with me in it that be believ'd â—e could 〈◊〉 others telling him â—ew great a Damage it would be to him if he should miss in such aâ— undertaking which for my part I could not then see nor do I yet he was prevailed upon not to venture though he was preswaded he could carry it I did Communicate this Design of â—ine to Mâ—â—nsieur Râ—â—â—lgny who agreed with me that it would be the greatest advantage imaginable to 〈◊〉 Master to have the Dukes Power and Credit so far Advanced as this would certainly do if we could composs it I shewed him all the Difficulty we were like to meet with and what helps we should have but that we should want one very matterial one Money to carry on the Wâ—â—k as we ought and therefore I do Confess I did shamefully beg his Masters Help and would willingly have been in â—verlâ—sting Disgrace with all the World if I had not with that assistance of Twenty Thousand Pounâ—s Sterling which perhaps is not the tenth part of what was spent on the other side 〈◊〉 is evident to the Duke that he could not have missed it Mounsieur Râ—uvignâ— used to tell me that if he could be sure of succeeding in that Design his Master would give a veâ—â— much larger Sum but that he was not in a Condition to throw away money upon Vncertainties I 〈◊〉 that nothing of that nature could be so infallibly sure as not to be subject to some possiâ—â—lities of â—ailâ—ng â—ut that I duâ—st venture to undertake to make it evidenâ— that there was as great an assurance of succeeding in it as any Husbandman can have of a Crop in Haâ—vest whâ— seâ—s his Grâ—â—nd in its due Season and yet it would be counted a very imprudent peice of waâ—iness an any Body to scruple the venturing so much Seed in its proper time because it is possible it may be totally lost and no benefit of it found in Harvest he that minds the Winds and the Rains at that rate shall neither Sow nor Reap I take our Case to be much the same as it was the last Sessions If we can advance the Duke 's Interest one step forward we shall put him out of the reach of Chance for ever for he makes such a Figure already that Cautious Men do not care to Act against him nor always without him because they do not see that he is much out-powered by his Enemies Yet is he not at such a Pitch as to be quite out of danger or free from opposition But if he could gain any considerable new addition of Power all would come over to him as to the only steddy Center of our Government and no body would contend with him further Then would Catholics be at Rest and his Most Christian Majestie 's Interest secured with us in England beyond all apprehensions whatsoever In order to this we have two great Designs to Attempt this next Sessions First that which we were about before viz. To put the Parliament upon making it their humble Request to the King that the Fleet may be put into his R. H's Care Secondly to get an Act for general liberty of Conscience If we carry these two or either of them we shall in effect do what we list afterwards and truly we think we do not undertake these great points very unreasonably but that we have good Cards for our Game Not but that we expect great Opposition and have great Reason to beg all the Assistance we can possibly get and therefore if his Most Christian Majesty would stand by us a little in this Conjuncture and help us with such
was impossible that Godfrey had murdered himself because his Neck was broke before his Sword was run through his Body nay your good Brother the King saw you so earnest that he was ashamed at your Zeal which made the Prince swear to the D. of Buckingham that you carryed your self with that heat that a small Evidence would make him if you were brought to a Tryal to find you guilty of the said Murder Sir your behaviour in that particular was so nauseous your actions so plain and yet so pernicious that I stand amazed that your hand stopt there in short Sir the Sence I have of your guilt in that base Murder hath hardened my Heart against you and your villainous party for the many Insolencies that they at that time did offer and the secret Murders they Committed and were by you countenanced that all Men cryed shame and stood more amazed that you were not called to an Account for that Murder than they did at the impudence of the Murder it Self though God he knows that that Murther was of it self astonishing enough but to conclude this Head I pray take two things along with you which I shall leave you as my Legacy 1. What greater Satisfaction can the World have of your Guilt in this Affair if the Sons of Men will but give themselves a little time to consider these Circumstances that I have laid before you had I been so unfortunate as to have been privy to the Murder I would have been no more affraid to have charged you with it than your murdering Crew was to strangle that innocent Magistrate you will do well now to acquit your self of it if you can 't is true you are now out of the reach of the Law and since it is so I pray God keep you so during your Life but this I will tell you that these Circumstances entitle you to the Guilt of that Fact and whilst this Gentleman's Blood lies upon you I cannot forbear observing to you that in what you did to him you gave the world a Specimen of what you would have done to others and made many Men believe That the Earl of Essex came to his end by that way of Charity so that we have had great Testimony that for promoting your Cause you would not stick at the Protestants Blood you began with that honest Gentleman and you did not end in the Earl of Essex you killed Godfrey in his Person but the whole Nation in him was murdered in â—ffigie your hands were imbrued in his Blood but your black Hell-born Soul was dipt in the Blood of us all and since we are convinced that you murdered him and Essex I cannot but be convinced that you poysoned your Brother and had you had but time you would have made all away that stood in the way of your damn'd Religion you would have converted us with Blood and baptized us with Fire your nature and actions testifyed the one and London in a dreadful manner felt the other 2. Let me observe to you the Folly of your murdering this Magistrate certainly Sir it was one of the greatest pieces of Folly that you and your Party could be guilty of for what could be your end in it did you think that if Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey could not escape your murdering Crew that we could not find one in his room yes Sir to your great comfort there was a Gentleman that succeeded him that Harazed your Rogues to as good purpose as a Mans heart and soul could wish and if a Man could but have seen into your cursed Soul we might have found that you had the same Grace and Favours for and intended the same act of Charity to him as you did to Justice Godfrey but he escaped your Blessing and is yet alive to give you an Account of his Stewardship in Print if he pleases and of some of your Royal Misdemeanors into the bargain I pray Sir how do you And how do you like your self by this time how will you come of Therefore to conclude all Is there not here a monstrous Evidence of your whole Popish Plot For in truth we cannot prove it better than by such Practices as these that this Man was killed why either he knew or had discovered to him something that you and your Villains would not have him tell or you did it in defiance of Justice and in Terror to all them that then durst execute it upon them which I say is a great Evidence in its self I leave it with you after you have mumbled over your Mattins you may consider it whilst you have opportunity and leisure 9. I shall in proof of your Popish Plot offer to your consideration the Oral Testimony that was given so that you may see that we were not overhasty in our Proceedings upon those Malefactors that were charged to be in that villainous Conspiracy therefore I will give you their Names in order as follows 1. You have Richard Gastrel of the Grange in Gloucestershire I pray look upon him and see how you like him well sit down and hear what he saith to you in an Examination taken before the Lord Bishop of London a zealous Protestant I assure you and a Justice of the Peace so that you may see we had more good Justices besides Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey and this Richard Gastrel's Information was as follows THIS Deponent saith That in the year 1675 he travelled to Râ—me and being there he was by many arts and perswasions inveighled into the Romish Religion after which he was entertained by Cardinal Barbarini as one of his Gentlemen where after he had continued about five Months he was pervailed withal by several English there and by the said Cardinal to put himself into the English Seminary where after he had continued about two years and a half he returned home but whilst he continued in the said Colledge viz. in Lent last he discâ—ursed with Gerrard Ireland and William Dormour Priests now in England the said Iâ—eland told him that the Catholicks of England had expected long enough from his Majesty withâ—ut Effect and that it was in vain to expect any longer That the King had been much obliged to the Catholics and that he had now forgot their Kindness That he did no Good in England nor did deserve to be King but was a shame to all Princes and that it was no Sin to Kill him to which one Sergeant a Schollar replied Why The said Ireland answered bâ—cause it would be for the Good of the whole Church if the King were Dead the Catholic Religion would soon be brought into England And discoursing further of their going into England the said Ireland and Dormour said they hoped each of them to get a good fat Parsonage there this Dâ—ponent further saith That having an Audience of the Pope in the company of â—our Priests and another secular Gentleman all Students of the same Colledge the Pope understanding they were going for England and
being desirous to know their several States and Conditions and having demanded of Father Campian who conducted them to the Pope whether they were all Priests and understanding by the said Campians answer that two of them were Seculars he asked of the said two their design of going into England whether they intended there to be Soldiers for that they were very â—it for the same this Deponent further saith that in the beginning of May last a few days before his coming away from Rome he waited on Cardinal Barbarini whom he found sick on his Bed he bid the said Deponent at parting the Rector being present to take care to be True and Faithful and serve the Duke of York which the Rector also desired him to bear in Mind the Cardinal afterwards applying himself to the said Rector said that if the Catholic Religion were brought into England notwithstanding his great Age he would go thither Legaâ— de Latere This Information was taken by the Bishop of London upon the 20th of December 1678 and there is contained in it many things worthy of your Observation 1. That your viâ—lainous Party had waited upon the King your Brother till they were weary of writing and that I doubt noâ— in the least and I question not but you laboured under the same Diâ—ease for without all doubt he had given them his Royal Word and Promise of restoring their Religion or at least of making them to all intents and purposes easie in their Worship by such an Indulgence as should be a fair step to the restoring of their Religion and Worship to be the National Way of Worshipping God 2 That because your Brother had forfeited his Credit with them in that point they thought it no sin to destroy him and truly you was much of their opinion when you was privy to the deadly Dose that was given him for if you had been of the Opinion that it was a Sin to destroy him you would have brought that impudent Whore that gave him his Bane to Public Justice and would rather have protested against it publickly than have consented to the poysoning of Short that was to give him his due disgusted at the death of that poor Prince who to serve you had for several years before his death abandoned himself to be destroyed 3. That there was little hopes of restoring the Catholic Religion till he was dead and why then truly you knew who was to succeâ—d him and you being a Papist and their hopes of your coming such to the Crown raised their pious Zeal to hasten his Destruction in order to make way for the restoring of your damn'd Religion here amongst us Again 4. This Gastrel was to take Care to serve you and be faithful to you and he and his Companions were fit to be Soldiers for your Service you were to have an Army and it was necessary that it should be an Army fit for the business for the mighty Work that you had upon your hands even the Conversion of three Kingdoms and the subduing the Northern Heresie Truly Sir I did never hear that any Objection was made to the Testimony of this Man the Bishop of London is yet alive and can give a better Account of him than I can do at present but this I will say for him if I am not much out that he gave the then Bishop of Ely such a warming bout for treating him coursly for leaving the Church of Rome that I thought the old Villain of a Priest in some danger of being beaten but had I known what villainous Popish Principles that base Fellow held I should never have appeared for him in the case of Sedway but I confess then that Gastrel told me that Gunning was a Man of very rotten Principles in relation to our Reforming from the Church of Rome but he was your Favourite dear Sir and that was enough to have published him a well-wisher to the Romish Mathematicks once he told me that he thought the Church of God had no loss by the death of Edward the Sixth but this by the way I hasten to a second Witness 2. The Deposition of Thomas Crowder one of the Soldiers of Chepstow Castle made Oath before William Floyd your old Friend sometimes Bishop of Landaff then One of the Justices of the Peace for the County of Landaff the Three and twentieth day of January 1678 9 is as follows This Deponent saith upon his Oath That being in Captain Francis Spalding 's Chamber at Chepstow Castle about the Eleventh of November last past he this Deponent heard the said Captain Spalding say That if he had been at home when William Bedloe was in the Town he would have secured the said William Bedloe from discovering of the Plot. Upon which Sir you know That the said Captain Spalding was ordered to be committed to the Kings Bench Prison but that you may remember the case of this Villain Spalding that was both Knave Coward and Traitor all at once and therefore the more fit for your Service and the better to serve your wicked Designs and Purposes he was planted a Chepstow to maintain a Correspondence with the Popish Party about Wales which was tranâ—mitted to Sir â—olitick Fringe that bore a mighty sway in those Parts and Sir Politick transmitted it to your good Worship old Sir Trevor and some others were once much obliged to him for several singular Favours and so was the late great Morgan of Tredeghan the Traitor grins his Chaps much like your self and saith he is a Protestant but I will no more take his word in that case than I did in the Affair of Combe Abbey for tho he saith he is a Protestant yet it is well known that he hath been an Instrument in your hand to seduce the People of the Country and nothing in the day of your power and his would serve him but the Blood of whole Families that did not comply with your and his villainous Principles and Practises for his Popish Priests that he always had about him were his great Incouragers to ruin Families of Gentlemen and especially he having not only your countenance but your especial direction in the case for by the means of this Villain Spalding your Sir Politick Fringe that grins upon a Mans Face though he be resolved that moment to cut his Throat had a Character of every Gentleman in and about Wales being much assisted in that blessed Work by one Herbert a Justice of the Peace another true blew Protestant one of Sir Politick's Agents this Sir was your Spalding a Spy for you upon many Families in order if possible to their ruin by your means this Spalding got his Inlargement and was taken care of by you as a main Prop of your Cause and Conspiracy in the Welsh Counties but Sir why should I wonder at these Practises of yours and of your good Sir Politick since both of you have been taught and do still believe that it is but a Deed of Charity to
Deponent saying your Brother the said Messenger replied we are off that thing now therefore he desired me me not to speak of it to any body afterwards the said Butler came to this Deponent 's Shop and told the Deponent that he had received great Anger in that he had told the Deponent of what Messenger was to Attempt This Deponent further saith that some what above half a year since he heard Mr. Walliston Paston say that young Sir Henry Beddingfield of Oxburrough Hall in Norfolk was to have a Commission form my Lord Arundel for a Troop of Horse in the Army to be raised by the Papists Also about the time that the four Lords that were in the Tower that is the Duke of Buckingham my Lord Shaftsbury the Lord Wharton and the Lord Salisbury that one Mr. Knightly came to me and greatly rejoycing at their Imprisonment said that now is the time for promoting the Catholic Religion because of the difference that was amongst the Lords and that if the Duke of York did but follow the business closely which the Catholics had ground to believe he would they did not doubt but that it would be settled in that juncture of time Your Friend Mr. Prance gave in another Information on the 22. of March which is as follows IN the Month of August 1678 I having occasion to write to a Friend in the Country but could not tell well how to send I went to Mr. Pastons who lodged at one Bambers a Taylor in Duke-street who gave me an Account where to send to him and we immediately fell into Discourse concerning the present posture of Affairs and he bid me not to fear for we should suddenly have better times for in the first place he said that the King was a great Heretick and that the Lord Bellasis and Lord Arundel and Lord Powis and the Lord Petre would have a very good Army for the Deposing of the King and the suppression of the Hereticks and then the Catholick Religion should be established and flourish in this Nation he also said that the above named Lords had given out Commissions already to some Gentlemen in the Country whom he named to me who were Mr. Talbot of Longford and Sir Henry Beddingfield of Oxborow Hall in Norfolk and one Mr. Stone who lives within four or five miles of Kingston upon Thames Also about two years ago one Townley of Townley in Lancashire came up to London with his two Sons whom he was carrying over to Doway he also brought along with him his two Brothers to keep him Company they took Lodgings at Ayries house in Drury-Lane where Fenwick lodged and in a short time two of them went over to Doway with the two Lads and left the other here who in the absence of his Brothers declared very often to my Wifes Brother and to Adamson that when his Brothers came back again from Doway they expected Commissions from the above named Lords for the raising of Men for the Carrying on the Catholick Cause this my Brother and Adamson often told me at Pettleyes in Veres-street where we had a Club very often of none but Papists Now Sir we have given you an account of what Mr. Prance swore before the Parliament concerning the Popish Plot in which you may see your self engaged for you had a business upon your hands and that business was to be followed closely and then the Catholick Religion would flourish and you know to what a degree of Zeal and Piety you were converted as not to regard any thing in the world in comparison of God Almighty's Glory and the Salvation of your own and the conversion of this poor Kingdom which hath been a long time oppressed and miserably harassed with Heresie and Schism nay your Zeal was such That Coleman could sâ—arce believe himself awake when he thought on it I will now put you in mind of what he discovered upon Oath concerning the said Popish Plot at the Tryals of several of your Villains I begin with the Tryals of the five Jesuites where the said Prance did with all chearfulness declare That Harcourt the Jesuit and one of your Councellors at St. Jameses told Prance that there was a design of killing the King and St. Ireland Fenwick and Grove who was one of your Popish Messengers and Firers of the Borough of Southwark told him of 50000 Men that were to be raised for the carrying on of the Catholick Cause and to settle the Catholick Religion which Affair was to be managed by the Five Lords that were for that Conspiracy committed to the Tower who as well as Whitebread were to grant Commissions for Officers nay had actually granted several and to incourage this Prance who though he had but a little Sense yet he had so much as to dread a Civil War told him that he need not fear he should have Church Work enough It will not be unnecessary to make some Observations upon Mr. Prance his Testimony before we come to another and in it here are five or six things worthy of your Consideration 1. Here is expresly sworn That Popery was to be introduced which you know is High Treason your Priests all expected to see the Romish Religion setled and that then all things would do well and your Priests should have fat Parsonages and then all things would go right 2. This Religion was to be brought in by an Army you know that your Dragooning Apostles here might have planted Religion in as an effectual way as they ruin'd the poor Protestants in France 3. Here is the King your Brother declared an Heretick and therefore by your Popish Army to be deposed and by Messenger to be destroyed 4. Here is your selâ— having a work in hand which you were to follow closely 5. Here are your Popish Party all engaged and you at the Head of them 6. Here is all the Incouragement in the World to prevent them from fainting in the Cause for fear of a Civil War they should have Trade enough what can be plainer let all the World judge 4. A Fourth Witness that proved the Popish Plot was the Testimony of Mr. Robert Jenison the manner of his coming in was thus upon the 15th of June 1679 Mr. Chetwind of Westminster who had some Discourse with one Mr. Griffith a Gentleman of Grays Inn about the five Jesuites that had been condemned on the day before and their attempt â—o prove William Ireland alias Ironmonger executed some time before for High Treason to have been in Staffordshire and on his Journey thither from the fifth of August 1678 till the seventh of September following and not to have been within that time in London as I had with others sworn him to have been there between the eight and the twelfth of August and to be returned again thither on the beginning of September whereupon Mr. Griffith told Mr. Chetwynd that Sir Michael Wharton of Beverley in the County of York then a Member of Parliament told him
Midd. ss meet Mr. Robert Bowes on or about the 17th of August last past and returned back to London the 19th of the same Month on which day in the Afternoon he made a Visit to Mr. William Ireland alias Ironmonger at his Lodgings in Russel street who was this Informants Relation at which time and place he this Informant had the Discourse with the said Mr. Ireland mentioned and contained in this Informants Letter to the said Mr. Bowes and now shewed unto him being all of this Informants hand Writing dated at Reading in Barkshire on the 19th of December last past and this Informant doth very wâ—ll remember that he went from London into the North in the York Coach on the 4th of September last past and came back thence to London in October following from thence he went to Reading in Obedience to his Majesties Proclamation from whence he wrot the Letter aforesaid to Mr. Robert Bowes and further at present saith not Jurâ—die anno suprâ—dict cor me Edmand Warcupp Rob. Jenison 2. Was taken the Second of July 1679 and is as follows The further Information of Robert Jenison of Grays Inn Esq taken upon Oath this 2d day of July 1679 before me Edmund Warcupp Esq One of His Majesties Justices of the Peace in the County of Middlesex THis Informant saith That he being returned from Windsor upon the 19th Midd. ss day of August last he went to Mr. Ireland's Lodging in Russel street in Covent Garden to visit him and passing thro the Entry that went directly up two pair of Stairs to the said Mr. William Ireland's Chamber the door whereof being somewhat open he entred and found the said Mr. William Ireland whom this Informant having told that he just then came from Windsor upon a Hackney-Horse hired at three Shillings per day which had much tired him the said William Ireland replyed that he was then newly arrived from Wolverhampton in Staffordshire by Post and that he was not weary upon which this Informant that he thought that Scholars as he was had rather chuse to ride ambling Horses than to ride Post And this Informant further saith that he very well remembers that about the Beginning of October last past Sir Edward Smith came to Walworth in the County Palatine of Durham and then read a Letter newly come from London purporting the Discovery of the Plot and that the King was to have been killed at Windsor which made this Informant call to mind the Expressions of the said William Ireland on the said 19th of August viz. why his Majesty should be so thin Guarded he was easily taken off or removed or words to that sounding and thereupon this Informant did the next day after the Reading of the said Letter relate all the Passages between this Informant and the said Mr. Ireland to this Informants Father and the said Mr. Smith as they are contained in this Informants Letter to Mr. Bowes dated on the 10th day of December last and so the said Mr. Smith hath lately signifyed by Letter to the said Mr. Bowes and this Informant further saith that in the Year 1678 several Papists have in this Informants hearing declared that they doubted not but their Religion would shortly be uppermost or to that effect and further at present he saith not Jurat coram me Ed. Warcupp Rob. Jenison 3. Was taken on the Second of August 1679 and is as follows The further Information of Robert Jenison of Grays Inn Esq taken upon Oath this Second Day of August 1679 before me Edmund Warcupp Esq One of His Majesties Justices of the Peace of the said County THis Informant saith That it being generally reported that the Evidence Midd. ss against Sir George Wakeman was full he this Informant was not so careful to recollect the further Discourses he had with Mr. William Ireland before the said Tryals as he hath been since and upon the most serious examination thereof he doth very well remember that in the Month of June 1678 the said William Ireland did say that it was an easie matter to poyson the King and that Sir George Wakeman might easily do having a great opportunity by being the Queens Doctor which Discourse this Informant doth verily believe the said Ireland used to this Informant to induce this Informant to his further Intentions being as this Informant believes assured of this Informants secresy from Mr. Thomas Jenison his Brother and from some Obligation the said Ireland had laid on this Informant by lending him Twenty Pounds which he said was the St. Omerian Money and this Informant further saith That upon the 19th day of August following he the said William Ireland at his Chamber in Russel street did earnestly press this Informant by various Arguments to be instrumental in bringing in the Catholick Religion urging how meritorious it would be and how much to the Glory of God and thereupon offered to cause the said Twenty to be remitted to this Informant if he would be assisting to the taking off the King and would be one of those that would go to Windsor about it but this Informant did answer that he would not for twenty times twenty Pounds have a hand in the death of the King whereupon the said Ireland replyed will you do nothing to bring in the Catholick Religion To which this Informant did say that he did not believe that ever would come iâ— by Blood upon which the said Ireland replyed what would you not have Religion to flourish again whereto this Informant answered if it were done meaning if the King were taken off so and well but this Informant said he would have no hand in it but the said William Ireland not being satified with this Informants Answers pursued thus do you know of any Irish Gentlemen of our Religion that are stout and couragious upon which this Informant replyed the Irish Gentlemen were commonly so and did name Mr. Lavallyn Mr. Thomas Braâ—ale Mr. Karney three Irish Men and Mr. James Wilson being all Gentlemen of Grays Inn of whose Names the said Ireland took particular notice in writing to the best of this Informants remembrance and this Informant did then tell the said Ireland That he believed no Men of Estates would be concerned in that Affair and especially Captain Lavallyn who was an Heir to a good Estate unless the Pique he had to the King might induce him to it and this Informant further saith That being with the said Thomas Jenison and another Gentleman about the latter end of April or beginning of May 1678 whose Name he now remembers not in the said Ireland's Chamber there came one in who after some private Discourse with Mr. Ireland and after he was gone the said Thomas Jenison told this Informant 't was one Mr. Oats who had been a Parson but was come over to them and that he was a brisk jolly Man and well worth his Acquaintance and he further saith that about the time that some Regiments were drawn together
a Man that had faithfully served his Countrey as Mr. Jenison did in this Point and truly Sir he stands much Obliged to you and your damnable Crew for it I trust the Government that now is will cast a favourable Eye upon that wretched Person and not let him perish for want of Bread 4. You may Observe the particularity of that Discourse that passed between Mr. Ireland and Mr. Jenison upon the 19th which shews to the World what a case hardened Villain Ireland was when he at the Gallows was pleased to say That he returned not from Staffordshire till the 14th of September and that he was out of Town the Month of August but the Evidence not only of Mr. Jenison shewed the Nature of the Man but the poor Wench Sarah Paine made it out by a better Circumstance by which Scroggs himself was satisfied that Ireland was in Town for the said Paine swore she went to live at the Lord Arlingtons on the week after the King went to Windsor and she saw Mr. Ireland the week before she went to the Lord Arlingtons for which piece of Service your Brother and you forbid the Lord Arlington to retain the said Sarah Paine in his Service and therefore the Lord Arlington turned her out of doors to Starve if it had been in his power that this Sarah Paine knew Ireland is notorious for she was Servant to John Grove one of your Fire Merchants and used to carry Letters to Mr. Ireland that were directed for him to her aforesaid Master John Grove that was Hanged with Ireland 5. You may see the Zeal you and your Party had for the Propagation of your Religion you cared not what you did to advance Holy Church 't is true you were strangly converted and therefore no wonder if you did not make it your business to Ruine all that stood in your way So Mr. Jenison's Zeal to have the World to beware of your Zeal was as great and durst never to flinch from his Cause though you made him to fly his Country and engaged his Father to disinherit him of his Birth-right and to give it to a Son that yet remains a Member of your cursed Synagogue but as for Mr. Jenison here concerned in this Testimony he is still alive to make good what he hath said and I am sure he is of Age to speak for himself and can tell how he hath been treated by your Party for this his Zeal 6. His Brother Mr. Thomas Jenisons activity in these Affairs is also worthy of your Remembrance and Mr. Jenisons impartiality was such that he would not spare him though he had a tenderness for him as he was his Brother which made him delay the Discovery of them yet he did at last Discover them though to the exposing of his Brother he was willing to save his own Brother yet he was unwilling to endanger the Government but at last you see he came to a Resolution notwithstanding the many Fluctuations of his Mind of shewing himself a true English Man and he appeared and gave the aforesaid Testimony and iâ— any thing be to be objected against it I suppose you have Rogues enough ready but let them be great or little Rogues let them come forth and they shall be heard but in the mean time I pray Sir how like you all this is it not Plain that you had a design to levy War upon the People for Jenison was to have a Popish Commission from you by the means of his Brother the Jusuit but of this in its proper place 5. I come to a Fifth Witness and that was Mr. Dugdale who fully declared the great Design that your Father Whitebread had of destroying the King your Brother he was one that was engaged in your mighty work and by this Whitebread was Dugdale imployed to choose out Lusty and Couragious Men for the Work the mighty Work that you all had of killing the King they were to be hardy and desperate as befitting their Apostolical power by which the Nation was to be converted nay rather then fail there was to be a Masacre to root out the Protestant Religion and truly Sir you were much in the right for it would have been a thing impossible to have rooted out the Protestant Religion without destroying the Protestants this was the use you were to make of your Hardy Stout and Desperate Apostles which Dugdale was to find out and it seems those who could not Convert the Nation by their handy Labour they were to Exercise their Tongues therefore you had a set of Tongue Padds to stir up your Popish Party to be active in this glorious Design of yours Mr. Dugdale was not only engaged by your wicked Jesuites to destroy the King but he was also intrusted with their Trayterous Correspondences both Forreign and Dâ—mestic and further considering his State and Condition he had largly contributed to them but here I shall observe to you these three things 1. The Impudence of your Apostolical Men who were to Assist you in your mighty Work that you had upon your hands that in their Common Post-letters they should write in Words at Length that the King was to be destroyed but Sir the Post Office was yours and so they might be the more bold and you in the Design and who was it at that time durst open their Letters who were Men of such Value with you that on them the hopes of England did depend but your Villains made strang of it but it was not more Strang then True for they had as good a Salvo for that as they had for the Fire of London viz. to â—hrow it upon the Protestants which brings me to a second particular 2. That it was impossible for you and your villainous Party to do any thing towards the Advancement of your Cause without Murder your Church is founded upon Blood and therefore your design was written in Characters of Blood so plain that any Man might run and read them this was the way that you were to subdue the Northren Heresie that had so long domineered in this Parâ— of the World it was for this that you had such a mighty Zeal that it made your Servant Coleman to question whether he were asleep or awake when he thought on it your Father had his Irish Apostles in his time and you were to have had not only Irish but French Dragoons that were to teach our English Nation the Articles of your Roman Faith truly this was and still is the Method of the Whore of Baâ—ylon by which she converted the Kingdoms of Europe to her Obedience and in recompence for the same she hath made â—heir Kings and Princes drunk with the Blood of the Saints of God 3. You were to charge this upon the Protestants as you did the Fiâ—e of 〈◊〉 for which eight Men were hang'd the ninth was lustily promised but 〈◊〉 â—y 〈◊〉 â— pray remember that it was in the Month of August 1678 that the â—â—â—d 〈◊〉 â—â—s taken
that related to yourself and that was put in by trusty Ned your own Secretary after that you had perused the Memorial with whom you had been very rash with him about an affront he had put upon Sir Allen Apsly in relation to Religion of which he had complained to you for Coleman was as Impudent on the one hand as you were short in your Judgment on the other which many times did much prejudice your Design and truely it was his impudence and your Folly that helped to deliver the Nation 2. That this Lord Arundel of Wardour did give Money to pervert several of the Subjects of England under the notion of Charity which was distributed by Fenwick and Ireland for the use of Poor Converts and no other need I did see the Mony distributed to several Persons perverted as the Lord Arundel's mony in the Month of December 1677 and in the Month of June 1678 in Drury-lane at Fennicks Chamber that Money in June 1678 was 160 l. that was given to about 80 People that Fenwick had Perverted to the Church of Rome 3. That the Lord Arundel of Wardour was privy to the Consult held in April and May in which the Death of the King your Brother was determined for in the beginning of May this Fenwick gave that noble Lord a full account of the unanimous Resolution of the Fathers of the Society in that Point and it was at the same time this noble Lord signed a Bill of 250 l. for the use of the Societies in carrying on their Design 4. This Lord Arundel as mighty as you appear to be had the chief managing of the Affairs of the Popish Party and the Negotiations between you and the French King both as to War and Peace and between the Pope and you in reference to Religion was manag'd by him and you could never have Obtained the Kingdom till that in the Month of June 1678 you had engaged to the French King and the General of the Jesuits who acted with you on the behalf of the Bishop of Rome to take the Kingdom upon the termes the Pope and the French King would allow of and then you fully complied and Arundel was made choice of and was to have been your chief Minister of State and your trusty and well beloved Cuckold and Councellour was to have had a Cardinals Hat with which Sir I suppose you will at this time be content and be glad if you can come of so fairly 5. The Lord Arundel of VVardour did take a Commission from the General of the Jesuits to be high Chancellor of England which was delivered to him by one of Langhorn's Son and to my Knowledge he owned the Receipt of the said Commission in Colemans presence and also by a letter to Fenwick who shewed me the Letter by which the World may see what a Dogs-turd of a King you were like to be for you durst not for your Ears have granted that Commission therefore to Skreen you from the imputation of a Traitour and the French King of an Invader you and he agreed to put it upon the General of the Society who with some difficulty undertook the Province and was on the Popes behalf to choose your Officers both Civil and Military and the Dignities of the Church had not the Design been Discovered which made all of you that did not suffer the Justice of the Nation to alter your Measures 6. That your Servant Coleman having held a long Correspondency with the See of Rome and finding that the Pence he Received did not answer his expectation he began to flag and complain of the same to the Lord Arundel of Wardour but the Lord Arundel was resolved that Coleman should not be discharged and therefore the Lord Arundel writ to the Fathers of the Society and complained of the slowness of the Court of Rome of remitting Mony to England and in the Letter to the Fathers of St. Omers was one inclosed to Cardinal Howard of which there was answer that the Cardinal did not question but that he should obtain a good Pension from the Pope for Coleman and after some time did obtain the said Pension for honest Ned and then he went on briskly and you know that at that very time your Pacquet went a Copy of which Coleman Communicated to the Fathers in London which I had the opportunity of seeing and it did farther appear to me by the constant Correspondence that they held with the Jesuits at St. Omers in the Year 1675 76 77 1678. that he had been a great support to Coleman in those his Correspondences with the General of the Jesuits and Lachaise 7. This Lord Arundel of VVardour by your especial Direction did acquaint the Fathers at St. Omers in what awe you kept the Justices of Wiltshire insomuch they durst not appear to put the Laws in Execution against the Roman-Catholicks and told some that they were more forward than they had thanks for their Paines and that they must expect that if they were more mild they would find that which was Sauce for a Goose was Sauce for a Gander and in that Letter expressed much Joy that there was every day a fine increase of the number of Roman Catholicks especially in VVales Herefordshire and Staffordshire 8. This Lord Arundel of VVardour told Mr. Fenwick at his Chamber in my hearing that he did not question but to have Berwick upon Tweed put into the Hands of the Scotch Roman Catholicks and that it would be a good refuge for the Scotch Party which Scotch Party you know a parcel of Scotch Highlanders Cut-Throats that were to molest all the North Parts of England and the Fife in Scotland and that the Castle of Edenburgh was to be put into the Hands of the then Marquiss of Huntly so that you were sure of doing your business in the North without much Opposition you by your Tool Lauderdale having brought that Kingdom intosuch Slavery that the Poor Protestants had but little hopes of Recovering their Liberties and I do believe they would have chosen rather to have fallen into the Hands of the Popish party than to have continued under that Slavery they groaned under by the Tyrany of Lauderdale and his Villanous Scotch Prelates but how they could have mended their Condition by falling into their Hands I am yet I confess to learne 9. That the Lord Belasys the Lord Arundel of VVardour the Lord Powis the Lord Stafford and the Lord Baltimore met and held a Committee at VVild-House and this Lord Arundel was in the Chair and Mivo the Jesuit sat Secretary to them at that time and a letter was drawn up to Coleman to Communicate to you and the Import of the said Letter was this that whereas Peter Talbot the Arch-Bishop of Dublin had informed them that the Duke of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland would endeavour to raise the Revenue of Ireland to be two Hundred thousand Pounds Per annum for ever over and above all the
your Nose and say nothing and let them Play the Game as they lifted and when they were strengthened by your Interest and the French Kings Power they could send you Trudging into the Kingdom of Darkness as you did your Brother But to come home to your Jesuits Sir let me put you in mind that upon the fifth of April we had notice from Thomas VVhite and the Fathers in London that a General Consult was to be held on April the 24th and the Fathers of Leige and Ghent and VVatton and St. Omers were ordered to attend the said Consult and the Summons was to this effect Thus all that had Jus Suffragij was to be there and that they were not to hasten to London long before the time appointed nor to appear much about the Town till the meeting was over least occasion should be given to suspect the Design and Secrecy as to the time and place was much Recommended to all those that were Summoned as it would appear of its own Nature necessary this was the Summons and to this Summons we all obeyed and to London we came and there met about 50 or 60 of the Society from all parts of the Kingdome who before the Consult was disolved did resolve upon the Death of the King either by Shooting Poysoning or Stabbing Conyers the Benedictin was pitcht upon and four Irish Russians to Stab him and Pickering and Grove were pitcht upon to shoot him and Sir George VVakeman to Poyson him thus your Brothers death was resolved upon and what they could not effect in 1678 they did in 1684 and to this of 78 your Servant Coleman was not only Privy too but was aiding and advising and consenting and how could you be Ignorant of it then For what you did in 1684 you had long designed of which Sir no doubt in the least can be made and therefore it s in vain for you or any of your Villains to dispute it can you deny that you sought the Destruction of the Prince of Orange whilst he was in that Station only because he had Married your Daughter can you or your Brother of France deny that the Papists were to have your Aid and Power to subdue the Northern Heresy Can you deny that Coleman laboured for a Peace that the French King might be at leasure to assist you here in England And that you might not have one to hand a Party against you was not the Duke of Monmouth kept under the Hatches by you and your Party And was not the Parliament to be disolved And by the Dissolution of the Parliament a Peace could be procured upon more Advantageous Terms to the French and in order to your regaining your Power and Interest which was hurt by quitting the Office of Lord High Admiral it was contrived that you should be restored and that the King your Brother should put the Fleet into your Hands as the only Person that could give a good account of it and farthermore that for all the Places of importance of the Kingdom put into his Hands till the Popish Religion and Arbitrary Power was fixed and you at the Hand of it in which Post you were to be but a Royal Tool to serve their base Ends and Purposes and if you did not comply they knew how to dispose of you even in no worse way than they designed upon your Brother which I say through Gods Mercy to England and your Clemency they did effect and then Popery had but two Legs whereas in his time she had four such as they were Objection That it was objected against me that I was not in Town in the Months of April and May this was one main Objection against my Discovery and to this end the Jesuits produced a Number of rascally Boys from St. Omers to prove my being there those Two Months nay some of them Swore from December till June And to answer this Objection I brought in Seven or Eight Witnesses to prove my being in Town which gave the Court great Satisfaction 1. The first Witness I called was Mr. Walter sometimes Vicar of Rainham in Kent who did declare that he had known me several Years and had met me in Newgate Market and in the Month of April he saw me in a Disguise in a grey Serge Coat and a grey Hat at the first Sight this Minister did not know me to be the Man but upon due recollection he found me to be the Man that he had seen and to confirm his Judgment in it he went to a Gentlewoman whose Name also he did not know he went to her because he had seen me at her House to enquire of her what was become of me and how I did and the Gentlewoman not knowing the End of my going beyond the Seas answered him thus Oh says she he is an undone Man he is turned to the Church of Rome and Absconds and hides himself I know not where Can all this be true Then Mr. Walter told her That he had seen me later than she had done for he had seen me the Day before at the upper end of St. Martin's Lane near Leicester House 2. Sarah Ives was another Witness in the Case to confirm what Mr. Walter had said this was the Woman of whom he enquired concerning me who owned she had not seen me but my Friends had told her that they judged me about the Town Incognito and she proved that Walter had the aforesaid Discourse with her concerning me and that he had told her that he had seen me the Day before and she tells you a particular Token That my Father came then unto her House to see her and she did ask my Father to eat some thin Cheese that was newly come in and the first she had come in and she enquired of my Father when he did see me my Father told her That he had not seen me of late then said she I can tell you News of your Son here was one Mr. VValter in my Shop that says he met him in Leicester Fields but in a Disguise and that he had told her what Habit I was in 3. A third Witness that proved me in Town at that time was one Butler that was Coach man to Sir Richard Barker who said That he was about his Coach which stood in the Gate-way and that I came in and asked him whether Dr. Tonge was within and he answered No At the first Sight he did not know me by reason of the Disguise that I was in but had known me well before because that I wore a Minister's Habit as I did then at the Tryal of the Jesuits but upon calling to mind who I was he did bid me welcome into England again but he said I took no notice of him but went on forward into the House But I made but little stay in the House because a young Fellow had affronted me for the sake of the Habit I was then in and this he swore was in the Month of May
Bull was obtained then in the latter part of 1677 Commissions began to appear pretty rife and in the year 1678 to the time the Plot was Discovered to your Brother which was some little time before you went to Windsor But to conclude this particular observe 1. that you were not to appear aâ— the head of the Conspiracy for fear of being Exposed to the Parliament 2. that if the thing were Discovered it should appear an unprobable Story and so not be Believed 3 That your Allie of France might not Expose himself to the Princes of Christendom 4 That the General of the Jesuits unwillingly engaged in the Affair of granting Commissions 5. That when he had undertaken the Province aforesaid the whole Body of Jesuits were engaged in the Work 6. And more closly Linckt to the Interest of the French King their General being his Creature to all Intents and Purposes 8. What Credit the Discovery of the Popish Plot obtained in the Nation this did not only obtain Credit in the Nation but might have been of great use to Charles your Brother and I am sure it was very Fatal to you and your Party but that which you sneer at were the Reasons why the Witnesses were so ill treated at Court and were not beloved by your Brother to this I must give you these two Answers 1. By way of Concession that is possible he might not be pleased to give that Credit to the Discovery of the Popish Plot and therefore its true he did not give the Witnesses that kind Treatment at Court the Nature of their Cause required and there where four Reasons for it 1. Your Brother was well acquainted with the new Government and the new Religion that was to be brought in but you were not so Civil as to acquaint him with the Design that was against his own Life so that when that part of your Design was Discovered you almost prevailed upon your Brother not to believe this part of the Plot because that you had so freely acquainted him with all the other Part of your Design and engaged him in it so that he being persuaded by you and your Party not to give Credit or at leastwise to own that he did believe that the self same Party with whom he himself was in a Conspiracy should have such another Plot against his Life the King your Brother was in the Design against the Religion and Government of the Kingdom because he was sold into an opinion that the Religion and Government thereof was inconsistant with Monarchy as he told the King of Poland by old Sir Cutbook Lockrom Jaws alias Mapleface quondam his Envoy then and that Rascal of a Book-Cutter had got such a notion of the uniting of the Church of England with the Church of Rome that I think it was as great an argument to induce you to prefer him as well as the cheating of your dear Brother by reason of his excellent Talent in the work of Book-Cutting and also at the destroying of the Discovery of the Popish Plot. 2. Another Reason why the King your Brother might not bee inclined to give the Witnesses that Credit and Reception they did deserve because of his affection to the Popish Crew tho I must tell you that had I been of your Brothers Council I should have given him this Advice viz. That if he would have preserved himself from a Conspiracy was obliged in Policy to have had an Eye upon those for whom he hath done the greatest Kindnesses rather than upon those to whom he hath been unkind for those that were disgusted they made not such frequent Opportunities nor such easy Accesses to him as your favoured Villains had and the Conspiracy that was begun against his Life was by you and those Popish Lords and Jesuits that had been most familiar with him for was it not his own only Life that kept you from the three Kingdoms and that you were in danger every day to turn your Party destroyed by the Parliament therefore it stood you in much stead to dispense with the Sixth Commandement rather then your Negotiations with the Cardinal Howard the French King and Father Farrier and Father Lachaise and Oliva General of the Jesuits and the Popes Internuncio at Bruxels nay with the Pope himself should fall to the Ground and you know that you found him but loose in his Religion which was that of Rome if he had any at all and that he had neither Resolution nor Courage nor Constancy and Popery was the thing you now Resolved upon and Arbitrary Government he was Privy to all this and liked the Project but would not run the hazard you did therefore because he was a Trotter only and not a Galloper you were resolved to destroy him and to blind him so that he might not see your Design nor believe it you and your Party urged this for a main Reason his Affection to them and his laying so many Obligations upon them was an Argument sufficient to support your Party against the Credit of the Witnesses that appeared to accuse them 3. Because the King your Brother was Swallowed up in the Pleasures of his Lusts he preferred the Amorous Glances of his Whores before the safety of the three Nations who were most of them of the Popish Religion and they having his Ear and his Heart did much prevail with him to discountenance the Discovery of the Popish Plot and the Discovâ—rers thereof as Portsmouth in particular who in Conjunction with you and your Party carried the King and his Ministers that were up to the Ears with you in all the other Parts of the Design and you know that when I appeared I stood a single Witness a great while and notwithstanding you and the Court Whores and Court Pimps and Court Bawds set your Faces upon me to destroy me nevertheless I stood like a Rock against all your Attempts 1. You know who it was that was acquainted with the Conspiracy by Order from the King your Brother and he was so far pursuing the Discovery that he chose rather to let the Conspirators have time enough to convey away their Person and their Papers and Madam Remarkable was as diligent a cast Whore as any in that Affair 2. Your Italian Comrade you know made a visit to the Princess of Orange in Flanders and by that Opportunity many of the Traytors had an opportunity to escape as also when you was sent to take the Air in that Country you took along with you several of your Villains 3. You know how Coleman's last two years Letters were Conveyed away 4. You bribed Scroggs to baffle the Testimonies of the Witnesses you and the Whores thus prevailing upon the King you might dispose him not to give the Witnesses that reception their Cause and Service did deserve 2. I answer in the second Place that notwithstanding the usage the Witnesses met withal from your Brother in private Capacity as he was a Man Wedded to his Pleasures and
the said Duke should succeed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm nothing is more manifest than that a total Change of Religion within these Kingdoms would ensue For the Preservation thereof be it Enacted by the King 's most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same That the said James Duke of York shall be and is by the Authority of this present Parliament excluded and made for ever incapable to inherit possess or injoy the Imperial Crown of this Realm and of the Kingdoms of Ireland and the Dominions and Territories to them or to either of them belonging or to have exercise or injoy any Dominion Power Jurisdiction or Authority in ihe same Kingdoms Dominions or any of them And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That if the said James Duke of York shall at any Time hereafter challenge claim or attempt to possess or enjoy or shall take upon him to use or exercise any Dominion Power or Authority or Jurisdiction within the said Kingdoms or Dominions or any of them as King or chief Magistrate of the same that then he the said James Duke of York for every such Offence shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and shall suffer the Pains Penalties and Forfeitures as in Case of High Treason And further That if any Person or Persons whatever shall assist or maintain abet or willingly adhere unto the said James Duke of York in such Challenge Claim or Attempt or shall of themselves attempt or endeavour to put or bring the said James Duke of York into the Possession or Exercise of any Regal Power Jurisdiction or Authority within the Kingdoms and Dominions aforesaid or shall by writing or preaching advisedly publish maintain or declare That he hath any Right Title or Authority to the Office of King or chief Magistrate of the Kingdoms and Dominions aforesaid that then every such Person shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and that he suffer and undergo the Pains Penalties and Forfeitures aforesaid And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That if he the said James Duke of York shall at any time from and after the Fifth of Nov. 1680. return or come into or within any of the Kingdoms or Dominions aforesaid then he the said James Duke of York shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and shall suffer the Pains Penalties and Forfeitures as in case of High Treason And further That if any Person or Persons whatsoever shall be aiding or assisting unto such Return of the said James Duke of York that then every such Person shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and shall suffer as in cases of High Treason And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That he the said James Duke of York or any other Person being guilty of the Treasons aforesaid shall not be capable of or receive Benefit by any Pardon otherwise than by Act of Parliament wherein they shall be particularly named And that no Noli prosequi or order for stay of Proceedings shall be received in or upon any Indictment for any of the Offences mentioned in this Act. And be it further Enacted and Declared and it is hereby Enacted and Declared That it shall and may be Lawful to and for any Magistrates Officers and other Subjects whatsoever of these Kingdoms and Dominions oforesaid and they are hereby enjoyned and required to apprehend and secure the said James Duke of York and every other Person offending in any of the Premises and with him or them in case of Resistance to fight and him or them by force to subdue for all which Actings and for so doing they are and shall be by Virtue of this Act saved harmless and indemnified Provided and it is hereby Declared That nothing in this Act contained shall be construed deemed or adjudged to disenable any other Person from inheriting and injoying the Imperial Crown of the Realms and Dominions aforesaid other then the said James Duke of York but that in case the said James Duke of York should survive his now Majesty and the Heirs of his Majesty's Body the said Imperial Crown shall descend to and be injoyed by such Person or Persons successively during the Life of the said James Duke of York as should have inherited and injoyed the same in case the said James Duke of York were naturally dead any thing contained in this Act to the contrary notwithstanding And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That during the Life of the said James Duke of York this Act shall be given in charge at every Assizes and General Sessions of the Peace within the Kingdoms Dominions and Territories aforesaid and also shall be openly read in every Cathedral Church and Parish Church and Chappels within the aforesaid Kingdoms Dominions and Territories by the several respective Parsons Vicars Curates and Readers thereof who are hereby required immediately after Divine Service in the Forenoon to read the same twice in every Year that is to say on the 25th of December and upon Easter Day during the Life of the said James Duke of York Which Bill was Read thrice and Passed the House of Commons and upon its being Rejected in the House of Peers behold this Address to the King your Brother The humble Address of the House of Commons presented unto his Majesty upon Tuesday the 21 th of December 1680. in answer to his Majesty's Gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament upon the 15 th Day of the same December May it please your most Excellent Majesty WE your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal Subjects the Commons in this present Parliament assembled having taken into our serious Consideration your Majesty's gracious Speech to both your Houses of Parliament on the Fifteenth of this instant December and do with all the grateful Sence of faithful Subjects and sincere Protestants acknowledg your Majesty's great Goodness to us in renewing the Assurances you have been pleased to give us of your Readiness to concur with us in any means for the Security of the Protestant Religion and your gracious Invitation of us to make our Desires known to your Majesty But with grief of Heart we cannot but observe That to these Princely Offers your Majâ—sty has been advised by what secret Enemies to your Majesty and your People we know not to annex a Reservation which if insisted on in the Instance to which alone it is applicahle will render all your Majesty 's other gracious Inclinations of no Effect or Advantage to us Your Majesty is pleased thus to limit your Promise of concurrence in the Remedies which shall be proposed That they may consist with preserving the Succession of the Crown in its due and legal Course of Descent ond we do humbly inform your Majesty That no Interruption of that Descent has been endeavoured
by us except only the Descent upon the Person of the Duke of York who by the wicked Instruments of the Church of Rome has been manifestly perverted to their Religion And we do humbly represent to your Majesty as the Issue of our most deliberate Thoughts and Consultations That for the Papists to have their Hopes continued That a Prince of that Religion shall succeed in the Throne of these Kingdoms is utterly inconsistent with the Safety of your Majesty's Person the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Prosperity Peace and Welfare of your Protestant Subjects That your Majesty's Sacred Life is in continual Danger under the Prospect of a Popish Successor is evident not only from the Principles of those devoted to the Church of Rome which allow That an Heretical Prince and such they term all Protestant Princes excommunicated and deposed by the Pope may be destroyed and murthered but also from the Testimonies given in the Prosecution of the horrid Popish Plot against divers Traytors attainted for designing to put those accursed Principles into practice against your Majesty From the Expectation of this Succession has the Number of Papists in your Majesty's Dominions so much increased within these few Years and so many been prevailed with to desert the true Protestant Religion That they might be prepared for the Favours of a Popish Prince as soon as he should come to the Possession of the Crown And while the same Expectation lasts many more will be in the same Danger of being perverted This it is that has hardned the Papists of this Kingdom animated and confederated by their Priests and Jesuits to make a common Purse provide Arms make Application to foreign Princes and solicit their Aid for imposing Popery upon us and all this during your Majesty's Reign and while your Majesty's Government and the Laws were our Protection It is your Majesty's Glory and true Interest to be the Head and Protector of all Protestants as well abroad as at home but if these Hopes remain What Alliances can be made for the Advantage of the Protestant Religion and Interest which shall give confidence to your Majesty's Allies to join so vigorously with your Majesty as the state of that Interest in the World now requires while they see this Protestant Kingdom in so much Danger of a Popish Successor by whom at the present all their Counsels and Actions may be eluded as hitherto they have been and by whom if he should succeed they are sure to â—e destroyed We have thus humbly laid before your Majesty some of those great Dangers and Mischiefs which evidently accompany the Expectation of a Popish Successor the certain and unspeakable Evils which will come upon your Majesty's Protestant Subjects and their Posterity if such a Prince should inherit are more also than we can well enumerate Our Religion which is now so dangerously shaken will then be totally overthrown nothing will be left or can be found to protect or defend it The Execution of old Laws must cease and it will be vain to expect new ones The most sacred Obligations of Contracts and Promises if any should be given that shall be judged to be against the Interest of the Romish Religion will be violated as is undeniable not only from Argument and Experience elsewhere but from the sad Experience this Nation once had upon the like Occasion In the Reign of such a Prince the Pope will be acknowledged Supreme though the Subjects of this Kingdom have sworn the contrary and all Causes either as Spiritual or in order to Spiritual Things will be brought under his Jurisdiction The Lives Liberties and Estates of all such Protestants as value their Souls and their Religion more than their secular Concernments will be adjudged Forfeited To all this we might add That it appears in the Discovery of the Plot that foreign Princes were invited to assist in securing the Crown to the Duke of York with Arguments from his great Zeal to establish Popery and to extirpate Protestants whom they call Hereticks out of his Dominions and such will expect performance accordingly We further humbly beseech your Majesty in your great Wisdom to consider Whether in case the Imperial Crown of this Protestant Kingdom should descend to the Duke of York the Opposition which may possibly be made to his possessing it may not only endanger the further Descent in the Royal Line but even Monarchy it self For these Reasons we are most humble Petitioners to your most Sacred Majesty that in tender Commiseration of your poor Protestant People â—â—ur Majesty will be graciously pleased to depart from the Reservation in your said Speech and when a Bill shall be tender'd to your Majesty in a Parliamentary Way to disable the Duke of York from inheriting the Crown your Majesty will give your Royal Assent thereto and as necessary to fortify and defend the same That your Majesty likewise will be graciously pleased to assent to an Act whereby your Majesty's Protestant Subjects may be enabled to associate themselves for the Defence of your Majesty's Person the Protestant Religion and the Security of your Kingdoms These Requests we are constrained humbly to make to your Majesty as of absolute Necessity for the safe and peaceable Enjoyment of our Religion Without these Things the Alliances of England will not be valuable nor the People encouraged to contribute to your Majesty's Service As some farther means both of our Religion and Property we are humble Suiters to your Majesty That from hence-forth such Persons only may be Judges within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales as are Men of Ability Integrity and of known Affection to the Protestant Religion And that they may hold both their Offices and Salaries Quam diu bene se gesserint That several Deputy Lieutenants Justices of the Peace fitly qualified for those Employments having been of late displaced and others put in their Room who are Men of Arbitrary Principles and Countenancers of Papists and Popery such only may bear the Office of a Lord Lieutenant as are Persons of Integrity and known Affection to the Protestant Religion That Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace may be also so qualified and may be moreover Men of Ability of Estates and Interest in their Country That none may be imployed as military Officers or Officers in your Majesty's Fleet but Men of known Experience Courage and Affection to the Protestant Religion These our humble Requests being obtained we shall on our part be ready to assist your Majesty for the Preservation of Tangier and for putting your Majesty's Fleet into such a Condition as it may preserve your Majesty's Sovereignty of the Seas and be for the Defence of the Nation If your Majesty hath or shall make any necessary Alliances for defence of the Protestant Religion and Interest and Security of this Kingdom this House will be ready to assist and stand by your Majesty in the Support of the same After this our
their Case that there was no room left for a Retreat and rather than you and they would miss your Hopes you were resolved to stake your Lives and Fortunes and all upon a Venture You had taken so much Pains in the forming your Designs that you were resolved not to loose your Labour and thanks be to God you did not loose your Labour for you are well rewarded with the pleasant Air at St. Germains where you may abide till by the way of Avignon you may be obliged to trot to some other Place where you may spend the Remainder of your admirable Life These two Reasons are sufficient to justify any Man's Ends in such an Undertaking as this and as for the Undertaking it self to discover I am only accountable to God and my own Conscience though thus much I may say That in complying with the Church of Rome in her Worship and Service I nor no Man else can justify himself notwithstanding the Righteousness of those Ends I proposed to my self in the Management of that Affair And I therefore do tell you I would have no Man to follow my Example In doing Evil that the greatest Good may come thereof I do avow the Truth of my Testimony that I delivered but on the other hand I disavow all those Principles that I pretended to hold and maintain whilst I was as to outward appearance in Communion with that detestable Strumpet for I was in Judgment always a Protestant of the Reformed Religion and by the grace of God through Strength of Christ Jesus I will Live and Dye so This may satisfie you and all Men of my Truth in the Discovery and of my uprightness in the Delivery of my Testimony and of my Sincerity in this charge I have given here against you and your Villanous Party and had I not complied with your cursed Synagogue I would not in any measure have come at the knowledge of those things that I have formerly given in against the Criminals concerned in the Design nor have acquainted the World and refreshed your Memory with several Particulars in these four parts that I have Written that the Kingdom may both learn to watch against you and your Hell-born crew therfore I hasten to a ninth Particular proposed in the management of this Article I proceed to show you of what great use the Discovery of the Popish Plot might have been to King Charles the second if he had managed himself according to his Parliament and the Patriots of the Protestant Religion And that you shall see in these following Particulars as 1. We had been rid of all the Court Whores who by their Lewdness and Baseness had drawn the Heart of the then King your Brothe from his People which the Parliament plainly saw and therefore were very unwilling to part with any Money for to supply the vain and Exorbitant Expences of those impudent Womem who Consumed the publick Treasure of the Nation as fast or faster than then it could be given by Parliament or raysed and Collected when given and by this fair riddance of such Carrion the then King for ought I know might have enjoyed his Crown with Peace and Honour to this Day 2. You had been Excluded from inheriting the Imperiall Crown of this Realm which Exclusion had turned to a better Account to your self then the being an humble Slave and a pittifull Beggar a Fugitive and a Vagabond but you by opposing the full Discovery of the said Plot and Conspiracy carried on by you and your wicked Party carried your Point against the said Bill by which you was Emboldened in all and every of your wicked Practices against the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom but you have received in part the Wages of your abominable and unparalell'd Unrighteousness and much good may they do you with all my Heart I know no body that in the least that envies your blessed State and Condition into which by the providence of God you have put your self 3. The Nation had been discharged from the French Interest that mightily Prevailed in your Brothers Reign to the great danger and damage both to the Strength and Trade of the Nation and the Laws and Liberties and Religion thereof for as long as that Interest was Supporâ—ed and the Religion of Rome Countenanced it was impossible that England could be a Protestant Nation or her Inhabitants a free People This the Parliament long saw before your Plot was Discovered and had your Brother incouraged the Discovery thereof he had secured to himself the Glory of restoring to us our Liberties and making himself a Terrour to all his Enemies both at Home and Abroad but he joyning in the Conspiracy he became their Scorn and Contempt and as his Reign was wicked so his End was Miserable 4. Your Popish Party might have infallibly been destroyed and Rooted out from being a People but the said King not joining with his Parliament in making such an improvement of the discovery of the Popish Plot did Embolden that party to Exert it self almost to the ruin of the Protestant Religion and Interest and at last to Poyson the King himself to make way for you to Enslave the Nation and Subjugate it to Rome and France 10. I now come to show you how Fatal the Discovery of the Popish Plot was to your Popish Party notwithstanding the Villanous Usage the Nation received from that Party of Men by which it was much weakened both to its Strength and Wealth yet the Discovery of the Popish Plot put a new Life into the honest Party so that they became Unanimous to a high Degree the Dissenters that were then much Divided did in a great Measure unite against the common Enemy and joyned with the moderate Church Party in order to Extirpate that Romish Heresy that had so much inlarged its Borders and the Eyes of all Men were so opened that even in your Government Popery had been so maul'd that it could not stand upon its Legs notwithstanding the many cordial Incouragments it had received from you and your mighty Allies in order to its recovery again Nay the Princes of Christendom have Joyned as one Man to deliver England so that they themselves might not be swallowed up by you and your mighty Nimrod What a Sweat you are in Well have a little Patience my good Landlady will rub you down at Night What would you be at now What you would say a Comfortable Word on the Behalf of your Popish Crew and would have the World believe they were Innocent and so you mump those lockrom Jaws of yours and in Speaking one Word in the Behalfe of your Rogues you intend ten for your self Come speak out Man and tell us what you would have the Protestant Party of England believe concerning the Innocency of your self and Party we have a Sett of high Church Protestant Whelps that are blinded yet as not to give the Discovery of the Popish Plot its due Credit but they are a
Priests and Jesuits yet you doubted not but to save the principal part of the Cargo and therefore what concerned your self in relation to your Trayterous Correspondencies with the Pope or the French King and others which concerned the Popish Lords never appeared except the Lord Berkshire's Letters and there being but one positive Witness at first you were extremely pleased with the hopes of baffling the discovery of your Conspiracy but before the meeting of the Parliament there was but one great Block in your way and that was the vain glorious Discovery Coleman had made to Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey of this you were to take Care In order to this the Parliaments meeting was put off from the beginning of October till the 21st of the said Month. Well then how did your good Friend Coleman carry himself in his Apartment truely good man he was very Melancholly and was upon the matter disposed to discover all the Intrigue from the beginning to the end of which Sir you and your Crew were extremely jealous nay in such disorder that at your Newmarket Sports you were more concerned for him than a little but what was to be done in this Case I must say that for you by your Command word was sent to Coleman to be of good cheer a way would be found to secure Godfrâ—y well enough and since you were resolved not to leave Coleman whatever it cost you therefore he was bid not to be afraid this I say was the Orvietan that Coleman was to make use of against that Melancholy that had so strangely as well as strongly possessed him for you know that he was to be continued right to damn the Plot and therefore care was taken to murder Godfrey to prevent his telling Tales of what Coleman had said to him upon the first Discovery Godfrey being murder'd and Notice being given to Coleman he was then at ease and rejoyced over the Creature in a plentiful-way and your Conspirators took Courage upon the business for they had now great Hopes that their secret Villany would not be laid open and by consequence the damn'd Plot would soon be at an end But this base and barbarous Murther of this Justice of the Peace stuck upon Mens Minds extreamly for they were well satisfied that the Papists did it which made some to fear their Turns would be next and the City did so highly resent it that it did confirm the People in the Belief of the Popish Plot more than all the things they heard before so that this Murther did not at all make for but against you and your Conspirators Truly you were in a sad pickle here was a lamentable Kettle of Fish upon the Fire What must be done in this case that the Cookery be not expos'd to the next meeting of Parliament Indeed you and your Jesuites were against the meeting of the Parliament but were zealous to have the Parliament prorogued till the Spring of the Year and by that time you hoped the Cloud would be blown over And furthermore you judged that if the Parliament met they would be meddling with this Plot And you were pretty much in the right of it for they had reason enough to enquire into the business But on the other hand your Friend the Briber and Mrs. Remarkable his Spouse who by the way was in her Life-time as true a Politician as ever piss'd they were for the sitting of the Parliament and for very good reason if you did but know all that Mony might be rais'd to pay the Army which had run you out at Heels extreamly And your Ally the French King notwithstanding the Promise of his Purse since his Work was done he did not lend you a lift at this time tho' your Interest and his was so inseparably joyn'd and link'd together but you had some Assurance that the Parliament would give no Mony to maintain whatever they gave to disband so that your Condition was but ill and what to do you knew not At last old Veracity with his Jewish Face thought of an excellent Expedient which was That your old Friend Mr. Thinjaws should do what he could to bring them into a good Humor and give them a small Spell as a Token of a future Blessing that would fall upon them at the end of the Session And a Parliament of your humble Pensioners was held you know where and so did Lamaz and there was a jolly meeting of all the Club of Voters and an admirable Entertainment was had for the Rogues and some Guinâ—as were distributed and all was well and Advice was taken that the Army should have its due Praise but old Grouthead your Scotch Favourite he advis'd the sitting of the Parliament and that the Plot it self should be made use of as a Cripple to beg Mony withal and to beg for a round Sum he having as religious a regard for the Pensioners being gratified as that old Mrs. Remarkable Spouse to Mr. Thinjaws should have a Sum of Mony to buy her some reverend Winter-rigging for her self and Fry of both Sexes so that in a word it was carried for the Parliaments sitting The Parliaments meeting being very near the King your Brother sent for me to discourse me at the Prince's Lodgings in Whitehall who was very zealous to know of me who it was that maintain'd me abroad at that rate that I had liv'd but I refus'd to answer to that Question but told the King in the presence of the Prince That I doubted notwithstanding all the Efforts that I had made to preserve him he would be destroy'd by the Popish Party and since His Majesty was pleas'd to make light of it I told him that I would if he pleas'd give him some Reasons why they had such a Design on foot to which your Brother consented and one Reason I gave was because he had made such Promises to them and assur'd them that he was theirs and that he was reconcil'd to the Ch. of Rome when beyond Sea as I had seen by his Letters but the King bid me say nothing of that he declar'd to me upon the word of a King that now he did believe that they had a design to murder him and owned that he had written such Letters as I then intimated to him and withal told me that if I had come to him privately and acquainted him with the Plot he would of himself have clashed it and tho' I had design'd well yet the discovery of it had created a Jealousie in the People concerning him Then I acquainted him that I had seen his Letters to the Nuns at Ghent when he borrow'd Mony of them for which they waited several years here in England in those Letters he did declare to them That he would restore their Religion when he came to his Right and that was another reason why they would destroy him And that St. Germain a French Jesuite had a hand in the Murder of Mr. Kâ—lligrew's Man when he lay upon the Couch
in His Majesty's Cloak Here the King interrupted me and commanded me to take no farther notice of that business and declar'd he knew more than I could tell him in that affair of Killigrew's Man but he harped much upon the great Jealousie that the People had of him and that it was much encreas'd by ill men that did labour to possess the Peoples minds against him and said that unless extraordinary care was taken the Fanatick Party would rebel and inveigh'd very much against the Dissenters and said that he thought himself in as much danger from them as from the Popish Party And many things passed betwixt the King your Brother and my self of this nature and he told me that the Parliament was ready to meet and he did not question but that they would take upon them the examination of the Plot and that if I carried it prudently before them I should never want a Friend of him and whereas I had not acquainted him as yet with the Names of the Great Men concern'd I would then tell him But truly Sir I with all decency to the Publick refus'd to tell your Brother any thing more but told him the Parliament would have the Examination of the Plot and therefore they should have the Names of the great Lords concern'd in it The King parted from me in a heat and the Prince commended me for keeping their Names conceal'd and I suppose according to his usual way he graciously communicated this Discourse to you for the next time you met with me you shew'd all the Lines of your silly Face to be enrag'd against me and gave me some hard words which I did not well hear St. Parliaments day came on and I well remember what a Stiâ— there was at Portsmouth's lodging that morning and that Whore had advised my being close confined but I went to see how the Jade looked that morning and to thank her for the counsel she gave the King but I would not see her and there I was forced to salute her by proxy and gave her two or three of her right Names and eke mine and the Nations Blessing and returning to my Lodgings I met with your good self and I saw much Guilt in your Face and you gave me an ill look or two and so I fairly got rid of the sweet Face of you but this I must have you to remember that the King your Brother would have given me any thing that I could have asked if I would have fained my self sick and not to have appeared in Parliament but that would not take with me for I was resolved not to lose two years Labour to comply with him for I had the publick good upon my Soul and that God knows was my main design The Parliament being met you know that the old Gentleman made a gracious Speech to both Houses and after that he had given some of your Conspirators reasons for the keeping up of his Army he then tells them of the Jesuits Plot but not a word of yours and Coleman and said that he left the Jesuits to the Law and that he would take as much care to prevent all manner of ill Practices of those men and others too who had been tampering in a high degree with Forreigners to introduce Popery by this Sir he brought himself into the Plot and so much shall serve for his Speech After him Roscius enters with his Knaves Face and he acquaints the Parliament with the necessity of the Governments breaking the Law in keeping up the Army and tells them they must be contented with it for this time and not only so but they must pay for it too nay further impudently tells them they could not but be well pleased with it into the bargain I wonder that ever a King would sit on a Throne with Patience to hear the Logger-head make some fulsome nonsensical Speech as that was nay if you had but observed with what a shitten Countenance he brought in a poor mauled damned Plot to beg mony withal and oh with what humble Grimmaces he addressed the House of Commons as if the Villain had lain under the Guilt of a Thousand Burglaries but the House of Commons finding the Note extreamly changed from what it was at their last parting they immediaâ—ely fell upon that part of the King's Speech that related to the Popish Plot and mighty angry they were at the violating the Law and misusing the Mony given for the disbanding of the same Well both Houses set to it with all diligence and looked into the Plot that they might find out all the Authors of the Nations Misery and Ruine and in order to find out the bottom of this Hellish Conspiracy they appointed Committees to inspect and find out and enquire into the Murder of Sir Edmund-Bury Godfrey and Addresses from both Houses were almost every day voted for the banishing of the Papists or to have the Papers relating to the Popish Plot deliver'd to them to examine and to have the Militia of London and Middlesex raised and Pardons for the Witnesses And to all Human Reason you and your Rascally Crew appear'd to be but in a nasty condition And truly the Plot took so much of the Parliaments time that there was scarce leisure to make one motion for a Supply insomuch that Portsmouth and her Servant Nell talked of retrenching their Expences And what was the matter The Whores saw that the Parliament â—ound that all Care was little enough to discover what had been acted by your Villains and to come at the bottom to know who they were and then to take care for further preservation Lord what Change was here the two Houses had no longer hard Thoughts of the Fanaticks but the Papists was their only Trouble Come Sir wipe that sweaty Face of yours and don't cry here 's a word of Comfort for you read on a little Were the Houses of Parliament so diligent Yes they were What then old Rowly was too hard for them for notwithstanding the daily Applications of many worthy persons of both Houses he would not let your Saints lose one Inch of his Affections to them for the Villains were so powerful and prevalent at Court that divers of the chiefest Papers were mislaid and whatever was privately done in either House by their secret Committees for the discovery of the Plot false Brethren got in amongst them and gave Intelligence amongst whom was a squint-ey'd Friend of yours the Rogue is not yet hang'd but the Gallows hath groan'd for him many a Year if you will not believe me you may ask my Lady Jefferies And to give you and your Rogues your due you conceal'd every thing you could get conceal'd such was your diligence but yet as much as you did conceal there was enough left to shew the World that there was a Plot and a villanous one and that you were at the head of it in order to root up the Protestant Religion and destroy the Government which