hath given since to Europe had they been believed and hearkned unto But alas instead of taking that poor people into our protection and care or entring upon those Counsels with other Princes which the preserving the Peace of Europe and the securing unto the French Protestants the liberty of their Religion called for all the Intelligences we received were communicated to the French King upon which they became not only discouraged from placing any confidence in our Ministers for the future but one poor Gentleman who had ventur'd to treat with a certain person near his Majesty had the misfortune to be broken upon the Wheel and some others are forced upon the like account to live in perpetual Exile from their Country And yet even they by whom they were betray'd dare not say that ever they found them enclined to depart from their Allegiance unto their own King or to enter into any Confederacies unbecoming good Subjects and natural Frenchmen but that all which they aimed at and were willing to have transacted about was only that in preserving their Loyalty to their Prince they might not be suffered to be sacrificed and rooted out merely for their Religion Nor are the Stipulations of Kings or the established Laws of Kingdoms any security unto Protestants for their Lives or their Religion if once the Papists esteem themselves furnished with a sufficient Power and a seasonable Opportunity to subdue and extirpate it or them For as the Pope can Absolve all such Princes from the Promises and Oaths which they make to their Subjects so it is a known Principle of the Romish Church That no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks And where the Prince by not having the whole Legislation in himself is restrained from repealing Old and Enacting New Laws at his pleasure he will either mould and influence those who have a share with him in the Legislation to a compliance in what he designs or he will venture at the trampling upon all Laws and through the efficacy of the Principles of the Popish Religion will pursue the Extirpation of Heresie in defiance of all Boundaries prescribed unto him by the Law For what greater assurance could the Protestants in France have for the Liberty of their Religion and the preserving unto them all the Rights and Priviledges of Frenchmen than they enjoyed by that Edict of Henry the fourth commonly stiled the Edict of Nantes from the City where the King was when it was concluded and yet notwithstanding that Edict they are treated as if they were neither Christians nor Frenchmen being deprived of all that was therein granted unto them and brought to suffer every thing which that Edict was purposely made to defend them from For whereas by the said Edict they have a great number of Churches allowed unto them for the open exercise of their Religion and it is ordained that it shall be left free for any Papist to turn Protestant and that those of the Reformed Religion shall be as capable of enjoying publick Charges Honours Royalties and of exercising any Art or Trade as the Roman Catholicks themselves shall be and that there shall be no difference betwixt Protestants and Papists as to the security of their Lives the ways and means of their subsistence their authority over and freedom of educating and disposing their Childred yet through an implacable hatred which Popery inspireth men with against all that differ from them in Religion they are rob'd of all that was therein established in their favour and subjected to all the mischiefs which the fury of their malicious enemies and the power of a Prince guided by Father le Chaise the Jesuit can inflict upon them And as the Edict of Henry the fourth tho confirmed by Lewis the thirteenth proves no security to the French Protestants against the present Persecution which they are groaning and perishing under so it is to be feared that the Laws which the Protestants in other parts of the world do trust unto for the preservation of their Religion Lives and Legal Rights will be as insignificant to the securing these unto them in case they should fall under the power of a Popish Prince or that the Counsels of Ministers Popishly inclined should prevail as the Edict of Nantes hath been to the Hugonots For it is observable that as the Scots have at all times testified as much Zeal for the Reformed Religion as any people in Europe have done so they took care to establish the continuance of it to them and their Posterity by as good Laws as any Nation in the world could yet upon finding how useless such Laws as I shall name are unto the ends for which they were made and enacted there is a wonderful Jealousie possesseth the generality of that Kingdom That nothing can preserve them from being enslaved again to Popery but His Majesties outliving the Duke of York For it is Ordained by the Law of Scotland That no man is to James 6. p. 6. Act. 9. bear any publick Office within that Realm but such as profess the Protestant Religion And that none who shall not make profession James 6. p. 3. Act 47. of the said Religion shall be reputed a Loyal and Faithful Subject to the King but be punishable as a Rebel And that whoever shall at any time happen to Reign and bear Rule over that Realm shall at the time of his Coronation and the receipt of his Princely Authority make his faithful Promise James 6. p. 1. Act. 8. Charles I. p. 1. Act. 4. by Oath in the presence of the Eternal God That during the whole course of his life he shall serve the same Eternal God according to the uttermost of his power as he hath required in his most holy Word revealed and contain'd in the old and new Testaments and shall according to the same maintain the true Religion then professed and received within that Realm c. And therefore seeing these Laws have not been so observed but that one who doth not profess the Protestant Religion hath contrary unto them wrought himself into the chief administration of Affairs there under His Majesty hath presided daily in Council and sate as the Kings Commissioner in Parliament they begin to apprehend that other Laws may prove as ineffectual for the securing the Protestant Religion to the Nation as these have been to the excluding one from the highest Places of Authority and Trust under the King who hath not declared himself for the Protestant Religion as the foresaid Laws do require Besides it is not to be questioned but that the Protestants of this Kingdom in the time of Edward the sixth thought they had gotten their Religion so established by Laws that there was no fear of the reintroduction of Popery whoever should afterwards ascend the Throne and yet Queen Mary was no sooner come to the Crown than contrary to the Law of the Land as well as her promise to the Suffolk men who had espoused her
pretensions to any such thing It is also remarkable and serves to discover their Falshood in what they swore against the Earl of Shaftsbury that they endeavoured to make themselves valuable and worthy to be trusted by great and wise men by pretending a knowledg of the Transactions of the world and affairs of Kingdoms which as they were never capable of attaining so they had but betrayed their Folly and Vanity in offering to discourse concerning such things to that knowing and sagacious Peer For to hear Hayn's depose That he gave my Lord Shaftsbury See Proceedings at the Old-Bayly p. 27. an account of all Transactions from King Charles the First 's Reign to this very day and that my Lord was mightily satisfied pleased and free with him finding that he was a Traveller Is as if he should have told all the world that what he Deposed against that great man was all Forgery and that he was only seeking to beget a credulity in the Court by a vain ostentation of his knowledg in Civil Affairs and his being qualified to be admitted into the secret and hazardous Counsels of the greatest Statesmen Alas an acquaintance with the Occurrences of Princes Reigns and a being able to declare the affairs of two Regencies in their dependence and order with the Causes and Reasons of a War which few can penetrate into the grounds of â—re not things agreeable to the way of Hayns's Education nor to be expected from one that is not wonderfully conversant in the Memoire and Registers of Civil matters and who hath enjoyed an intimate acquaintance with those that were interested in the management both of Civil and Military Concernments Their Malice and Perjury in this whole Affair are open and palpable by their indirect and evasive answers to plain and easie questions Such was Booth's reply to Mr. Papilion who having ask'd him whether he knew any of Proceed p. 36. the Fifty men which he had deposed were listed under Captain Wilkinson said He never directly knew or conversed with any of them And such also was Haynes's reply to the question which was put to him concerning his having given an Information to a Justice of Peace of a design against Ibid. p. 42 43. the Earl of Shaftsbury for as he wrigled to and fro a great while before he could be brought to acknowledg it the answer was neither full nor ingenuous Again Their not remembring times and seasons when such things which they swore should be spoken or when they gave in their Informations about them does proclaim the Witnesses to be Impostors and whatsoever they deposed to be nothing but Forgery For several of the things which they declared they could not remember were such as it is morally impossible they should forget them Thus Haynes could not tell the time when the Earl of Shaftsbury spake Ibid. 44. the Treasonable words about making the Duke of Buckingham King Nor could either Smith or Turberville tell when they gave in their Informations against my Lord nor whether it was before or p. 40. after his Commitment Nay Smith could not tell in what month he did it In a word the Demeanor of the Witnesses carrying things so as if they would hector people into a belief of what they swore and their answering the questions proposed unto them either with great difficulty or with great artifice and cunning proclaim to all impartial men that the Design upon which they appeared was very ill and that they were suborned perjured fellows There was not that modesty to be seen in their Behaviour nor that simplicity in their Evidence nor that plainness easiness and directness in their Answers which was agreeable to Truth but their whole carriage and the manner of their delivering themselves was starch't huffing artificial and full of trick But whereas there is a Paper stiled An Association pretended to be found among other Writings in the Earl of Shaftsbury's Closet that morning he was apprehended upon which great stress is laid towards the proving a Conspiracy of this Lord and other Protestants against His Majesty and the Government I shall therefore with all that modesty which becomes me in reference to persons in Authority and yet with all that freedom which the Innocency of Peers and Gentlemen unjustly accused doth require take this Paper a little into consideration and make some just and modest Reflections in reference unto it An Association for the preservation of the King and the Protestant Religion if it be duly drawn and contain nothing in it contrary to the Rights and Prerogatives of His Majesty the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties and Property of the People will neither be found so new nor so surprising a thing as that the Grand Juries of the several Counties should be influenced and perswaded to abhor it For our Ancestors in Queen Elizabeths time being apprehensive that the Queens Life the Peace of the Kingdom and the Protestant Religion were in danger from the Papists upon the hope they had of a Popish Successor in case of the Queens Death they thereupon entred into an Association for the preservation of her Majesties Life and the revenging her Death if she should have perished by violent hands which instead of being ridicul'd and declared against was not only unanimously subscribed by the most considerable persons in the Kingdom but both approved and ratified by an Act of the Parliament that next followed But whether it was that our Forefathers loved the Queen and were more zealous for their Religion than we love his present Majesty and are zealous for ours or whether they thought there was more danger to be feared from Mary Queen of Scots who was then the apparent Popish Successor than we think there is from a Gentleman of the same Principles with her that hath the same and more palpable pretences to the Crown I shall not take upon me to determine However it is not unknown that Two several late Parliaments being convinced of the dangers which His Majesties Life is in from the Papists that they may accelerate the ascent of one of their own Communion to the Throne did after mature Debate and as a Testimony of the greatest Loyalty they could pay His Majesty come to this Resolve Resolved That in defence of the Kings Person and Government and Protestant Religion the House doth declare That they will stand by His Majesty with their Lives and Fortunes and that if His Majesty should come to any violent Death which God forbid they will revenge it to the utmost on the Papists Yea the last Westminster Parliament being deeply sensible what Plots the Papists were embark'd in for the Destruction of the King the extirpation of the reformed Religion in these Kingdoms and the placing the Crown upon the head of a Popish Prince they ordered a Bill for an Association to be brought into the House And whereas Secretary Jenkins deposeth upon Oath That tho he heard of such a thing as
people to the rage and fury of the enemies of his Name and Glory For it is to him alone that we owe the discovery of this Papal Conspiracy which as it hath filled all Europe as well as these Three Nations with wonder and horror so the truth and reality of it is supported and put beyond all doubt and question by the most convincing and uncontroulable Evidence that a Matter of Fact is capable of The King hath testified his belief of it by several Proclamations Four several Parliaments upon the most impartial enquiry which they could make have declared that they are fully assured there was such a Design the Conspirators own Letters and Papers confirm and justifie the Depositions of the Witnesses who detected it the flight of some and Condemnation of divers of the principal Criminals have reconciled it to the belief of all who were not either interested in it or did not at least wish that it might have succeeded Yea the preparations of Horse and Arms which the Papists had been known to make before hand proclaim aloud the Design upon which they were at so vast an expence and the murdering one Minister of Justice and doing all they thought needful to Assassinate another for discharging their Duty in the detection of it are so many undeniable Evidences of their being guilty of what they are accused of But notvvithstanding the Wickedness of vvhat was intended and the clearness of the Proof to convict them yet such is their Influence upon Publick Ministers and so great is their Povver in all our Councels that vve can neither obtain the having the principal Conspirators brought to Legal Trial nor procure any effectual provision tovvards the saving our selves and securing our Religion from their Cruelty and Rage Instead of seeing them prosecuted according to the demerit of their Crimes or finding any proportionate means used to discourage and check their Designs we have not only beheld such Justices turned out of the Commission of the Peace who vvere most zealous against Popery and Arbitrariness but we have seen four several Parliaments Dissolved before they could bring Offenders to Justice make a due and thorough inspection into the Plot or put the Kingdom into a posture of Safety from the dangers vvhich threaten it from Popish Counsels and the claim vvhich a Papist may pretend hereafter to the Throne And vvhatsoever His Majesties care and zeal have been either for the Discovery of the Conspirators or the bringing them unto condign Punishment yet his Royal Intentions have been so ill seconded that several Priests as well as others vvho stood accused have been first harboured near his Royal Palaces and then conveyed beyond Sea in Yachts belonging to some that are nearly related unto his Royal Person The dread of displeasing one Gentleman doth so prevail over the Obedience vvhich every man owes the King that vvhen His Majesty had commanded by his Proclamations that all the Papists should be disarmed scarce one of a thousand had so much as a Pistol or Sword taken from him Our Lieutenants and Justices have been under those impressions of fear lest they should offend great men that neither the regard which they ought to bear to their Native Country and the Religion which they seemingly profess nor the tenderness which they are bound by their Fealty and Allegiance to have for His Majesties Safety and Life have been powerful enough to cause them to keep that hand over the Papists which the Laws of the Land do at all times require and which the present circumstances we are in from those of that Religion render most indispensably necessary Some are enclined to believe that it is not the least of the Earl of Argyle's Crimes that he was the only man of Quality in Scotland who after the Discovery of the Plot took out a Commission for disarming the Papists And it is not improbable but that the Authority which he hath in the Highlands and overawe the Papists there by vertue of his being Lord Jushiciary in those parts and his being able upon any occasion to check and bridle the Marquess of Huntley from attempting any thing to the disturbance of the Kings Peace and the prejudice of the Protestants was one main reason and ground of his late Prosecution However this is not unworthy of our observation that My Lord Mac-Donals invading the Shire of Argyle with an armed Force merely for being required by the foresaid Earl to deliver up his Arms was never called to an account yea scarce ever received a Reprimand from those in Authority under His Majesty in Scotland tho' when he had a Herauld sent to him by the Council requiring him to disband his Forces he tore his Coat from his back and sent him home to Edenborough with all the marks of contempt to them and disgrace to the Officer But may be that Lord being a Papist his Religion is judged enough by some to attone for his Treason But as a further evidence that the Papists notwithstanding their late horrid Conspiracy have been both protected from the Justice of the Law and left still in a capacity to execute their Designs against the Hereticks it is remarkable that tho' a Proclamation was published in Ireland for searching the houses of all Roman Catholicks for Arms yet when the Sheriff of the County of Galloway went in pursuance thereof to search the Earl of Clanrickards house where as he was informed all the Papists in that County had lodged their Arms the said Earl produced a Warrant from my Lord Lieutenant the Duke of Ormond that his House should not be searched And do we not therefore upon the whole see that whereas the Papists were in a wonderful consternation upon the first Discovery of the Plot as apprehending from the knowledg which they had of their own Guilt what they deserved to have inflicted upon them how they are of late not only grown sceure and jolly but more rampant and insolent than ever Nay so great is their Interest and Power by means of the Duke of York and such whom he either overaweth or otherwise influenceth that they do not only escape the punishments which they are liable unto for their Treasons but they have obtained to have the Laws made against Protestant Dissenters to be executed with the utmost Rigour and Severity while in the mean time themselves are as good as connived at in the violation of all the Statutes Enacted against Popish Recusancy For this cannot be thought to proceed originally from the King being so inconsistent with that Princely Wisdom which he hath always manifested when not over-ruled by the importunity of Ill Men. How unlikely is it that a Prince who receiveth and indulgeth Foreign Protestants should at the same time encourage the distressing his own Subjects that do no otherwise differ from the Church of England than as those Foreigners do Nor can it be the advice of any sincere and true Protestant to have the Laws executed at this season
man from doing himself right when he hath been publickly as well as eminently injured And truly it looks like an imposing that upon the implicite Faith of the World which they know themselves unable to prove or it argues a distrust either of the goodness of their Cause or that it hath not been managed with integrity and candor when they are unwilling to admit both sides the priviledg of being openly heard For tho it may become the Wisdom of men in Power and Government to preserve the Justice of Courts and Reputation of Juries from being openly arraigned when an Indictment after a full Enquiry hath been approved and allow'd by such as are the proper and only judges of it yet such a procedure as the restraining men from defending their own Innocency and vindicating the impartiality of those who acquitted them after a full and Legal hearing can never adjust it self to the sense or reason of mankind Nor doth such a course and method import any thing less than that for having miss'd the satiating their Malice in the Blood of one or two whom they mortally hated they will pursue their Revenge in endeavours to blast the Credit and diminish the value and esteem of all that have been instrumental in preventing and defeating their Intendment NOW this Plot for Deposing the King and altering the Government whereof Protestants were to be Accused and Impeached was not only so contrived as that it might reach most English Peers and Gentlemen who stood in the way of Popery and Arbitrariness but the Protestants in Ireland were to be brought under the charge and accusation of it For the Popish Conspiracy having been carried on with the same vigour against the Lives of Protestants and the established Religion in that Kingdom as it was in this and the Parliament here being so far satisfied and convinced of the reality of it there as well as in England as to declare and testifie the belief of it by the unanimous Votes of both Houses accordingly the Papists in both Kingdoms were equally and by the same Artifices to be relieved from the imputation which lay upon them and to be rescued from the punishments which the Laws Adjudged and Condemned them unto Therefore the Protestants in both Nations were to be accused of having forged the Popish Plot and that having thereby amused His Majesty and the people they have in the mean time been fomenting and promoting a real one of their own This was that which St. Laurence the Priest would See No Protestant Plot First part p 33 34 35. have Hired and Suborned Mr. William Smith to Swear and Depose and whereof the Evidence was so strong against St. Laurence at his Trial that tho' he was acquitted yet he is still believed by all impartial men that heard it to have been really guilty For it is not only reported from thence by persons who deserve to be credited that such especially were returned upon the Jury who were known before-hand to have reflected upon Mr. Smith but it is most certain that whereas the Prisoner was allowed five Councel to plead for him there was none of the King's Councel nor any one man of the Gown besides that appeared in behalf of the Evidence Whether they forbore from an opinion that the Evidence was so plain that it required no Plea to enforce or apply it or whether they did it out of deference to some great men whom they would not offend by being concerned in any thing that may prejudice the honour and integrity of the Papists or whether it was in obedience to the commands of such who would not have an Intrigue detected upon the discovery whereof the Protestants may come to be thought peaceable and loyal again as I cannot certainly tell so I shall not take upon me to conjecture and divine But besides that which was sworn against St. Laurence by Mr. Smith which to any who read it will appear either the copy transcript or counterpart of what they have been doing here we have other evidence of the Papists labouring in Ireland to sham off their own Plot by representing it as a Forgery falsely laid upon them by the Pratestants and their endeavouring to possess the Government with a belief that during the noise and buz which the Protestants had raised concerning a Popish Plot they were themselves embarkt in a Conspiracy against the King and the Monarchy Thus whereas one Captain Morley had appeared before the Committees of Lords and Commons here and swore two Consults which the Papists had in Ireland in reference to the extirpating the Protestant Religion in that Kingdom they have procured no fewer than six or seven Irish Witnesses not only to Depose against the said Morley That he was Suborned by the Earl of Essex the Earl of Shaftsbury Sir Robert Cleyton and others to Swear Treason against the Duke of Ormond the Lord Chancellor Boyle and Sir John Davies but that he himself had said the King was on enemy to all Protestants and deserved to have his Head cut off as his Father had Here we have an Epitome and Abridgment of what the whole Popish Party is laying out their Money improving their Wit and employing the Power and Interest of their Friends for and about But why the Papists should in all their Depositions introduce the Protestants affirming the King to be a Papist and an enemy to those of the same Religion which he not only professeth but which he hath sacredly and solemnly Vow'd for ever to protect and defend I think no wise man is able to tell unless it be that they have a mind to recriminate upon us what they have been proved guilty of themselves It is not yet seasonable to declare by whose means and by what Arts the foresaid Deposition was obtained nor how Handland and Murphey two fellows that came over hither to Swear the Popish Plot were since their return transformed into Witnesses to prove a Protestant Conspiracy but all these things must be foreborn till his Majesty in his Princely Wisdom and from that Justice which he hath hitherto governed his people by and in the discharge of his promise which his Loyal addressing Subjects as well as others do rely upon be pleased to call a Parliament and then both all these and many other things will be more fully disclosed and set in a brighter light In the mean time this must be acknowledged to the Honour of His Majesty and the Justice of the Council-Board that tho the foresaid Deposition was received by some in Ireland with great fondness and transmitted hither not only with all expedition and speed but accompanied with an earnest desire that the Gentleman might be sent thither yet the King and Council would neither do so illegal and arbitrary a thing as to send a person from hence to Ireland without his own consent both born and bred here and who actually possesseth an estate in England Nor could it be done without great Injustice
disappointed them in all their Idolatrous and Arbitrary Designs and consequently deserved more to feel the first and early effects of their wrath than that wise and great Peer so they prudently foresaw that should they adjourn their Revenge against him till they had made an experience of the credit of their Witnesses upon some other considerable persons he would by his Abilities and Industry not only have easily detected and exposed the whole Intrigue but have broken the Machine by which they had projected both to overturn Religion and Property and extirpate Protestants in these Nations Accordingly they thought it their best course to assault him by way of surprize and to hurry him to Prison upon an Accusation of a Conspiracy which people would be astonished at the noise of but had not enjoy'd time to inspect and unravel And we may rationally conceive the Papists believed that the Convicting My Lord Shaftsbury upon a charge of Levying War and Conspiring to seize the Person of the King would be a kind of Moral Proof against every other person whom they should think fit to have afterwards accused of the same Crime For how easily would they have perswaded the world that a person of his great Sagacity and exact Conduct would never embark in so vast an attempt without a proportionate number of persons engaged with him who for their Power Quality and Interest might be supposed capable to effect and carry it And they would have pleaded that such whom his artificial Glosses and plausible Reasonings had not inveigled into Treason the esteem which he universally hath among all sorts of men that are not weary of their Religion and Liberties had sway'd and biassed them to an implicite concurrence in a Design which they took not time to consider and had not Abilities to comprehend neither the dangers nor consequences and issue of And how would every man have been exposed and ridicul'd that should offer to bring the reputation of the Witnesses into suspicion after they had been allowed for good and credible Evidence against a Peer of the Earl of Shaftsbury's bulk and figure Besides the Papists thought that the destroying this one Nobleman would have either frighted others to a compliance with them in their Designs or at least discouraged them from offering to withstand or control the Councels and Projections which they are upon of enslaving these Nations and extirpating our Religion These were the Motives and Inducements upon which they singled out this great person to have him the first man of Quality that should be Indicted of this pretended Protestant Conspiracy For having through the influence which they have over our Ministers and the power which some of that party have upon His Majesty proceeded so far as to prevail with the King to turn him out of his Councels and from the administration of his Affairs for no other reason that the world can take notice of but because he would not concur with them in their Designs against the Protestant Religion and the Establish'd Laws they hop'd that by attacquing him at last upon an Accusation of Treason he might fall a Sacrifice to their Malice and Revenge And as his loss of the Chancellorship with all the aspersions and obloquy that for divers years fell upon him are to be ascribed to his Zeal and Activity in promoting the Bill for disabling Papists from holding any Publick Employment which past in the Session of Parliament that begun Feb. 4. 1672. so all the Perseutions he hath lain under of late and all the dangers which his Life hath been exposed unto either by secret Assassinations or Legal Forms are to be entirely attributed to his inspection into the Popish Plot and the endeavours which he hath laid himself out in for preventing the Subversion of our Religion and Laws and the ruin of these Nations by the Romish Conspirators and his studying to defeat the hopes they have of compassing all at last by means of a Popish Successor Nor can there be a more indubitable and convincing Argument that this whole Protestant Plot under the pretended guilt whereof this incomparable person and great Peer was to have been destroyed came out of a Popish Forge and was formed and invented by the Romish Priests than that those of the Papal Religin abroad and especially the Ecclesiasticks had both the knowledg of it and discoursed it to others before the most inquisitive Protestants in England could arrive at any intelligence concerning it In confirmation of the truth whereof and for the ampler satisfaction of all mankind that the Papists were the Authors and Contrivers of this Conspiracy which they labour to sham upon Protestants I shall subjoin the two following Depositions which were made upon Oath before a Magistrate of London Edward Dover of Stepney in the County of Middlesex Mariner aged thirty years or thereabouts freely and upon his own motion maketh Oath That he the said Deponent being in the Port of Bruges in Flanders with his Ship and in the managing of his business there being in a publick house on or about the eighteenth of June last New Stile he met with one James Morgan which said Morgan is a reputed Popish Priest And being his Countryman and having had formerly knowledg one of another they entred into the more free discourse and among other this Deponent asked the said Morgan What News from England Is there an end of the Popish Plot yet To which the said Morgan answered What Plot There is no Plot but a Presbyterian Plot and that now the Lord Howard one of the greatest of them is clapt up for it and by that time you get home Shaftsbury will be also secured And further the said Morgan added that he hop'd ere long to Preach in a publick Pulpit in London or words to that effect Jurat Aug. 23. 1681. John Coleuart of the Parish of St. Katherines in the County of Middlesex Mariner aged fifty years or thereabout freely and of his own motion maketh Oath that being in Bruges in Flanders with his Ship in following his business there was in a publick house on or about the eighteenth of June last New Style where he met amongst others with a Popish Priest as he is reputed called James Morgan and discoursing with him of the several affairs of England and of the Popish Plot he the said Dâ—poâ—ent heard the said Morgan among other things say 〈…〉 but a Presbyterian Plot and that the Lord Howard was already secured for it and that it would not belong before the Earl of Shaftsbury would be also secured or words to that effect Jurat Aug. 3. 1681. And as the Papists were the Authors and Framers of this Sham Plot so they have chosen Tools every way adapted for the worst of Villanies to mâ—â—ge and conduct it For Justice Warcup the principal Broker for Witnesses and one of the chief Directors of this grand affâ—â—r is known both at the Council Board in the High-Court of Chancery to be a
does help to hide and conceal the Villany And I beg the rather pardon for my jealousie in this matter because tho' he told the Jury that he had been a Protestant since February last yet he never sought to be received into the bosom of the English Church till about the month of June which was near the time that the Mine which had been long before laid against Protestants was just ready to spring Nor were things so much better for the Protestant Interest and worse for the Popish Ibid p. 47. in February than they had been in November before that a fellow who makes Religion always subservient to his safety and gain and who had been a Papist in November should think of abandoning the Communion of the Church of Rome for to be taken into the bosom and embraces of the Church of England in February following But be he of what Religion soever he pleaseth I still say he is a wicked and flagitious fellow For whereas he acknowledgeth that in the course of his Travels he had been in Maryland as well as in divers other Countries he must give us leave to remember himself of and acquaint the world with a good token of it For besides several Debaucheries and lesser enormities he was guilty of there he was apprehended not only for felony in stealing a Watch but for Sacriledg in breaking into a Church and carrying away the Communion Plate But being I grow weary in raking so long in Sinks and Kennels I shall therefore wave the insisting upon these things or the deducing them to any further length Since he came hither he hath been always extreamly necessitous but never in greater penury than immediately before he started up a Witness in this new Plot. For as he wanted bread otherwise than as he was from day to day relieved by the Charity of such compassionate persons to whom he bewailed the miserableness of his condition so I have heard from a good hand that being arrested for Fifteen or Seventeen shillings he was so poor that he must have gone to the Counter if a Gentleman that passed by had not out of meer pity sent him a Guinee to discharge the Debt and the Serjeants Fees And how easie was it to corrupt and suborn such a fellow who as he had no Principles of Vertue or Honour to preserve him against the temptations wherewith he was assaulted so the pinching wants under which he laboured rendred him a prey to any that would hire him with ready money or give him any assurance of a plentiful subsistence Now it not only appears from the Testimony of Dr. Oats Mr. Boulter Mrs. Mary Cox Mrs. Norton and divers others that by his own acknowledgment and confession to them both Warcup and Fitz-Gerald had tempted him with great offers of Gold and Silver if he would depart from his Evidence against the Papists and swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury my Lord Howard and several other Protestants but it is likewise deposed by Mr. Samuel Oats that Dennis should say If the Protestants did not help him to money it would cause him to do that which he never intended But what need I insist upon the Depositions of others in proof that he had frequently confessed his being tempted with tenders of great matters to retract what he had sworn against the Papists and swear that the Protestants were embarkt in a Conspiracy against the King seeing he himself hath deposed all this upon Oath before Sir Patience Ward when he was Lord Mayor And as this may fully convince all that are not in the Plot themselves for the destroying such as are the chief Bulwarks under His Majesty of our Religion and Liberties that whatsoever this fellow hath sworn against the Earl of Shaftsbury or any Protestant else is all meer Fiction Romance and abominable Forgery so we have besides all this the Testimony both of Dr. Oats and Captain Yarrington That this wretch did protest unto them at the very time when he told them of his being tempted that before God he knew nothing whereof to accuse any Protestant in the world and that if he should do any such thing he should be the greatest Rogue under Heaven And as their way of living since and their boasting of having their Pockets full of money does plainly proclaim to all Mankind upon what motives they have perjured themselves and how well they have been rewarded for their false swearing so there is one George Dennis a Gardiner who deposeth That to his knowledg the Witnesses who swore against the Earl of Shaftsbury had an Hundred or an Hundred and Fifty Pound a man for so doing and that he might have had as much if he would have Sworn against the said Earl Having thus truely and briefly drawn and represented the Witnesses according to their just and true Features and having fully discovered the Combination which they and others are engaged in against our Lives and Religion and having particularly detected how these mercinary Wretches have been hired and suborned to swear a Plot upon Protestants which themselves and their Abettors have out of hatred to the Protestant Religion and English Liberties invented and forged against innocent persons I shall now leave them thus shown and exposed to undergo the punishments which these unparallel'd Villainies subject them unto and in the mean time till the Administrators of publick Justice shall esteem it their Duty and for the honour of the Government to make their Punishment as exemplar as their Crimes have been I do here set them up as proper objects of the abhorrency and detestation of mankind and persons not worthy to be believed by any honest rational Jury or Inquest And I shall only add that the late Grand Jury instead of deserving to be censured for returning an Ignoramus upon the Bills which these Miscreants swore unto they are rather to be blam'd for not immediately Indicting them of a Conspiracy against the Lives and Honour of Noble and Guiltless Persons Nor is it enough for a Grand Jury merely to reject a Bill which they find promoted from Malice and upon a Combination but they are bound both by the Laws of God and the Laws of the Land to Indict the Conspirators and all such as shall appear to have abetted them And whereas we have not only heard of several other Witnesses who either had or were ready to Swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury but have been told that several of their Names had been endorsed on the back of the Bill which was preferred against his Lordship who yet upon second thoughts were blotted out and expunged We shall only say that we think it needless to attempt the exposing of those whom the Managers themselves judged so infamous that they were ashamed to make use of them But as we may be sure that they produced all these whose Credit they could in any degree rely upon so had they brought an hundred more whom we might neither
persecution which they undergo is commenced against them for no other cause but barely that of their Religion so to give the French King his due he is so just as to acknowledg it and scorns to palliate the true cause of their Oppressions Banishment and Slaughter by pretending that they have conspired against his Person and Government and that their Assemblies for the Worship of God are intended for and employ'd in the stirring up Sedition He is so generous as not to mention the several Wars which those of the Reformed Religion undertook and managed for their own defence against Charles the Ninth Henry the Third and Lewis the Thirteenth but he tells them that they have been always very loyal to him and that he apprehends no trouble or danger from them on the account of their Principles only he is resolved not to suffer any in his Dominions who will not embrace the Popish Religion and that they must either renounce the Faith which they profess or submit to be destroyed It would require a Volume rather than a Paragraph to recount the many late Edicts which have been published against them and the several steps and methods which have been taken to ruine them without their being guilty of any other crime or provocation save their having withdrawn themselves from the Communion of the Church of Rome Thus the King hath not only demolished an infinite number of Churches and suppressed the exercise of Religion where it had for a long time been legally enjoyed but the Protestant Ministers are every where exposed to be proceeded against and punished whensoever any suborned wretch shall but depose that they delivered something in their Sermons that was scandalous upon the Church of Rome And they have not only ordered under great and severe Penalties That no Papist shall turn Protestant and that none who have forsaken the Protestant Religion tho' out of infirmity lightness or fear shall return to it again but they have also ordained That the Children of Protestants shall be admitted to abjure their Religion at seven years of Age and in case they have no mind afterwards to live with their Parents that their Fathers and Mothers shall be obliged to maintain them wherever they please to continue or be It were endless to recount the hardships which the Protestants in that Kingdom are under for besides their being turned out of all offices wherein they got a Subsistence for themselves and Families their Wives are not to be brought to bed but by Midwives or Chyrurgeons that are Papists nor their Children taught unless it be meerly to read and write save by Popish Schoolmasters Nay as if it were not enough to forbid them to be Stewards Bailiffs Solicitors Registers Clerks Notaries and to remove them from all Employments in the Affairs of the Finances or Customs and turn them out of all Military Commands by Sea and Land they have commanded all Chyrurgeons Apothecaries Watchmakers and divers other Artificers to shut up their shops which is in effect to require them either to turn Papists or to subject them to starve And to all the other miseries which that poor people are made liable unto for their Religion this is not the least that they will not suffer them to die in quiet but have enjoyned that when they are sick they shall suffer themselves to be visited by a Popish Magistrate in the presence of two Popish Witnesses without allowing any Protestants tho' their nearest Relations to be by And as we may easily apprehend that their errand is either to disturb them that they may not expire in quiet or by the utmost Cunning and Art to prevert them from departing in the same Faith which they had all their days professed so they think it not only a lawful but a meritorious Act to say that they died in the Faith of the Church of Rome tho' they know the contrary to be true And thereupon they take away all their Children to breed them in the Popish Religion and seize the Estate to preserve it as they pretend for the Children of such Catholick Parents In a word the sufferings and calamities of the Protestants in France are grown to such a height that many thousands have forsaken their native Country Relations Friends and Estates and the rest are ready to do the like were they not debarred all ways of departure and escape And as the severities exercised against those of the Reformed Religion in that Kingdom are but a Copy of what we in these Nations are to look for in case we should come under a Popish Prince so the time hath been that the Rulers of these Kingdoms and such as Minister at the helm of of publick Affairs would not have silently lookt on and suffered those of the same Faith with themselves to be thus oppressed and destroyed for no other Reason but meerly because they are Protestants Nor will it be hereafter to the Honour and Reputation of some people in the World That the first Edicts of any fatal Consequence to the Hugonets in France bore date in 1660. as if the French King had presumed upon the Connivence of his Neighbours and therefore adventured to begin the Persecution which hath been by several steps advanced all along since and is at last arrived at inexpressible as well unsupportable severities and rigours And I may say that it is not without grief and sorrow that they who love his Majesty are necessitated to observe how through the influence of ill men about him he hath suffered himself to be persuaded to neglect interposing so effectually in behalf of that people as was expected from a Prince professing the Protestant Religion and whose interest it is to show himself upon all occasions the Patron and Defender of all the Reformed Churches And whosoever they were that advised His Majesty to abandon the concerning himself in the favour of Protestants beyond the Seas they neither consulted the Glory and Honour of their Prince nor yet the Maxims which His Royal Father as well as others who have swayed the English Scepter were guided by And tho' no good subject can think of the Usurper Oliver Cromwell but with an abhorrency of the Crimes which he was guilty of towards the Royal Family and these Kingdoms yet all the World took notice and continues to acknowledg both with what Sympathy Courage and Zeal he appeared in behalf of the Protestants in Piedmont when their Prince the Duke of Savoy had employ'd Forces and given Orders to extirpate them and how by a Letter to the late French Cardinal he check'd and stem'd a Persecution which some Protestants in the South of France were likely to have fallen under The poor Hugonots did not only long ago foresee all that hath hitherto overtaken them but they likewise made some near His Majesty acquainted with it and were ready to have proposed such measures as would have been able to have prevented their own sufferings and the disturbance which the French Monarch
and juncture against Phanaticks it being so apparent a weakning of the whole Reformed Interest in these Kingdoms and a betraying all the Protestant party into the power and hands of their worst Enemies And seeing none but the Papists can reap any benefit or advantage by it it must be they and none else that were the first Authors and continue to be the promoters of such Councels And as some of these Laws were procured by the means of Sir Thom. Clifford Sir Thom. Strickland and others who have since appeared to be Papists so it is not unpleasant to observe how they have endeavoured to get them either suspended or executed according as this or that have lyen in an usefulness to their Designs Nor can we otherwise believe but that as some of our Ministers obtain'd them to be dispensed with 1672. in favour of the Papists so others pursue the having them put in execution in 1682. out of friendship to the same people Thus the Laws which were pretended at first to have been made for the preservation of the Church of England have been from time managed to set forward the concernments of the Church of Rome and advance the projections of the Papists Accordingly we have beheld them suspended for divers years when both most of the English Clergy were earnest to have had them executed and when the execution of them seemed to lye in a subserviency to support the grandess of the Church But now when neither the Church can be able to subsist nor are any means left to the preservation of the Protestant Religion unless Moderation and Lenity be exercised to Dissenters we are made daily and sad Spectators of Oppression Spoil and Havock brought upon a quiet industrious and useful people by the execution of these very Laws And we may be sure the Papists hug and solace themselves to find that through the Ascendency which they have over some Publick Persons who influence all our Counsels they can apply the Laws to the ruin of many Protestants and in revenge for their having escaped their murderous and bloody hands engage the Government and Authority of the Nation against them Nor is it less than a matter of Triumph to them to think that when the Commons of England in Parliament assembled had not only read and committed a Bill For the uniting His Majesties Protestant Subjects but Resolved it as the Opinion of that House That the prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning to the Protestant Interest an encouragement to Popery and dangerous to the peace of the Kingdom they should not only be able to alienate and exasperate us more from and against one another than ever we were but procure one Protestant to prosecute another upon the Penal Laws to the scorn and contempt of the Wisdom of Parliaments and the proclaiming to all the world of how little esteem and value their Counsel and Advice are What effect these proceedings upon the Penal Law against Dissenters may have upon others who are not Phanaticks is not easie to be throughly apprehended but it is certain that the English are naturally inclined to censure whatsoever is extremely rigorous and to compassionate such as suffer merely for Religion not for Crimes against the peace and safety of the Government How soon did the Nation grow dissatisfied with the Cruelties of Queen Mary and even they who had no Religion themselves came to abhor the seeing their Countreymen burnt for Principles which had no influence upon the subversion of Thrones and disturbance of Societies Yea tho her second Parliament revived the old Laws against Hereticks yet the minds of men were so much altered in a little time that the Commons in the third Parliament of that Queen would not pass a Bill which was brought in for incapacitating those from being Justices of the Peace that were suspected to have been remiss in prosecuting Hereticks And it is remarkable that not only our late Parliaments were for the mitigation of the Laws against Dissenters and for the uniting all His Majesties Protestant Subjects but even the Long Parliament which had been the Authors of all the new Laws against Phanaticks saw a necessity if they would preserve our Religion and the Lives of Protestants from the dangers which threatned them by means of the Papists to take other measures than they had acted by before and to recur to Methods of Lenity Accordingly the House of Commons in the Session that was held February 1672. sent up a Bill to the Lords in favour of Dissenters and about the Union of Protestants Nor is it to be imagined what jealousies it raiseth in the minds of most people concerning what they and all Protestants are to fear in case of a Popish Successor by seeing many of the soberest in the Nation and who agree with the present Church in all Doctrinals of Faith and Essentials of Worship so severely treated and prosecuted under a Protestant King only because of their differing from those of the established National way in some little and inconsiderable things And by how much all this rigor against Protestant Dissenters is thought to have its rise from the counsels and importunity of the Duke of York by so much are all thinking men possest with astonishing apprehensions of the Cruelties which they must expect to undergo if he come once to wear the Crown For being universally supposed and taken to be a Papist and thereupon of a Faith altogether opposite to ours so we are not now to learn that the very principles of his belief will oblige him to extirpate all that will not own the Tridentine Creed Yea such people as dare speak their thoughts do commonly say That the reason why the Duke adviseth His Majesty to courses so contrary to the Meekness and Compassion of his Royal Breast as well as the whole tenor of his Reign hitherto is that he may darken and eclipse the Glory of His hitherto merciful Government and by putting him upon austerities towards subjects who profess the same Religion that their Prince doth justifie himself hereafter in all the Slaughters and Barbarities which by virtue of the malicious ferment of Popery he may be inclined to perpetrate upon those whose Religion he so implacably abhors as he doth that of Protestants But would it not be worthy of the serious consideration of those at the Helm That it is not only the Dissenters who suffer by the Execution of the Penal Laws but the whole Nation which participates in the profits and advantages of their Industry More especially all they who have any relation unto or such as manage any Commerce with them do all bear a common share in their Calamities And besides the recentments which will spring up in the minds of men by seeing an innocent people harassed whose Lives tho they do not imitate yet they cannot but commend will it not be apt to impress their hearts with secret
Laws by which the Phanaticks are Disturbed Fined and Imprisoned will not be found to have the Legality Force and Power that some men do imagine But the Papists who at the bottom are the promoters of the present Severities against Dissenters are no ways solicitous concerning the Inconveniences which may ensue all they aim at is to alienate the hearts of the People from the Government inflame Differences and Animosities among Protestants foster Jealousies in the King of the Loyalty of his Subjects and by all this to render us the easier a prey unto themselves And since the Romish Conspirators were prevented in the execution of the Design which they had so carefully laid and carried on with so much Industry Confederation and Expence at home and which had it succeeded they apprehended themselves secure of a Foreign Succour as well as a Prince of their own Religion to support and justifie as they thereupon found themselves rendred both obnoxious to the Justice of Parliaments and the angry Resentments of the Nation so they have been making it their chief business either to get their own Plot wholly disbelieved or to forge and sham one upon Protestants Accordingly when they could neither corrupt the Witnesses who had made the Discovery of their Villanies to retract their Testimony and renounce their Evidence nor were able either by the persons whom they had suborned here or those whom they had brought from beyond Sea to weaken and defame their Credit they do at last entirely betake themselves to the framing a Plot wherein they would have it believed the Protestants are involved and engaged for the subverting of the Monarchy and altering the Government And as the endeavouring to impose the belief of such a foolish and obvious Forgery upon the Government and the Nation is a clear demonstration of the Truth of their own Conspiracy and the desperate shifts which their Guilt and Fear have driven them unto so the entertainment which some have given to so dull as well as Romantick a Fable is both an undeniable Evidence that there were more accessory to the first Popish Plot than yet are publickly accused and that there are a sort of people in the Kingdom who are only sorry for the miscarriage of it We might very reasonably have thought that upon the detection of the Meal Tub Sham in the year 1679. the Papists would either have been discouraged to forge another perfectly of the same Figure and Make in the year 1681. or that the Government would have received the tidings of it with neglect and indignation For as it is the same Design whereof we are now accused that we were to have been charged with then so these very persons whom they have procured Witnesses to swear Guilty of a Design to seize the King at Oxford were the first in the List of Nobles and Gentlemen whom they were then to have Sworn against That they resolved to raise a Rebellion against His Majesty and mustered Forces to that purpose How strangely are we abandoned to the malice and will of our Enemies that the Papists having mist the destroying us by a Massacre they should be permitted by Perjuries and Subornations to pursue our ruine in forms of Legal Trial. And as the countenance which the vilest Miscreants have met withal who tho apparently suborned and hired have come forth to testifie a Protestant Plot is an unanswerable Argument under whose conduct and influence some of our Ministers are so the baffles which the Authors and Managers of this Intrigue have received upon the Three late Adventures and Essays which they made towards the proof of a Protestant Conspiracy do proclaim aloud what opinion all wise and good men have both of them and this whole Affair Now tho the judgment of so many Juries upon a full hearing of what our Accusers had to charge us with be a sufficient vindication of the innocency of all the Protestants of England in this matter as well as of those persons against whom the several Presentments were brought yet we bear that respect to the Honour of our Religion the Reputation and Integrity of the last Parliament as well as the Credit of our own Names that we cannot believe we have discharged our duty as we ought towards the World till we have both triumphed over the folly and exposed the malice of our enemies to that degree as to render them the objects of the scorn and hatred of all Mankind And as we suppose our selves in this Undertaking secure of the Approbation of His Majesty it being in favour of that Religion which He not only professeth but whereof He is the Defender and in behalf of as Worthy and Loyal persons as any in his Dominions so in performing this most necessary duty we fear not the anger of Ministers much less the barkings of little people being stedfastly resolv'd not to say any thing but what we can approve our selves before God and man for the truth of Nor can any without an open espousing the Designs of the Papists be offended that we should vindicate the Loyalty and Justifie the Innocency of Protestants which have been so impudently and maliciously aspersed Yea it would be a transgression against all the Rules of Justice and Equity to allow or connive at the branding and arraigning us in daily Pamphlets if they should not permit us the liberty to detect the Forgeries and Criminations by which our Honour and Lives are invaded and brought into question And while the Compendium the Jesuits Plea Staffords Memoirs and the Vindication of the English Catholicks from the pretended Conspiracy against the Life and Government of His Sacred Majesty escape the Censure and Animadversion of our Administrators of Justice it would imply an entertainment of undue thoughts concerning the Justice of the Government should we not instead of a Reprimaud expect their Approbation Nor will we believe that it was either by the Authority of His Majesty or the Honourable Privy Council that a Messenger and the Wardens of the Company of Stationers went to the several Printing-houses requiring them to publish nothing in favour of the Innocency of the Earl of Shaftsbury or in justification of the Ignoramus which was brought in by the Jury upon the Bill that was preferred against him but we rather ascribe the Order for so unpresidented and illegal an action to some officious Agent for the Papists or to some little Ministers who were apprehensive of seeing themselves laid open and detected being conscious of their own guilt in the countenance and encouragement they had given to this Forged Protestant Plot for which many Noblemen and Gentlemen were designed to have been destroyed For as there is no Law whereby the coming into mens Houses the making a search after Books or Papers which may be in the Press or the laying an Inhibition upon them of printing whatsoever they judg safe or convenient is or can be warranted so it seems no ways equal and fair to restrain any
Shaftsbury p. 19. Country were well provided with Horse Arms and Men and that if the King offered any violence to them they might oppose him for the like had been done in former times And Haynes deposeth That Colledg should tell him Vnless the King should suffer the Parliament to continue to sit at Oxford they would seize him and bring him Colledg's Tryal p. 30. to the Block as they did the Logger-head his Father yea that my Lord Shaftsbury should declare Vnless the King granted the Pardon which was demanded Proceedings upon the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury p. 37. for the said Haynes they would raise the whole Kingdom against him Booth likewise swears how my Lord Shaftsbury told him That he and others had considered with themselves that it was fit for them to have Guards at Oxford and that to this purpose he had establisht a matter of Fifty men persons Ibid. p. 21. of quality and that he had entrusted Capt. Wilkinson with the Command of them and in case any violence should be offered by the King they would repel Force with greater Force Now tho' all this be nothing but a bundle of forged lies yet it plainly declares that no fewer than all the men of quality in England who are zealous for the Reformed Religion and Civil Rights yea the whole Body of sincere Protestants were to be drawn and hook't within the verge of this Plot and all their Lives and Fortunes brought to lye at the favour of the Government upon the pretended guilt of it For no man can think that the blood of the Earl of Shaftsbury and my Lord Howard would have attoned for so general and universal a Conspiracy could they but once have enjoyed the good fortune to have had credit given to these fellows Testimonies The designs which the Papists proposed unto themselves in their forging of this Conspiracy were greater than to be compassed and accomplished by the murder of Three or Four men in the way of legal proofs For as nothing less was aim'd at by means of this Sham Plot than the destroying all who withstand the Introduction of Popery and the establishment of a Popish Successor so many hundreds were to be taken out of the way besides those apprehended and accused ere ever the people of this Kingdom could be expected quietly to submit to be Papists slaves But because the foregoing Depositions do only speak in general of a Conspiracy wherein the Parliament and Nobles were engaged in conjunction with my Lord Shaftsbury to apprehend and cut off the King we shall therefore give an account from the Attestations of others of some few more who besides those publickly named were to have been charged with and perished under the pretended guilt of this forged Plot. And as we are assured from the mouth of a Gentleman of great Reputation and good Quality that John Smith said to him he could swear Treason against a hundred Protestants so Thomas Samson hath deposed upon Oath That John Macknamarra told him that Edward Ivie Bryan Haynes John Smith and Edward Turbervile did intend to swear Treason against Sir Patience Ward Sir Robert Clayton Sir Thomas Player Mr. Bethel who was then Sheriff of London Coll. Mildmay others Yea to that confidence were the mercinary perjured Rogues arrived of their being able to destroy men upon the suborn'd Testimonies that had been dictated unto them that one Mr. Shewin informs upon Oath his having heard John Macknamarra and Edward Turbervil offer on the 11th of August last to lay a wager That Mr. Sheriff Bethel Mr. Best and divers of the London Jury which had brought in an Ignoramus upon the Bill against Stephen Colledg would be hang'd before Christmas last And that the world may be fully convinced how the Papists and the Tools of one quality and another which they work by designed to extend the guilt of this pretended Protestant Plot we shall subjoyn the Deposition of one Ashlock who said That Edward Ivie immediately after Colledg ' s Tryal told him That as they had gotten the said Colledg to be cast and condemned so they were resolved to have the Duke of Monmouth and other Lords to drink of the same cup and to taste Colledg ' s fate So that no man who is a Protestant ought after the knowledg of this to believe himself safe or that he is exempted out of the number of those upon whom the Papists under the pretence of a Protestant Plot hoped to have wreck'd their Malice and Rage For they that dare entertain thoughts of destroying a Prince whom his greatest Enemies can charge with no fault save that he is a Protestant and zealous for the King's preservation and glory are not to be supposed to harbour any thoughts of Compassion and Mercy towards Protestants of an inferior rank Shall neither the Honour which the D. of M. hath brought to His Majesty and the Nation by his foreign Atchievements nor the peace and establishment which he restored to the King and Throne by his prudent and valorous subduing Insurrections at home be sufficient to protect him from the danger and infamy of a Scaffold no more than they were able to secure him from being excluded his Father and Prince's presence and deprived of those Offices which his Merit rendered him worthy of had he not any nearness by Nature and blood to His Majesty to plead for him Will nothing satisfie the Romish Crew unless they can bring the King to forget the Affections of Father as well as the Justice of a Monarch and make him abandon a person to their treachery and implacable wrath whom he is obliged by the Laws of nature to protect as his son whom he is bound by the Laws of England to defend him as his Subject And as all men discern whose Interest hath been served and whose revenge gratified in all the mortifications of this Loyal and Innocent Duke so we can easily guess in whose behalf and for the promoting of whose concernments this whole Protestant Conspiracy was invented and forged And having succeeded so well already as by their meer importunities to alienate his Majesty from a person whom he once seemed to value and love they are encouraged to hope the King will be prevailed with by suggestions of Treasonable Crimes to sacrifice him to their indignation and ire Having now traced and pursued this forged Plot so far as to see that it was calculated for no less than the whole Meridian of Great Brittain and that all the Patriots of Religion and Laws in both Nations were to be destroyed under a pretence of being combin'd in it we are in the next place to view it in the complexion and figure wherein it opened and unfolded it self against the Right Honorable the Earl of Shaftsbury and those other persons who have been either Indicted or only Committed for an alledged accession to it And as the Papists very well know that none had more opposed and
in and joyn with him and he would have the Earl of Shaftsbury ' s head cut off and sham the whole Popish Plot. By this Deposition we are plainly led into this whole deviliâ—h Intrigue of charging Protestants with a Conspiracy against the Person of the King and the established Monarchy For Fitz Gerald being corrupted by the Papists and sâ—ch as manage their designs to sham off the Popish Plot and swear one upon Protestants he accordinly applies himself to every person whom he conceived with any probality entertain thoughts of prevailing upon And by dealing with men of no Principles and of most profligate Lives to whom were proposed great Offices and ample Rewards they have by degrees been able to muster up Nine or Ten Rascals most of which were before notoriously infamous and having clothed them with the stile of the King's Evidence they grow angry that their Testimony is not admitted to the reproach of our Religion and the destruction of many innocent persons Yea this wretch Hayn's consessed to one Mrs. Hall That he had been dealt with to form a Presbyterian See Colledge's Trial p. 42. Plot and that he was desired to corrupt and suborn one Everard and others to come over and promote the same Design And upon the Overtures which had been made him he not only told one Mr. Titon That he could frame a Presbyterian Plot and that there was Money to be gotten by doing it but he acknowledged to one Mr. Richards That he was employed and Ibid. p. 43. had an hand in putting the Plot upon Dissenting Protestants and that he was offered a Pardon and 500 l if he would swear such and such base things That is if he would accuse the Earl of Shaftsbary and other Loyal Patriots of Religion and English Liberties of being guilty of a Conspiracy against his Majesty and the established Government And the Fellow being in great want and having long before shipwrack't his Conscience he was easily brought to comply with this wicked and abominable Proposal For as he told Mowbray His necessitous Condition made him take desperate Resolutions and that to make his Fortune he would swear a Plot against the Presbyterians in reference to whom any plausable thing would be believed And that the World may know of how long standing this forged Conspiracy has been I shall here add something of Sampson's Deposition upon Oath before an Alderman of London which may serve further to enlighten this Affair He swears That John Macknamarra told him that Edward Ivey and Bryan Hayns agreed together in April last to swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury and that the Treason which they resolved to swear was That the said Earl should say That this King deserved more to be dethroned than Richard the second and that he the said Earl vvould dethrone the King and make England a Common-Wealth and that if the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury were once found that then they with Smith Turbervil and others would swear Treason against many more And as we may be sure that the Villan's being a Papist disposed him the more readily to venture upon a Design which was judged so subservient to the Romish Interest so it were worth the while to inform the World with what Court-Ministers and little Officers he secretly corresponded all the time he pretended to abscond But as those persons must be left to suffer by Justice of a Parliament so all the Discoveries relating to a close Converse between those Gentlemen and Hayns must be deferred till this whole matter fall under the Inspection of the Two Houses But so zealous of a sudden did the Rascal become in ruining Protestants upon this forged Plot That he not only called the Parliament at Oxford a company of Rogues because they would give the King no Money but that by doing Shaftsbury and other Protestants business they Colledge's Trial p. 44. would help him to Money out of the Phanatiks estates for they would rather damn their Souls to the Devil than that the Catholick Cause should sink If men did not chuse the being imposed upon and were not obstinate against conviction they might have been satisfied long ago that there was no Truth nor Reality in all the talk and noise which we have had concerning a Protestant Plot but that it is only the invention of ill men instructed and acted by the Papists for the retrieving the sinking Cause and Interest of the Catholick Church in these Nations And they have pitched upon Tools who are either wholly fearless of Damnation or such who upon a promise of Happiness in this world are resolved to venture it So that upon what hath been here with all Truth as well as Brevity represented concerning this Fellow Haynes I hope that at least all the sober part of Mankind will see cause for justifying the late Jury in their not believing his Testimony Nor have I insisted upon half the Crimes and gross Immoralities of his Life such as his forging a Letter to one Mr. Harbottle of Lincoln in order to cozen a Gentleman of Goods to the value of 200 l. And his marrying one Mrs. Mansfield and then turning her away after he had lived divers years with her and spent 500 l. which she brought him pretending she was but his Whore because they were not married according to the Form of the Church of England but after the Romish Fashion tho' he that is guilty of such things ought not to be believed unless the matter he swears carry a probability in it or be rendred morally certain by Circumstances which are either notorious or otherwise confirmed No instead of recounting such Wickednesses and Immoralities I have rather chosen to make him appear an infamous Rascal and one to whose Affidavit concerning a Protestant Plot no credit is to be given by declaring his own acknowledgments of the whole Forgery and upon what Motives and through whose Instigation he listed himself for a Witness and what was the end which the Managers of this Design proposed ultimately unto themselves with respect to which they reckon'd the murdering of innocent men would be esteem'd a holy and meritorious service And I shall only add to what hath been said That the wretch plainly contradicted himself in the face of the Court. For being asked by the Jury Whether he had not given an Information to a Justice of Peace concerning some design against the Earl of Shaftsbury he twice denied his having given such an Information to any save Secretary Jenkins yet upon my Lord Chief Justice's telling him that he did not observe the question and proposing it again to him he See Proceedings at the Old Baily p. 44 45. at last accknowledged that he had given an Information to Sir George Treby how Mr. Fitz-Gerald had both told the King and given it under his hand That the Earl of Shaftsbury was resolved to set the Crown upon his own head or otherwise to turn the Kingdom
that for advancing the Duke to the Throne my Lord should not only venture his own life fortune but disoblige the best Friends he hath in the Nation and entangle his native Country in Civil War This misadventure in the Testimony of one of the most considerable Witnesses betrays not only their Folly but that the whole Plot whereof the Earl of Shaftsbury hath been accused is a malicious Forgery in order to take away the Life of that innocent Peer Nor can any who are not willing to sacrifice the Protestant Religion the Liberties of their Country and the Lives of Guiltless Persons to the Hatred and Rage of the Papists give any Credit to Fellows who Swear at so Wilde and Nonsensical a rate Had the Mercinary vvretches designed to publish themselves for Liars and Impostors to all the vvorld they could not have taken a more effectual vvay to do it than by affirming that the Earl of Shaftsbury should be desirous to enter into a Combination and Conspiracy vvith Irish Papists in order to prevent a Popish Successor and for preserving the Protestant Religion For at the same time that Dennis chargeth this Noble Person vvith saying That he would extirpate the King and all his Family he swears That he desired him to write to his Ubi supra p. 32. Irish Popish Friends to be ready to assist And tho' I do not much vvonder to find a Caitiff of the size of Dennis's Wit and Understanding swear a business vvhich disproveth it self before all Wise and Rational persons yet I cannot forbear marvelling that they vvho vievv'd the Depositions and vvere to gloss and enforce the Evidence vvould suffer such a Deposition to appear upon the publick Stage vvhich vvould not only make the Forgery notorious but infallibly expose themselves as well as the perjur'd Rogues to the laughter scorn and detestation of mankind Nor is it unworthy of remark that in the expressions which they swear my Lord Shaftsbury used they make him not only forget the Loyalty of a Subject but the Civility and Breeding of a Gentleman For the Terms wherein they represent him speaking of the King are besides their being Treasonable too rude to proceed from any that knows the measures of Civility or hath been occasioned to speak with any kind of Decorum For not only Macknamarra introduceth him calling the King a Faithless Person and one that was no way to be believed But Haynes will have him both to say That the King had no more Religion than a Horse and that he was degenerated into a perfect Ibid. p. 28. p. 43. p. 27. Beast and that he durst as soon be hang'd as to meddle with the said Haynes if he stuck to his Information about Sir Edmond-bury Godfrey ' s Murder This is a Dialect proper for such Rascals as the Witnesses to use but it is not a Stile that men of Quality are accustomed unto or can allow themselves to speak in For how much soever they may be offended with the ways and methods of Princes yet they constantly speak of their Persons with Respect and Deference Whether are we to esteem it a Subject fit for our mirth and laughter or for our disgust and indignation to see a Fellow appear at a Bar against a Great and Wise Peer and among other Treasonable Expressions whereof he accuseth him to swear That the said Lord put a greater Respect and Valuation upon him than he did upon the King himself Haynes having sent to the Earl of Shaftsbury and several other Noble Persons That he would make considerable Discoveries if they would procure him a Pardon the Rascal swears That being in Discourse with my Lord Shaftsbury about that matter my Lord should say If the King would not grant the Pardon for him that was desired they would raise the whole Kingdom against him and Ibid. p. 27. that he must not expect to live peaceably in his Throne if he did not grant it For not to insist on this That the Earl of Shaftsbury never spake with Haynes nor would not so much as see him both which will be proved as far as Negatives are capable can any man that hath not renounced Sense as well as Conscience believe that the Earl of Shaftsbury would put the Life of the King and the Peace of the Kingdom in competition with Haynes's being pardoned or not pardoned For suppose that the Fellow undertook to make very useful and important Discoveries provided he might have a Pardon yet we must be Bruits before we can be perswaded that a person of Prudence and Conduct should in case a pitiful wretch were not secured against the danger of the Gallows to which he stood obnoxious threaten not only to dethrone a Monarch to whom he lies under many Obligations besides those of Fealty but to hurl a quiet and peaceable Nation into War and Blood And as if it were not enough for these silly as well as malicious wretches to make my Lord Shaftsbury say a Thousand things which are equally Ridiculous and absurd as they are Treasonable they will have him to have talk'd of matters ready to be done which being duly weighed will be found to have been morally impossible For so is all that is sworn against him concerning a Design to seize the King at Oxford where he was not only surrounded with his Guards but as our Enemies must acknowledg environed with many Loyal Peers and Gentlemen Nor are we told of any preparations that were suitable to an undertaking which was so difficult in it self and which would be extreamly fatal to the Authors if it miscarried For whereas they depose That my Lord told them the Members came well Smith p. 26. Horsed and well Armed the whole Kingdom knows the contrary Some of the Members went so ill attended as that they were not in a condition to secure themselves from being Rob'd by the way And divers of the most Martial persons in the Oxford House of Commons went thither in Hackney Coaches with scarce a Servant a peice to wait upon them Yea this very Earl who is said not only to have projected the seizing the King at Oxford but to have corresponded with others in order to their coming provided thither with strength and force for the accomplishing of it had neither Coach nor Horse there himself So ignorant was this Noble Person of any such design and so unprepared for the execution of an attempt of that nature that he went down in an hired Coach and was forc'd to stay there after the Dissolution of the Parliament till he sent to London for Horses to convey and accommodate him home Was not the Concourse at Oxford much smaller than was reckoned upon considering the Greatness and Solemnity of the Occasion It cannot be thought that the Peers of England and the principal Gentry of the Kingdom should go to to so August and Solemn an Assembly without some Menial Servants to attend them And if the having supernumeraries in a
was pleased graciously to add that he should find him very just and kind in rewarding what he had done and suffered for him But what this Earl acted and underwent for the King when his Lordship's Father and almost all the Scotch Nation had either fallen in with or submitted to the Usurpers will better appear by a Paper under Middleton's hand which I shall here annex John Middleton Lieutenant-General next and immediate under His Majesty and Commandev in Chief of all the Forces raised and to be raised within the Kingdom of Scotland Seeing the Lord Lorn hath given so singular proofs of his clear and perfect Loyalty to the King's Majesty and of pure and constant Affection to the good of His Majesty's Affairs as never hitherto to have any ways complied with the Enemy and to have been principally Instrumental in the enlivening of this late War and one of the chief and first Movers in it and hath readily chearfully and gallantly engaged and resolutely and constantly continued active in it notwithstanding the many powerful Disswasions Discouragements and Oppositions he hath met with from divers hands and hath in the carrying on of the Service shewn such signal Fidelity Integrity Generosity Prudence Courage and Conduct and such high Vertue Industry and Ability as are suitable to the Dignity of his Noble Family and the Trust His Majesty reposed in him and hath not only stood out against all Inducements Temptations and Enticements but hath most nobly crossed and repressed Designs and Attempts of deserting the Service and persisted Loyally and firmly in it to the very last through excessive Trials and many great Difficulties and misregarding all personal Inconveniencies and chusing the loss of Friends fortune and private concernments and to endure the utmost Extremities rather than to swerve in the least from his Duty or taint his Reputation with the meanest shadow of Disloyalty or Dishonour I do therefore hereby testifie and declare that I am perfectly satisfied with his whole deportments in relation to the Enemy and their late War and do highly approve them as being not only above all I can express of their worth but almost beyond all parallel c. John Middleton What his after-Sufferings for His Majesty were and how he continued six years a Prisoner under the Usurpers for his Loyalty to the King I shall content my self to have only barely suggested them And as no man in all Scotland was more capable of serving his Prince both by reason of the greatness of his Parts the height of his Quality and the largeness of his Interest than this Noble Lord so no person of one degree or another hath at all times and in various Employments and Trusts more approved his Zeal and Loyalty to the King's Person and Government than he hath constantly done since His Majesties Restoration And if he have offended in any thing it is by an excess of compliance with his Majesties Will having as himself declared in his Speech at his Arraignment served him all along after his own way and manner Nor can any wise man believe that what he was accused of High-Treason for was either a Crime in it self or would have been charged upon this Earl as an Offence if His Majesties present Commissioner in Scotland had not upon some hidden and more important motive and inducement conceived an implacable hatred against him For the declining to swallow the Test abruptly and without such limitations as might give it both a determinate and a legal sense cannot be imagined to be more criminal than altogether to refuse it which not only many of the Conformable Clergy but divers Peers and Gentlemen without being accused of High Treason have done And surely it was more becoming a man of Honour and a Christian to declare plainly and openly in what sense he could and was ready to take it than to take it with a pious and devout ignorance as another Lord of His Majesties Privy-Council did And as the Council's publishing an Explanation of it is an unanswerable Argument that it required some Explication towards the reconciling it to its self and the Laws of the Land so wise men are apt to think that it is as lawful for a person to explain it for himself as for them to take upon them to explain it for others But it seems very strange that it should be Treason in the Earl of Argile to declare in what Sense he would take it when at the same time others have been allowed to put Senses and Constructions of their own upon it which were more remote from the meaning of the words than his were But that the World may be both able to judg of that Affair and of the hard and unpresidented usage which this Noble person hath met with I shall first subjoin the Explanation of the Test for which he was Accused and Condemned of High Treason Secondly I shall annex an Explication which he had prepared of that Explanation and which he threw into such a Texture with the words of the latter that being read interwoven together his purpose meaning and design will not only more clearly appear but justifie themselves to the minds of all rational men And I shall add in the last place the Opinion of several of the best Lawyers in Scotland concerning the Case of this Great and Loyal Peer The Earl of Argile's Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and I am very desirous to give obedience as far as I can I 'm confident the Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths Therefore I think no body can explain the Test but for himself I take it as far as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion And I do declare That I mean not to bind up my self in my Station and in a lawful way to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion and to my Loyalty And this I understand as a part of my Oath The Earl of Argile's Explication of his Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and have seen several objections moved by others against it and I am very desirous notwithstanding of all that I have seen or heard to give obedience in this and every thing as far as I can I am confident whatever scruples any man doth raise The Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths And because their sense and genuine meaning is the true sense and seeing the Test that is enjoined is of no private Interpretation nor are the Kings Statutes to be interpreted otherwise than as they bear to the intent they are made Therefore I think no body that is to say no private person can explain the Test for-another But every man for himself as he understands it to agree with and suit the Parliaments sense which is the true sense I take it notwithstanding all these scruples made by any As far as it is consistent with it self and which is indeed wholly in the Parliaments sense and true meaning which was the securing the Protestant Religion founded on the word of God and contained in the Confession of Faith recorded Parl. 1. Ja. 6. And I declare that by that part of the Test viz. that there lyes no obligation on me c. That I mean not to bind up my self in my station and in a lawful way still disclaiming all unlawful endeavours To wish and endeavour any Alteration I think according to my Conscience and Allegiance To the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion nor my Loyalty which I understand no otherwise but the duty and allegiance of loyal and faithful subjects And this Explanation I understand as a part not of the Test nor Act of Parliament but of my Oath that I am to swear and with it I am willing to take the Test if your R. H. and Lo. allow me it or otherways in submison to the Act of Parliament and your R. H. and the Councils pleasure am content to be held a Refuser at present The Opinion of the Lawyers about the Earl of Argyle's Case WE have considered the Criminal Letters raised at the instance of His Majesties Advocate against the Earl of Argyle with the Acts of Parliament contained and warranted in the same Criminal Letters and have compared the same with a Paper or Explication which is Libelled to have been given in by the Earl of Argyle to the Lords of His Majesties Privy Council and owned by him as the sense and explication in which he did take the Oath imposed by the late Act of Parliament and which Paper is of this Tenor I have considered the Test and am very desirous c. And likewise having consider'd that the Earl after he had taken the Oath with the explication and sense then put upon it it was acquiesced to by the Lords of the Privy Council and the Earl allowed to take his place and sit and vote And that before the Earl's taking of the Oath there were several Papers spread abroad containing Objections and alledged Inconsistencies and Contradictions in the Oath And that some thereof by Synods and Presbyteries of the Orthodox Clergy to some of the Bishops of the Church It is our humble Opinion that seeing the Earl's design and meanin in offering the said Explication was allenarly for clearing of his own Conscience and is of no contravention of the Laws and Acts of Parliament and doth not at all import the Crimes Libelled against him viz. Treason Leising-making Depraving of His Majesties Laws or the Crime of Perjury But that the Glosses and Inferences put by the Libel on the said Paper are altogether strained and unwarrantable and inconsistent with the Earl's true Design and the Sincerity of his meaning and intention in making of the said Explication FINIS