This Appeal from the Iniquity and Injustice of a Faction of the Last Edition Not as if the World were likely to Mend or the People that come After us to be One jot Wiser Iuster Honester or Better-Natur'd than Those that went Before them But All Passions Sleep in the Grave and as there 's no Place for Envy Calumny Partiality or Imposture on the One hand so there 's as little room for Corrupt Interest Mercenary Design or Servile Adulation on the Other The Dead do not Bite they say and the Living unless they be Hagg-Wolves will not Bite the Dead People are well enough pleas'd to see Abuses Stript and Whipt as George Withers has it provided that they be Lash'd upon Other-Folks Shoulders Now this can never fall out where the Parable or the Embleme is of One Season and the Moral of Another For in the One Case the Painter come to Me and in the Other I go to the Painter 'T is much as in a Nusance No body is to lay a Dunghill just under My Nose but if I 'le Carry My Nose to Another mans Dunghill I may thank my self Now 't is quite another business where the Man and the Satyr are both of a Time For the Guilty are Naturally Suspicious and He that 's Conscious will be apt to say to himself This Will or That Tom Points at Me. A Character in This Case Shoots Hail-Shot and Strikes a great many more than ever the Marks-man either Aim'd at or Dreamt of There is a great deal of Difference I know betwixt the Whipping of the Vice and of the Man and betwixt the Whipping of the Vice for the Mans sake and the Whipping of the Man for the sake of the Vice. But be it as it will 't is Nonsense to Imagine that a Man draws a Figure in the Air and Means No body or that he had not some One Man more in his Thought then Another toward the Instructing or the Finishing of the Piece Wickedness and Knavery can never be Drawn To the Life but From the Life And the most Genuine Images that we have of Virtue and Vice Wisdom and Folly are Gather'd and Wrought from the Practices and Habits of Humane Life This sort of Essay is no more then Nature taken in Short-hand and He that Treats of Good and Evil does but Common-Place Mankind onely the Difference is that the Same Writings that are Censur'd for the most Virulent Libels how True soever in One Age Pass many times for the most Excellent and Profitable of Morals in Another Plain-dealing Writers Meet with the Fate commonly of Publique-Spirited Projectors and Ruine Themselves for the Good of their Successors And therefore a Frank Clear-minded Man that stands Condemn'd to the Mortification of Rubbing-out his days in a False Daubing Narrow-hearted World cannot do better then to withdraw his Effects from among Parasites and Sharpers and to Deposite the Care of his Memory and Good Name in the hands of those that are yet Vnborn These are My very Circumstances My Iudges are Parties and as the Case stands both Witnesses and Iury in a kind of Combination against me Whither should I Fly now from the Tyranny of This Passion and Prejudice for Relief and Protection but to Those Times when the Biass of This Controversy shall be taken off The Intrigue and Interest of it Extinguish'd and All the Present Litigants on Both sides laid to Sleep Especially since the Cause it self and the Merits of it wiâ—l most Infallibly come â—hole to the Next Age For my Charge and Every Article of it being Founded upon Those very Papers that I do here Transmit to After-Times for my Defence the Fact lies Open to All men and Done or Not Done is the Question Wherein Every Soul that can Reade may Satisfy himself I have not the Vanity all this while to Contend with so much Formality of Pomp and Zeal for the Single Credit of the Observator or of his Trifling Papers But so it is that without Ostentation the Honour of the Government and of All the Kings Loyal Subjects The Light the Authority the Tradition and the Faithfull Memorials of Truth it self as to This Point are not a little Concern'd in the Issue of This Cause For with All Deference to the Works of many Abler Pens that have Asserted the Same Interest I may yet with Modesty Affirm that This is the Only Weekly Paper that has Stood at Mark now for almost Six Years together without so much as One Discontinuance And to what End but to Encounter Seditious and Republican Positions Scandalous Shams and Defamatory Imposturer so soon as ever they took Air And to set the People Right in the Truth and Reason of Matters And this has been done with so much Care and Effect that the most Shameless of my Enemies could never lay a Finger yet upon any One Falsity of Fact or Errour of Doctrine in the Whole Train of These Observators and all the Bussle about them has been only General Hear-say and Clamour Now upon the Credit of These Writings depends in a Great Measure the Credit of the History of These Times to the Extreme Hazzard of Misleading After-Ages when they shall find on the One hand so many Deposing Disinherâ—â—ing Excluding and Impeaching Nemine Contradicente's So many Forsworn Narratives So many Thousand of Treasonous and Slanderous Libels All Printed Published and Recommended under a Masque of Authority and on the Other hand little more then This Miserable Paper to Oppose them What will Future Times say of This Government and of This Nation when they shall Reade of a Prince in a Plot against his Sovereign and his Brother A Queen and a Wife in the Same Plot against her Husband Nay of a King in a Plot Against Himself and Subjects in a Conspiracy to Murder their Prince upon an Instinct and Principle of Religion What will Posterity Think I say when they shall find All These Diabolical Calumnies Confirm'd by so many Pestilent Votes Narratives News'es and Pamphlets with the Solemnity too of Parliamentary Testimonialls and Imprimaturs What will they Think I say when they shall find Dr. OTES Capt. BEDLOE Capt. DANGERFIELD Stephen DVGDALE Esq with a Hundred Worthies more of the Same Batch Canoniz'd for Saints forsooth and the SAVIOVRS of the Nation So many Mediations for Pardon and Preferment for e'm So many Pulpits and Tribunals Trouping along for Company with Their Hosanna's too What shall Charity it self be able to say to This Cloud of Authorities and Certificates to This Harmony of Lies and Defamations when they shall see so Black a Story pass Current without either Contradiction or Controll As if the Brains of a whole Nation had been Turn'd in their Heads like a Pancake Conscience fall'n asleep Truth Struck Dumb Humane R ason Degenerated into Brutality and not One man of a Thousand that had the Heart to stand up for Religion or Iustice. The Next Generation would have taken This History for Gospel if some body or
War That Repriev'd the Plot and the Conspirators Was it the Papists that Suborn'd Witnesses against Shaftsbury and College for That 's their Meaning And was That the Case of Subornation that This Address Strikes at Was it the Papists that Ruin'd All for not Yielding to the Exclusion of the Duke Was it the Papists again that they make Answerable for the Bloud and Desolation Threaten'd in This Address because They Would not do the Things which only the King Could do How could Any man Believe These Calumnies and at the same time keep his Thoughts of his Prince within the Bounds of his Duty Or how could any man Disbelieve 'em without the Vttermost Abhorrence of so Diabolical a Practice upon the Honour of their Sovereign They stript the Late King of his Friends too AND the Malice of the Conspirators was not Satisfy'd Here neither unless after the Stripping his Majesty of All Other Means of Supporting Himself they Depriv'd him of the Vse and Service of his Friends too which Friends of his may be Properly Divided into Papists Convict and Suspected or Reputed Papists The Former were Visible and Known The Other were a sort of People of their Own Creation For whoever was not for their Turn they could make such a Papist of him at pleasure We shall see in Good Time how it far'd both with the One and with the Other while the Remaining Body of the Nation was only a Party of so many Vnited or Associated Protestants that were Link'd in One Band of Confederacy and Wag'd War to the Everlasting Reputation of the Plot under Otes'es Banner But to come to the Matter I shall begin with the Former Sort of them and Carry These Two Points Before me First The Story and Secondly The Ground of their Sufferings And bring the Whole into as Few Words as Possible in a Consistence with Candor Truth and Iustice. PApists or so Reputed were to be Banish'd BECAVSE of the Bloudy and Traiterous Designs of Popish Recusants To be taken into Custody and Disarm'd Their Names Taken Rewards given to the Discoverers of their Arms BECAVSE of the Damnable and Hellish Plot for the Destruction of his Majesties Person c. Papists to be Disabled from Sitting in Either House of Parliament BECAVSE of the Restless Conspiracies of Popish Recusants against his Majesties Person c. No Popish Recusants to have a Residence in his Majesties Palace or Access unto his Presence BECAVSE his Person is in Danger at This Time from Popish Conspiracies All Popish Recusants or Iustly Suspected Papists to be Apprehended Disarm'd and Secur'd BECAVSE of the Pernicious Plots and Contrivances of Popish Persons Resolved That if any Popish Recusant Convict shall Receive any Commission he shall be Deemed a Felon And shall be Pursued Apprehended and Executed as such Popish Delinquents to be brought to speedy Iustice BECAVSE of the Manifest Danger to his Majesties Sacred Person c. from the Notorious Conspiracies of Popish Priests and Iesuites Pickering to be Executed and all Papists or Reputed Papists to be Banished Twenty Mile from London and Westminster for Six Months BECAVSE of the Horrid Conspiracies of Popish Recusants London and the Parts Adjacent to be Freed from Popish Inhabitants At this rate they Proceeded against Papists Convict in the Quality of Papists and put That Part of his Majesties Friends out of Condition of either Serving their Master or Helping Themselves But then tâ—e Distinction of Suspected or Reputed Papists Swept the whole Remainder of tâ—em to a Single Man for One Wry Word of Otes or of his Works was enough to bring any Mans name into the Black Roll. Whoever Adher'd to the Duke of York Oppos'd the Exclusion was Suppos'd to Advise a Prorogation or Dissolution Deny'd the Plot Spoke Coursly of the Evidence and in fine Whoever was not an Associator or a Friend to That Interest was Popishly Affected But before I proceed to That Part of the Division of the Kings Friends there are Certain Qualifications of Papists and Popery under Other Circumstances that are to be taken in the way An Address to be Presented to his Majesty that his Royal Highness may Withdraw himself from his Majesties Person and Councel Resolved That a Bill be brought in to Disable the Duke of York to Inherit the Imperial Crown of This Realm And then follows immediately The Resolve Nemine Contradicente of the Revenging Vote In the Next Parliament they were at the very same Sport again Resolved Nemine Contradicente That the Duke of Yorks being a Papist and the Hopes of his coming such to the Crown hath given the Greatest Countenance and Encouragement to the Present Designs and Conspiracies against the King and the Protestant Religion The Next Resolve is the Revenging Vote and after That the Disabling Bill These Three Successively So that the Matter and the Order of it were Evidently Fore-laid and the Caball in Both Parliaments agreed upon 't before-hand Nay the Queen her self was brought into the Conspiracy to the Eternal Infamy of the Believers as well as the Reporters of That Sacrilegious Scandal and an Address Resolv'd upon as follows We Your Majesties most Dutyfull c. having received Enformations by Several Witnesses Otes and Bedloe of a most Desperate and Trayterous Design and Conspiracy against the Life of your Sacred Majesty wherein to their Great Astonishment the QVEEN is particularly Charged and Accused In Discharge of our Allegeance and out of our Affections and Care for the Preservation of your Majesties Sacred Person and Consequently of the whole Kingdom do most Humbly beseech your Majesty that the Queen and All her Family and All Papists and Reputed Papists be forthwith removed from your Majesties Court at Whitehall And then follow'd a Resolve of the Same Date That an Humble Address be Presented to his Majesty that All Papists and Suspected Papists within the Several Counties of England and Wales and Town of Berwick upon Tweed may be Apprehended and Secur'd This was a Ready way now to have a Clear Stage to Themselves And the Wickedness of That Age Stopt at Nothing when the Four Evangelists came once to be made a Stale to the Bus'ness and when Murder was Super-Added to the Hypocrisy and Perjury of the False Witnesses and their Confederate Patrons and Abettors I come now to the Address that was made upon the Revenging Vote WE do humbly Represent to your Majesty that being Deeply Sensible that the Greatest Hopes of Success against our Religion in the Enemies thereof the Papists are Founded in the Execrable Designs which they have laid against the Sacred Person and Life of your Majesty which it is not only our Duty but our Interest with the Greatest Hazzards to Preserve and Defend we have Apply'd our selves to the making such Provisions by Law as may Defeat those Popish Adversaries their Abettors and Adherents c. And while any such Laws are
Designs have so far prevailed that he hath created many and great Dependents upon him by his bestowing Offices and Preferments both in Church and State. 3. It appearing also to us That by his Influence Mercenary Forces have been levied and kept on Foot for his secret Designs contrary to our Laws the Officers thereof having been named and appointed by him to the apparent hazzard of his Majesties Person our Religion and Government if the danger had not been timely foreseen by several Parliaments and part of those Forces with great difficulty caused by them to be Disbanded at the Kingdoms great Expence And it being Evident that notwithstanding all the continual endeavours of the Parliament to deliver his Majesty from the Councils and out of the Power of the said D. yet his Interest in the Ministry of State and others hath been so prevalent That Parliaments have been unreasonably Prorogued and Dissolved when they have been in hot pursuit of the Popish Conspiracies and ill Ministers of State their Assistants 4. And that the said D. in order to reduce all into his own Power hath procured the Garisons the Army and Ammunition and all the Powet of the Seas and Souldiery and Lands belonging to these Three Kingdoms to be put into the hands of his Party and their Adherents even in opposition to the Advice and Order of the last Parliament 5. And as we considering with Heavy Hearts how greatly the Strength Reputation and Treasure of the Kingdom both at Sea and Land is Wasted and Consumed and lost by the intricate expensive management of these Wicked destructive Designs and finding the same Councils after exemplary Iustice upon some of the Conspirators to be still pursued with the utmost devilish malice and desire of Revenge whereby his Majesty is in continual hazzard of being Murdered to make way for the said D's Advancement to the Crown and the whole Kingdom in such case is destitute of all security of their Religion Laws Estates and Liberty sad experience in the Case Queen Mary having proved the wisest Laws to be of little Force to keep out Popery and Tyranny under a Popish Prince 6. We have therefore endeavoured in a Parliamentary-way by a Bill for the purpose to Bar and Exclude the said Duke from the Succession to the Crown and to Banish him for ever out of these Kingdoms of England and Ireland But the first Means of the King and Kingdoms Safety being utterly rejected and we left almost in Despair of obtaining any real and effectual security and knowing our selves to be intrusted to Advise and Act for the preservation of his Majesty and the Kingdom and being persuaded in our Consciences that the Dangers aforesaid are so eminent and pressing that there ought to be no delay of the best means that are in our power to secure the Kingdom against them We have thought fit to propose to all true Protestants an Union amongst themselves by solemn and sacred promise of Mutual Defence and Assistance in the preservation of the true Protestant Religion his Majesties Person and Royal State and our Laws Liberties and Properties and we hold it our bounden Duty to join our selves for the same intent in a Declaration of our United Affections and Resolutions in the Form Ensuing THE Association I A. B. Do in the presence of God solemnly Promise Vow and Protest to maintain and Defend to the utmost of my Power with my Person and Estate the True-Protestant Religion against Popery and all Popish Superstition Idolatry or Innovation and all those that do or shall endeavour to spread or advance it within this Kingdom I will also as far as in me lies maintain and defend His Majesties Royal Person and Estate as also the power and priviledge of Parliaments the lawfull Rights and Liberties of the Subject against all Incroachments and Usurpation of Arbitrary power whatsoever and endeavour intirely to Disband all such Mercenary Forces as we have reason to believe were raised to advance it and are still kept up in and about the City of London to the great Amazement and Terrour of all the good people of the Land. Moreover I. D. of Y. having publickly professed and owned the Popish Religion and notoriously given Life and Birth to the Damnable and Hellish Plots of the Papists against his Majesties Person the Protestant Religion and the Government of this Kingdom I will never consent that the said I. D. of Y. or any other who is or hath been a Papist or any ways Adher'd to the Papists in their wicked Designs be admitted to the Succession of the Crown of England But by all lawfull means and by force of Arms if need so require according to my Abilities will oppose him and endeavour to Subdue Expell and Destroy him if he come into England or the Dominions thereof and seek by force to set up his pretended Title and all such as shall Adhere unto him or raise any War Tumult or Sedition for him or by his Command as publique Enemies of our Laws Religion and Countrey To this end we and every one of us whose hands are here under-written do most willingly bind our selves and every one of us unto the other joyntly and severally in the Bond of one firm and loyal Society or Association and do promise and vow before God That with our joint and particular Forces we will Oppose and Pursue unto Destruction all such as upon any Title whatsoever shall oppose the Iust and Righteous ends of this Association and Maintain Protect and Defend all such as shall enter into it in the just performance of the true intent and meaning of it And lest this Just and Pious Work should be any ways obstructed or hindered for want of Discipline and Conduct or any evil-minded persons under pretence of raising Forces for the service of this Association should attempt or commit Disorders we will follow such Orders as we shall from time to time receive from this present Parliament whilst it shall be Sitting or the Major Part of the Members of both Houses subscribing this Association when it shall be Prorogued or Dissolved and obey such Officers as shall by them be set over us in the several Countries Cities and Burroughs untill the next meeting of this or another Parliament and will then shew the same Obedience and Submission unto it and those who shall be of it Neither will we for any respect of Persons or Causes or for Fear or Reward separate our selves from this Association or fail in the Prosecution thereof during our Lives upon pain of being by the rest of us prosecuted and suppressed as Perjur'd persons and publick Enemies to God the King and our Native Countrey To which Pains and Punishments we do voluntarily submit our selves and every one of us without benefit of any Colour or Pretence to excuse us In witness of all which Premisses to be Inviolably kept we do to this present Writing put our Hands and Seals and shall be most ready to
with the most Reproachfull of Libells under the Title of Petitions and Addresses and in a Style and Countenance of Duty and Respect When they Miss'd of any thing at First Request they were sure to follow it with Passion Instance Menace and Clamour The Monarchy it Self could not Stand without Excluding the Duke and no way to Prevent the Bloud that was like to Ensue but by an Association And in Excuse for the Liberties they took they had recourse to the Trust Reposed in them by those they Represented If the King Buckles he 's Lost by his Own Act If he Persists in the Negative there 's the Ruine of Religion and the Three Kingdoms laid at his Door If he Yields it must be either to the Right and Reason of their Demands or in Acknowledgment that they are too Strong for him which is Equally Dangerous Both ways To Conclude what matters it whether a Prince be Lost by Treaty or by Violence or whether the People be Gull'd into a Barefac'd or into a Plausible Rebellion But at the same time the Common Medium that they Depended upon to Either End was the Good Will and Favour of the People And there needed no more to Secure That Interest then to put their Shams Plausibly Together And under the Colour of Zeal for the Publique to Draw Credit to the Imposture At the First Opening of This Plot Almost All peoples Hearts took Fire at it and Nothing was heard but the Bellowing of Execrations and Revenge against the Accursed Bloudy Papists It was Imputed at first and in the General to the Principles of the Religion and a Roman-Catholique and a Regicide were made One and the Same Thing Nay it was a Saying Frequent in some of our Great and Holy Mouths that they were Confident there was not so much as One Soul of the Whole Party within his Majesties Dominions that was not either an Actor in This Plot or a Friend to 't In this heat they fell to Picking-up of Priests and Iesuits as fast as they could Catch 'em and so went on to Consult their Oracles the Witnesses with All Formalities of Sifting and Examining upon the Particulars of Place Time Manner Persons c. while Westminster-Hall and the Court of Requests were kept Warm and Ringing still of New Men Come in Corroborating Proofs and Further Discoveries c. Under This Train and Method of Reasoning the Managers Advanc'd Decently enough to the Finding-out of what They Themselves had Laid and Concerted before-hand And to give the Devil his due the Whole Story was but a Farce of so many Parts and the Noisy Enformations no more then a Lesson that they had much ado to go thorough with even with the Help of Diligent and Carefull Tutors and of many and many a Prompter to bring them off at a Dead Lift. But Popery was so Dreadfull a Thing and the Danger of the Kings Life and of the Protestant Religion so Astonishing a Surprize that People were almost bound in Duty to be Inconsiderate and Outrageous upon 't And Loyalty it Self would have look'd a little Cold and Indifferent if it had not been Intemperate Insomuch that Zeal Fierceness and Iealousy were never more Excusable then upon This Occasion And Now having Excellent Matter to Work upon and the Passions of the People already Dispos'd for Violence and Tumult there needed no more then Blowing the Cole of Otes's Narrative to put All into a Flame And in the mean Time all Arts and Accidents were Emprov'd as well toward the Entertainment of the Humour as to the Kindling of it The people were first Hayr'd out of their Senses with Tales and Ielousies and Then made Iudges of the Danger and Consequently of the Remedy Which upon the Main and Briefly came to no more then This. The Plot was Laid all over the Three Kingdoms France Spain and Portugal Tax'd their Quotas to 't we were All to be Burnt in our Beds and Rise with our Throats Cut and no way in the world but Exclusion and Vnion to help us The Phancy of this Exclusion Spread Immediately like a Gangrene over the whole Body of the Monarchy and no saving the Life of his Majesty without Cutting-off every Limb of the Prerogative The Device of Union pass'd Insensibly into a League of Conspiracy and instead of Uniting Protestants against Papists Concluded in an Association of Subjects against their Sovereign Consounding Policy with Religion By these Steps the Managers I remember proceeded to the Instrument of the Association that is now in Question They Labour'd at first to Sham-it-off for the Old Queen Elsabeths Association Reviv'd Secondly That it was only the Copy of a Bill that had pass'd the House of Commons But when the Matter appear'd so Foul that there was No Defending of it they made use of a Third Shift to Evade the Danger and the Scandal by pretending that there was No such Paper in my Lord Shaftesbury's Closet any otherwise then as They that Found it there Laid it there And so they Endeavour'd to Turn the Malice on the One side into a Trick on the Other This Last Shuffle was as well Colour'd as the Case would bear in a Paper call'd A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend about Addresses and Abhorrers It was an Artificial Sly Piece and the Noble Peer more then Suspected to have a Hand in 't Himself Now as to the First Pretext to say nothing of the State-Craft of the Old Association there was This Difference Between them The One was to Defend the Queen against any Pretender upon the Suggestion of a False Title The Other was a Conspiracy set up against a Iust and Legal Title the One was only to Work at a Distance in Case of such an Occasion The Other was to Blow-up a Civil War Immediately for fear of Imaginary Dangers to Come The One had the Countenance of an Vnion against the Queens Enemies and With her Allowance and Consent The Other was a Plot upon the Kings Brother and Against his Majesties Mind and Consent The One was in fine a Limited Association with Submission to Authority The Other a Treasonous Vsurpation in Defyance and in Despite of Authority The Second Cavil was as good as a Gagg to many People in That Troublesome Conjuncture for a Parliamentary Association in Those Days would have been Sacred even against both Law and Gospel and therefore Those that Believ'd the Flam of its being a Bill that had pass'd the House And Consequently Asserted the Reason of the Proceeding reckon'd upon 't that they had the Wisedom of the Nation on their side on One hand as they had most Certainly the Folly and the Madness of it on the Other Now This Opinion serv'd for a Protection to All that could be said in favour of the Project upon That Text. But the Passing of That Bill was a Mistake for ought that I could ever hear to the Contrary The King 't is True was Press'd in 't over
A Brief History OF THE TIMES c. IN A PREFACE TO THE Third Volume OF Observators LONDON Printed for Charles Brome at the Gun at the West-end of St. Paul's 1687. To POSTERITY A Preface Methinks upon a Preface looks as Fantastical as if a Man should Clap one Shoeing-Horn Upon the back of Another and they are Both Drawers on too And then 't is such a kind of a Comment upon a Comment as will it self perhaps stand in need of a Further Explication Beside that I shall have Twenty Peevish Humours breaking in upon me by the By. 1 What has he to do to Revive a Plot that the King has Pardon'd 2 What 's the Freake of This Dedication to Posterity 3 And Then Here 's a Preface made of a Book and a Book of a Preface and Each at the same time to serve in a Double Capacity To shorten the Matter the Man has at least enough to do that has the Whole World to please and therefore I have Provided this many a day to keep That Care from coming near My Pillow by Consulting my Conscience for my Peace and by Placing my Comfort in the Contempt of a Fair Reputation Basely Gottâ—n by Lodging the Innocence and the Justice of my Cause in the hands of Ages to come out of the Reach of the most Pompous Ignorant Prevailing Envy and the most Reverend of Calumnies Touching the Plot 't is One Thing to Renew the Rancour of it To Murmur at his Majesties Mercy or to make Reprizals upon the Persons of Those Whom the King has Forgiven But it is Another Thing to Preserve the History and to Transmit it Faithfully to After-Times for the Enformation of Posterity which was the Right and which was the Wrong For the Honour of the King Himself the Queen Dowager the Publique Ministers and Briefly of the Loyal Nobility Gentry and Commonalty and of the Roman Catholiques to the Last Man of 'em lies all in some measure at Stake upon This Issue What will the Next Generation be able to Oppose to Those Numberless Shoals of Libellous Prints that with One Voice lay the Fault at the Door of the Government and Disguise the most Ungrateful and Venemous of Rebellions under the Countenance only of some Zealous Dutiful Heats and Stirs in the IUST Defence of Liberty and Religion If the Sovereignty was in the People the Conspirators did Well and the Treason lay on the side of the Government It is very True that the King has Pardon'd the Plotters but his Majesty has not Pardon'd the Plot and it was never the Intent of his Royal Mercy to make his Enemies Innocent for Opposing him and his Friends Guilty for Serving him Or that his Clemency to the One should have the Force of a Killing Rigour upon the Other And This is no more then a Generous Conciliation of his Goodness to his Justice But Why to Posterity is the Second Objection I answer because Passion Prejudice Affectation Profound Eye-brows Noise Name and the Loaves Govern This Present World Without so much as One Grain of Sobriety Respect or Good Nature Men have got the Trick of Trouping One after Another in Flocks like Sheep They follow the Bell and if the Formost Leaps the Bridge the Rest Drown for Company But I am now to give a Reason for my Preface and Which is more a Reason for Two Prefaces in One. Why Printed Double Why a Preface in One Capacity and a Book in Another c. I have spoken to This at Large in What follows But I have yet another word or two to say upon This Subject Upon the Closing of my Observators I was in Course to Furnish a Preface and a Table to the Two Latter Parts as I had done to the Former But upon the Digesting of my Thoughts and my Matters With my Papers about me I found my self at a Mighty Loss in a Main Part of my Design Unless I could Make Good the Defect by a Supplement to the Preamble of my Third Volume which I was then upon and so Pass them into the World Both under One. My Observations did not Strike so much upon the Plot it self in the Spring and the Rise of it as upon the Matter of Fact in the Methods and Workings of the Design for My Bus'ness was only to Dash False Rumours To Rescue Truth from Imposture To Prevent Misunderstandings And in the Main to Expound upon the Perverse Doctrines and Practices of That Season But all this while though the Conspiracy was as Visible as the Light of the Sun in the Effects of the City Ryots Ignoramuses and Tumults in their Ordinary Prints Clubbs Conversations c. Their Councils however were still in the Dark and the Cabinet Lock'd up to keep the Multitude from Prying into the Forbidden Secrets of the Cabal It was as yet too-Early-Days to Dispute the Infallibility of a Nemine Contradicente The Merits of a False Oath for the Safety of the King and the Protestant Religion The Idol-Worship of falling down before the Calves of Bethel It was too Early Days I say as yet to Confront Causes and give a Kings Evidence the Lye out of his Own Mouth A Prophane Abhorrer might with more safety have ventur'd his Carcase with Daniel in the Lyons Den then to set so much as his Foot over the Threshold into the Sanctum Sanctorum of a Secret Committee so that my Papers of Observation were upon the Whole only a History of the Transactions of That Juncture wherein they were Published Now the Character of the Witnesses the Contradictions of their Evidence the Seditious Principles that were Then in Course The Desperate Liberties of several Gown-Men of Both Professions The Mistakes of many True-Hearted but Short-Sighted Honest Men The Scomm and Banter of Libertines The Intemperate Transports of Burning-Hot Zelots These Topiques and Others of the like Quality I ventur'd upon as Matters that fell Properly within My Province and Envy it self cannot Deny them as they are there Represented and Deliver'd to be Truely Faithfully and Impartially Reported Only I must Confess there are Some Certain Strokes and Allusions that must wait Another Age for the Explaining of the Moral But thought I with my self Though Posterity will Undoubtedly be Curious Inquisitors into the True History of Past Times Especially into the Particulars of a Revolution that has made such a Noise in the World as This has done the Story will come Lame Down to them at Last if over and above the Brawls the Scruples the Wickedness of the Practice and the Characters of the Instruments the Curtain be not Drawn and the Actors Themselves laid Open in the very Tyring Room Upon This Contemplation I Incorporated a Supplemental piece of History into the Preface to carry the Reader to Rights from the Powder in the Mine to the Councel that Debated the Enterprize and Govern'd the Resolution Not doubting but with the Help of This Addition to make the Work as Plain and as Perfect as the
other had not put in to shew the World that These their Celebrated Saviours were Devils Incarnate Their Pretended Plot Supported by Subornation and Perjury Their Evidence-CAPTAINS DOCTORS ' SQVIRES only so many Pick-pockets Cheats and Knights of the Post Rak'd together The Refuse of Pillories and Iayls the Scandal of Christianity and the Shame of Mankind And now Gentlemen of the Next Age to whom These Presents shall come Here 's the Whole Matter laid before ye in These Papers the History of the Times the Merits of the Cause the Reason of the Points in Question Debated Pro and Con the Truth of Things Separated from Falshood and Imposture the Frauds of a Republican Faction Detected Their Methods and Designs laid Open and the Malice of them Defeated the People Caution'd and Instructed both in their Interest and in their Duty for fear of Mistaking their Enemies for their Friends and their Friends for their Enemies This has been my Bus'ness And whether or no I have Discharg'd all these Offices Truly Candidly Faithfully Soberly and in One word as a Good Christian a Loyal Subject an Honest Man and a Hearty Lover of his Country Ought to do be You the Iudges 'T is True I have been Arraign'd by Common Fame of Levity Disguise Hypocrisy Double-Dealing Halting betwixt Two Opinions Inconsistency with my self and by the force of Credulity Calumny and Practice Ground as it were betwixt Two Millstones From April 1681 to the Death of the Late Blessed King I was Worry'd by Common-Wealthe-men and Their Accomplices but with the Wonderfull Kindness and Esteem of All the Profess'd Friends of the King the Monarchy and the Church to Ballance the Outrages of That Aversion I was ever an Infidel as to the Plot and made Consequently a Popish Instrument at least to Downright Papists A Ridiculer of the Kings Witnesses and in the Style of Those Days of the Wisdom of the Nation And This Entertainment of Good and Evil was not without some Colour of Reason neither on Both sides For the Republicans made Good the very Worst of my Surmises and Fore-bodings They never fail'd of Doing what I said they were About to do and I am the Only Man perhaps that in a Tract of Eight and Forty Years Experience they Never Deceiv'd But I had now little more to do then to look Behind me to know what was to Come For there was Nothing New in the very Phrase Air and Course of Proceedings more then the Sublimating of the Old way of Calumniation and Hypocrisy into a Barefac'd an Open and a True-Protestant Perjury and where the Witnesses Bluder'd or happen'd to Interfere whether with One Another or with Themselves they were either brought-off by the Charity of a Well-Affected Comment or otherwise there were Inferences drawn from the Principles of the Religion to the Proof of the Fact and a PRIEST or a PAPIST was taken for Synonymous with a CONSPIRATOR or a TRAYTOR After I had finish'd my Two First Stages with an Vniversal Hatred on the One side and Approbation on the Other For whatsoever Mischiev'd the One must needs do the Other a Service It pleas'd God to call Charles the Second to Himself and Iames the Second whom God long preserve to the Crown Which was in February 1684 where I Begin This Third Volume and from Whence I am to Date the Hard the Vnequal or what if I had said the Unjust Usage I have met withall from That Day to This But the TIME barely without Other Circumstances will signify little to the Enforming of Posterity in the True State of This Matter and therefore I shall in a very Few Words lay Open the Secret Springs and Motions that led to This Vnexpected Change. The Popish Plot was made a Cover to a Republican Conspiracy which tho it Began in a Farce was to be Concluded in a Tragedy The Way was First to make Popery a Bug-bear to the People and Then where they could not get Oaths to make any man a Statutable Papist and to Swoop him into Otes'es Plot they had a Device to bring him into the Toyl under the Latitude of a Reputed Papist or Popishly-Affected which Involv'd the Members of Both Churches alike and we had hardly any Discriminating Mark left us of a Good Christian even from an Infidel or Worst then the Test of Otes'es Narrative and the Belief of it to the very Black-Bills and Mustard-Balls The Project was so Plausible and went down so Glib though never such Sotts as the Tools that Witness'd it that when the King's Life and the Protestant Religion were said to be at Stake He was no longer a Son of the Church of England that Oppos'd it and to be a Friend to the Plot was to be a Friend to Caesar. I am Asham'd to Reflect or so much as to Think upon the Inconsiderate Mistakes the Gross Oversights the Glozing Complyances and the Vngovernable Madness of That Season But upon the whole Story the Application will be This that True or False Credible or Incredible Possible or Impossible It comes all to a Case where the Multitude are taken Captive in their Imaginations and have no longer any other Rule Measure Will or Liking then what they draw from the Dictate of their Leaders This was the Pretext that brought Charles the First to the Scaffold and that was likewise in a Fair way of bringing his Late Sacred Majesty to the Same End. Now Computing with my self how much more Popular and Dangerous the Same Pretext would be under a Prince in Communion with the Church of Rome then it was in the days of his Two Royal Predecessours Upon the Crisis of That Great Revolution I Chang'd the Biass of my Papers a little and did what I could to Obviate the Hazzards and Distempers that I perceive by This Time I had but too much Reason to Fear In the Two Former Parts of These Dialogues I thought is Reasonable to Caution a sort of Vnwary Short-sighted Well-Meaning Men against the Snares and Practices of the Common Enemy and in this Third Volume I Judg'd it no Less Reâ—sonable to give the Same People the Same Caution over again but with This Additional Consideration that they should have a care of Themselves too as well as their Adversaries For Bigottry is every jot as Dangerous as Luke-warmness and to be Over-Righteous according to the Text on the One side is All-out as Bad as to be Over-Scrupulous on the Other and much the Fiercer Evil of the Two. Zeal must be Bounded by Knowledge Nay it must be Guided by it for it is Knowledge that leads us to Truth and we are never Right but when they do All Three Meet upon the Same Point Short of it Beyond or on Either side of it are onely such or such Degrees more or less of Folly and Error A man may be too Zealous For a Good Thing as well as Against it when That Zeal has more in it of Heat then of Light. They that pretend
not Venture upon the Tracing of Particulars thorough All the Turns and Windings of that Diabolical Mazâ— or so much as Think of Digesting the Inconsistencies and Confusions of That-Story into any Pretence of Connexion or Form it may nevertherless very well stand with the Reputation as well as the Duty of a Sober Man not to let the Whole Truth be Lost for want of here and there an Original Provided that it may come so much as is on 't Pure and Vntainted to Posterity and Carry an Authority in the Face on 't not to be Controll'd Now as This Plot partly in the Sham partly in the Operation of it and Partly again in the Occasions Administer'd by it has furnish'd Matter for a Course of Almost Six Years Papers I cannot do better then to Tack the History to the Reflexions Especially when the One will be found so Needfull to the Expounding of the Other and the Truth laid as Clear and Certain as if it had been Pointed-out by a Beam of the Sun. I Draw All my Water from the Fountain And not One Drop that is not Neat Natural and Syncere and that will not abide the Vttermost Test. That is to say I have for my Authorities The Uotes of Several Parliaments Printed by Order and Publish'd with an Express Design to Enform the World of the very Matters which I am now about to lay open Printing our Votes says one will be for the Honour of the King and the Safety of the Nation If our Actions be Naught let the World Iudge of them If they be Good let them have their Virtue c. Therefore I am for Printing c. The Popish Party Dread Nothing more then Printing what you do This Printing c. is like Plain Englishmen who are not Asham'd of what they do Now over and above the Main Chance in a Complyance with Auâ—hority and Order I have likewise upon the Publishing of These Papers taken This Thought into my Care That whereas there are many People that would be Glad and Willing enough to be Enform'd in this Intrigue if it might be done without the Incumbrance of buying a Heavy Book for the sake of a Preface Therefore I have so far Consulted the Readers Ease as to Order the Printing of it apart in a Less Volume to the End that it may serve to Both Purposes But for Distinction sake I shall give it a Title by it self however that People may not Confound that which is properly Preface with the Following History A Brief HISTORY Of the TIMES FROM Dr. Otes'es taking his Degree at Salamanca to the Bearing of his Testimony at a Carts-Arse from Newgate to Tyburn THE Devil is never so Dangerous as when he Presents himself in the Shape of an Angel of Light and there 's nothing so Diabolical as a Religious Wickedness When a man Blasphemes the Holy Ghost by Kissing the Book and Defies and Renounces God in the very Act of Appealing to him This was the Case of the Witnesses and the Plot which Plot was in Effect such a sort of Miracle Impos'd upon the People as the Serpents that the Magicians would have Shamm'd upon Aaron But Truth in the End Devour'd the Imposture It was in short a kind of Perverse Creation Made out of Nothing and without any Pre-existence of Matter to Work upon Only a Parliamentary Fiat at last brought it out of the Abysse Resolved Nemine Contradicente That upon the Evidence that has allready appear'd to This House This House is of Opinion that there is and hath been a Damnable and Hellish Plot Contrived and Carry'd-on by Popish Recusants for Assassinating and Murthering the King for Subverting the Government and Rooting-out and Destroying the Protestant Religion This was no more then to say That Otes Bedloe and Tonge Made the Plot and the House of Commons Found it and they could not well do Less at That Time of the Day Considering the Positive Oaths of so many Profligate Villains and the Constitution of That Loyal Parliament who thought they could never Sufficiently Abominate or Revenge themselves on the Papists for so Vnnatural and Vngratefull a Conspiracy against their Prince and their Religion Beside that the Noise of Godfreys Murder the Ferreting of the Monks in the Savoy Langhorn Whitebread Mico Coleman and the Lord knows how many more to be Seiz'd Papists Banish'd and Disabled from Sitting in Parliament the Raising of the Militia c. This Hurry put People out of their Wits and Consequently there was no Place left for Fair Reasoning in the Sober Way of a Cold and Temperate Debate Now he that shall Stumble upon These Papers Five Hundred Year hence and have a mind to be Peeping into the History of a Villany so many Ages before him shall never need to Consult the Records either of Salamanca or St. Omers for the Mystery the Design or the Issue of it Nor to look any farther then to the Two First Parts of These Observators for his ample Satisfaction And so without spending any more Time and Paper upon Preliminaries I shall Hasten to what I am to say upon This Subject without laying any Stress at all upon the Authority of Hearsays and Conjectures without taking any thing upon Trust or Delivering any other Truths over to Posterity then what I have receiv'd in Form from the very Lips of the Oracle it self I Appoint John-a-Nokes and John-a-Styles to Print These Votes Perused and Sign'd by me according to the Order of the House of Commons and that no other Person presume to print them ET CAETERA The History of the Plot. IN Sept. 1678. Otes and Tong Together made a Composition of a Damnable Hellish Story that they call'd the Popish Plot. And such as it was it was Sworn before Sir E. B. G. and Presented with Wond'rous Formalities of Zeal and Caution to his Late Majesty Himself There were Iesuits Letters forsooth to be Seiz'd at the Post-House to Patch up the Credit of a Broken Bus'ness I have at This Instant the Originals by me Five in All and at Least Three of the Five most Vndeniably the Hand-Writing of Otes and Tonge Themselves Briefly the Shot was Manifesâ—ly Pointed at his Royal Highness and thorough Him at the King his Brother and thorough his Late Majesty at Monarchy it self as will be made Clearer then the Day in the Sequel of this Discourse The Faction that was Resolv'd to make the Most on 't and to Emprove the Imposture wrought such Havock for a Month or Six Weeks upon 't with Frightfull Stories Continual Alarums Fresh and Fresh Discoveries and Enformations that a great many Wise Good and Sober Men were Startled at it and the Common People as Mellow as Tinder to take Fire at the least Spark At the Opening of the Following Parliament of October 21. 1678. His Majesty had This Passage in his Speech I now intend to Acquaint you as I shall allways do with any thing that Concerns me that
I have been Enformed of a Design against my Person by the Jesuits of which I shall forbear any Opinion lest I should say too Much or too Little but I will leave the Matter to the Law. The Commons fell presently to work upon the Plot-Papers the Further and Further Enformations of Titus Otes That Inexhaustible Fountain of Invention and Slander Sir Edmundbury-Godfreys Matters Priest-Hunting and Impeaching And Then came-on the Humour of Seizing Caudle-Cups for Altar-Plate Medals and Guineys for Popish-Trinkets the Burning of our Blessed Saviour in Effigie Playing the Merry-Andrews and Buffoons in Priests-Habits Making Sport with Holy Orders and Holy Things 'till in the Conclusion for fear of Popery they ran-a-Muck as they call it at Christianity it self and bore down Every thing that stood in their Way betwixt This and Hell. There was no Place left for Moderation Sobriety or Councel Truth Iustice Humanity Honour and Good Nature were All Popishly-Affected and never such a Competition betwixt Divine Providence on the One hand and the World the Flesh and the Devil on the Other for the Preserving or the Destroying of a Nation The History of the Interval betwixt Otes'es Damnable Discovery and if the Conceit be not too Trivial the Discovery of Damnable Otes has been the Entertainment of all Peoples Tongues and Thoughts and the Amazement of Christendome no less then the Horrour of All Good Men To see the Foundations of Three Kingdoms Shaken with the Breath of Four or Five Prostitute Mean and Stigmatiz'd Varlets An Imperial Monarchy well-nigh Sunk into a Common-Wealth upon the Credit of Notorious Impostors and Common Cheats An Apostolical Church in danger to be Over-turn'd in the Name of God and for the sake of Religion by the same Instruments Iayls and Dungeons fill'd with Men of Honour Faith and Integrity upon the Testimony of Pillory'd Pick-Pockets and of the Sink of Mankind The Heir Apparent to the Crown in a fair way too to be Disinherited at the Instance of Felons and Renegades Perjury and Subornation Triumphant and Nothing so Sacred either in Heaven or upon Earth as to be Secure from the Outrages of the Rabble The Faction in short had got a-Head and there was No Resisting the Torrent Now the Fact was Agreed upon at All Hands but as to the Rise the Occasion and the Danger of these Distempers People were Divided Some would have it to be a Popish Plot upon the Kings Person and Government and the Protestant Religion Others would have it to be a Republican Plot against All Three under Another Name but with the self Same Design That is to say of Killing the King Changing the Government Dissolving the Church and rather then fail their Ends to be Compass'd by Fires and Massacres as was Expresly Own'd by divers of the Common-Wealth-Conspirators that were brought to Iustice Some in 1666. and Others in 1683. Certain it is that the Cover of the Four Evangelists never had Fouler Lips laid to 't the Merits of the Cause apart then Those of the Kings Witnesses upon This Occasion And it fell out too huge Vnluckily for Their Purpose that the People that were to be Massacred should break out into so many Rebellions for fear of having their Throats Cut while the People that they swore were to Cut their Throats were either Coop'd-up in Prisons or Gibbeted up and down the Kingdom like so many Vermin in a Cony-Warren without making anyOne Attempt either upon the Person of his Majesty or upon the Peace of his Dominions Nay and to give them their Due without so much as Muttering against the Government under All This Rigour The Cause is now coming to an Issue and the Articles of the Charge Mutatis Mutandis the very Same on Both sides as Perjury Subornation Packing of Witnesses and Iuries Only for Pickering reade Rumbold for Papist reade True-Protestant And so in like manner where the Same Reason holds in Other Cases The Theme that I am now upon is so Copious It has so many Incidents that Necessarily fall into the Story the Matter is of so Great a Consequence to be Clear'd and there is so Great a Variety of Previous and Leading Circumstances in the Nature of Praecognita that require a Place in the Preamble to This Narrative that the Prologue to my Bus'ness has been a great deal longer then I intended But I shall now Hasten to an Impartial Account upon the Two Plots in Question AS to the Proof or Testimony of a Popish Plot we have the Credit of Witnesses Innumerable such as they are both English and Irish But the Foundation of the Whole Fabrick is Otes'es Consult at the White-Horse in the Strand And All the Rest has been but a Superfoetation upon that Original It has been Sworn to be a Plot Iudg'd to be a Plot I know not how many Priests Iesuits and Others have Dy'd for 't as a Plot But in fine Such a Plot it was as no body ever yet saw Any thing Of it or any thing Like it but with Otes'es Eyes which in the Bus'ness of Don Iohn Mr. Coleman and Several Other Instances have been found not be Infallible So that upon the Main Otes'es Plot is the Ground-Work of the Whole And if That Fails All Fails which may nevertheless Be and No Affront to the Believers of it For an Oath may be Good in Law and yet Carry a Man to the Devil upon the Point of Conscience Simpson Tonge proves the Popish-Plot to be only a Contrivance betwixt his Father and Titus Otes NOW as to the Project commonly call'd Otes'es Plot if a man may Speak Truth and Shame the Devil it was not the Doctors Alone but a kind of a Club betwixt Titus Otes and Ezrel Tonge as I have it under the Hand of Young Tonge Himself and upon Other very Good Authorities beside As for the Purpose Your Petitioner doth Protest in the Presence of Almighty God that it is very True that the Plot was Contrived by my Father and Titus Otes when he returned the Second Time beyond the Seas Subscribed Simpson Tonge The Petition to His Late Majesty and the Original I have in My Own Hand As likewise of these Instances that follow Vnder the Pretence of a Popish Plot which my Father first Imagin'd was a-foot and afterwards Otes at his Second Return Swore to be True Their Main and Principal Design was to Disinherit his Royal Highness The first Persons that Manag'd the Plot and were Privy to it were my Father Otes c. This was Address'd to my self Dated from the Kings-Bench Ian. 5. 1681. and Sign'd Simpson Tonge And once again yet When I came from the Vniversity in the Year 77. I found Otes with my Father in a very poor Condition who complained he knew not what to do to get Bread who went under the Name of Ambrose My Father took him home and gave him Cloaths Lodging and Dyet saying he would put him into a way And then he persuaded
him to get acquainted among the Papists and when he had done so then my Father told him there had been many Plots in England to bring in Popery and if he would go over among the Jesuits and Observe their ways it was possible it might be One now and if he could make it out it would be his Preferment for ever But however if he could get their Names and a little Acquaintance from the Papists it would be an Easy matter to stir up the People to fear Popery And again My Father and He Dr. Otes went and Lodg'd at Fox-Hall at one Lamberts a Bell-Founder which House was call'd by the Neighbours the Plot-House And there Otes 's Narrative was Written whereof several Copies were Written very Different from the Other and the Four Jesuits Letters wherein Oates pretended was the whole Discovery were Counterfeits c. To the Instances above I shall Add One More for the Further Reputation of All the Rest which is That when Otes'es Credit ran High and the Faction as Bold as Ever upon May the 15. 1682. I Publish'd This Following Advertisement And it went down without either Check or Controll If any Man Woman or Child will be so Kind and Generous as out of an Affection to the Protestant Religion and the Vindication of Dr. Otes to call Simpson Tonge to a Legal Account for Endeavouring to Destroy the Credit of the said Doctor and his Evidence by Scandalous Reflexions upon Both Roger L'Estrange does hereby offer Himself out of a Zeal to the Publique Good to Furnish Authentique Papers and Memorials toward the Prosecution of the Work. THe Whole Party were as Mute as Fishes after This Publication which they would never have been if they durst have put the Reputation of Otes'es Evidence to the Test. To say Nothing of the Congruity betwixt the Method and the Drift of their Open Proceedings in the Case and the Scope of Tonge's Private Enformations For the Father and Otes Acted the Same Part before the Commons which Young Tonge said they did betwixt Themselves and the Mortal Malice of the Cabal struck at the Duke of York too just according to the Report of His Papers Insomuch that while His Royal Highness was Wounded for the Pretended Sake of the Roman-Catholiques The Romanists Themselves were likewise to be Sacrific'd for the sake of the Duke of York and Both for the Common Interest of the Change they Design'd After this Preparatory to a General Vnderstanding of the Case here under Consideration it will be Proper and Needfull to set forth what such a Plot Is before I come to a Resolution that This Damnable Hellish Popish Thing of Otes'es was in Truth such a Plot That is to say a Plot upon the Life of the King The Frame of the Government and the Destruction of the Protestant Religion And to This End Parliamentary Uotes will be as Good in Payment I hope as Fox-Hall Narratives and as Current in the Uindication oâ— the Royal Family as the Other were to the Defaming of it The Plot-Faction Design'd the Ruine of the Late King and to Compass it by leaving him neither MONY POWER CREDIT nor FRIENDS WHat 's a Prince I would fain know without MONY without POWER without CREDIT without FRIENDS And what are Those People that Endeavour to Robb and to Strip their Sovereign of All These Necessary Supports Or what can any man do More toward the Execution of the Malice of the Pretended Popish Plot then to enter into a League and to Ioyn in a Conspiracy to All These Execrable Ends If the Project of doing All This may be call'd a Plot If to Labour the Doing of it be to be In a Plot And if This was upon the Wheel and Actually a Doing by Otes and his Confederates and Founded upon His Counterfeit Plot too And if I make All This Out from Publique Acts and Orders as Credible as Records the Question and the Reputation of This Sham is at an End for Ever And so I shall Proceed to the Four Heads above mentioned in Course as they lye No Mony. AS to the Matter of MONY How many Addresses were made by a Prevalent Majority of the House of Commons for Reward to the Discoverers of Godfrey's Murder Five Hundred Pound Reward to Bedloe Dangerfield to be Pardon'd and Rewarded And so for Turberville Bourk Sampson Macknamarra Eustace Commins c. Beside the Horrible Charge of Pensions for the Entertainment of Otes Bedloe Dugdale and Forty more But after all these Expences not a Penny to be either Supply'd by Bill or so much as Borrow'd upon Anticipations unless upon Terms Worse then Death as by These following Votes will Appear Resolved That his Majesty in his Last Message having Assured This House of his Readiness to Concurr in all other Means for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion This House doth Declare that untill a Bill be likewise passed for Excluding the Duke of York this House cannot give any Supply to his Majesty without Danger to his Majesties Person Extreme Hazzard of the Protestant Religion and Vnfaithfulness to Those by whom This House is Intrusted Resolved That whosoever shall hereafter Lend or Cause to be Lent by way of Advance any MONY upon the Branches of the King's Revenue arising by Customs Excise or Hearth-Mony shall be Adjudged to Hinder the Sitting of Parliaments and shall be Responsible for the same in Parliament Resolved That whosoever shall Accept or Buy any Tally of Anticipation upon any Part of the Kings Revenue or whosoever shall pay such Tally hereafter to be Struck shall be Adjudged to hinder the Sittings of Parliaments and shall be Responsible therefore in Parliament In the Address of Decem. 21. 1680. The Commons Insist upon the Excluding of the Duke of York and an Act of Association Or otherwise see what Follows Without these Things the Allyances of England will not be Valuable nor the People Encourag'd to Contribute to your Majesties Service From hence it does abundantly Appear that his Late Majesty was Driven upon Expence and Hinder'd of Supplys by All Arts and Shifts Imaginable and the Readiest way of finding to what End All this was done will be to look into the Grounds and Reasons of their so doing The Lords sent down a Vote to the House of Commons for their Concurrence Declaring that their Lordships were fully Satisfy'd that there was a Horrid and a Treasonable Plot Carry'd-on by the Papists in Ireland Unto which Vote the Commons Agreed with an Addition in Manner Following This House does Agree with the Lords in the said Vote with the Addition of These Words That the Duke of York being a Papist and the Expectation of his Coming to the Crown hath given the Greatest Countenance and Encouragement thereto the Irish Plot that is as well as to the Horrid Popish Plot in This Kingdom of England Resolved That it is the Opinion of This House that there
is no Security or Safety for the Protestant Religion the King's Life or the Well-Constituted and Established Government of This Kingdom without Passing a Bill for Disabling James Duke of York to Inherit the Imperial Crown of England and Ireland and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging and to Rely upon any other Means and Remedies without such a Bill is not only Insufficient but Dangerous Here 's the Horrid Popish English Plot made the Ground for the Excluding of the Duke and keeping the King short of Mony according to the Intent of the Votes of Ian. 7. 1680. above-mention'd And That 's made the Foundation likewise for the Refusal in the Address before-Cited in the very Syllables of the said Address That your Majesties 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 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 There needs no Subtlety of Quirking or Reasoning upon this Case of MONY the Spite of it lying so Open that Every Common Eye sees thorough it and that the Terms the Republican Cabal Treated upon in some of those Parliaments were no other then a Tryal of Skill to see if they could bring his Late Majesty to a Composition for his Crown For the King was to have No Mony but upon Conditions of Disinheriting his Brother and more yet as I shall shew in Due Place Contrary to all the Tyes of Conscience Gratitude Iustice and Prudence And All for fear of a Damnable Hellish Popish Plot. We shall see now how they Dealt with his Majesty likewise in the Matter of Power No Power THE Power of a Prince Exerts it self in the Means of an Ample Revenue to Answer all the Necessities of the Crown to Pay his Troups and to Reward Honourable Services In the Privileges of Sovereign Authority the Love and the Reputation that he has in the Hearts of his People In the Arms of his Militia the Command of his Subjects and the Chearfull Obedience of his Friends They had allready Maim'd and Disabled his Late Sacred Majesty in the First Great Point of his Revenue That which comes-on Next is to see how they dealt with him in respect of his Power of Prerogative in General and as to his Forces both by Land and by Sea in Particular and whether the whole Proceeding was not still Grounded upon the Damnable Bug-bear of the Popish Plot. How they us'd him upon the Matter of his Credit and Friends shall come-on in due Time. But to Proceed now to an Enquiry how they handled him upon the Subject of his Prerogative First in the Case of the Earl of Danby The Kings Prerogative of Pardoning Question'd REsolved That an Humble Address be made to His Majesty Representing to his Majesty the Irregularity and Illegality of the Pardon mentioned by his Majesty to be Granted to the Earl of Danby and the Dangerous Consequence of Granting Pardons to Any Persons that lie under an Impeachment of the Commons of England Here 's the Kings Power of Life and Death shaken at the very Root and what 's the Unpardonable Crime at last but This among Others That he is Popishly-Affected and hath Trayterously Conceal'd after he had Notice of the Late Horrid Plot or Conspiracy Contrived by the Papists against his Majesties Person and Government and hath Suppress'd the Evidence and Reproachfully Discountenanced the Kings Witnesses in the Discovery of it in favour of Popery Immediately tending to the Destruction of the Kings Sacred Person and Subversion of the Protestant Religion There happen'd no Evil under the Sun in those Days but the Late Horrid Plot or somewhat like it had still a Finger in the Pye But from Pardoning in my Lord Danby's Case they proceeded afterward to a Bolder Step in my Lord Staffords and to make a Moot-Point of it whether the King by his Prerogative could so much as Remit any Part of the Sentence but Sir W. I. gave his Opinion upon 't in Favour of the Prerogative upon a very Weighty Reason This House says he lyeth not under any Obligation to Offer at any Opposition nor concern themselves herein Especially at This Time when such a Dispute may End in Preventing of the Execution of the said Lord Stafford And therefore I do humbly Conceive you may do well to give your Consent that the said Writ be Executed according to its Tenor. The Short of the Bus'ness was This Sentence of Death was pass'd in Form upon my Lord Stafford and the Kings Writ to the Sheriffs Commanded only his Head to be Sever'd from his Body Bethel and Cornish the then Sheriffs of London and Middlesex Apply'd themselves by Petition to the Lords to know whether they should Obey the Writ or Not The Lords found the Scruples Vnnecessary and Declar'd That the Kings Writ ought to be Obey'd After this to the Commons Stating the Matter under These Four Following Quaeries I speak upon the Credit of the Collection of Debates above-mention'd 1. Whether the King being neither Iudge nor Party can Order the Execution 2. Whether the Lords can award Execution 3. Whether the King can Dispense with any part of the Execution 4. If the King can Dispense with some part of the Execution why not with All Upon the Debate it was in the Conclusion Resolved That This House is CONTENT That is to say it does VOVCHSAFE and with MVCH A-DO too that the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex do Execute William Late Viscount Stafford by Severing his Head from his Body only The Story of these Insolencies will never be Believ'd in After-Ages but however we are upon the Foot still of the Trayterous and Execrable Conspiracy for the Imprisoning Deposing and Murdering his Sacred Majesty and the Raising and Disposing of Men Monys Arms and other Things Necessary for their Wicked and Trayterous Designs and Namely a Commission for William Viscount Stafford to be Paymaster of the Army HEre 's a Dreadfull Bus'ness as the Good Woman said about this same Trayterous and Execrable Conspiracy Pray the Lord it be all True at Last for the Government was Mightily off the Hinges about it and the Fountain of Mercy and Power seem'd to be quite Dry'd-up The Sheriffs were become the Peoples Officers and the Commons made Iudges of the Validity of the King 's Writ The Style of Authority was no longer We Charge and Command but Resolv'd upon the Question and the Power of the Keys dropt into St. Stephens Chapel Parliamentary as well as Pardoning Power Encroch'd upon AND that they might not seem Partial to One Prerogative more then Another They struck at the King's Power of Parliaments as well as of Pardons and finding that an Everlasting Parliament Agreed so well with their Predecessors
they had a Months-mind to make Tryal of the Same Experiment Themselves too as may be seen by the By in their Parliamentary Addresses and Votes but most Expresly in the Throng of Popular Addresses to his Majesty and in the Libel of Vox Patriae where so many of the Members got themselves Address'd to in a kind of an Association to That very purpose As for Example In the Address against Sir George Ieffreys the Earl of Hallifax and several Votes upon the same Occasion We your Majesties most Dutifull c. in hopes to bring the Popish Conspirators to speedy Iustice were about to Petition to your Majesty in an Humble Dutifull and Legal Way for the Sitting of This Parliament c. And so again We c. being deeply sensible of the Manifold Dangers and Mischiefs which have been Occasion'd to This your Kingdom by the Dissolution of the Last Parliament and by the Frequent Prorogations of This Parliament whereby the Papists have been Greatly Encouraged to Carry on their Hellish and Damnable Conspiracies c. Resolved That Whosoever Advised his Majesty to Prorogue This Parliament to Any Other purpose then in Order to the Passing of a Bill for the Exclusion of James Duke of York is a Betrayer of the King the Protestant Religion and of the Kingdom of England a Promoter of the French Interest and a Pensioner to France What is All This but Overturning and Overturning Confusion like Waves following One upon the Back of Another and the Cabal so Intoxicated with Passion in the Logick of This Last Vote that the very Despite of being Defeated made them Forget their Ordinary Prudence For the Conclusion is never to be Reconcil'd to the Premisses All that can be said for This Worrying Vote is that they were then in their Last Agonies for they were That Day Prorogu'd from the aforesaid 10th of Ianuary to the 20th in Order to a Dissolution And in All Mischievous Creatures the Convulsions of Death are ever the Strongest But for the Rolls of the Written Addresses of Those Days they are most of them Peremptory for Sitting 'till they might be Effectually Secur'd and That 's One Main Condition too of the Countrys Addresses to their Members And the Address of Sir Patience Ward then Lord-Mayor c. to his Majesty Himself Your Petitioners were Extremely Surpriz'd at the Late Prorogation whereby the Prosecution of the Publique Iustice of the Kingdom and the Making the Provisions Necessary for the Preservation of your Majesty and your Protestant Subjects hath received an Interruption c. They do therefore most Humbly pray c. That the said Parliament may Sit from the Day to which they are Prorogued untill by their Councels and Endeavours Those Good Remedies shall be Provided and Those Iust Ends Attained upon which the Safety of your Majesties Person The Preservation of the Protestant Religion The Peace and Settlement of your Kingdoms and the Welfare of This your Ancient City do so Absolutely Depend What is This now but the Counter part of the Bill for Continuing the Parliament that was Pass'd in Forty One and Chiefly upon the very Same Pretences too Viz. That Publique Grievances might be Redress'd and Iustice done upon Delinquents before the Parliament should be Dissolv'd Or in short The King was Not to Prorogue Adjourn or Dissolve This Parliament without Consent of Both Houses And there 's Another Parliamentary Point yet to Come in the Vote of Unqualifying the Members for the Receiving of any Beneficial Office from the King. 'T is a kind of a Scandalous Incapacity for a Subject to fare the worse for his Master's Commission And too much in all Conscience for the Same Men to Tye-up the King's Hands from Any Act of Grace and Bounty toward his Subjects that had before Ty'd-up the Peoples Hands from Supplying his Majesty The Vote was This Resolved That no Member of This House shall Accept any Office or Place of Profit from the Crown without the Leave of This House nor any Promise of any such Office or Place of Profit during such time as he shall continue a Member of This House An Eminent Member that Started This Motion made it his Observation upon the Long Parliament That All Those that had Pensions and most of Those that had Offices Voted All of a side as they were directed by some Great Officer c. If That Gentleman had taken as much Notice that the House had but Two sides and who Voted on the Other he would have found a Noble Peer to have Weigh'd against his Great Officer and the Matter to be no more then the Old Discrimination over again of King and Parliament It may be a Question now the Tendency and Intent of This Touch duly Consider'd whether they made the King or the Member in such a Case the Greater Delinquent of the Two. And they were not Contented here neither without a Further Essay upon the Choice of his Majesties Ministers and Officers of State War and Iustice After the Copy of the Old Nineteen Propositions The King not to Chuse his own Officers and Ministers NO Judges but men of Ability Integrity and Known Affection to the Protestant Religion And They Themselves to be Iudges of the Iudges Their Offices and Salaries to hold Quamdiu se bene gesserint c. No Lord-Lieutenants but Persons of Integrity and Known Affection to the Protestant Religion the Religion of the Associators that is No Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace but so Qualify'd And moreover Men of Ability Estates and Interest in their Country uâ—der the Same Character still None to be Employ'd as Military Officers or Officers in his Majesties Fleet but men of Known Experience Courage and Affection to the Protestant Religion All Parliament-Proof still and of the Same Stamp To say nothing of the Habeas-Corpus Bill and other Encroachments upon the Prerogatives of the Crown for fear of being too too Tedious We 'le see next how they Beâ—av'd themselves in the Bus'ness of the Militia and the Kings Guards over and above the Step they made to have the Approbation of All Officers Themselves After the Blessed Example still of Old Forty One Nay and in the very Method too Beginning with an Address for Guards as follows They offer at the Militia and the Guards WHereas the Safety and Preservation of your Majesties Sacred Peâ—son is of so Great a Consequence and Concernment to the Protestant Religion and to All your Subjects We do most humbly beseech your Majesty to Command the Lord Chamberlain and All Other the Officers of your Majesties Houshold to take a Strict Care that no Vnknown or Suspicious Persons may have Access near your Majesties Person and that your Majesty will likewise please to Command the Lord Mayor and Lieutenancy of London to Appoint sufficient Guards of the Train-Bands during This Session of Parliament and likewise the Lords Lieutenants of Middlesex and Surry to appoint
the Like Guards of the Trained-Bands in Middlesex Westminster Southwark and other Places Adjacent as shall be thought Necessary With Honour to That Long Loyal Parliament so many of them as Believ'd the Witnesses had great Reason to Provide against Otes'es Black-Bills and Mustard-Balls But They that KNEW the whole Story to be as Arrant a Tale as Tom Thumb Those People I say had Designs of Drawing the Militia over to Themselves by Trepanning the Multitude into the Execution of One Cheat under the Dread and Belief of Another And there were Ill men enow got into That Body to Leaven the Whole Lump The City of London however will be Wiser I hope in the time to Come after the better Part of 200000 l. paid for Experience then to call for Double Guards again for fear of Popery But here follows Another Address about the Militia that goes a little Further than the Former Tho' That would not do Neither May it please your Majesty We your Majesties most dutifull and Loyal Subjects the Commons in Parliament Assembled taking into Consideration the Eminent Dangers Arising to your Majesty and the Whole Kingdom from Popish Practices and Conspiracies and Conceiving that Nothing can so well Resist their Attempts as some Parts of the Militia The Setled Legal Forces of This Kingdom They should have said By your leave Gentlemen of the Guards Actually in Arms on whom your Majesty may Rely with the Greatest Confidence and Security We do therefore humbly Desire your Majesty to Command your Lieutenants and Deputy-Lieutenants of the Several Counties of This Kingdom to Give Order to All their Trained-Bands to be in a Readiness and Draw together one Third Part of the Respective Militia and to Continue them in a Body for Fourteen Days and after they are Dismiss'd to Draw up another Part for the same Time c. The Plot would not Take it seems in One Parliament and so they Try'd it again in the Next falling foul particularly upon the Kings Guards in the First Place and after That they were All in Post-hast again for the Raising of the Militia in these two Following Instances of Vote and Address Resolved That the Continuing of Any Standing Forces in This Nation other then the Militia is Illegal and a Great Grievance and Vexation to the People And then We your Majesties most Loyal c. do most humbly beseech your Majesty that your Majesty would be Graciously pleas'd to give Order that the Militia of London Westminster Southwark the Tower-Hamlets and the Counties of Middlesex and Surry may Immediately be Raised and put in a Posture of Defence in such Proportion and for such time as your Majesty shall think fit In the Wipe upon the Guards they had it in their Heads directly to Disarm the King Nay to Un-king him for without the Power of the Sword he hath No Power at all and in fine to Turn the Point of it upon their Sovereign For the Militia at the Rate that they had Tamper'd the Peoples Minds and Affections would have been as Fit for Another Edg-hill Expedition against Charles the Second as ever it was for That in the Time of Charles the Martyr Practices upon his Late Majesties Credit AFter these Attempts to make the Late King Poor and Weak by all ways of Draining the Exchequer without any Prospect of Ressource and by Vsurping upon his Prerogatives as well Military as Civil they Attacqu'd him next in his Credit the Conspirators of the Cabal Endeavouring to Render him as Cheap and as Hatefull That way as they Propounded to all other Purposes to make him Miserable When I say Credit I do not mean the Credit of a Merchant in Matter of Money but the Credit of a Prince upon the Point of Character and Honour There could not well be a Greater Libell then their Printed Votes beside the Encouragements they gave to Scurrilous Little Knaves and Pamphlets Nor was it Possible to Speak Worse of a Prince then Those Papers made Every body Think that Read and Believ'd them His Wisdom His Iustice His Truth His Clemency were All call'd in Question and Expos'd by Votes and Orders As That One Instance of the Address Nov. 29. 1680. may serve for All. The Question was Popery The Fears of it grounded upon the Plot the Queen and the Duke of York involv'd in the Scandal of the Accusation and his Majesty Himself render'd by more then Implication a Favourer of That Plot and a Conspirator against Himself But let the Address speak in it's Own Words Their Opposers the Papists have found means to Disgrace and if they were Iudges Iustices of the Peace or other Magistrates to have them turn'd out of Commission The Continuance or Prorogation of Parliaments has been Accommodated to serve the Purposes of That Party Money rais'd upon the People to Supply your Majesties extraordinary Occasions was by the Prevalence of Popish Councels Employ'd to make War upon a Protestant State. When the House of Commons were Prepared to bring to a Legal Tryal the Principal Conspirators in This Plot That Parliament was first Prorogu'd and then Dissolv'd Witnesses are Attempted to be Corrupted and not only Promises of Reward but of the Favour of your Maâ—esties Brother made the Motives to their Complyance Divers of the most Considerable of your Majesties Protestant Subjects have Crimes of the Highest Nature Forged against them the Charge to be Supported by Subornation and Perjury that they may be Destroy'd by Forms of Law and Justice We have lately upon Mature Deliberation Proposed One Remedy of These Great Evils without which in Our Iudgments All Others will prove Vain and Fruitless And like All Deceitfull Securities against Certain Dangers will rather Expose your Majesties Person to the Greatest Hazzard and the People together with All that 's Valuable to them as Men or Christians to Vtter Ruine and Destruction If after All This the Private Suggestions of the Subtle Accomplices of That Party and Designs should yet Prevail c. we shall have This Remaining Comfort that we have Free'd our selves from the Guilt of That Bloud and Desolation which is like to Ensue What did These People make of the King all this while but the Patron of the Sworn Enemies of his Life and Religion and the Contriver of the Ruine of Himself and of his People The Papists did All it seems and made Him to do All too that They pleas'd Was it True that They did so or was it False If True it must be either out of Facility Confederacy or with Veneration to his Sacred Ashes it must be Inadvertency to the Highest Degree and Such an Inadvertency as Hazzarded his Crown his Life and his Reputation All in One For the Action was His Own upon what Motive soever he Did it Was it the Papists that put-out the Iudges and Iustices Was it the Papists that Continu'd or Prorogu'd Parliaments Was it the Papists that made the Protestant
in Preparation and bringing to Perfection it is our Resolution and we do Declare that in Defence of your Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion we will Stand by your Majesty with our Lives and Fortunes and shall be ready to Revenge any Violence Offered by them to your Sacred Majesty It is to be noted that the Vote was Soften'd in this Address For as it was Worded at first Whoever had Kill'd the King the Papists should have Gone to Pot for 't which Hint did as good as say Get but over This Iobb my Masters and y 'ave done your Bus'ness But the Conspirators found a way however to Supply That Restrictive Distinction by Murdering him Themselves and giving it out that the Papists had done it according to the Evidence of the Republican Conspiracy which says it was so Determin'd if the Rye House Project had Succeeded The Conspirators were to go to several Persons and Ask them Supposing that the Papists should Rise or that there should be a General Insurrection or a French Invasion Are you in a Posture of Defence This was the very Practice and the Imposture in the Case of the Militia the Double-Guards and the Rout they made among the Papists But Keeling a little Lower in the same Tryal puts it into somewhat Plainer English. These Men says he where to be in a readiness and it was Design'd that the Thing should be laid upon the Papists as a Branch of the Popish-Plot Which may serve for an Excellent Commenâ— upon the Present Text. Upon the 15th of Dec. 1680. There was no way with 'em but immediately to Banish All the Considerable Papists in England out of the Kings Dominions And it is to be Suppos'd that they would not have Forgotten his Royal Highness in the Number Especially Considering how Mindfull they were of him in Other Cases Insomuch that there was hardly any thing done by the Conspirators that had Worm'd themselves into the House but for Countenance-sake and to While away Time that had not the Ruine of the Duke and consequently of his Royal Brother in the Bottom of it and they were so Eager upon 't that all they could do without it was to no purpose Resolved Nemine Contradicente that so long as the Papists have any Hopes of the Duke of Yorks Succeeding the King in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and the Dominions thereunto Belonging The Kings Person the Protestant Religion and the Lives Liberties and Properties of all his Majesties Protestant Subjects are in Apparent Danger of being Destroy'd And then follows Another Resolve upon the Necessity of such a Bill Excluding and Proroguing Two Great Points THE Refusal of This Bill and the Last Refuge that the King had left him of Proroguing Parliaments were Two Terrible Rubbs in their way For with the Help of the One they could have done the Bus'ness of the Roman Catholiques at pleasure and made as many Reputed and Suspected Papists of the Rest of his Majesties Subjects as they found Averse to the Popular Design And Then under the Countenance of a Sitting Parliament they had a Thousand Tricks and Devices by their Printed Votes Papers and Intelligences to make their Principals Fall down and Worship them as the Bulwark of the Protestant Religion the Heroes and Patriots of the Common Cause and the Saviours of the Nation But the Cunning Snapps of the Faction finding that the King would not let go his Power of Calling them and sending 'em away again as he pleas'd and that Prorogations and Dissolutions were but as Sentence and Execution to them They had the Wit to make a Provision of Parliamentary Guards for the Oxford Meeting under Colour of Securing the Protestant Members from having their Throats Cut there by the Papists And it is more then Probable that if his Majesty had not very prudently taken Two Steps at a Time and Dissolv'd them upon the very Spot and Instant without the Antecedent Ceremony of Proroguing them they would have found under the Colour of a House of Commons yet in Being Another Game to Play. There had been a Heavy Cry made upon all their Former Disappointments in Pamphlets Papers Discourses Addresses upon Surprizing Prorogations Popish and Amazing Prorogations c. which humour they did Notably set forth in an Address to his Majesty of No. 11. 1680. IN relation to the Tryalls 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 Vnfaithfull to your Majesty and to our Country by whom we are Intrusted Omit upon This Occasion humbly to Enform your Majesty that our Difficulties even as to these Tryalls are much Increased by the Evil and Destructive Councels 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 Prepar'd for those Tryalls And by the like Pernicious Councells 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 Discourag'd from giving their Evidence But of One Mischievous Consequence of those Dangerous and Unhappy Councells 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 Discover'd 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 Inconvenience 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 Preservation of the True Protestant Religion you will not suffer your self to be prevail'd upon by the Like Councell to do any Thing which may Occasion in Consequence though we are Assured never with your Majesties 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 faithfull and Loyal Commons then the Promoting and Advancing of your Majesties True Happiness and Greatness NOW to Observe a little upon
or Order for stay of Proceedings shall be received or allowed 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 Lawfull to and for any Magistrates Officers or other Subjects whatsoever of these Kingdoms and Dominions aforesaid 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 premisses and with him or them in case of resistance to fight and him or them by force to subdue For all which actions 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 Inhâ—riting and Enjoying the Imperial Crown of the Realms and Dominions aforesaid other than 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 Majesties Body The said Imperial Crown shall descend to and be enjoyed by such person or persons successorily during the Life of the said James Duke of York as should have inherited and enjoyed 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 Service in the Fore-noon to reade 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 The Faction were in a Fair way by This time to rid their Hands of the King's Roman Catholique Friends and they were not without their Expedients and Inventions to get shut of Reputed as well as of Profess'd Papists For there needed but an Impeachment an Address a Supposition or an Opinion to the doing of the Whole Work. The Popish Design they say was Assisted by the Treachery of Perfidious Protestants Now Those Perfidious Protestants made Excellent Reputed Papists Reputed and Suspected By Whom If by Themselves the Devil 's in People if They do not Win All they Play for when they have the Shuffling and the Packing of their own Cards and Keep-in or Put-out as they Themselves please Resolved That All Persons who Advis'd his Majesty in his Last Message to This House to Insist upon an Opinion against the Bill for Excluding the Duke of York have given Pernicious Advice to his Majesty and are Promoters of Popery and Enemies to the King and Kingdom Resolved That it is the Opinion of This House that George Earl of Hallifax Henry Marquis of Worcester and Henry Earl of Clarendon are Persons who Advised his Majesty ut Supra and that they have therein given Pernicious Councell to his Majesty are Promoters of Popery and Enemies to the King and Kingdom And therefore they Address'd for the Removing of them And when their Hands were In Laurence Hyde Esq and Lewis Earl of Feversham were to be Remov'd from All Offices and from his Majesties Presence for Ever and an Anathema Pass'd upon the Advisers of a Prorogation unless upon a Condition of Excluding the Duke I Have Chosen rather upon This whole Matter to Hazzard an Error on the Right Hand then on the Left and to venture being Over-large in my Authorities and Proofs rather than fall Short. So that here is Evidence more then Enough of the Snares that were laid for All men of Integrity and Honour and the Advantages that the Faction intended to make of the Zeal the Passions and the Credulity of the Common People If This Pernicious Advice in the Case of the Earl of Strafford and Arch-Bishop Laud had been given to Charles the first which the Votes Impute to These Honourable Persons in the Case of the Duke of York it had most undoubtedly Sav'd King Church and People if his Majesty had thought fit to follow it which were All lost for want of Proroguing Dissolving and Asserting the Privileges of the Crown in That Turbulent Iuncture Insolent Demands Expostulations and Propositions are the Certain Prologue to Insolent Actions But his Majesty Himself was too Good to Suspect and where ever he Trusted any of the Party he was Betray'd Briefly the Case of the Two Last Kings were but too much Alike Only the Latter when he had Parted with as much as 't was possible for him to Spare and Save the Rest he Held his Hand Whereas his Vnhappy Father gave On and On 'till he left himself at Mercy The Thing that made the Great Noise was the Bill of Exclusion but A King or No King was the Truth of the Matter in Issue They were of OPINION that these noble Persons did so or so and upon That Bare Opinion let fly at the King's Ministers Effectually by Whole-Sale without any respect to the Measures of Religion Order Reason or State. How many Cart-Loads of Fears and Iealousies have we had lest the King should Abuse his Power And how many Casuistical Whimseys of Self-Preservation in case he does But here was no Right no Colour to the Pretence of so much as bringing That Question upon the Carpet And the Councell that they Brand for so Pernicious was undoubtedly the most Seasonable and Saving Advice upon That Crisis that could be Given But to go forward If they may Exclude the Heir Apparent for Religion why not the King Himself too The Parity of Excluding the Duke Extending to the Deposing of the Sovereign and This Doctrine was the very Corner Stone of the Last Rebellion And Excluding for RELIGION is not All neither for it Involves a Claim of breaking-in upon the Crown whether there be any Religion in the Case or No For the Conspirators made themselves both Dividers and Chusers and Their Single OPINION was a Sentence in the Case the very Saying that it was This or That Religion or Whatsoever Religion they pleas'd was enough to Make it so This House is of OPINION went Fifty times further then Be it Enacted by the King 's most Excellent Majesty THis Vnaccountable Stretch of Arrogance and Vsurpation put all Sober Men to a Stand to Consider what would be the End in a Natural and a Logical Consequence upon This Proceeding If a Prince has not the Liberty of Chusing his Own Servants If he has not the Power of Protecting them If Subjects shall take upon them to Treat
their Sovereign like a Pupil and turn off his Ministers like so many Footmen because they are of OPINION that they give him This or That Advice and that such Advice is Pernicious If Matters be thus Manag'd what 's become of the Imperial State of This Government Here 's Opinion and the Opinion of Subjects too without Proof without Power without Prerogative and shortly without any Foundation Taking upon it self to give Laws to the Majesty of a Sole Governour and if they could have Carry'd That Point it would have been as good as a Title Gain'd in the Account of the Multitude to the Government of the Three Kingdoms For nothing less then the Exclusion would serve their Turn and the Confounding of all Those that were Against That Exclusion Nay and That it self would not have Done at Last neither as we shall see by and by So that once for all having the Modelling the Iudging and the Discriminating of the Friends and Enemies of the State Themselves and in their Own Right as they pretended what betwixt Associating on the One side and Seizing Banishing Disarming Imprisoning Opining Suspecting Reputing and the Sweet Comfortable Methods of Swearing Hanging and Quartering on the Other there would have been little more for the Conspirators to Do then to Kill and Take Possession and to lay Violent Hands upon the King under the Colour of a Rescue BUt Religion and Loyalty was still the Burden of the Song A Company of Rogues to Blunderbuss his Majesty Burn Protestant Cities and Massacre Poor Innocent People This was the Voyce that was Lifted up and the Outcry that Caused so much Weeping and Wailing among us While the Witnesses in the mean time were All-to-be Colonell'd Doctor'd Captain'd and Squir d for the Credit of the Story It was a most Remarkable and an Auspicious Resolution taken to set a-part Gods Day for Gods Cause as it was Blasphemously Christen'd when they Postpon'd the Consideration of the Lord Chancellors Speech of Apr. 30. 1679. Time after Time untill Sunday the 11th of May following which was so Arrant a Forty-One-Banter that I presently told my Friends without going to a Wizzard the very Dunstable Meaning of it and the Plot-Leaders were so kind to me in That as well as in Other of my Predictions that they made a Prophet of me But I shall have another Touch upon this Particular by and by Upon Nov. 8. 1678. They Resolv'd upon an Address to Desire his Majesty that there might be a Particular Prayer or Prayers Composed for the Cities of London and Westminster relating to the Plot and Conspiracy Contrived and Carry'd-on by the Papists against his Majesties Person and Government Upon Sunday the 10 th following they Complain'd That in the Prayer there was no mention made of the Papists who says the Vote are the Contrivers of These Damnable and Hellish Plots c. And they humbly Desire his Majesty to give Effectual Order c. After this and in the Next Parliament they had Another Tour of Passe-Passe of the Same Stamp with the Former which went a Great way toward the Moving of All Those Passions that might be Serviceable to the Project of That Season as will be better seen upon the Reading of that Address it self or which is all one of Another Address for a day of Humiliation on Nov. 25. 1680. in the Following Parliament which Address is within a very little of Word for Word with the Former We your Majesties most Dutifull c. being Deeply Sensible of the Sad and Calamitous Condition of This your Majesties Kingdom Occasioned Chiefly by the Impious and Malicious Conspiracies of a Popish Party who have not only Plotted and Intended the Destruction of your Majesties Royal Person but the Total Subversion of the Government and True Religion Established among us c. All which Our Many and Grievous Sins have Iustly Deserved and being now by your Gracious Favour Assembled in Parliament c. do in All Humility beseech your Majesty that by your Royal Proclamation one or More Days may be Solemnly set a-part wherein both our Selves and All your Majesties Loyal Subjects may by Fasting and Prayer Seek a Reconciliation with Allmighty God and with Humble and Penitent Hearts Implore him by his Power and Goodness to Infatuate and Defeat the Wicked Councils and Machinations of our Enemies c. HEre 's just the Style of the Old Blessed Times over again when Days of Humiliation were used to be set a-part for the Kings Success against the Rebells A Body would have thought by the Solemnity of the Wording of it that there had been Sword Pestilence and Famine Earthquakes and Fire and Brimstone in the Case Now Every Thing help'd to Move Terror Iealousie Mortal Animosities Indignation and Transports of Ardent and of Vindictive Zeal Even to the Degree of a Temptation to break through all the Barrs of Duty Shame Modesty Conscience and Respect Beside that upon the making of God Almighty a Party to the Quarrel Temporal Power Thrones and Magistrates are no better Accounted then Dirt under the Feet of Enthusiastique Bigotts To Conclude the Addresses for One Day of Humiliation should have put the Kingdom Methinks upon Petitioning for another for the Sin of the very Addresses At least if the Plot should in the End Prove False at the Bottom But after all this Dust and Scuffle now betwixt Petitioners and Ahorrers True-Protestants and Pensioners Whigg and Tory Observator and Trimmer there are several more Difficulties yet behind to be Enquir'd into It is a Thing Evident without Dispute that a Prince Cannot be more Affronted and Endanger'd then by Pinching him in his Revenue Paring and Cramping his Royal Prerogative and Power Lessening him in his Reputation and putting him out of Condition of Receiving the Servicâ—s of his Dutifull Friends and Those Friends out of Condition to Support and to Maintain the Honour and Dignity of their Master Now all this has been Attempted and Pursued with the Vttermost Industry and Bitterness Imaginable But here was a Dev'lish Plot it seems and for That Dev'lish Plots Sake the Heir of the Crown must be Disinherited and the Roman Catholiques in a manner Exterminated from off the face of the Earth and no other way in the World to Save our Prince and our Religion as the Infallible Oracle of St. Stephens Chappel gives us to Vnderstand but by a Fair Riddance of all the Kings English Subjects of That Persuasion which by Pursuivanting Messengering Sergeanting Cooping-up Squeezing Rifling Plundering and Oppressing they had well-nigh Effected already Only the Late King stuck at the Exclusion of the Duke But however the Faction had such an Offer made them by the way of a kind of Composition for the Exclusion as would certainly have put them into the Possession of Their Own Wishes If they had not been most Providentially Infatuated into the Neglect or Refusal of it to the Preservation of the Crown the Duke the Royal Line and the
of Religion and an Impetuous Restless Ambition of getting Sovereign Power into their Own Hands NOW the most that can be pretended in Mitigation of this Violent and Vnwarrantable Practice is that they Meant Well perhaps but fai'ld in their Measures If there was a Wheel in a Wheel as they say and One Plot Nurs'd-up under Another it might be a Thing Started by the By and only an Advantage made of an Occasion Vnforeseen without any Previous Design My Answer is that This was the Case of Some but not of Others And that I hold my self Bound in Reason Charity and Iustice to Distinguish betwixt 'em That is to say betwixt the Bare Believers and the Conscientious though Mistaken Abetters of the Plot and the Malicious Contrivers and Promoters of it Of the Two Former Sorts there were a Great many Worthy Men and True Lovers of their Prince their Religion and their Country that upon the first Flushing-up of the Sham fell most Unhappily into the Snare and these were Persons Effectually so Eminently Loyal and so Passionately Zelous for his Majesties Safety and Government and for the Protestant Religion that they were e'en the Worse for 't again for their very Character in Concurrence with Vile Projectors Patrons and Witnesses gave a Reputation to the Imposture Their Passions were so taken-up with the Horror of the Wickedness that they did not so much Attend to the Proofs of it and the Detestation they had for so Hideous a Conspiracy Blinded their Eyes that they could not see the Cheat But Time brought the Truth to Light and People to their Wits again This does not hinder though so many Good Men were led away at First by Plausible Appearances but that the Foundation of This Structure was laid in Hell and the Treason Deliberately Pursu'd from One End of the Train to the Other The Exclusion of the Duke was no other then a Dethroning of the King for his Majesties Prerogative and his Royal Highnesses Birth-right were Both Struck-at in the very Same Address But whether This was done Wilfully Spitefully and with Malice prepense is Another Question which I take to be not only Probable in Many Respects but Demonstratively Clear and Certain in Others FIrst as to the Quality of the Two Cardinal Witnesses It was Low and Mean to the Degree of a Scandalous and a Starving Poverty and yet One of 'em from a Street-Beggar and the other from a Iayle and an Alms-Basket sets up for the Discovering of a Conspiracy Carry'd on in the Cabinets of Princes In the Privacies of Cloysters and Cells and in the Secret Confidences of men of Honour of the First Rank what Forces to be Rais'd What Officers When and in What Manner the King was to be Murder'd the Price of the Villany and Who and Who to do the Execution How could any man whose Patience upon the Surprize of the First Alarum would but give him leave to Think tho' never so Litle of the Tale and of the Reporters of it Imagine that these Scoundrells should ever come within reach of being Privy to this Plot even if Every Syllable of it had been True And that so many Persons of Brains and Fortune should Trust their Lives and Estates in the Hands and at the Mercy of such a Brace of Varlets Otes at the End of his Narrative in his List of the Conspirators reckons up Nine Benedictines Three Carmelites Two Franciscans Ten Dominicans Twenty Five Jesuits All in England Two at Liege Five at Watton Twelve at St. Omers Seaven Jesuits more abroad Twelve Scotch Jesuits Eight Secular Persons two Lay-Brothers Fourteen Secular Priests in England which he has but upon Enformation he says as who should say I dare not venture an Oath upon 't Four other Persons Beside Seaven and Twenty Noblemen Gentlemen and Officers that had All Commissions whose Names he says did not Occur at Present This is a Great Number of Conspirators for One poor Man to give an Account of As to the Probity of their Life and Conversation They came upon the Stage Recommended for Buggery Perjury and Horse-Stealing by Advance and Notorious for these Evidencing Qualifications before-hand In their Enformations they Fall Foul not only One upon Another but upon Themselves too and Each of them is Felo de se in his Self-Contradictions Now this is a Topique that has been Beaten over and over throughout the whole Course of the Observators and a Man might Muster-up at least Forty or Fifty Corroborating Swearers more of the Same Stamp BUT I am now upon the Subject of the Subborners Themselves Not the Hirelings For Those Men and Matters would never have pass'd Muster if there had not been more Care taken to Cover and Conceal the Perjury then to find out the Truth Who were the Great Sticklers for Otes and his Accomplices but the very Persons that were the Ring-Leaders of the Late Rebellions And who but Otes again at all their Republican Clubs and Cabals In short Nothing could be more Palpable then that there was a Confederate Agreement of the Party in Mediating for the Profess'd Enemies of the Government and Addressing against the Vnquestionable Friends and Servants of it Nor could that Constant Practice have any Other End in Prospect then the Ruine of the King the Subversion of the Monarchy and the Introducing of a Common-Wealth What was the Meaning of their Vote of Thanks to the City of London for their Manifest Loyalty to the King their Care Charge and Vigilancy for the Preservation of his Majesties Person and of the Protestant Religion But the Firing of a Gun to Call for Help upon the Springing of a Leake and no body within distance to Relieve them And then to follow it the same Morning with Another Resolved That it is the Opinion of the House That James Duke of Monmouth hath been removed from his Offices and Commands by the Influence of the Duke of York And so to Order an Application to be made to his Majesty from that House by such Members thereof as were of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Council to desire his Majesty to Restore the said James Duke of Monmouth to his said Offices and Commands What were These Two Votes I say but so much Holy-Water cast away upon the D. of M. and the City and to do as much as in Them lay under That Exigence toward the bringing of the Head and the Body together Briefly they found that One Duke was as Necessary for the King as the Other was for the Faction and that was the True Ground of the Bill of Exclusion and the Vote of Intercession Ben. Harris was Fin'd and Pillory'd for One Treasonous Libell Care with his Strange Knack was Fin'd for Another Every jot as Bad as That And Brown for Other Libells the Worst of all Three And yet These Paltry Libellers found Powerfull Friends and Intercessors Nay and the very Fining of them for Sedition was Enter'd upon the Charge
accept and admit any others hereafter into this Society and Association Notes upon the ASSOCIATION THE Reader will find in this Paper of Association All the Lines of the Pretended Popish Plot the Summ of the Whole Cause and of all they Contended for It shews the Modell and Expounds the Meaning of the Design the Manner of Working-it-up and the Degrees of Ripening it for Execution It lays Open the Rise Progress and Drift of a Republican Conspiracy Step by Step Insomuch that a man may Trace out with a Chalk the Entire Course of the Intrigue from the First Broaching of it to the Last Resolution and understand that Resolv'd upon the Question had a Hand in 't as well as Wée the Knights c. And This will Plainly Appear upon Comparing the One with the Other My Next Bus'ness is to lay open the Conformity of Parts and the Harmony of Design betwixt the Proceedings of the House and the Tendence of the Paper of Confederacy and when I have made out That once there will be No Separating the Conspirators in the Votes from Wée the Knights c. in the Association but they must be Both of Necessity Involv'd in the same Plot. The First Clause finds a Hellish Popish Plot agreeable to the Vote of Oct. 31. 1678. The Second finds the Duke of York in the Bottom on 't And so did a Following Vote some Four Days after the Former Whereupon I remember there was a Debate Started for an Address to Remove him It speaks of the Power and Influence of Popish Councells in the Disposing of Offices which is the Main Topique again of the Address of Nov. 29. 1680. And so in the Third and Fourth Clauses it falls upon the Illegal Mercenary Forces Unreasonable Prorogations and Dissolutions The Strength of the Nation both at Sea and Land put into the hands of His Royal Highnesses Party and their Adherents which is no other again then an Extract out of Several Votes and Addresses already mention'd The Fifth takes a General Prospect of the Miserable Condition of the King and Kingdom through the Vindictive Malice of the Papists Which is over and over Inculcated also in Several of their Addresses as in that of November 29. 1680. If so and so We have Freed our selves from the Guilt of That Bloud and Desolation which is like to Ensue And so afterward in that of Decemb 21. 1680. The Question is Put Whether in case the Crown should Descend to the Duke of York the Opposition which may possibly be made to his Possessing it may not onely Endanger the Further Descent in the Royal Line but even Monarchy it self In the Sixth Clause it sets forth that since they cannot Prevail upon the King to Exclude the Duke by a Bill in a Parliamentary-way they Propose a Promise of Mutual Defence and Assistance among All True-Protestants In the Preservation of the True-Protestant Religion his Majesties Person and Royal State and our Lives Liberties and Properties c. These are the Words of the Preamble or Introduction to the Association which are but the very same Thing in Other Terms with the Proposal of Dec. 21. 1680. in the Address it self Wherein they desire That his Majesty will be Graciously pleased to Assent to an Act whereby his Majesties Protestant Subjects may be Enabled to Associate Themselves for the Defence of his Majesties Person the Protestant Religion and the Security of his Kingdoms These Requests say they we are Constrained humbly to make to your Majesty as of Absolute Necessity for the Safe and Peaceable Enjoyment of our Religion So that This Association is Parliamentary from Head to foot and little more in 't then a Working upon Their Modell Only Wée the Knights c. Took Leave in One Case and Ask'd it in the Other I speak of the Majority of the House as it was then Leaven'd and with Great Honour to the Loyal and Sober Mixture that was in That Assembly While the Address above-Mention'd in Answer to the Kings Speech of the 15th of the same Month was under Debate the Collectour of the Proceedings of That Season takes upon him to Report this following Passage of a Speech Deliver'd in the House upon That Question I cannot agree in Pressing the Association-Bill For being it hath not yet been brought into the House we do not well know what will be the Purport of it And it is not Proper that we should Ask of the King we know not What nor Expect that he should Grant us what He can know nothing of And truly Sir I think that These Things about the Judges Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace are Minute Things to be Insisted on at This Time Compar'd with Others which might be Demanded Queen Elizabeth's Councellours never thought Her Safe 'till the Popish Successor was in a Tower and I am afraid that you will never be Safe untill you take some such Course that may bring things to an Issue When you have done That and Banished All the Considerable Papists out of England I think we shall not be in such Apparent Danger as we now are And seeing This may Probably be Granted and the Other Bills Not I humbly Move you to Recommit the Address that it may be better Consider'd And what 's the Difference now in Substance betwixt the Biass of the Debate and the Effect of the Resolution The Exclusion and Association were not let fall because they were Vnequal and Vnreasonable but because they were not Attainable and only in Exchange too for Other Equivalent Expedients for Such an Imprisonment and Such a Banishment would have had the Force of an Exclusion and an Association without the Name of it for the Banishing of All on the One side does Naturally Resolve into an Vnion of All on the Other Now to put All This together it amounts to no more then what the Prevailing Party in the House had Propounded Declar'd and Resolv'd upon Before-hand Only the Kings Peremptory Refusal put 'em upon the After-Game of Attempting to get That by Force which they could not Gain by Address And it is not to be doubted but the Faction Acted In the House as well as Out of the House by the Same Spirit To say the Truth on 't The Conspirators that Influenc'd These Desperate Designs were Past Rubicon long since and No Retreat left them but with Halters about their Necks if Tenderness and Clemency it self had not well nigh Dissolv'd the Awe of Royal Power and Iustice in the Overflowings of That most Gracious Prince's Patience and Mercy But when the Ring-Leaders found that they might Ask any thing Gratis they never fail'd of following Denyals with Importunities and Importunities with Expostulations 'till in the End upon a Full Tryal of their Interest and Skill they might come to Settle their Measures They Reckon'd upon 't that they had Two Strings to their Bow And that if One Fail'd they had Another would Hold. They Ply'd his Majesty
and over as the Expedient sine qua non for the Saving of his Life his Crown the Protestant Religion and his People And it is Obvious to Presume that they had Resolv'd upon the Draught the Conditions and the Provision of it before ever they made any Application about it Beside the Manifest Agreement that was between them upon the special Matters in Issue But in One Instance for All. On the 24th of Nov. 1681. There Sate at the Sessions-House in the Old-Bayly a Commission of Oyer and Terminer upon a Bill of Indictment for High-Treason against Anthony Earl of Shaftsbury The Foreman of the Grand-Iury put certain Questions to a Principal Secretary of State and a Clark of the Councel that gave Evidence there about this Paper of Association which coming from a Member of the Last Westminster House of Commons could not but carry Great Weight i. e. Do not you know Sir or have not you heard of a Discourse or Debate in the Parliament concerning an Association Do not you remember in the House of Commons Sir it was Read upon Occasion of That Bill This Question made many People think that the Noble Peer and the Plot-Managers in That House of Commons were upon the Same Bottom and that the Former was only to Execute what the Other had Contriv'd which was no more in Truth then the Execution of his Own Purposes and Designs For his Lordships Head Heart and Purse were in at both Ends of the Bus'ness The Third Evasion was Immediately Blown off by Proofs under Mr. Wilson's Own Hand over and over a Servant of Great Trust in the Family to make Good that the very Paper of Associations which was Produc'd at the Old-Bayly was found in my Lords Closet according to the Depositions There can be no Doubt in the World from what is allready said but that the Knight-Voters and the Knight-Vndertakers as to the Bus'ness of the Association were Both of a Mind and that there was little Difference betwixt the One and the Other more then that the One Cut out the Work and the Other made-it-up So that if it was an Ill Thing in One it was so in Both and whether it was so or not is now to be Enquir'd into and first upon the General THere was a very Loyal Declaration from the Middle Temple Presented to his Late Majesty by Mr. Saunders afterwards Lord-Chief-Iustice of the King's-Bench upon This Subject I cannot bring an Instance of more Honour or Greater Authority toward the Confounding of This Association then That Paper nor an Address more Pertinent to My Purpose or Better Warranted both in Law and Reason OVR Sense of That Execrable Paper Purporting the Frame of a Trayterous Association produced at the Late Proceâ—dings against the Earl of Shaftsbury at the Old-Bayly We do therefore Declare it our Opinion that the same Contains most Gross and Apparent Treasons more Manifestly tending to the Ruine of your Majesties Dominions then the Old Hypocritical Solemn League and Covenant which they that were Seduced to take are no more bound to keep then he that should Swear to Murther his Father is Obliged to Commit the Parricide And it is most Evident to us that whoever promoted That Rebellious Association Designed by the said Paper or Countenanced the Same by Refusing upon the Full Evidence to find Bills of Indictment against the Authors and Promoters thereof and thereby as much as in them lay Preventing their being brought to a Fair Tryal have in a High Measure Perverted the Laws And could have no other Design thereby then to Vsurp to Themselves an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Dominion not only over your Subjects but over your Majesty also I Shall proceed now to the Dissecting of it and see if the Particulars be not as Foul upon the Retayle as the Whole has been here Represented in the Lump and in Gross The Ground of it is a Popish Plot The Preservation of the King Religion Laws and People are set forth to be the Intent of it So that by an Orderly Examining of One Thing after Another it will be Easily seen how far the Means here Propounded will Answer the End. Notes upon the Association WE the Knights c. in the Preface Signifies in the Uow and Promise the Major Part either of This Present Parliament while Sitting or of the Members of Both Houses Subscribing This Association when Prorogu'd or Dissolv'd And what is This Majority to Do now To Defend and Assist one Another In the Preservation of the True-Protestant Religion His Majesties Person and our State and our Laws Liberties and Properties And Against Whom are they to Defend and Assist Against Popish Priests and Iesuites with the Papists and their ADHERENTS and ABETTERS That same Adherents and Abetters goes a Great way and needs Another Explanation But what 's the Quarrel now A most Pernicious and Hellish Plot to Destroy All that the Associators have by Solemn and Sacred Promise Engaged Themselves to Preserve And now for the Adherents and Abetters There are Several Sorts of them There are the Plotters Themselves the Duke of York the Mercenary Forces alias the Guards The Officers that the Dukes Interest has brought in both by Sea and Land and All that HAVE ANY WAYS Adher'd to Him or Them And All such as SHALL Adhere unto Him. So that here is an Association against the King Himself for Adhering unto his Brother and Consequently against All the Kings Loyal Subjects for Adhering to Him that Adher'd to his Royal Highness which is only a Degree or Relation of Adherency once Remov'd But How now is This same Adherency to be Vnderstood What is it that is here Call'd an Adherency And how far does it Extend Any man that shall Séek by Force to Set up the Duke's Pretended Title or raise any War Tumult or Sedition for Him or by his Command Or that upon any Title whatsoever shall Oppose the Iust and Righteous Ends of This Association Or in fine that shall ANY WAYS Adhere which is an Vnlimited Latitude and reaches to Thought Word and Deed That Man is an Adherent Allways Provided God Save the King I hope No No. Without any Respect of Persons or Causes 'T is against the Duke of York or any other that hath any ways Adhered to the Papists in their wicked Designs So that This League is as Particularly Levell'd at the King for Refusing to pass a Bill of Exclusion as the Votes of Ian. 7. 1680. was at the Noble Lords there for Advising the King to Refuse it Well! Again And What Course is to be Taken at last with These Papists and Adherents Why the Associators will Endeavour Entirely to Disband All Mercenary Forces They will by all Lawfull Means and by Force of Arms if néed so require Oppose the said Duke of York and Endeavour to Subdue Expell and Destroy him if he comes into England and All such as shall Adhere unto him They will also with their Ioynt and Particular Forces
draw from This Preposterous way of Proceeding is that the Whole Story from End to End was a Practice that the Suborners of the Perjury were also the Protectors and the Patrons of it Both under One And that they had their Accomplices in the House of Commons upon This Crisis of State that play'd the same Game which their Fore-fathers had done upwards of Forty Years before The Earl of Shaftsbury a Busie Man in our Late Troubles BUt after the History of the Wickedness of These People it will be Needfull to look a little into the Woe they Wrought us Or at least to Compute upon the Calamitous Infelicities of That Season and Whence they took theâ—r Rise The Man knows little of the Histoâ—y of Our Troubles that 's a Stranger to the Life Practice and Character of the Late Earl of Shaftsbury who had the Wit in All Changes and Revolutions of State still to Turn Tail to the Weather and Swim with the Tyde And he did This too by Nature as well as by Application for beside the Advantages of a Mercurial Humour a Ready Tongue And a Dext'rous Address he had none of Those Vulgar Barrs upon him of Honour Shame or Conscience to put any Checque to the Impetuous Course of his Ambitious Lusts I am not upon the Story of his Life but it shall serve My Purpose to say that thorough All the Vsurpations from Forty to Sixty he came Sailing down still before the Wind and so from that time forward steer'd by the same Compass ON November 17. 1672. His Lordship being already Chancellour of the Exchequer and one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury was further Advanc'd by his Majesty to the Keeping of the Great Seal with the Title of Lord Chancellour of England And upon the 8th of November 1673. He was Discharg'd of That Commission Upon the Opening of the Parliament Feb. 5. 1672. His Lordship in a Large and Elegant Speech Blesses God and the King as follows LEt us Bless God that he hath given us such a King to be the Repairer of our Breaches both in Church and State and the Restorer of our Paths to dwell in That in the midst of War and Misery which Rages in our Neighbours Countrys our Garners are full and there is no Complaining in our Streets c. Let us Bless God that he hath given This King Signally the Hearts of his People and most Particularly of This Parliament Let us Bless the King for taking away All our Fears and leaving no room for Jealousies for those Assurances and Promises he hath made us Let us Bless God and the King that our Religion is Safe That the Church of England is the Care of our Prince That Parliaments are Safe That our Properties and Liberties are Safe What more hath a Good Englishman to Ask but that This King may Long Reign and that This Triple-Allyance of King Parliament and People may never be Dissolv'd HIs Lordships Matters as yet went Merrily on and his Good Humour kept pace with his Good Fortune But so soon as ever the Wind came about All these Blessings were thrown over the Left Shoulder The Clouds began now to Gather and soon after Discharge themselves in a Storm upon Papists and Publique Ministers In This Mood they brought-on the Bill about the Test whereof Andrew Marvel for the Honour of his Noble Patron gives This Account The Parliament having met the 5th of Feb. 1672. Prepared an Act before the Mony-Bill Slipt thorough their Fingers by which the Papists were Obliged to Pass thorough a New State-Purgatory to be Capable of Any Publique Employment Vpon this Occasion it was that the Earl of Shaftsbury though then Lord Chancellor of England yet Engaged so far in Defence of That Act and of the Protestant Religion that in due time it Cost him his Place and was the First Moving Cause of all Those Mis-adventures and Obloquy which since he lies ABOVE not UNDER IT deserves a Note the Libellous Deduction Marvel gives the World of the Kings Administration of Affairs as well Before as After This Celebrated Exploit of my Lord Shaftsbury's in a flat Contradiction to his Lordships Character of the King and to his Report of the Happy the Safe and the Peaceable State of the Government For whoever reads That Pamphlet will find it only an Artificial Scandal Imposture Cast-out to the Multitude upon set Purpose to make his Majesty Odious to his People One would have thought that the Gaining of the Test-Bill should have set their Hearts a little at Ease but That was not sufficient without calling for Fast upon Fast Raising the Militia Voting down the Guards Enquiring into Publique Grievances c. which being Said and Done with a Noverint Vniversi in the Eyes and Ears of the Nation is all one in many Cases with Ringing the Bells Backward and Firing the Beacons as if the Town were a Burning or an Enemy Landed and as far as Black-Heath in their March to London And all upon the Old and Everlasting Ground of Iealousie and Apprehension still That is to say BECAVSE The Restless Practices of Popish Recusants threatn'd the subversion both of Church and State. The Wheel was now in Motion and they drove like Iehu 'till they Dropt at last into Otes's Bottomless Plot. Shaftsbury had been a long time at the Trade of Fast and Loose and what with Industry Craft Malice and Experience the Fittest Man perchance in the Three Kingdoms to be the Head of a Faction And he was the Fitter for 't because his very Inclination prompted him to Mischief Even for Mischiefs sake It was his Way and his Humour to Tear All to pieces where he could not be the First Man in Bus'ness Himself And yet All this while his Faculty was rather a Quirking way of Wit then a Solidity of Iudgment and he was much Happier at Pulling-down then at Building-up In One Word He was a man of Subtlety not of Depth and his Talent was Fancy rather then Wisdom His Arts were Popular and after All his Politiques he was as great an Hypocrite in his Vnderstanding as in his Manners But the Best Incendiary yet upon the Face of the Earth for he had an Excellent Invention and a Protesting Face without either Faith or Truth Now when the Common People are to be Couzen'd One Imposture puts off Another and False Conclusions follow Naturally upon False Premises This is the Brief of his Character from those that knew and understood him Best and a man cannot do Right to the History without giving the Next Age a True Account of a Person that had so Great a Hand in the Confusions of This 'T is with the Mobile as with the Waters the very Blowing upon them makes them Troublesom and Dangerous and in the End to Overflow their Banks His Author sets him forth as the Great Advocate and Champion for the Bill of the Test and makes him Effectually
a Martyr for the Meritorious Services he did in That Act both to Church and State. It is most Certain that he was a great stickler in 't and it is No less Certain that he was afterward as Violent for the Bill of Exclusion and for Stripping the Roman-Catholique Lords and Commons of the Vndoubted Privileges of their Birthright Nay and of the Common Benefits of Life Liberty and Property either as Reasonable Creatures or as Members of a Political Body As to his Protestant Zeal All the world knows that he was not a man to Burn at stake for his Religion and if he Propos'd to himself the same End in what he did for the Test and what he did some years after for the Plot the Association and Exclusion he had undoubtedly in his eye the Ruine of the King the Duke of York and the Monarchy from First to Last and Designed the One as well as the Other for an Expedient toward the Gaining of his Point It looks unluckyly too that Marvel should with the same Breath so much Extoll both the Lord and the Project for his Whole Book is a Train of Scandal upon the King and of Treason against him from End to End. The Scribler and the Peer were Both Men of Parts They Knew what was for their Turn and what Not and it was Impossible for any thing to please them in Government that was not Pernicious to the State. This appear'd abundantly by the Sequel For Marvels Pamphlets and This Peers Practices were the Main Incentives and Encouragements to the Following Rebellions To Close This Head It was the Removal of the Lord it seems that brought on the Desperate Apprehensions of Popery for in one and the same Year his Lordship found no Danger of it at All and yet No Living for Fear on 't without any Visible Cause of Change Intervening Now when Another Generation shall come to look into the Hurry and the Distraction of These Times they cannot but in Reason presume that there was some Mighty Bus'ness in 't to Produce such Wonderful Effects Little Imagining that Otes's Popish Monstrous Snake in the Grass should be found at last to be but a Glow-worm But now to the State of the Kingdom upon the coming of This Blasphemous Saviour of the Nation into the World. A Short View of the Miseries that this Plot brought upon us I am at a loss in the Infinite Variety of Miseries that I have now before me Where to Begin Here 's Soul and Body Life Liberty and Estate Peace of Mind Religion Reputation Charity Truth and Iustice All in fine that can be Dear to a Nation to a Christian or to a Man to the Present Age or to Posterity All This I say at stake and All these Privileges Interests Rights and Duties Swallowed up in a Licentious and Abandon'd Contempt and Violation of All Obligations Sacred and Prophane How many People had we that under the Temptations of Fear Avarice Malice Revenge Envy Ambition Sold themselves to Work Wickedness play'd the Hypocrites with God and the King and Betray'd them Both under the Masque of Loyalty and Religion How many Instances had we of people that had no Other Choice before them but either to Hang or Damn and of Persons that made their Election some the One way and some the Other Only so much Money Cast-in on the Swearing-side as if it had been upon an Estimate betwixt the Body and the Soul to make the Scales Even And so much for Soul and Body Now to Proceed How many Lives taken away by Perjury and Subornation And what Security had Any man for his Life when the Kingdom ran as Quick of False Witnesses as a Cony-Warren of Rabbets and Every mans Breath lay at the Mercy of a Couple of Reprobated Villains Where was the Free-born Subjects Liberty When the Kings Witnesses were only the Re-publicans Beagles to Draw Dry-Foot to the Door of Every Honest or but Suspected Honest Man When Priest-Hunters and Prince-Hunters were One and the Same sort of People What an Intelligence was there betwixt the Evidences and the Catch-Poles When Knights of the Post made More Rogues then the Government had provided Prisons to Receive them When the English of Resolv'd upon the Question was only Take him Iaylor When Mittimus-es ran without Cause shewn and Commitments as Arbitrary as their Keepers-Fees When men were Taken-up and Spirited away without Warrants and made Slaves contrary to Law. What Title had any man to his Estate when a Pair of Affidavit-Sparks Match't like Indentures could Swear him Out on 't When Guinneys pass'd for Popish Medalls Crucifixes for the Reliques of Superstition Choice and Historical Pictures in Honour and Memoriall of the Christian Profession When These Paintings I say went for the Remains of Idolatry When Ordinary Drinking-Plate pass'd for Chalices and men were Rifled Robb'd and Vndone by the Basest of Felons under the Masque of Zeal and Conscience This was Undenyably our Condition in the Matters of Life Liberty and Estate Now to the Next Point of Peace of Minde What could be more Miserable then to live in Perpetual Fears Ielousies Frights and Alarums In fear for the Kings Life the Protestant Religion The Peace of the Government Tyranny Popery Slavery In Fear for Souls Bodies and Fortunes Fires Massacres Portugal-Black-Bills and Smithfield-Faggots In Fear of All that it was Possible for us to Lose or to Suffer and under an Incurable Ielousie of our Governours and our Friends that they meant to Betray us and to bring All These Evils upon us And so for Frights and Alarums Our Danger was to come from All Quarters of the Heavens College Searches the Cellars in the Palace-Yard for fear of Gunpowder There was the Black-Heath Army The Purbeck-Invasion the City-Guards to be Doubled Shaftsbury and Tonge to be Murder'd as Godfrey was And what did they say for All This now Why the Pulpits are Wise and They tell of Squibbs and Fire-Balls to make Sport for the Philistins Such a Lord sat up all night with his Pistols and Blunderbusses about him for fear of a Rising The House knew what they Did when they Voted the Guards to be a Grievance and the Militia to be Rais'd at a Days Warning What Peace of Minde could there Be or rather What Horror of Thought did not they Endure that liv'd under the Continual Agony of These Terrours Neither were we one jot more at Ease in the Matter of Religion for they Bely'd the very Religion that they pretended to and the Practices of the Faction ran directly Counter to All the Precepts of the Gospel Treachery was call'd Truth and Faith. Slander was only Liberty of Speech Perjury was Hallow'd by the Lips and Credit of a Kings-Evidence Forgery if Detected was but a Mistake Rebellion a True Protestant Association A Shamm-Narrative pass'd for the Discovery of a Damnable Hellish Popish Plot and the People were Stirr d-up and Instructed to Hate and Persecute the
Papists in Despite of the Evangelical Precept that bids us Love one Another Subornation was Authoriz'd under the Title of Reward Murder was recommended under the Varnish of Publique Iustice. Atheism was a kind of a Qualification for a man of Interest in This Matter because they were to Talk of God and at the same Time make a Mock of the Belief of any such Power and it was Requisite that the Hardness of their Hearts should be Proof against the Sense of Divine Vengeance and Iustice. There was no Room left for Christian Charity when Every Papist was to Suffer for the Principles of his Party and when they could Make Those Principles to be whatever Themselves pleas'd In All their Holy Leagues Vows Covenants and Associations they have This to say for Themselves that the Hypocrite is of No Religion and Consequently that The lifting up of their Hands unto the Lord and their Solemn Promises In the Presence of God are of No more Force upon people that do not Acknowledge a God then the Oath of a Iew upon the Four Evangelists In the Matter of Reputation How have we Lost our selves at Home and Abroad by Believing Things upon Second Thoughts Incredible and Believing too upon the Testimony of Known Falsaties and Blasted Criminals By setting the Evidence of Common Hirelings and Scoundrells against the Character the Try'd Faith Integrity and Incontestable Loyalty of Men of Honour The King the Queen the Duke and so many other Illustrious Persons on the One side to be Confronted by Miscreants on the Other not to be Nam'd in the Same Page How have we Expos'd the Dignity of our very Profession to make it a Point of Conscience to work so Great a Villany An Instance of our Zeal to Pursue it into so many Barbarous Extremeties and which is more then All to cast a Protestant Cover over One of the Lewdest Impieties that ever was under the Sun and to make it an Impulse of our Religion which was only a Perjurious Conspiracy of State It has Lost us to the Present Age thoroughout the Christian World for the King receiv'd not so much as one Complement of Gratulation from any of the Forreign Ministers for his Deliverance which would have been Otherwise if any of them had Believ'd it It leaves us Expos'd likewise to After-Times Especially Considering that so great Care has been taken by Some for the Transmitting of the Imposture and so Little by Others for the Propagating and Confirming of the Truth And now again we are as much Lost in the Offices of Charity Truth and Iustice. This Plot has turn'd Religion into a Faction and the Animosity which it has begot in us toward Roman Catholiques has utterly Extinguish'd the Love and Veneration we Owe to Christianity it self As to the Next Point Truth and Falshood have Chang'd Places and according to the Mode of the Times the very Quality of it is Inverted too Truth is Ridiculing the Witnesses Invalidating the Plot Arraigning the Iustice of the Nation and Popery in a Disguise whereas Falshood or Perjury is a Thing to Bless God for a Miraculous Discovery a Subject to beg a Pension upon a Wonderful Service to the Protestant Religion and what was This Plot at last but a Blasphemous Slanderous Imagination made up of Lies and Contradictions as I shall set forth by and By. Now over and above all the Rest How was the Iustice of the Nation Abus'd and Impos'd-upon by the Trumperies of Confederacy and Practice even to the Confounding of Right and Wrong Good and Evil and Inverting the very Order and Equity of Reward and Punishment How many Innocent Men were Clapt-up and Kept upon Vnconscionable Expence 'till all they had left in the World was little enough to Clear the Charge of the Prison without Any Cause Assign'd without ever being brought to know their Accusers or their Accusation and forc'd to Content themselves upon their Humble Petition with the Hope of a Mercifull Vote in the Conclusion for their Discharge Paying their Fees without any Reparation while Suborners and False-Witnesses Pester'd the Lobbys Barefac'd with their Crimes as Open as if they had been Writ in their Foreheads So Sacred was Villany and so Hazardous was it for any man to do his Duty 'T is true that upon the First Springing of this Cause a man might for want of Iudgment Thought or Foresight Charitably and Innocently enough be Misled or Mistaken The Evidence was Positive and Bold the Fact Horrid so many Conspirators of Quality to Countenance the Tale and Formalities of the Law in favour of the Witnesses But yet afterward when the Masque came to be Taken off and the whole Web of the Villany to be Vnravel'd the Iustice of the Nation did Then Suffer I say in the Opinion of the World for not doing Immediate Right upon these Miscreants to a Distracted State and People to the Orphans and the Widows that these Forsworn Wretches had made and to the Innocent Bloud that cry'd for Vengeance It gave them some sort of Reputation to let 'em Triumph so long in their Wickedness Insomuch that a Friend of mine Burnt his Fingers in the Case of Otes even for bringing the Bear to the Stake at Last Why This will Destroy the whole Plot they Cry'd as if the leaving of a Nest-Egg would have been such a Comfort to the Nation I speak in This Place rather of Publique then of Private and Personal Iustice for the Indignities they put upon the Government were Infinitely above the Injuries of here and there a Member of it for they Swore the Monarchy it self to Death as well as the Papists They Embroil'd the Order and they Vnsettled the Foundations of it Under Colour of Securing the Kings Person they Cramp'd his Prerogative and took away peoples Inheritances for fear of their Religion How many Incapacities and Disabilities have we seen Created upon the Same Score Now I take the Reason of the Case betwixt a Private Cheat and a Publick to be much the Same If a man Wins my Money by False Dice and I can Prove it I 'le have my Money again and why should not this Equity hold as well now in the Case of a Factions getting any thing from a Government by the Help of False Witnesses There 's a Plot Affirm'd Warranted and Sworn We shall lose our Prince they Cry our Religion Laws Lives and Liberties unless we have such and such Powers put into our hands to Prevent or to Disappoint the Danger The Yielding on the One side is in Confidence and upon Condition of such a Desperate Plot on the Other Now if there be No Plot there 's No Bargain Nay and 't is a Worse Matter Yet if what was Demanded for a Security against One Devillish Plot shall Appear Evidently to be Intended and Apply'd toward the Promoting and the Strengthning of Another A Lapidary sells me at a Horrible Price That which He Warrants for a Ruby of the
Labour'd so long under the Scandal of Oppression Cruelty and Injustice upon the Testimony of so Infamous so Sottish and so Despicable an Impostor Never so many Persons of Honour met in a Court to give Evidence toward the Confounding of so Contemptible a Miscreant Never was any Perjury made-out by so many Vnquestionable Witnesses and Demonstrative Proofs and yet for the Honor of the Criminal it must not be Forgotten how he stood his Ground to the Last I Appeal says he to the Great God of Heaven and Earth the Iudge of All and once more in his Presence and before All This Auditory I Avow my Evidence of the Popish Plot All and every Part of it to be nothing but True and will expect from the Almighty God the Uindication of my Integrity and Innocence THis Last Effort of his from any Other Lips would have Stagger'd a man if the Exact and Wonderfull Agreement of the Testimonies against him and the Palpable Contradictions of his Own Witnesses had left any Possibility for Doubting But from a fellow so Flagitious in the Habit and through the Whole Course of his Life This Last Defyance of God's Power and Iustice Compar'd with the Ordinary Course of his Conversation and Manners did but serve to make the Man All of a piece The Practice and Attempts of Bestiality upon his own Servants after he was preferr'd from a Street-Begger to be a King's Evidence the Falseness of his Malicious Oath against Parker at Hastings His taking the Holy Sacrament over and over so many times for a Cover for his Malitious Treasons These and the Like are Things so Certain and so Notorious that no Mortal that knows his Person can be a Stranger to his Villany My Lord Chief Iustice says indeed that There was a Consult and there was a Conspiracy against the Life of our King our Government and our Religion Not a Consult at the White-Horse in the Strand but a Caball and Association of Perfidious Rebels and Traytors who had a mind to Embroil us in Bloud and Confusion This is the very Truth and may serve for the Winding-up of That Point There was most Indubitably a Republican Plot as has been made appear from the Express Acts of the Plotters Themselves and Trac'd through Every Step of the Proceeding from the very Project and Foundation of it to the Last Resolve of putting it in Execution But This Plot was to be Call'd a Popish Plot according to the True Intent and Meaning of the Revenging Vote which by Interpretation was no more then This That The True-Protestants were to Kill the King and the Papists to be Hang'd for 't Our Accounts Cast-up whether we have Got or Lost by the PLOT WE are now at the Bottom of This Bottomless Bus'ness and we should do very well and like Sober Men and Good Managers of our Honour Time Peace and Mony to Compute a little upon matters So much for Double Guards So much for Treating the King's Witnesses So much among Catch-poles So much in Pensions So much for a Fond to Defray Plot-Charges So much in Narratives So much in Processions and Pope-Burnings So much to Re-imburse Otes and Bedloe the Seaven Hundred Pound a Man they were out of Pocket for the Protestant Cause So much upon Well-Affected Elections So much in Ignoramus Iuries but Discounting All this while for what we have Receiv'd from the Westminster-Insurance-Offices upon the Whole Charge and in One word to see at the Foot of the Account Paper and Pack-Thrid pay'd for whether we have Got or Lost by Part'ner-Ship with Otes and his Adherents and Abetters in This Loyal forsooth This Religious and This English Bloud-Adventure IT is not to be Deny'd and it is already Agreed that King Nation and People have Suffer'd All manner of ways and in a very Great Measure too quite thorough This Period of Otes'es Administration and All for Fear of the Damnable Hellish Popish-Plot Because and by Reason of it and that we were Necessitated to do what we did to secure his Late Majesty and his Government against Popish Conspirators and his Sacred Person against Poyson and Silver Bullets Had it not been for That Damnable Plot the King had been Safe The Queen and the Duke Vntainted and the People had still continu'd in their Wits and in their Duty The Popish Lords had been yet at Liberty the Priests Iesuits and the Godfrey-Men Vnhang'd The Papists might have had Tolerable Quarter among the rest of the King's Subjects and the Honour and Iustice of the English Nation might have yet stood as Fair in the Esteem of Other Christian Princes and States as ever it did So that upon the Vpshot what have we now to say for the Wickedness the Folly and the Madness of Those Times if there was NO Popish Plot at all nor any thing Like it but the Seditious Confederacy of an Ambitious Caball of Iuggling Canting Hypocrites to Murder the King Themselves from behind That Stale What Reparation now for Innocent Bloud and Oppression What Satisfaction or What Effectual Repentance for Those that Preach'd Pleaded Supported Assisted how Innocently soever the Credit of that Diabolical Imposture without making the Churches the Courts of Iustice Coffee-Houses and Other Publique Places Ring as Loud of their Mistakes as ever they did of their Invectives and Clamours The Misleading of People into a Belief of Falsities of This Desperate Kind and Consequence even though I my self take them to be Truths is but next door to the Swearing Men into a Belief of That which I Know to be False That is to say If when I come to find My Own Error I do not Endeavour to set All Those People Right that I Carry'd out of the Way The Shame of a Repentance is not far Remov'd from the Wilfull and Deliberate Committing of a Sin. I do not Expect that My Sermonizing here shall Work upon Those that Shut their Eyes against the Light of Experience and Example though One would think that men should be very Wary of Setting That Door Open over and over again that had been still the Inlet to all our Former Confusions If a Thief Breaks into my House at a Garret-Window I 'le provide Better Barrs and Bolts And Undoubtedly a Government may have a Weak side as well as a Private Habitation and there ought to be as much Care taken to Secure a State against Political House-Breakers upon That Quarter where they ever Enter'd Before A Caution against the same Cheat over again THE President of This Cheat and Pretext and the Sense of the Ruinous Calamities which the Belief of it has brought upon us should methinks Fortifie men against Those Panick Frights and That Childish Ielousie and Credulity that has Wrought us All This Misery And it is not to say that there may be more Reason for This Apprehension at One Time then at Another for let the Reason be Great Little or None at all it works the Same Effect
p. 118. 10. Tong Manag'd the Whole Affair of the Plot from One End to the Other 121. A Brief HISTORY OF THE TIMES PART II. CHAP. I. Sir William Jones'es State of the Evidence about the Popish Plot Presented to His Late Majesty in Councel Oct. 18. 1678. with Notes upon his Report and upon his Opinion of the said Plot. IN the Handling of this Text there are Two General Points that I have still laid the Main Stress of all my Discourses and Thoughts upon First That the very Story of the Popish Design upon the Kings Person Crown and Dignity was an Imposture in the Original Conception of it Secondly That the very Same Treasonous Design was Couch'd and Carry'd-on by Another Party in Truth and in Earnest Under the Cover of That in Common â—ame and Imagination I have so far Clear'd my way to This Question that in the First Part of This Brief History I have Link'd together the Entire Chain of This Project by such a Connexion of Orderly and Parliamentary Proceedings that there 's not so much as one Gap in the Series Not one Knot in the whole Thrid of the History The Exhibits I make use of are their Own Papers and Iournals The Inferences as Natural as it is Possible to Imagine from a Congruity of Premisses And the Deduction of Things is so Full so Plain Faithfull and Regular that for so much as is There Pretended to the Work is done Once for All and Vnanswerable for Ever It sticks only that I Write under a Prejudice and make Ill Things Worse then they Are which forces me to look out a Little for some more Popular Authority then my Own to Support my self upon Upon the Opening of Tong 's commonly called Otes'es Plot Sir William Iones the Kings Attorny General was order'd by his Majesty in Councill Octob. 16. 1678. to make a State of the Evidence against Dr. Fogarty Iohn Fenwick Edward â—etre Iohn Grove William Ireland Iohn Smith Tho. Iennison Tho. Pickering and Richard Langhorn then Pris'ners in Newgate for High Treason in Plotting and Attempting to Assassinate his Majesties Royal Person To which End Otes'es Narrative and other Papers of Enformation were Transmitted by the Clerks of the Councill to the Atturney General who upon Perusal of them Returned his Report under the Title of A State of the Evidence Dated Octob. 18. 1678. and Subscribed W. IONES The Report is Long and the Greatest Part of it Narration only which is Little or Nothing to our purpose So that Abstracting the one from the other I shall only make use of what may serve to the Clearing of the matter in hand If says Mr. Attorny the Testimony of Titus Otes be to be Credited and If a Single Witness in this Case of High Treason is Sufficient without All Question This Horrible and Execrable Treason is Fully and most Evidently Prov'd not only as to the Wicked Design in General but as to every one of these Particular Persons This is no more then to say That If Otes Bee to be Credited the Charge is so far Prov'd If he be Not to be Credited the Enformation falls to the Ground The Pinch lies here upon Otes'es Credit and a Single Testimony with an IF to Both. And a Little Lower he referrs to his Narrative and other Examinations with the same Qualification still i. e. IF what he Swears be True Concluding that the Probability of Particulars doth much depend upon the Truth of the General This was a Judgment grounded upon Honour and Iustice And if This Rule had been Observ'd in the Following Tryals That is to say if the Detecting of him to be Corruptly and Willfully Forsworn in some Cases should have Blasted his Evidence in All a great deal of Innocent Bloud might have been sav'd which for ought I know stands at This day upon Accompt for the Nation it self to answer for The Next Thing Remarkable is his Report upon the Five Windsor Letters as they are Call'd There are allso Certain Letters he says Five in Number which are All Directed to Mr. Bedingfield at Windsor One of them Subscribed Nich. Blundel and Dated Aug. 29. Superscribed Thus For Mr. Bedingfield at his Lodgings in Windsor Leave This with the Post-Master at Windsor to be Delivered to him The Effect of which Letter as to the Present Purpose is that Blundel was very Carefull of Encouraging W. and P. by which is conceiv'd to be meant Grove and Pickering who as Otes hath before Deposed had Vndertaken to Assassinate his Majesty to put on strong Resolutions And that if the Business hit not at Windsor to be ready to attend 48. which as Mr. Otes before Deposeth signifieth the KING It further saith that Ours here are very Devout that after so long Patience they may Enjoy Catholique Religion in a way more Publique then now they do Certainly we can never fail since we have so many Strings to our Bow. 48 is secure and All our Party very Faithful The Other Four were all enclos'd in One Cover The First whereof subscribed John Fenwick and superscribed For Mr Bedingfield at Windsor Recommended to the Post-Master there 'till he should Call for it This Letter is Dated the 26 th of August without the Year and so much thereof as concerns the Present Matter is that 48 is prepar'd for and you are desired to be Kind to the Four Worthy Persons of the Irish Nation that are Vigilant Good Men and will do Service for us in These Parts They are Religious and though not of the Society yet Lovers of Us and are resolved to Ioyn Issue with us in Dispatching Forty-Eight A Third Letter which was Enclos'd in the same Cover is Subscribed FOGOTY without Date or Superscription or Seal only it Begins with Good Mr. Benyfield That which is therein Contained relating to This Matter is that he prays Mr. Benyfield to be Kind to Those Four Countrymen of his who are Good Men and would do the Business A Fourth which was also in the same Cover is subscribed Irland Directed to Mr. Benyfield and Dated at Flamstead August 1. 1678. It Imports that there is No Need of Telling him their Good Success because Intimated already That they did Expect Mr. Fenwick Every day to give them Account of the Progress made in the Business of 48. and prays him to be Carefull of it's Dispatch if Possible The Fifth and Last Letter bears Date as the Last and also from Flamstead subscribed T. White and is Directed to Mr. Benyfield So much thereof as Concerns the Matter in hand is to beg him to Encourage Fogoty and the rest of Ours These Letters if they can be so Prov'd as to be Believ'd to be the Hands of the several Persons by whom they are said to be Written do fully make out the Guilt of the Writers and do much Confirm all the rest that hath been Deposed by Mr. Otes Mr. Otes hath Deposed them to be the Hands of the Persons whose Names are
As to All which the Art of Man cannot find out any Remedy as long as there is a Popish Successor and the Fears of a Popish King And Therefore I humbly Move you This Bill may Pass p. 94. That is to say the Bill of Exclusion Without the Exclusion-Bill there can be no Expedient p. 192. All other Acts of Grace will but serve to Fatten us for the Slaughter of our Enemies p. 193. I am against the Vote that was Propos'd That the Dukes being a Papist hath rendred him Uncapable of the Crown for that were to take on us a Legislative Power but let your Question be That it is the Opinion of This House that the Kings Person nor Protestant Religion Cannot be Secure without That Bill p. 248. In the First Suggestion there is not only a Sedition Predicted but Tacitly Encourag'd and the Question is no longer a Popish Conspiracy but a Popish Successor the Apprehension being now remov'd from the Plot to the Religion So that the Cause was not the Same in the Political Agitation of it that it was in Westminster-Hall before a Court of Iustice For in the One Case the Duke was to be Disinherited for being the Presumptive Head of the Conspiracy And in the Other he was to be Precluded for being of the Communion of the Church of Rome And it is very Notable Likewise quite thorough that there was not One Argument against the Successor that was not Levell'd at the King in Possession too And the Doctrine of Excluding his Royal Highness did not only Authorize the Deposing of his Late Majesty but had many Years before Actually Cut-off the Head of his Blessed Father We have had Sir W. Iones's Thoughts already upon Otes and his Plot in his State of the Evidence It comes now to be Enquired into what Opinion the same Sir William Iones had of the Credit of the same Otes and the same Plot at the King's Bench at Westminister upon the Tryals of Green Berry and Hill. Feb. 10. 1673 9. And afterward at the Tryal of William Viscount Stafford c. upon an Impeachment of the Commons of England in November and December 1680. Upon a matter of Four Months Consideration in the Former Tryal Computing from his State of the Evidence Oct. 18. 1678. And above Two Years time to advise with his Second thoughts afterward in the Latter wherein he acted as one of the Committee appointed to Manage the Evidence I was saying somewhat e'en now that upon the First starting of this Mysterious Sham the Topique was so Popular and the People so prepar'd to be Cozen'd that there was not One Man of Forty but Believ'd more or less of that Romance though from that time to this the Credit of it God be Thanked has gone on Lessening and Lessening still 'till in the Conclusion there 's not One Man of a Thousand that does not look upon it in his Conscience and in his Iudgment to have been a Bloudy and a Scandalous Cheat Now if Sir William Iones gave it more Reputation after Two Years Time for Scrutiny and Recollection and where the Lives of so many Men of Honour Faith and Integrity to their Prince were at Stake upon the Issue of the Cause then ever he thought it Worthy of upon the First Summing-up of the Depositions he was the Only Man certainly of the three Kingdoms of whom it may be said that the Longer he Consider'd of it the Better he Lik'd it For it is Naturally and Reasonably to be Presum'd that he had all the Enformations and Suggestions Pro and Con under his Eye and that if there were any Considerable Number of Gross Contradictions and Inconsistences in the Evidence he was Undoubtedly so much Master of his Bus'ness as to Retrieve and to Discover the Intrigue So that taking for Granted that he wanted neither Means nor Brains nor Industry to Carry him the nearest way to his Iourneys End it must be Concluded that he Saw as much of the matter as was to be Seen and that he knew as much of it as was to be known But how far he Emprov'd those Advantages to the Delivering of the Innocent is Submitted to an Impartial Censure and Consideration in that which Follows And First upon the Tryals about Sir Edmundbury Godfrey The Cause of Green Berry and Hill 't is True was not so Properly Otes'es Plot in Strictness as a Superstructure Rais'd upon it Though all the Pretended Proofs of the General Plot Involve a Iustification of Otes'es as the Foundation of the Whole Project Beside that Otes could have done no more without his Coroborating Fellow-Swearers then They Could have done without His Scheme of Articles to Swear by So that though the Story of Godfrey does not Affect Otes to Borrow his own Word Yet Bedloe and Prance do mightily affect him in Lending him an Affidavit or two toward the Crutching up of an Impotent Plot that by this time was Lame of all Four. Nay take the matter Aright and according to the Iust Reason of the Thing Green Berry and Hill were not Hang'd so much for Godfrey as for Otes for it was for the Plots sake that the Murder was brought-on They wanted Seconds to the Conspiracy and so made use of a fresh Brace of Miscreants to Kill Two Birds with One Stone They that would Swear False to a Plot would Swear false to a Murder And they that would Swear False to a Murder would Swear False to a Plot So that begin where you will T'other comes-on in Course and it breaks no Squares betwixt the Devil and the Client whether he Pawns his Soul for One Perjury or for Two or which goes First In the Tryals of Green Berry and Hill Mr. Attorny General has these Words My Lord As Murder is allways a very Great Crime So the Murder which is now to be Tryed before your Lordship is it may be the Most Heinous and Barbarous that ever was Committed The Murder was Committed upon a Gentleman and upon a Magistrate And I wish he had not Therefore been Murder'd because he was a Protesâ—ant Magistrate Greens Tryal fol. 6.7 If Sir William Iones had been Minded of Another Murder wherein both the Gentleman the Magistrate and the Protestant were Maliciously and Rebelliously brought to the Scaffold in the Person of a Most Gracious a Pious and a Lawfull Prince he would not I hope have accounted the Murder there in Question to have been the most Heinous and Barbarous that ever was Committed Especially Valuing himself as he does some Three or Four Lines after upon the Pains he had taken for the Perfect Vnderstanding of This Affair I says he that have made a Strict Examination into this Matter do find that I shall better spend my Time in making Observations and shewing how the Witnesses do Agree After the Evidence given then Before Ibid. This Declaration of Mr. Attorny reaches as well to Otes'es Plot as to Godfreys Murder and it is
so Still p. 170. This was a Shot at Random I hope without considering where it would fall for it makes All Men whatsoever without any Exception of Persons to be either Fools or Knaves that were not of the Managers Pretended Opinion I call it Pretended because I look upon it as a Flight of his Rhetorique rather then a Motion of his Conscience And that it was Design'd to work upon the Passions of those that heard him rather then upon their Iudgments This Liberty does not only give every Honest Thinking Man an Honourable Right but puts him upon a Defensive Necessity of Throwing-off that Infamous Character let it Light where it Will and of Rangeing the Fools and the Knaves on the Other side But This is a Sentence however with Two Edges One way he makes People Conspirators and Abetters for not Believing the Plot at a Uenture whether the Supposed Fact be True or False The Other way he makes a General Plot on 't by taking All Into 't that do not Believe it But as to the Proof now of a General Plot If Otes'es Plot falls there Remains No General Plot to Prove upon Colemans Letters are a Particular Matter of a Personal Practice and Vndertaking And His Crime at the Vttermost Stretch of it amounted to no more then a Forward Intermeddling with State-Matters without a Commission I could never find out the least Colour in that whole Proceeding to Imagine any sort of Affinity that Colemans Letter-Plot had with Sir Will. Iones'es pretended Narrative Plot. He had a Plot undoubtedly upon the Fing'ring of French Mony But without any Malice in my Conscience against Either King or Government Sir William Iones draws Inferences from the Jesuits Several Meetings Their Raising of Arms and Gathering of Moneys toward the Execution of their Design fol. 169. Certain Imaginary Commissions to Popish Lords Seditious Sermons and Discourses Ibid. All which is upon Otes'es Bottom still And so my Lord Staffords being at Fenwicks Chamber and his Bolting-out Treasonous Words in Otes'es Hearing against the King fol. 170. The Pages 178. 179 are spent in Iustifying Otes wherein Sir William does not only admit Otes'es Change of Religion but even blesses Providence for 't in these Words I am sure it is happy for us that he Did Change his Religion Without That we had not had the First Knowledge of the Plot nor of many Particulars which he could not come to know but by Occasion of that Change fol. 179. This was a Mighty Mistake for we had the First Knowledge of the Plot from Tonge And then for so great a Man there was as unlucky an Oversight Sir William Iones upon the Summing-up of the Evidence makes Otes to be a Papist though He Himself Swore he was None in the Tryall Nay and he raises Arguments from his Being the Thing that he Swore he was Not and Emproves His Forswearing Himself to the Advantage of his Evidence I desire to know says my Lord Stafford whether Mr Otes was Really a Papist or did but Pretend Otes I did only Pretend I was not Reaâ—â—y One I Declare it fol. 123. The Evidence says Sr W. in another Place is so Strong that I think it admits of No Doubt and the Offences prov'd against My Lord and the Rest of his Partâ— are so Foul that they need no Aggravation The Offences are against the King against his Sacred Life against the Protestant Religion nay against All Protestants for it was for the Extirpation of All Protestants out of These Three Nations I mean not of Every one that is Now so but of Every one that would have Continu'd so Every one amongst us if These Designs had been Accomplish'd must either have Turn'd his Religion or turn'd out of his Country or have been Burn'd in it fol. 186. Here 's a Charge of Treason against every Papist in the Three Kingdoms to a Single Man Every Protestant Throat to be Cut or to fly his Country or to Turn or to Burn. Taking away the Kings Life and the Extirpating of the Protestant Religion by Violence were the Points of the Conspiracy what could be more Incentive toward an Vniversal Tumult What more Repugnant to Christian Charity and to Common Sense then to Build such Conclusions upon the Testimony of Abandon'd Cheats and the Visionary Extravagances of Dreamers of Dreams for such was Tonge most Superstitiously according to the Letter But to carry it further yet All These Pretences have been Detected for a Forgery and a Counter-Plot Prov'd on the Other side to Answer Every Malicious Point of This. What Atonement is the whole World able to make for the Affronts that have been put upon Gods Providence Truth and Iustice upon the Honour of the King the Peace of the Kingdom and the Reputation of the Oppress'd and Injur'd Party But to return to my Point It will deserve one word more now after Otes'es Passing Muster for a Competent and a Credible Witness according to Sr William Iones'es Qualifications and Measures to take a little notice on the other side what it is that he makes to be an Incapacity for a Warrantable and a Creditable Discharge of that Duty 'T is no great Wonder where a Profligate Sodomite and a Common Knight-of-the-Post passes for a Testis Probus to See a Man of Honour upon tâ—e File for an Infamous Rascal Sir William Iones makes his Exceptions to Mr. Lydcot's Evidence which he gave Concerning My Lord Castlemain Lord Staffords Tryal pag. 115. c. I refer the Reader to the Tryal it self and he will find no need of a Gloss upon the Text to shew him how that Worthy Honest Gentleman was handled in Court by the Manager But He that would more Particularly Enform himself in the Ground of Sir Williams Exceptions must look for his Crime fol. 177. upon Summing-up the Evidence A Man says Sir W. Iones that owns himself the Continual Companion and Secretary of one so Famous in the Popish Party as my Lord Castlemaine is A Man that Pretends he was never out of his Company And a Man that owns that two Years since he was Taking of Notes at a Trial for This Plot Not only for his Curiosity but for his Lord who was Concern'd in the Accusation That This Man should be a Fellow of Kings College seems Strange and 'till it be better Prov'd will hardly be Believ'd Nor will he deserve any Credit From one End to the other of This History of the Pretended Popish Conspiracy the Weight of the Proof still rests upon Otes'es Probity and Reputation and the Whole Frame has nothing more to Support it then Flourish and Noise The Proof and Character of a Licentious and Habitual Dissolution of Manners through the Entire Course of Otes'es Conversation is still Blown-off with one of These Two Banters Set a Rogue to Catch a Rogue That is to say He must be a Party to the Treason to Qualify him for a Testimony The other
One to Another then Chalk is to Cheese But not to Clogg the Bus'ness with Unnecessary Recitals the Second Volume of Observators has Instances in abundance of This Kind and particularly Num. 61.62.72 Upon Otes'es Veracities and Number 141.142.186 c. upon the Harmony betwixt Prance and Bedloe 3 ly As it stands Clear from the Nature of the Case and according to Common Reason and Vsage that Sir William Iones must of Necessity have All Those Enformations either Before him or at Command out of which he was to Extract a State of the Evidence and without which it was not Possible for him to do it So does he likewise Acknowledge in his Report the Receit of Those Papers whereupon he was to Ground his Opinion and to Deliver his Iudgment Now to Stop the Mouths of a Certain Republican Caball that at That Time made such a Noise about the Providential Discovery of This Plot and call'd for Humiliation in Sack-Cloth and Ashes to Appease the Divine Wrath and if Possible to Avert This Mock-Iudgment from us The Greatest Providence that ever appear'd in favour of This Conspiracy was That a Person so Quick-Sighted to All Other Purposes as to find out the Invisible Religion of This Cheat should Overlook so many Gross Frauds and Notorious Contradictions that lay in so Great Numbers and in so many Several Shapes under his Eye without taking any Notice of them at all Now in Truth the Iudgment was not the Reality of a Popish Plot but the Belief of such a Plot where there was None Assisted with a Blind Infatuation that Hindred men from seeing a True Conspiracy thorough the Cover of a False one But to say no more of the Miracle of These Oversights there is One Slip yet behind which the Wit of Man shall never be able to Excuse No nor so much as to Palliate with the least Colour of a Defence That is to say the Bus'ness of the Five Windsor-Letters with which I intend to Close This Chapter Before I come to Touch This Matter to the Quick it is Previously to be Noted and made Known that Tong 's or Otes'es Narrative of Articles was already as good as Hung upon the Hedge for want of Collateral Evidence The Story of Pickering Grove made Little or no Impression upon his Majesty And then the Disappointment of the Ruffians going to Windsor made the Story yet More Suspicious 'till in the Conclusion Bedingfields Pacquet of Letters Confirm'd the King that there was No Plot at all and that the Whole was a Forgery according to the Account already given in The Impartial State of the Case of the Earl of Danby The Gradation of the Proceeding lies Thus. First The Truth of the Narrative was Suspected 2 ly The Bus'ness of Grove and Pickering that were brought in to Support One Capital Branch of the Narrative made it yet More Suspected 3 ly The Slurr that was put upon the Earl of Danby in the Sham of the Windsor Ruffians in pursuance of Groves and Pickerings Design render'd Matters still Worse and Worse And 4 ly The Invention of the Iesuits Letters that were Trump'd-up in hopes of Gaining Credit both General and Particular to the Entire Train of the Enformation put a Final End to the Reputation of All that had been Said or Done Before There is enough said already in it's Proper Place to the Marks of Practice and Confederacy In and Upon These Letters The way of their coming to Light as Sr William Iones well Observes is somewhat Extraordinary Tong and Otes could not be Believ'd and so they Remitted themselves to the more Certain and Infallible Proofs that would Arise they said upon the Intercepting of Some Iesuites Letters at the Post-Office in Windsor according to their Directions The Letters as is formerly said fell into the Wrong Hand for though they were Address'd to Bedingfield it was never Intended that he should have the Opening of them But as Providence Order'd the Matter so it Prov'd and the Pretended Conspirator was Himself the Discoverer Against Himself This was only Introductive but the Main Stress lies upon the Design and Subject-Matter of These Letters whether they were Believ'd or Not Believ'd If they were Not Believ'd why did not the Credit of the Letters and of the Plot Vanish Together if they Were Believed how came it that thorough the Whole Series of the Prosecution they were never made Vse of No not so much as Nam'd toward Supporting the Belief of This Conspiracy How came it I say that These Letters that were only Exhibited to keep the Sinking Reputation of the Narrative above Water should fall to the Ground Themselves and the Narrative yet Stand Firm without a Foundation As for Example According to the Project of the Plot and the Pretext of the Narrative the King was to be Murder'd FORTY EIGHT was the Cypher for the King Grove under the Name of Honest William and Pickering were to be Two of the Assassins Four Irish Ruffians over and above Catholique Religion to be Settled Ireland and Scotland Engag'd in the Plot Bedingfield Ireland White Fenwick Fogarthy Blundel were All in the Black List of the Conspirators It is Worthy of a Consideration now to see how These Blundering Buzzards brought their Five Letters for Theirs they were to Square with These Particular Heads though so Awkardly put together that the Fool play'd Booty against the Knave and gave the Sign out of his hand The Five Pretended Writers are Five of the Conspirators and they Direct to Bedingfield who makes up the Sixth 'T is a Wonderfull Thing now that These Letters were never Charg'd upon Ireland White nor Fenwick at their Tryals And in Truth that the Pris'ners Themselves never Call'd for ' em Either they were Genuine and Authentique and so Believ'd and Reputed or they were Not so If the Former they were without All Controversy the Best Foot the Plot had to Stand upon but if Spurious and Counterfeit and so Deemed and Taken to be the Plot and the Letters ought to have run the Same Fate and no Credit to be given for the Future either to the One or to the Other For the very Plot it self was Wrapt-up in these Letters and the Pretence of the Indubitable Authority of the Latter was made use of to Patch-up the Broken Reputation of the Former Three of them Undertake for the Good Inclinations of Ireland to the Plot. Two for Scotland Four of them are over and over for Dispatching anddoing the Bus'ness of 48. Two Recommendations of the Four Irish Ruffians One for the Encouragement of W. and P. That is to say Grove and Pickering G. W. for Sir George Wakeman is not forgotten neither Nor the Enjoying of Cath. Religion in a way more Publique then now they do In a Word The Plot and the Letters had both the Same Vouchers and I cannot find an Argument in Nature for the Belief of the One after the Disbelief of the Other If
Invasions Past Present and to Come Nothing in short came Amiss to him Order'd that Dr. Tong and Mr. Otes be Summon'd to Attend the Bar of This House at Four a Clock in the Afternoon to give an Account Touching the Plot and the Conspiracy c. Commons Journal Oct. 25. 1678. Order'd that Dr. Tong do Attend again to morrow Morning to give an Account concerning the Fire of the City of London Ib. Here 's a Manifestation sufficient of the Hand Interest and Design that Dr Tong had in the Plot and the Encouragement he met withall on the One side was in All Respects Answerable to the Zeal he Express'd for the Promoting of it on the Other As will be further seen hereafter But yet the Wisdom of the Nation was Certainly never more over-shot then in laying any sort of Stress upon the Credit of His Report For over and above the Absurdity of his Reasons the Impotence of his Passions and the Scandal of his Authorities that lye Open for All the World to Judge of he Cuts his Own Throat with his Own Hand in a Petition to That very House of Commons that seem'd to Believe him by laying Reasons Vnanswerable before them why they Ought Not to Believe him wherein he Declares and Affirms that he had no Knowledge of any Person Charg'd or Suspected to be in the Confederacy Hardly of any One Popish Gentleman in England So that here 's a Popish Plot Undertaken to be Prov'd against so many Persons by Name And That Proof Accepted for Current when the very Accuser himself Confesses and Declares that he knows not so much as any One Conspirator But an Infallible Vote Solves Impossibilities and Reconciles Contradictions A Plot is â—esolv'd upon A Plot there Is and a Plot there Must be though they fetch it out of the Grave again after so many Years Dead and Bury'd This is a Story so Silly Flat and Nauseous that I should hold my self Oblig'd to beg a Publique Pardon for Exposing it if it were not for These Two Vses of Application First to shew the Senseless Ground and Foundation of All our Late Troubles and Distresses And Secondly That there is No Tale or Fable so Monstrous or Incredible that Prejudice and Credulity shall not make to Pass for Gospel This Plot in fine such as it is was Tongs Plot The Project of it Copy'd-out from That of Habernfeld and no more upon the Whole then One Forgery Grafted upon Another But This will be Best Clear'd by Confronting the Two Narratives The Parallel will be somewhat Large but my hand is now In 't is a Matter of Moment that Depends upon 't and so the Case will the Better Bear it CHAP. IV. The Pretended Popish Plot of 1678. was only a Copy drawn from Habernfelds Original of 1640. THe History of Habernfeld's Discovery was first Published in Forty Three by Prynne in his Romes Master-Piece having been seiz'd by him as he sets it forth in his Preface in the Arch-Bishops Chamber in the Tower by Warrant from the Close Committee May. 31. 1643. His Introduction is a kind of Synopsis of the Whole Relation which Prynne Pronounces for so Indubitable a Truth that Whoever deems it an Imposture may well be Reputed an Infidel he says if not a Monster of Incredulity To which I may Interpose that I have known many of Mr Prynne's Infidels and Monsters that have been very Good Christians and very Honest Men. Upon the Coming-forth of Otes'es Popish-Plot-Narrative in 1678. The Old Story of Habernfeld was Reprinted under This Title The Grand Designs of the Papists in the Reign of our Late Sovereign Charles the 1 st And now Carry'd on against his Present Majesty his Government and the Protestant Religion The Prefacer seems to be Absolutely of Tong 's and Otes'es Opinion upon the Matter in Question about the Two Plots only with This Difference That the One Illustrates the Old Plot by the New one and the Other Illustrates the New Plot by the Old one and so there 's an Inference Interchangeably drawn from the Resemblance of the Counterfeit to the Authority of the Story But over and above These Considerations it seems to Me not unlikely that Tonge had some hand in the Publication For it came out just after my Refusal to License his Royal Martyr where the Stress was laid upon That Point And the Conspiracy being at That Time Hot from the Forge Tong could not do better then by Matching the President to make One Sham Vouch for Another It is not the Design of These Papers says the Publisher to give an Account of the Discovery of the Late Plot but only to Present the Reader with the Narrative of Another against his Majesties Royal Father of Blessed Memory So Exactly resembling This which now lies under Examination that it can hardly be call'd Another Being nothing else but the Same thing Acted over again only with the Necessary Alteration of Circumstances of Time Places and Persons Preface After this Preface follows a Paper Entitled Sir William Boswell's First Letter to the Arch-Bishop concerning the Plot. Dated Hague Sep. 9. 1640. which he dispatch'd away to the Arch-Bishop with one from Habernfeld Enclosed under the Title of Andreas ab Habernfeld's Letter to the Arch-Bishop concerning the Plot Revealed to him This is Accompany'd with Another Paper Entitled The General Overture and Discovery of the Plot. And there is likewise a Third Paper of Habernfelds which he calls The Large and Particular Discovery of the Plot and Treason against the King Kingdom and Protestant Religion and to raise the Scottish Wars The Story is Heavy and there 's too Much on 't to be Inserted at Length but my Bus'ness being only to set forth the Resemblance betwixt the Two Plots and to run the Parallel the Heads of the Relation in Abstract will abundantly Answer My End And when I shall have gotten over This part of the Proceeding a Man may properly enough Enquire into the Merits of the Whole Matter and see what Opinion the King Himself the Arch-Bishop and Sr William Boswell had of This Discovery To take the Particulars as they Rise and to Apply the Parallel to Those Points in the Same Order as I find them in the Original I shall begin with the Preface and run thorough both the Abstract of Habernfeld and Tong 's Counter-Part in as Few Words as Possible The Parallel of the Two Plots The Discoverer he says was a Chief Actor in This Plot sent hither from Rome by Cardinal Barbarini to Assist Con the Popes Legat in the Pursuit of it and Privy to All the Particulars therein Discovered Preface And was not Our Prime Discoverer Otes a Chief Actor too Sent over from St Omers to Assist the Plot and about the Iesuits Affairs Lord Staffords Tryal fol. 28. Intrusted with Commissions Iesuits Tryal fol. 13. Tempted to Kill the King Narrative Ar. 60. Dispatched with Proposals to the Carmelites about it fol.
61. Order'd to Manage the Fire at the Hermitage 71. To carry the White-Horse Consult from Company to Company fol. 18. And was not Our Discoverer Privy to Wakeman's Poyson Conyers'es Dagger Pickerings Screw'd-Gun and the Silver Bullets The History of the Black-Bills the Pilgrims Ruffians and the Levies of Men and Mony c. Was not Otes privy to a matter of Eighteen Commissions Military and Civil under the Hand of Ioannes Paulus De Oliva by Vertue of a Brief from the Pope as he Swore before the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs One of them to Iohn Lambert to be Adjutant-General to the Army and Nine or Ten of them Deliver'd with his Own Hand Was he not Privy in fine to the Price of the Whole Villany to a Single Six-Pence So that as to the matter of Privity the Privity of Habernfeld and his Principal is quite Out-done by the Privity of Tong and Otes who according to their Narrative and Pretensions were Vndoubtedly Privy to Fifty times more then ever any Two men upon the face of the Earth were Privy to before them The Discoverer says the Preface again was Troubled in Conscience and Therefore Disclosed the Conspiracy Renounc'd That Bloudy Church and Religion though Promised Greater Advancements for his Diligence in This Design Ib. And what was it but Horror of Conscience too if we may believe Oaths either Iudicial or Extrajudicial that made our Converted Discoverers whether Papists Bred-up or Proselyted to Disclose This Popish Treason and to Renounce That Bloudy Religion in Defiance of All Offers of Rewards and Advancement Was not Dugdale to have 500 l. Lord Staffords Tryal p. 43. And to be Sainted Ib. 44. Was not Bedloe to have 4000 l. in the Case of Godfrey Greens Tryal p. 30. And might not Otes and all his Fellows have come in for Their Snips to if their Consciences would have Touch'd But This Plot was Discover'd under an Oath of Secrecy says the Preface and the Discoverer Offer'd his Own Oath too in Confirmation of the Particulars Ib. What was Bedloes Sacrament of the Altar Twice a Week to Conceal the Plot Greens Tryal fol. 33. but an Oath of Secrecy Dugdale took at least Ten Sacraments of Secrecy Sr George Wakemans Tryal p. 10. Otes an Oath of Secresy at Weld-House-Chappel Irelands Tryal p. 28. And then there was Another Oath of Secrecy taken at Fox-Hall too And so for the Rest Our Discoverers did not only Offer but Deliver their Own Oaths in Confirmation of Every Article Habernfeld Discovers Persons Places and Times of Meeting too Ib. And does not Otes Discover the Lords in the Tower and such Others of the Nobility and Gentry as are in the Conspiracy See his Narrative from fol. 61. to the End. Their Priests Iesuits and Papists of All Sorts The Times and Places of their Meetings Even to the Year Week Day Nay and sometimes to the very Hour One while at the Savoy Another while at the White-Horse Russel-Street Weld-Street and the like Well! But Habernfeld's Principal Conspirators are known to be Fit Instruments for such a Design Ib. And are not Otes'es as Fit Instruments as Habernfelds The Principals are most of them Men of Quality Brains Interest and Estate and Consequently better Qualify'd then other People for the Execution of any Mischief they have a Mind to Beside that as 't is a Popish Plot they are not only to be All Roman Catholiques but All made Principals too without leaving so much as One Soul of them to Witness for Another Now as there 's no Means of Clearing them on the One hand saving by Palpable Blunders and Contradictions on the Part of the Accusers So if any of 'em will Swear to the Hanging-up of his Fellows on the Other Hand he is presently made Sacred under the Character of a Kings Evidence and Touch not his Majesties Witness carries more Authority along with it then Touch not the Lords Anointed The Preface says further that Sir W. Boswell and the Arch-Bishop if not the King Himself were fully Satisfy'd that the Plot was Reall Ib. Men may be Satisfy'd in the Reality of a Thing and yet Mistaken about it As we have found many Men in Both Plots that have Seem'd to be Satisfy'd and yet afterward abundantly Convinced that they were Abus'd So that the Belief of a Thing does not Necessarily Inferr the Truth of it but it must be the Work of Time and Scrutiny to Perfect the Discovery Neither do I find Effectually that there was so much Credit given to Habernfelds Plot as is here Suggested A Nemine Contradicente is No Article of my Faith Though it says that There Is and Hath been a Damnable and Hellish Plot Contriv'd and Carry'd on by Popish Recusants for Assassinating and Murdering the King for Subverting the Government and Rooting-out and Destroying the Protestant Religion Commons Iournal Oct. 31. 1678. Though I must Confess they had One Powerfull way of Convincing Men by the Argument of Swearing them out of their Reputations Lives Liberties and Fortunes if they would Not Believe it The Parallel holds thus far Exactly and we 'le see now how it Suites with the Minutes of Habernfelds Letter to the Arch-Bishop which I have made as short as I can for the Readers Ease and for my Own. The Minutes of Habernfelds Letter Beside Expectation This Good Man says Habernfeld speaking of the First Discoverer became Known unto me p. 1. By the same Providence it was that Otes Bedloe Prance and Twenty more of our Plot-Merchant-Adventurers came Acquainted Bedloe Swore to the Lords that he did not know Otes 'till it came out by Providence that he knew him as Ambrose but not as Otes And so Otes to requite his Kindness knew Williams though he did not know Bedloe 'T was such another Wonderfull Providence Bedloes knowing Prance over a Pot of Ale at Heaven after he had Enquired and been Told which was Prance in the Commons-Lobby Damme says Bedloe That 's one of the Rogues that Murder'd Sr Edmundbury Godfrey As to the Scottish Stirs he speaks of p. 1. Otes'es Missionaries Answer Habernfelds Scotch Lords of whom hereafter The Factions of the Iesuits thorough England and Scotland p. 2. and the Discoverers Descant we have in Dr. Beale's Readings to Tong upon them Otes'es Narrative â—its the Adjacent Writing there spoken of Ib. Habernfeld got Free Liberty to Treat Ib. And so did Tong. There must be No Delay says Habernfeld Ib. Make Otes'es Enformation a Record Immediately says Tong And so away goes the One to Sr William Boswell Ib. the Other to Sr Edmund-bury Godfrey And now forward As Some Principal Heads in Habernfeld's Relation were purposely Pretermitted p. 3. So Bedloe shorten'd his Evidence against Whitebread and Fenwick in the Iesuits Tryal and Swore Further after he had Sworn All Before And so did Otes and the rest Purposely Pretermit many things
of Christian Charity suffers them not to Conceal These Things Yet both from his Majesty and the Lord Arch-Bishop some Small Exemplar of Gratitude will be Expected p. 8. These are the very Reasonings and Pretences of Ezrel Tong put into the Mouth of Titus Otes No Figments So help me God No Thought of Gain but Pure Zeal and Christian Charity to work upon the Discoverers But yet some Small Exemplar of Gratitude will be Expected as a matter of Ten or Twelve Pound a Week-Pension for Otes and the Value perhaps of Four or Five times as much more in Presents and Veils A Deanery or some such Trifle for Tong. What is All This but a Flat Contradiction thrown in the very Face of the Pretext It is as Clear as Day that Tong and Habernfeld in All Things Material Walk Hand in Hand thorough the Whole Story But to avoid Idle Repetitions as much as may be I shall in the Next Place make a Short Abstract of Habernfeld's Last and Long Paper of Intelligence and so Finish my Parallel It bears This Following Title And from thence I shall Proceed to the Heads of it The Large and Particular Discovery of the Plot against the King Kingdom and Protestant Religion and to raise the Scottish Wars p. 13. The A King is in Danger of his Life and Crown B England and Scotland to be Subverted The Discoverer of This was Born and Bred in the C Popish Religion being D Fit for the Design p. 13. He was E sent over by Cardinal Barbarini F Troubled in Conscience and G came over to the Orthodox Religion H Reveal'd the Treason to a Friend I Put the Particulars in Writing out of which were drawn K. Articles p. 14. He falls upon the L Iesuitical Off-spring of Cham. p. 15. The M Society are the Conspirators The N Popes Legat is their Chief Patron They hold their O Weekly Intelligences p. 16. Cuneus the Instrument of the P Conjur'd Society He Presents the King with Roman Curiosities Promises but Means it not to Espouse the Cause of the Palatinate p. 17. Offers the Bishop a Cardinals Cap makes use of Court-Instruments and Mediations p. 18. But finding All in Vain Q Ambushes were to be Prepar'd wherewith the Lord Arch-Bishop together with the King should be Taken p. 19. They pass R Sentence against the King and lay hold of the Indignities put upon Prynne Burton and Bastwick and the Scotch Service-Book to stir up the Puritans to a Revenge Some Scottish Popish Lords are sent to Enflame S Scotland by which the T Hurtfull Disturber of the Scottish Liberty might be Slain V An Indian Nut provided by the Society and shew'd to the Discoverer in a W Boasting Manner To Poyson the X King after the Example of his Father p. 21. Hamilton's Chaplain Private with Cuneus A Chaplain of Richelieu's sent over to Assist the Conspiracy A Character given of Sr Toby Mathews p. 22. And an Account of his Intelligences Haunts and Meetings p. 23. The Story of Reade over again p. 24. Iesuits Letters and Meetings And Y All the Papists of England Contributing to the Design p. 25. One Widow Gave Forty Thousand Pound English toward it And Others beyond their Ability in Proportion He follows This with a Ramble upon Several Persons by Name that were dipt in the Conspiracy And further with This Remarkable Discovery The President of the aforesaid Society was my Lord Gage a Jesuit Priest Dead above Three Years since He had a Palace Adorn'd with Lascivious Pictures which Counterfeited Prophaneness in the House but with them was Palliated a Monastery wherein Forty Nuns were Maintained hid in so Great a Palace It is Scituated in Queen Street which the Statue of a Golden Queen Adorns The Secular Jesuits have bought All This Street and have Reduced it into a Quadrangle where a Jesuitical College is Tacitly built with the Hope that it might be Openly finish'd as soon as the Universal Reformation was begun p. 29. To pass a Short Note now upon the Whole The Design upon the A King and B England and Scotland is the General Scope of Otes'es Plot. He pretends to come over from C the Popish Religion No man Fitter for the D Design E sent over F Troubled in Conscience and G Converted The General of the Iesuits at Rome and the Provincial Here did the Parts of Cardinal Barbarini and the Popes Legat. Otes H Revealed the Treason to Tong and I put the Particulars in Writing out of which Tong Extracted K Articles Otes makes M the Society the Conspirators The Provincial serves for N The Popes Legat. The O Weekly Intelligences Grove took an Account of and for Instruments of the P Conjur'd Society Otes'es Narrative has them in abundance The Q Ambushes were laid in St. Iames'es and at Windsor The R Sentence pass'd at several Consults The Rebellion in S Scotland by Irritating the Puritans was Manag'd by Otes'es Missionaries and the King to be Murder'd as the T Hurtfull Disturber of their Liberties Wakemans Poyson was V the Indian Nut and Cuneus's Boasting of it Answers Conyers'es shewing Otes the Dagger in Grays-Inn-Walks Habernfelds Talk of Poysoning the X King after the Example of his Father was Match'd both in the Narrative of Otes'es Plot and Expressly in his Epistle before that Narrative to the Eternal Infamy of the Reporters of it And as Habernfeld Y makes All the Papists of England to be Concern'd in This Conspiracy so Otes in his Epistle and Narrative has made an Vniversal Plot on 't Only we want a Forty-Thousand-Pound Widow to Perfect the Parallel But That Defect is Amply Supply'd in Irish Contributions and Other Secret Services As to the Foolery of the Last Paragraph the Man must be a Great Stranger to London as well as to Common Sense that can look upon it as any other then a most Extravagant Foppery and without any Colour or Coherence After This Large Discovery as the Enformer Pretends comes a Summary in Eleven Heads of the Whole Matter which is only the same over again and is Answer'd over again by the same Parallel Only the 10 th Clause has an Expression in it Worthy of Remarque Some says he of the Principal Vnfaithful ones of the Kings Party are Notify'd by Name Many of whose Names Occur Not yet their Habitations are Known p. 31. Now in Otes'es Muster of the Conspirators it runs Whose Names Occurr at Present Nar. fol. 61. One would have thought they might have Vary'd the Phrase a little But our Modern Discoverers have been much better at Copying then at Inventing Witness This Whole Parallel and the Five Iesuits Letters It must not be Omitted neither that the Order of Politicians which Habernfeld speaks of p. 15. is Learnedly Turn'd forsooth into the Order of POLITITIANI by Otes in his Narrative Art. 53. In Conclusion here 's a Plot Copy'd-out to the Life and the Transcript a most Scandalous and Impious Cheat beyond all Controversy whatever the Original was
But in regard the Publisher Affirms that the Kings Minister and the Arch-Bishop if not the King Himself were fully Satisfy'd in the Reality of it we shall first Examine upon what Grounds the Publisher speaks And after That come to a Fair Reasoning upon the Main Matter in Issue which cannot be so well done as by Delivering the Several Letters at Large and then making a Judgment upon the Whole Proceeding We are got thus far Onward of our way now thorough the Parallel And the Next Question will be This. CHAP. V. Was Habernfelds Modell it self an Historical Truth or a Fiction WHoever looks Narrowly into Habernfelds Plot and the several Parts of it will find it to be rather a Lesson or a Project then the Iust Account of an Historical Truth The Bus'ness of Conscience Oaths of Secresy Enformation and the Circumstances of Who What Where When How c. are only matters of Course for there must be Persons Things Places Time and Manner Assign'd even to the most Extravagant Fiction that ever was in Nature This was the Composition First of Habernfelds Discovery and afterwards of Tong 's Counter-part of it He furnishes Otes with Lights and Instructions Gives the Contrivance the Name of a Conspiracy Titus Plucks up a Good Heart and Swears to 't and so there 's a New Plot made of an Old one It must be Observ'd that This Intelligence of Habernfeld was set afoot when Charles the First was at York in September 1640. to Advise with his Great Councill of Peers about the Scottish Rebellion The Kings Affairs were upon a Pinch and there never was more need of a Forgery to Cast the Scottish Insurrection upon the Papists and to turn the Peoples Hearts From and Against his Majesty then upon that Juncture Especially for a Preparatory to the Work of the Next Parliament that was to Meet Novem. 3. following Upon this Occasion Sir W. Boswell the Kings Minister at the Hague wrote to the Arch-Bishop about This Plot. The Letter is Long and so are the Other Papers upon This Subject but to satisfy the Readers Curiosity they may be seen at Large in the Pamphlet heretofore mention'd or in the First Volume of Dr. Nalsons Collections fol. 467. So that a short Abstract will be enough for my Bus'ness And I shall begin with Sir W. Boswells First Letter He sends Enclos'd in this Letter a Copy of Habernfeld's Enformation concerning the Plot wherein the Points that I shall Remarque upon are Principally These The Discovery was First made to him at Second-Hand and in Speech The Matter was soon after put into Order Avow'd by the Principal Party and Deliver'd him in Writing by Both Together Vpon Promise and Oath to Reveal it only to his Grace and by him to his Majesty Habernfeld remits himself to the Arch-Bishop with a most Earnest Charge of Silence and that No Person be By or within Hearing at the Communicating of it to his Majesty and No Mortal else to know of it There must be no Asking of Names nor of Further Discoveries nor Advertisements nor the Discoverer upon any Terms to be so much as Pointed-at for fear of spoiling the Whole Bus'ness For the King Government and Religion are All at Stake and the Enformer will run Extreme Hazzard of his Person and Life No it must not be so much as Enquir'd How or by What Means the Discoverer came to Know All This. As to Sr William Boswells Opinion of the Matter he â—as these words As I May believe These Overtures are Verifyable in the Way they will be laid and that the Parties will not shrink c. And again If These Overtures happily sort with his Majesties and your Graces Mind c. The Rest is only Praying of Instructions Proposing a Cypher and so with a suitable Decency of Respect in such a Case he Concludes his Letter Hague September 9. 1640. Sti. Loci There was never less perhaps of Surprize or Astonishment the weight of the matter Consider'd then was Express'd upon This Occasion which shews Sufficiently What Opinion the Kings Minister Entertain'd of the Truth of the Story He was Sworn to Secrecy Himself and he Presses it to the Archbishop under the Conscience of That Obligation The Caution is Habernfelds Sr William Boswells Confidence goes no farther then I MAY Believe And then IF These Overtures happily sort with his Majesties and your Graces Mind and shall accordingly prove Effectual in their Operation c. Here 's No Contracting of Bowels No Loins trembling with Horror in the Stile of Habernfeld p. 4. and yet I persuade my self that the Kings Resident had as much Tenderness for the Kings Life as Andreas ab Habernfeld But here 's the Train of my Parallel still even through This Letter it felf Otes'es pretended Discovery was by a Second â—and by Tong And at First in Speâ—ch too which was the Case of Tong again to Mr Kirkby It was likewise Order'd by Tong and soon after Avow'd by the Principal which was Otes and Deliver'd in Writing also by Both Together And so was Otes'es True Narrative Vpon Promise and Oath of Secrecy which Agrees with Young Tong 's Paper of Ian. 5. 1681. When my Father and Otes came to Fox-Hall says he Mr Kirkby was taken in as an Assistant after he had been Sworn to Secrecy And This is Effectually Confirm'd again by Mr Kirkby's Own Narrative which says that Tong Earnestly requested him not to Acquaint any Other Person with it then the King. Nay Habernfeld takes upon him in some sort to Tutor his Majesty by Prescribing to him the very Measures of Faith Iustice and Prudence that he was to Walk by He must not Shew nor Trust nor be Over-heard nor Ask Questions but lay it home to the King as he will Answer it to God in a Case of Conscience c. So that not only Tongs Model but Otes'es Sawcyness was Copy'd after the President of Habernfeld Upon the Whole Matter here are so many Amusements Generalities and Restrictions and the Danger Spun out so far at length that Charles the First might have been Murder'd Fifty times over in the very Time of Habernfeld's telling his Tale And Charles the Second in the Parallel ran the very same Risque in the Discovery of Otes Upon the Receit of Habernfelds from Sr William Boswell his Grace of Canterbury Dispatch'd an Express away immediately to the King and received his own Letter again with his Majesties Directions in the Margent The Marginals are only Assurance of Secrecy Notes of Respect and Directions What to do without laying any Stress upon the Danger of the Conspiracy The Only Passages in the Archbishops Letter for my present purpose are These Following The Danger it seems is Imminent and laid by God knows whom but to be Executed by them that are near about you Now may it please your Majesty This Enformation is either True or there is some Mistake in it If it be True the Persons that
that by Persuasion and Promises from the Jesuits he was drawn over to them that he is not in Orders He KNOWS that Sir Edmundbury Godfrey was Murthered in Somerset-house c. Lords Journal From hence it appears that he had been Examin'd about the Murther and that he was now to give an account to the Lords of what he knew Concerning that Matter But when his Hand was once In he was pleas'd out of a Superabundant Zeal for the Safety of the King and his Government and for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion to Launch out into the Depths of the Plot with a New and Supplemental Evidence Wherein he says further that Walsh and Le Phaire Enform'd him that the Lord Bellassis had a Commission to Command Forces in the North the Earl of Powis in South-Wales and the Lord Arundel of Warder had a Commission from the Pope to grant Commissions to whom he pleased that Coleman had been a great Agitator in the Design against the King and that he asking the Iesuits why they had not formerly told him what they had Design'd concerning the Kings Death they Answered that None but whom my Lord Bellassis gave Directions for were to know it Desired he might have Time to put the whole Narrative in Writing which he had Begun And being asked If he knew Titus Otes he Deny'd it Lords Iournal Nov. 8. 1678. But he had a Salvo for This afterwards which was that he knew him by the Name of Ambrose not by the Name of Otes Journal 29. 1678. And such another Fetch he had in the Case of Whitebread I speak it with a Caution says he That I never heard of Whitebread that he was so very much Concern'd And indeed I had No Reason to say so because I heard him my self and could not so well speak from the Hear-say of Another Five Jesuits Tryals P. 32. Immediately upon This Evidence an Order was Pass'd to make a Strict Search for Charles Walsh Le Phaire and other Suspicious Persons c. and an Address the Day following for a Proclamation against Conyers Simmonds Walsh Le Phaire Pritchard and Cattaway as Persons Guilty of the Damnable and Hellish Plot c. Nov. 12. 1678. The Lord Marquess of Winton reported that the Committee appointed to take Examinations for the Discovery of the Murther of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey have spent Many days therein and do present the House Two Examinations of Mr. William Bedloe and some Examinations of several other Persons His Lordship said that the Lords Committees did Conjure William Bedloe to speak Nothing but Truth and he did in the Presence of God as he should Answer it at the Day of Iudgment assure All to be true he had Depos'd Lords Journal Then the Examinations taken November the 8th 1678. at the Committee of Lords for Enquiring into the Murther of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey were read Lords Journal After he had spoken to the Murther he proceeds as before to the Plot but not without Intermixing here and there a Word even in the Depositions touching the Murther that Skew'd upon the Plot too There was a Man to be Kill'd he says that was a great Obstacle of their Design And then he speaks Afterward Of the Principal Plotters of that Design against the King and so Passes-on to his Evidence about the Conspiracy under the Title of The Further Examinations of William Bedloe being Sworn at the Bar. THe Monks at Doway told him the Design he said and after Four Sacraments of Secrecy they sent him to Harcourt a Iesuit in Duke-street who Provided for him and sent him to Paris c. Le Phaire Walsh Pritchard and Lewis told him what Lords were to Govern What Men to be Rais'd Forty Thousand to be ready in London What Succours to be Expected Ten Thousand from Flanders Twenty or Thirty Thousand Religious Men and Pilgrims from St. Iago Hull to be Surpriz'd But just in the Godspeed the Plot was Discover'd Le Phaire gave him a Sacrament of Secrecy They told him Who and Who were to be kill'd and the Men that were to do the Work. Le Phaire saâ—d further that Conyers was My Lord Bellassis's Confessor and Communicated his Orders and that they were resolv'd if any Plotters were Taken to Dispatch 'em before they could be brought to a Tryal or to Burn the Prison And he Deposes moreover that Le Phaire Pritchard Lewis Keines Walsh and others had often told him That there was not a Roman Catholique in England of any Quality or Credit but was acquainted with this Design of the Papists and had râ—ceived the Sacrament from their Father-Confessors to be Secret aad Assistant in the Carrying of it on Lords Journal Nov. 12. 1678. On the 18th of November 1678. He Deliver'd an Enformation upon Oath concerning the Plot to the Lord Chief Iustice in the Speakers Chamber which was in Effect but so much over again adding only that the part assign'd him was to bring and carry Orders and Counsels and all other Intelligences from One Army to Another upon All occasions he knowing every Part and Road of England and Wales That about the Latter end of April or the beginning of May last was a Twelvemonth about Six a Clock in the Afternoon there was a Consult held in the Chappel-Gallery at Somerset-House where were present the Lord Bellasis and he thinks the Lord Powis Mr. Coleman Le Phaire Pritchard Latham and Sheldon and Two French-men in Orders whom he took to be Abbots and two other Persons of Quality but did not see their Faces and Others Amongst Them the Queen And further that Coleman and Pritchard told him that after the Consult the Queen Wept at what was propos'd there but was Over-perswaded to Consent by the Strength of Two French-men's Arguments That he was below walking in the Chappel at the Time of the Consult with others c. That after the Consult the Queen came through the Room where the Priests Dress'd Themselves and that he then observ'd some Alteration in her Majesties Council Chamber Nov. 27. 1678. And so he runs on into a Ramble of his carrying Letters for France and Treasonous Discourses betwixt Stapilton and Himself at Cambray c. All of the same Batch with the other Presently upon This Enformation there Follow'd an Address for Removing the QUEEN and all her Family and All PAPISTS and REPVTED or SVSPECTED Papists from his Majesties Court at Whitehall There is one remarkable Deposition yet behind that was taken before the Council Iune 24. 1679. upon the Subject of the Consult last above mentioned which is not upon any Terms to be Pass'd over for Reasons to be given hereafter He brings the Queen into the Plot of Poysoning the King her Husband by the Hand of Sir Geo. Wakeman And says that He Himself being the Latter Part of the Last Summer in Harcourt 's Chamber Sir Geo. came in there in a great Huff saying Why should I be so Drill'd on and Slighted when I have Vndertaken so
as This Not forgetting Titus Otes IT was under the Triumvirate of Otes Bedloe and Prance that the Tragedy of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey was brought upon the Stage and something ought to be said Methinks of the Persons as well as the Actions of These Three Heroes if a Man could but hit upon the Iust Medium betwixt too Much and too Little. Titus Otes was the Son of Samuel Otes A Gifted and a Dipping Weaver And he Dipâ— fair too He was Arraign'd at Chelmsford Assizes p. 146. for the Murther of One Anne Martin that Dy'd some Fourteen Days after the Dipping and layd her Death to his Charge Gangrena part 3. p. 105. There 's a story Pleasant enough and Every Body has it of a Woman that he had Under the Ord'nance of Dipping that still fell to Squalling and Screaming so soon as ever they had her above Water Down with her again cries Otes 'T is her Concupiscence Now the Matter in Truth was This The Roguy Boys had sunk a Huge Bundle of Brambles and Thorns in the Dipping-Place and the Poor Womans Body it seems did not like That way of Discipline As to Titus it was a Long Time before he had so much as the Badge of Christianity and there he stopt too without ever Advancing one step further into the Practice of it He never Liv'd any where after Fourteen but when ever he quitted the Place he left the Character of an Infamous Creature behind him As at Caius College in Cambridge Hastings Bobbing Valladolid St. Omers White-Hall the Kings Courts of Records and finally at Sea Under Sir Richard Ruth as well as at Land. He Began with Perjury and Sodomy so soon as ever he came to be qualify'd either by the Law for a Competent Evidence or by the state of Virility for the Other Execrable Villany His False Oaths and his Attempts of that sort of Brutality are so Many that they are scarce to be Number'd and so Notorious that there 's No Need of Holding a Candle to them for they are as Publique as the Solemnity of Attestations Tryals Verdicts and Iudicial Sentences can Make any thing In One Word His Narrative Consists of 81. Articles and I dare be Answerable for Four times as many Falsities in 'em To say Nothing of Driblets By-Blowes and Loose Grains Over and Above Bedloe indeed was the Merryer though perhaps not the Greater Rogue of the Two but the fittest Man Yet in Nature to stand Second to such a Principal His True Name after That of his Reputed Father was Beddoe a Word that according to the Septuagint Imports Little or Diminutive The Fidlers and the Coblers were at as much strife as Ever the Cities were for Homer whose Bedloe he should be for he had a smattering in Both Faculties The One he Learn'd from his Mothers First Husband that Ply'd at May-Poles Wakes and Fairs and then she had afterwards Another that Dealt in Clouting Capping and Vnderlaying but in short the Poor Woman they say took a Great Deal of Pains to Mend the Strain His First Commission was to run on Errands at Hap-Hazard for him that came Next and from Thence he stept into a Livery and serv'd the King and the Protestant Religion in the quality of a Foot-boy This was his Rise to the Knowledge of Men and Bus'ness He got the Names and Habitations of Men of Quality their Relations Correspondents and Interest and upon This Bottom it was with a Convenient stock of Impudence and a Dextrous Turn of Fancy and Address that he put himself into the World. There was No sort of Cheat that he was not In at and Good at But his Master-Piece was his Personating Men of Quality Getting Credit for Watches Coats Horses Borrowing Mony upon Recommendations Bilking of Vintners and Tradesmen Lying Pilfering and Romancing to the Degree of Imposing almost upon any man that had any spark in him of Humanity or Good Nature His Character and his History in fine Truly drawn would have Sixteen Guzmans in the Belly of it But there Needs no more then Common Fame upon the Tracing of his Motions to the Instructing of that Story He pass'd thorough All the Degrees of Knavery and Wickedness as Gradually and Insensibly as he did through the Moments and the Inches of his Age and Stature He Liv'd like a Wild Arabs upon the Prey and the Ramble and where ever he was in Flanders France Spain or England he never faild of leaving the Footsteps and the Reputation of a Prostitute Cheat behind him He was hardly ever at Home but in a Prison Nor in his Element as they say any Longer then he was in the King's High-way to 't That is to say he was still a doing somewhat or Other Contrary to Law Honesty and Good Manners This upon the Whole Matter was but a Congruous Preparatory to the Consummated state of a Flagitious Miscreant when he came Afterward to Ioyn Issue in a Perjurious and Murderous Cause with Otes Prance and Others as a King's-Evidence The Pompous sound of a King's Evidence And the Terrible Chymera of a Plot upon his Majesties Life and the Protestant Religion Dazled and Blinded the People as if the Sun had been thrown in their Eyes from a Looking-Glass Insomuch that in Two as Lewd Lives as ever were led Vnder the Canopy of Heaven in the Persons of Otes and Bedloe and the Character of These Two Wretches as Well known as the Whipping-Post they could not find in their Conscience Yet to make any Exception to the Probity of These Witnesses Nay and they were not only Believ'd but if not Temples Pulpits at least Dedicated to their Honour and by a Blasphemous Figure They were Recommended to the Mobile as the Saviours of the Nation though the Left-Hand Thief upon the Cross Might to All Humane Appearance have made as Good an Evidence VVell And there 's more in 't Yet too for Bedloe was much Better at a Sham Off-Hand then at a Conspiracy by Book Take them singly and they give Themselves the Lye Take them Respectively and they give One Another the Lye And Yet after all When they neither Believ'd Themselves nor One Another there were found so many Believers of them that Great Britain was within One Gust more of sinking under the Malice and Folly of the one side and of the other beyond All Possibility of Redemption without the relief of a Miracle That Bedloe and Otes were Forsworn in the Bus'ness of Godfrey no less then in That of the Plot and Prance for Company is no more to be Doubted then the most Certain Evidence we have of Any One Instance of Fact in These Times And This being most Undeniably Clear it is not so much My Part or in Truth My Bus'ness to shew where Bedloe was forsworn in any other Cases as to Defie any Man to Produce any one Oath he made in favour of the Credit of That Plot wherein he was Not Forsworn for to Name some and Not All would be a
and in Probability could have said more to the Purpose then All the Rest. We have had Ill Luck hitherto with these Enformations for they run all the same way All Suppressions and Misunderstandings are still in Favour of the same side But it is One Thing not to Emprove the Means of finding a Truth and Another Thing to Stifle or to Oppose Those Means As for Instance now in the Next Chapter CHAP. XIX The Opening of the Body had certainly Discover'd the Cause of Sir E. B. G.'s Death And it was Advis'd and Propounded by Doctors Friends and Surgeons but Rejected THE Allyance that was by this time Contracted betwixt the Pretended Murther and the Pretended Plot had made the Credit of the Story so Sacred that there was No Touching of the One without giving a Box o' th' Ear to the Other and consequently no Longer any Way or Hope left of Arriving at the Truth but by breaking in upon Principalities and Powers Under the Awe of This Influence it was that Evidences were Shorten'd or Stretch'd or Smother'd or Baffled in favour of the Imposture and No Relief in the Case but that of a Dutch Appeal from mine Host in the Inn to Mijn Heer upon the Bench where he does Himself Right in the Quality of both a Iudge and a Party in the same Person There will be the less Need of Amplifying in this Place upon Particular Instances of Persons Practices and Methods in Regard that I have already spent one Whole Chapter at Large upon This Subject Part. I. Cap. 10. But there was one Passage upon This Occasion that must not be either Omitted or Forgotten There was one General Rule to Walk by which was to make every Man a Papist that Cross'd the Designs of the Then Prevailing Faction and after the Fastning of That Brand upon him it was but the Lip-Labour of Kissing a Book to Swear him into a Traytor for they Manag'd their Treasons as Dyers do their Colours that first lay on one to make the Stuff take t' other This was the Snare that was set for Mr. Richard Wheeler a Man of Sense Credit and Estate but he was too Nimble for 'em and so they snapt Short. The Relation of it will be best in his own Words Richard Wheeler Deposeth That on Friday Morning October 18. the Day after Sir Edmund's Body was found Mr. Cowper having been as this Enformant heard to see the Body came into the Exchange and told how Sir Edmund was Wheedled out and Murther'd in such a Place For that Mr. Collins the Brewer had met him in Marybone-Fields Hereupon this Enformant Declaring what Cowper had said and What He Himself had Observ'd That upon the Monday Morning this Enformant going to his Shop one Mr. Templer said to this Enformant There are Rods in Piss for you To which this Enformant replyed For what Saying he had done no Man any Wrong The said Mr. Templer replying Sir Edmunds Brothers have been here to enquire what Religion you are of Vpon which this Enformant came into the Exchange and met Mr. Cowper telling him what Mr. Templer had said and saying that he the said Cowper must Clear himself For he this Enformant had Witnesses enough to prove what he had said Whereupon Cowper asked this Enforformant what he should do To which this Enformant asked him Do you know who told you so Cowper said Yes I do Why then said this Enformant I 'le go along with you to him being told it was an Ale-house-Keeper in So-ho So this Enformant and Mr. Cowper went to the said Ale-house-Keeper where this Enformant took Occasion to say that they were going to see the Place where Sir Edmund's Body Lay to which the Ale-house-keeper said That Sir Edmund was wheedled out and Murther'd for Mr. Collins said That he met Sir Edmund that Saturday in Mary-bone Fields Whereupon This Enformant Mr. Cowper and the Ale-house Keeper went All Three to Mr. Collins and found him at Home who told them that he did meet with him as aforesaid Talking with a Milk-woman And that he said Good Morrow Sir Edmund who reply'd Good Morrow Mr. Collins This Enformant then asked Mr. Collins being One of the Coroner's Inquest how he came to Find him Murther'd To which He reply'd that Mr. Radcliffe and his Servant and his next Neighbour's Servant swore him to be at Radcliff's Door at One of the Clock upon the Saturday This Enformant did then ask the said Collins Whether or No he Summon'd the Milk-woman who told him No. How should they find her This Enformant Objecting it to him that for a Crown or such a Matter he might have found her out This was according to the Scheme of the Politiques of That Season Will Wheeler be medling with Our Primrose-hill Matters What Religion is he of This is only Demurring to My Clyents Beard as a Lawyer of Famous Memory has it and not one Hair to the Matter in Question Had they been but Half as Inquisitive after Collin's Milkwoman as they were about Mr. Wheeler's Religion it would have been much more to Common Satisfaction But every thing was Distorted and Emprov'd if it may be said so the Wrong Way The Advice of Surgeons was not only Reasonable but Necessary in a Matter where there fell so many Important Circumstances under their Peculiar Cognizance But the Removal of the Body and the Drawing the Sword out had so Confounded the Signs and Accidents they were to have form'd a Iudgment upon that there was scarce Room for any more then the Bare Conjectural Suspicion of a Possible Strangulation But now as the Surgeons Opinion was taken upon the Main as to the Probable Cause of his Death it would have been Well if Those that had the Care and Power of the Body after the Verdict had found it as reasonable to Comply with the Council and Importunity of Friends as well as of Men of Art toward as Certain a Discovery of the Truth of the Matter as if they had been Eye-Witnesses of the Execution The Opening of the Body is the Expedient that I speak of which as I am Credibly Enform'd was Mov'd and Insisted upon by some of the Inquest upon the Debate however it come to be Carry'd in the Negative There was the King's Life the Peace of his Dominions An Imperial Monarchy The Prerogative of the Royal Family Religion Liberty and Property all in a Great Measure at stake upon the Issue of This Question Now it must be some Consideration of Mighty Weight sure some Greater Good on the One side then the Preservation of All These Sacred Interests was Worth Or some Greater Evil on the other then the Embroyling and Confounding of them All that could with any Colour of Iustice or Reason stand in Competition with the Consequences of Denying This Request We saw how Near the Mistake of This Matter came to the Destroying of Three Kingdoms And All for want of Clearing This One Point And now to Ballance all These Hazards let