Selected quad for the lemma: act_n
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A53407
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Eikōn vasilikē tetartē, or, The picture of the late King James further drawn to the life in which is made manifest by several articles, that the whole course of his life hath been a continued conspiracy against the Protestant religion, laws and liberties of the three kingdoms : in a letter to himself : the fourth part / by Titus Oates ...
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Oates, Titus, 1649-1705.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing O40; ESTC R7727
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224,388
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196
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Party 10. A great number of Officers that were Papists had been imployed and several under half Pay and many other Things of the like Nature All which Particulars laid before your Brother in this Address justify the Credit the Evidences of the Popish Plot had in Parliament But that I may not leave you so I pray peruse the Address it self it was a Swinger I 'll assure you and much to the purpose The humble Address of the Commons in Parliament assembled Presented to his Majesty Munday the 29th of Nov. 1680. May it please your most Excellent Majesty WE your Majesty's most Obedient and Loyal Subjects the Commons in Parliament assembled having with all Duty and Regard taken into our serious Consideration your Majesty's late Message relating to Tangier cannot but account the present Condition of it as your Majesty is pleas'd to represent in your said Message after so vast a Treasure expended to make it useful not only as one Infelicity more added to the afflicted Estate of your Majesty's faithful and loyal Subjects but as one result also of the same Counsels and Designs which have brought your Majesty's Person Crown and Kingdoms into those great and imminent Dangers with which at this Day they are surrounded and we are the less surprised to hear of the Exigencies of Tangier when we remember that since it became a part of your Majesty's Dominions it hath several Times been under the Command of Popish Governors particularly for some Time under the Command of a Lord impeach'd and now Prisoner in the Tower for that execrable and horrid Popish Plot that the Supplies sent thither have been in a great Part made up of Popish Officers and Soldiers and that the Irish Papists amongst the Soldiers of that Garison have been the Persons most countenanced and encouraged To that part of your Majesty's Message which expresses a Reliance upon this House for the Support of Tangier and a Recommendation of it to our speedy Care we do with all Humility and Reverence give this Answer That although in due Time and Order we shall omit nothing incumbent on us for the Preservation of every Part of your Majesty's Dominions and advancing the Prosperity and flourishing Estate of this your Kingdom yet at this Time when a Cloud that hath long threatned this Land is ready to break upon our Heads in a Storm of Ruin and Confusion to enter into any further Consideration of this Matter especially to come to any Resolutions in it before we are effectually secured from the imminent and apparent Dangers arising from the Powâ—r of Popish Persons and Counsels we humbly conceive will not consist either with our Duty to your Majesty or the Trust reposed in us by those we represent It is not unknown to your Majesty how restless the Endeavors and how bold the Attempts of the Popish Party for many Years last past have been not only in this but other your Majesty's Kingdoms to introduce the Romish and utterly to extirpâ—te the Protestant Religion The several Approaches they have made towards the compassing this their Design assisted by the Treachery of perfidious Protestants have been so strangely successful that 't is matter of Admiration to us and which we can only ascribe â—o an over-ruling Providence that your Majesty's Reign is still continued over us and that we are yet assembled to câ—nsult the Means of our Preservation This bloody and restless Party not content with the great Liberty they had a long time enjoyed to exercise their own Religion privately among themselves to partake of an equal Freedom of their Persons and Estates with your Majesties Protestant Subjects and of an Advantage above them in being excused from chargeable Offices and Employments hath so far prevailed as to find Countenance for an open and avowed Practice for their Superstition and Idolatry without controul in several Parts of the Kingdom Great swarms of Priests and Jesuits have resorted hither and have here exercised their Jurisdiction and been daily tampering to pervert the Consciences of your Majesty's Subjects their Opposers they have found means to disgrace and if they were Judges Justices of the Peace or other Magistrates to have them turned out of Commission and in contempt of the known Laws of the Land they have practised upon People of all Ranks and Qualities and gained over divers to their Religion some openly to profess it others secretly to espouse it and most conduced to the Service thereof After some time they became able to influence Matters of State and Government and thereby to destroy those they cannot corrupt The Continuance or Prorogation of Parliaments has been accommodated to serve the Purposes of the Party Money raised upon the People to supply your Majesty's extraordinary Occasions was by the prevalence of Popish Counsels imployed to make War upon a Protestant State and to advance and augment the dreadful Power of the French King though to the apparent Hazard of this and all other Protestant Countries Great Numbers of your Majesty's Subjects were sent into and continued in the Service of that King notwithstanding the apparent Interest of your Majesty's Kingdoms the Addresses of the Parliament and your Majesty's gracious Proclamations to the contrary Nor can we forbear to mention how that at the beginning of the same War even the Ministers of England were made Instruments to press upon that State the acceptance of one Demand among others from the French King for procuring their Peace with him That they should admit the publick Exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion in the Vnited Provinces the Churches there to be divided and the Popish Priests to be maintained out of the publick Revenue At home if your Majesty did at any time by the Advice of your Privy Council or of your Two Houses of Parliament command the Laws to be put in due Execution against Papists even from thence they gained Advantage to their Party while the Edge of those Laws was turned against Protestant Dissenters and the Papists escaped in a manner untoucht The Act of Parliament enjoining a Test to be taken by all Persons admitted into any publick Office and intended for a Security against Papists coming into Employment had so little effect That either by Dispensations obtained from Rome they submitted to those Tests and held their Ofces themselves or those put in their Places were so favourable to the same Interests that Popery it self has rather gained than lost Ground since that Act. But that their Business in hand might yet more speedily and strongly proceed at length a Popish Secretary since executed for his Treasons takes upon him to set a foot and maintain Correspondencies at Rome particularly with a Native Subject of your Majesty 's promoted to be a Cardinal and in the Courts of other foreign Princes to use their own form of Speech for the subduing the pestilent Heresy which has so long domineer'd over this Northern World that is to root out the Protestant Religion out of England and
Robinson and my self that he had been Dogg'd several Days and Prance said that he had Dogg'd him and that Gerald the Priest had Resolved to Dogg him to his own Door and to have Killed him in the Lane that leads to his own House this was one of the Priests of your Church who counts it an Act of Chariâ—y to Murder a Christian to Propagate Christianity but to the Point they way-laid him and watched his coming from a Place which Prance could not tell but I can it was Sir you know from the Duke of Norfolks on whom you would have laid the Murther because he was not of the French Interest though of Rome's Religion and the said Justice Godfrey coming from the Duke of Norfolks was to pass by Sommerset-House alias Godfrey-Hall or the Pope's and your Slaughter house into which place they inticed the Poor Innocent Gentleman pretending that there were two men fighting and that he being a Justice of the Peace would with much greater ease keep the Kingâ— Peace than another could truly Sir if they had been of your Immediate Councel at St. Jameses they could not have found out a better way for it knowing that this Gentleman was according to his Office and Duty ready to do all Acts of Justice as any one then in that Post and as little affraid of the Persons of Men as any of his Office for he had said if any man did him a Mischeif they must do it basely for he did not fear the best of them all upon fair play therefore you will do well to observe that when his Friends in faithfulness desired him to get a man he slighted their advice and all that knew him knew that he was a man of singular Courage and therefore your Villains were not at much trouble to lay a trap for him Well Sir they got him in and what was the next intention Hill flings the Cravat about his Neck and was assisted in that Pious Work by Gerald the Priest and the rest of the Murderers that were there and so the Gentleman was Strangled and least he should come to life again which they feared from the motion that his Body made Green Twisted his Neck round and you know the Chirurgions did testifie his Neck was Broke and that none of the Wounds which were in his Body were given him whilst he was alive then his Body was Carried to Hills Chamber and your Murtherers helped and left his Body there and then to Consecrate the Villainy he was Carried into Baals house where the Mistriss and her Maids made themselves Obscenely merry with his Body on the Sunday Night for you know the better Day the better Deed Prance further said that he come on Munday Night and found the Body in another Room hard by Hills Lodgings and some thing thrown over his Face but nothing over yours for you and your party were as impudent as so many Carted Whores having no sence of the Murder you Committed come on then upon the Tuesday Night following they removed his Body to Hills Lodgings where it lay till Wednesday Night your Friend Prance said he saw him there that Night for he was the man that helpt to carry him out Prance and Gerald carried him first and Green and Kelly went before and took him up afterward he Confessed that they set him on Horseback and Hill behind him From all which Sir you may Observe that Prancâ— tells the whole Story from Top to Toe and nothing was Objected against Prance but these two things first that he recanted his Testimony that he had first given this Sir was no Argument at all of his Falsehood but of his Fear for you must needs Know that it was no good Argument to say he was not to be believed because he denyed what he once said for he then had not his Pardon from the King and the Horrour of the Fact had caused a dread and consternation to have seized upon his Soul I say the blackness of the Fact it Self and the fear of being destroyed by his own Party and the loss of his Trade and Lively-hood by them was enough to have Affrighted a better Man than Prance out of his Wits you know that his denyal was short and so his Recantation of that denyal was on the otherhand as quick the former without an Oath and the latter upon Oath for when he had retracted his Evidence he was no sooner got to Prison with his Keeper but he fell on his Knâ—es to his Keeper and begged of him for Gods sake to carry him back to the King Protesting that what he had said at first was true and that his denyal was false and his Keeper gave the Court to know that after this Prance was pardoned that he was Quiet and Sedate in his Mind and all this was not forced from Prance by Torture as that Villain Lestrange would Suggest and all by the Assistance of an old white-liver'd Baals Priest was of another Opinion till a new measure of the Holy Ghost fell upon him in a rainy Morning he was a false Witness and helped to stifle that Murther for which he received the Wages of his Villainy and since hath been Advanced for nothing as I know of but being an impudent false Prophet 6. A Sixth Witness that I shall present to your Consideration is Mr. Bedlow who tells you That before the Murther Lefever Pritchard Keins and other Priests treated with him to be Assisting in the Murther of Mr. Edmund Bury Godfrey but He tho he promised relented and did not come till Munday Octo. 14th he met with Lefever in Red Lyon Court who charged him with not keeping his Word but charged him the said Bedlow to meet him at Nine of the Clock at Night and there told Bedlow that though he was not Assisting as he had promised at the killing Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey yet if he would be Assisting in the carrying him off he should have a considerable Reward whether it was 2000 l. or 4000 l. I do not well remember he then desired â—o know of Lefeâ—er whether he might not see the Body who told him yes which â—â—low did and then they advised about the Disposal of iâ— and Bedlow advised the â—inking of the Body in the River with Weights which was not agreed to but in seeâ—â—g the Body Bedlow sâ—w Prance there in Company but did not know him before you may remember that Bedlow says he was troubled in Conscience having twice taken the Sâ—crament to conceal the business and went to Bristol where God put it into his Heart that some Murders were past and greater were to come for the prevention whereof he was convinced that it was his duty to come to London to reveal the wickedness which he did you know to as much purpose as ever any Man came I pray Sir for your Edisication and Comfort be pleased to take notice that Sir Charles Harbord and Sir Richard Everard having examined Prance and the House being set