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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61188	A true account and declaration of the horrid conspiracy against the late King, his present Majesty, and the government as it was order'd to be published by His late Majesty.	Sprat, Thomas, 1635-1713.; Oliver, John, 1616-1701, engraver.; England and Wales. Sovereign (1685-1688 : James II)	1685 (1685)	Wing S5068AA; ESTC R221757	86,115	235

A True ACCOUNT AND DECLARATION OF The Horrid Conspiracy Against the Late KING His Present MAJESTY AND THE GOVERNMENT As it was Order'd to be Published by His Late Majesty The Third EDITION In the SAVOY Printed by Thomas Newcomb One of His Majesties Printers 1685. JAMES R. OVR Will and Pleasure is and We do hereby Appoint Thomas Newcomb One of Our Printers to Print this Account and Declation and that no other Person presume to Print the same as they will answer the contrary Given at Our Court at Whitehal the 23 Day of May 1685. in the First Year of Our Reign By His Majesties Command Sunderland JAMES R. JAMES the Second By the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. To all to whom these Presents shall come Greeting Whereas Our Dearest Brother the late King of ever Blessed Memory gave special Order in His Life-time for Drawing up the following Account and Declaration of the Horrid Conspiracy against His Sacred Person and Ours and had provided that the Substance of it should be Impartially Collected out of Original Papers and unquestionable Records and was Himself pleased to direct in what Method it should be digested taking particular Care that the Truth of the whole Narration should have such Clearness and Strength as it might deserve to be owned by Himself Accordingly it was Composed and ready for the Press when it pleased Almighty God to take that Excellent Prince to his Mercy And whereas it is but too evident that the same Hellish Plot is not entirely extinguished but that divers of the Wicked Actors in it are still carrying on new Contrivances against the Happy Peace of Our Dominions We cannot but judge it seasonable in this Juncture of Time to have Our Subjects reminded of the Rise Progress and Mischievous Designs of that desperate Confederacy To this end having first Read and Examined this Account and Declaration that We might be the better able to give Our Royal Testimony as We do by these Presents to the Faithfulness and Certainty of the whole Relation We have caused it to be now Printed and Published Given at Our Court at Whitehal the 21 day of May 1685. in the First Year of Our Reign By His Majesties Command Sunderland The Rye House Malting House Outward Court Yard From the Meadow to the Court Wall 250 pases Corne Chambers and stables formerly Called flouings Roe the narrow passage 25 feet wide Bridg the Road from Hoddensdon to Bishop stafford Ware River Between Ware River and the Moat is 87 feet Great Parlor Parlor Court yard Hall Kitchin Gate house the south Front next the roade Garden Moat A True ACCOUNT OF THE Horrid Conspiracy Against the Late KING His Present MAJESTY And the GOVERNMENT THE KING has thought fit to lay open and to declare to the World An Exact Account of the late Accursed Conspiracy which was actually form'd and carried on in England and set on foot in Scotland against His own and his only and dearest Brothers Life and against the Peaceable and Flourishing Government of His Majesties Kingdoms as far forth as hitherto the Particulars of it have come to His Knowledge by the Voluntary Confessions or undeniable Convictions of divers of the Principal Conspirators By this faithfully representing the plain Matter of Fact though perhaps all the Groundless Suggestions and Malicious Insinuations of Factious Men will not be wholly put to silence it being their old and constant Artifice to support and incourage their Party by Impudent Slanders and Falshoods against the clearest Light and most evident Proof Yet however His Majesty will have the Satisfaction hereby to confirm the Loyalty and good Affections of all His loving Subjects at Home and to establish Abroad the Reputation and Honour of His Royal Justice And moreover which His Majesty most of all regards this Publick and Lasting Testimony will be given of His sincere Thankfulness to Almighty God for that Miraculous Deliverance from a Danger which came so near His Sacred Person and was so far spread in the Ruine it threaten'd to all His People It is well known what mischievous Arts of late Years have been used and what Treasonable Courses taken to withdraw these Nations from their bounden Duty and Allegiance and to expose His Majesties most Just and Merciful Government to Calumny and Contempt The Rebellious Design having been apparently carried on by all sorts of Malecontents whom either their Crimes or Wants their furious Zeal or unbounded Ambition inclined to wish for a Disturbance of the Peace and Prosperity which His Majesties Dominions have so long injoy'd to the Envy of all His Neighbours To this wicked purpose many the very same fatal Methods and specious Pretences which in the Days of His Majesties Glorious Father had involved these Kingdoms in Confusion and Blood were once again revived and by many the very same Persons Men of crafty restless and implacable Spirits impenitent after the most Gracious Pardons whom long Experience had made skilful in seducing weak and unstable Minds by counterfeiting the plausible Names of things in themselves most excellent but most dangerous when abused such as Liberty Property Conscience and Religion By these wretched Instruments was this most gentle and benign Government again reproached with Tyranny and Arbitrary Power The Church of England was once more Traduced as Popishly affected The most able Officers and faithfullest Servants of the Crown again Reviled under the odious Title of Evil Councellours In the mean time Sedition and Schism were every where promoted unreasonable Fears suggested vain Suspicions of future Dangers augmented to destroy the present Tranquility desperate Speeches infamous Libels Traiterous Books swarm'd in all places and under colour of the only True Protestant the worst of all Unchristian Principles were put in practise all the old Republican and Antimonarchical Doctrines whose Effects had formerly prov'd so dismal were now again as confidently own'd and asserted as ever they had been during the hottest Rage of the late unhappy Troubles From these Preparations to a new Rebellion the Party began by degrees to proceed to Action Distinctions of Sides were made Names and Tokens of Separation were given Illegal Conventicles were maintained in defiance of the Laws of God and Man Tumultuous Feasts and Factious Clubs were set up in City and Country Close and Seditious Meetings haunted Frequent Cabals appointed and by Men of high degree with the lowest Great Stores of Arms provided by private Persons Insolent Progresses made through divers Countries thereby to glory in their Numbers and to carry far and near the Terrour of their Power and even to Muster their Party ready for some sudden Blow or general Insurrection All these and many more such Personal Indignities and Publick Assaults on the Government His Majesty long endured with the same Mildness and Clemency wherewith he had already forgiven the highest Crimes against himself His Royal Goodness still patiently expecting and wishing that in time

seiz'd divers Original Papers which as soon as he was made Prisoner he try'd to make privately away but the Kings Officers observing his design secur'd them Amongst these Papers there was one very remarkable Letter written to him under another Counterfeit Name of Pringle The Composer of it was John Nisbet one of Argyle's Agents in London It was dated March the 20th of that Year when the Conspiracy was in the heighth It gives a perfect account of their Condition at that time during the Transactions between the English and Scottish Traytors Whilst they sometimes hoped the Treaty would take effect sometimes fear'd it would break off without coming to any Resolution Amongst many other mysterious intimations of Treason Nisbet tells him That Trading being very low here and many breaking daily desperate Diseases must have desperate Cures That while they had some Stock left it would be better to venture out than to keep Shop till all be gone for after this they should not be able to act but must let all go That he had been shew'd a Model of Affairs in such order as he saw venture they must and venture they would That now they knew what Goods had been most prejudicial to the Trade And therefore for the future resolv'd to insist only on Negatives this being the best way to still some Criticks of the Trade That they would first endeavour to dispatch the Old Stuff That some Stock was to be got to set the broken Merchants up again That if all holds that is intended it is almost time to set forward if they had but their Factors and Emissaries home who are gone forth to try how Countries will like their Goods That they will return within a Week Then matters will in instanti off or on Break or go through That if any strange thing should fall out in the mean time he would post it to him That things were full as High as he had Written These are some amongst divers others of the Covert Significations of the Conspiracy contain'd in Nisbet's Letter which being taken about Gourdon and sent with him into Scotland after divers Examinations before the Council there he plainly detected what was the true sense hidden under the Mystical Style of every Expression in the whole Letter Particularly That by the Merchants here being low and often breaking was meant the Prosecution of Dissenters by Excommunications or other legal ways That therefore they had resolved upon a desperate Cure which was Rising in Arms That the Model of Affairs which would make them venture was the Method then going on in order to a Rising That by only insisting on Negatives was intended the Conspirators agreeing what they should pull down which was the whole Government but not determining positively at first what they should set up That by Criticks in the Trade were design'd the old Scotch Fanaticks who had so often rebell'd That Excluding the old Rotten Stuff was the Destruction of the entire Frame of the antient Constituon Civil and Ecclesiastical That the Broken Merchants to be set up were the baffled Scotch-Whigs to be spirited again with new assistance That their being here at a point to set forward was the English Conspirators being ready for a Rendezvous That the Factors and Emissaries were People sent forth through England and Scotland to try Mens Inclinations towards a General Insurrection That by saying That upon those Factors return Matters would be soon on or off was intended that when their Agents were come back to give an account of their success accordingly the Design would be either deferr'd longer or they should instantly rise That the strange thing mention'd was a speedy Insurrection That by things being full as high as he had written was imply'd the Rebellion was almost ripe and ready to break forth This is the substance of the Interpretation of the Letter of Trade that Gourdon of Earlston gave in upon Oath at several Examinations He moreover confess'd That upon receipt of this Letter he presently came into England where he had frequent Conferences with Nisbet touching the Contents of every Clause in it who always understood it in this sense That by him and divers others he was made fully acquainted with the Treaty then going on in London and with the Earl of Argyle's Correspondence with the Persons treating for a speedy Rebellion in both Nations Another Scotch-Man whose cleer and undoubted Testimony has put this Confederacy between the English and Scotch Traytors out of all Question is William Carstares who had been a Zealous and Fierce Preacher to the Sectaries of both Kingdoms And was formerly Prisoner in Edenburgh-Castle being accus'd for publishing a Treasonable Pamphlet call'd The Grievances of Scotland At that time he was much employ'd in many Messages relating to this Conspiracy Especially with Major Holms in dispersing the Earl of Argyle's Libellous Books and carrying too and fro his Letters in which Carstares pass'd under the Name of Read He was apprehended at Tenterden in Kent seeking an opportunity of flying beyond Sea He was taken under the Name of William Swan then declar'd his true Name was Moor but at last own'd it was Carstares This Carstares being brought before the the King and refusing to confess any more than some general Hints alledging That it was no place for him to answer in a Criminal Matter Upon that he was sent into Scotland where being Examined before the Lords of the Secret Committee September 8th 1684 he confess'd and afterwards renew'd and confirm'd the same Confession November 18th and December 22th of the same Year His Deposition having been already made Publick it will be enough only to note some special Heads of what he deposed He confess'd That James Steuart Brother to the Laird of Cultness wrote to him out of Holland in November or December 1682. the Letter importing That if a considerable Sum of Mony could be procur'd from England something of Importance might be done in Scotland That this Letter he Communicated to Shepard and he to Colonel Sydney Danvers being present That Shepard return'd answer Mr. Sydney was averse from medling with the Earl of Argyle suspecting him to be too much inclin'd to the Royal Family and the present Government That the said Carstares still urg'd one might be sent to the Earl of Argyle That not being able to obtain this for the foresaid Reason he himself went into Holland was introduced to the Earl and there discours'd with him particularly about remitting the Money to him from England and raising 1000 Horse and Dragoons and surprizing Edenburgh-Castle That the Earls answer was The Castles would fall to them of course after that the Work was done abroad That without a Thousand Horse and Dragoons rais'd in England to be ready to assist them nothing could be done That if such a Number could be rais'd he would come into Scotland with them whereby he guess'd he might get that Country without trouble having such a standing Body for their Friends to

shortly after this the Deponent went to Colonel Sydney's and found him just going into London That the said Colonel took out of a Cabinet several Guinea's saying They were to be given to Aaron Smith for his Expences That he was sent accordingly and the Colonel told the Deponent afterwards He was gone and was upon the Road and that he had heard from him when he was about Newcastle It was next plainly prov'd That those Scotch-men came up soon after Smith arrived there This was sworn by Sir Andrew Foster that Cockran Monroe and the two Cambels came to Town about the end of the Spring or the beginning of Summer Cockran and Monroe pretending their Business was a Purchase in Carolina and that upon the very first rumour of a Plot Cockran absconded Monroe and the Cambels were taken To this purpose Attherbury the Messenger also deposed That about the end of June or the beginning of July 1683 he was sent by His Majesties Warrant into London upon a Discovery of some Scotch-men lodging in Black-Friers but the Common-Sergeant of the City and others having been there before him found them making their escape in a Boa● That the Persons were Sir High Ca●●●l Cockran and another That this was after they had been in Town but a little while The next Head of the Accusation concern ' d the Treasonable Pamphlet sound in Colonel Sydney's Study at the time of his Apprehension To this first Sir Philip Lloyd Clerk of His Majesties Council deposed That having been sent by the King and Council to seize Colonel Sydney's Papers he did go and put up what he found in his Closet That he found those Papers now given in Evidence lying upon his Table where he usually writ That he seiz'd them towards the later end of June That having put them up he offer'd Colonel Sydney that he might Seal them with his own Seal but he refusing the Deponent set his Seal to them and so deliver'd them to the Council Next it was made out by as firm Proof as such a Matter will bear That all the Sheets produced were of Colonel Sydney's own Hand-writing which was evidenc'd by Mr. Shepard Mr. Cook and Mr. Cary Men of known Repute and Credit who had long dealt with Mr. Sydney in Matters of Mony and had paid divers Bills of Exchange for him upon Notes written in the same Hand and were never call'd to any account for Mis-payment Then were the Papers read containing rank Treason almost in every Line For therein were broach'd and asserted many horrible Doctrines both against Monarchy in general and the English Monarchy in particular which according to the usual false Reasoning of all Republican Writers he endeavour'd to justifie by divers Quotations and Examples of Sacred and Prophane History grosly perverted and misapplied against the present Government of his Country In short the whole design of those Papers was to maintain That Tyrants may be justly deposed by the People and that the People are the only Judges who are Tyrants And peculiarly concerning this Nation there are these Expressions The Power originally in the People of England is delegated to the Parliament He the King is subject to the Law of God as he is a Man to the People that makes him a King in as much as he is a King The Law sets a Measure to that Subjection The Parliament is Judge of the particular Cases thereupon arising He must be content to submit his Interest to theirs since he is no more than any one of them in any other respect than that he is by consent of all rais'd above any other If he doth not like this Condition he may renounce the Crown But if he receive it upon this Condition as all Magistrates do the Power they receive and swear to perform it he must expect the Performance will be exacted or Revenge taken by those he hath betray'd And in another place he says We may therefore change or take away Kings without breaking any Yoak or that is made a Yoak which ought not to be one The Injury is in making and imposing and there can be none in breaking it And in another That the People must needs be the Judge of what happens between them and the King whom they did constitute And in another that as for the Peoples being Judges in their own Cases it is plain they ought to be the only Judges And in another That the Power of calling and dissolving Parliaments is not in the King And in another ' That the general revolt of a Nation from its own Magistrates can never be call'd a Rebellion These are some of the Treasonable Tenets contain'd in Mr. Sydney's Papers amongst many other Assertions that are equally Criminal but too long to be here inserted Concerning all which villanous Opinions this is certainly known and confess'd by all good Men That as they laid the Foundations of the late miserable War against his Majesties blessed Father and thereby occasion'd the spilling so much Blood even of the Royal Blood it self so when-ever the Multitude shall be infected with the like Antimonarchical Doctrines it will be impossible for the best Kings or the most happy Kingdoms in the World to be free from perpetual Treasons and Rebellious Plottings To all this Colonel Sidney's Answer being only made up of most of the same Pleas in Law that had been over-ruled and the same objections against the Lord Howard which were satisfactorily repell'd in the former Tryals besides that he only barely deny'd the sending of Aaron Smith and his having any hand in or knowledge of that Message And as for his Treasonable Papers he would not grant them to be his or if they were found in his Study he affirm'd That they might have been written many Years ago in answer to Sir R. Filmer 's Book of Monarchy and written with no intention of publishing them but only for private diversion and the exercise of his Pen. In short his Defence consisting rather in Nice Cavils at the known Forms of Law or Discourses ridiculing the Design of a Council of Six and the whole Conspiracy it self than in any solid Arguments or Evidence to invalidate the Witnesses or to clear himself from the Crimes proved upon him he was presently found Guilty His Execution in respect of his Quality His Majesty altered from the usual Punishment of High Treason into that of Severing his Head from his Body At the time of his death on December the 7th he also deliver'd the Sheriffs a Written Paper Wherein after having excused his not speaking what he wrote by alledging this reason among others That this was an Age which makes Truth pass for Treason he objects against the Lord Howard the Infamy of his former Life which Objection no Man in England had less cause to make than himself the Lord Howard and he having been known to be entire Confidents Familiars and Friends for many Years past of their Lives and till the very time of the Discovery Touching

his Papers produced against him he gives an account full of manifest Equivocations and ambiguous Reservations He sufficiently intimates they were his own but implies they were written long ago against a Book of Controversie in Matters of Government Thereupon he goes on openly to justifie those Papers by Positions dangerous enough to the Publick Peace but quite different from what was laid to his charge at his Tryal and was quoted word by word out of those Papers For instead of being a general Discourse for the Peoples Rights against Kings without any particular Applications to Time or Place as in this his last Paper he insinuates them to have been it is apparent to any Man that can but read that those Sheets of his Writing which were given in Evidence struck at the very Root of the English Monarchy and that therein he studied to do his part to bring the Ax very near the Kings Neck once again He farther in that printed Speech most injuriously reviles his Judges affirming with notorious falshood and petulancy That lest the Means of destroying the best Protestants in England should fail the Bench was fill'd with such as had been Blemishes to the Bar. He goes on to make divers the like frivolous and groundless Reflections on the legal and regular Proceedings against him concluding with a Prayer that could be dictated by none but a fierce Republican and a furious Enthusiastical Spirit met together It was in truth a Prayer more proper for their Treasonable Meetings at Mr. Hambden's or the Lord Russel's than to be used as the last words of a Gentleman dying in the profession of his Innocency For after having fondly declar'd That he fell a Sacrifice to Idols he thus addresses his Speech to the great God of Heaven Bless thy People and save them Defend thy own Cause Defend those that defend it Stir up such as are faint Direct those that are willing Confirm those that waver Give Wisdom and Integrity unto all Grant that I may dye glorifying thee for all thy Mercies and that at the last thou hast permitted me to be singled out as a Witness of thy Truth and even by the Confession of my Opposers for that Old Cause in which I was from my Youth engaged and for which thou hast often wonderfully declar'd thy self He makes it his last Glory That he was engag'd in that Old Cause from his Youth and he was so Being yet very young he took up Rebellious Arms against his Majesties Blessed Father and merited so well of that Old Cause that he was thought rightly qualify'd to be Named though he did not actually sit amongst the black Number of the Regicides Upon His Majesties most happy Return his fixt aversion to the restor'd Government was such that he would not personally accept of the Oblivion and Indemnity then generally granted to the whole Nation But he voluntarily banish'd himself for many Years till about the Year 1677 he came into England again and by His Majesties special Grace obtain'd a particular Pardon upon repeated promises of constant quiet and Obedience for the time to come Which how he made good the World may Judge In fine he fell a memorable warning and fatal Example to all the English Nobility and Gentry of this and all future Ages that they should take heed of being so far infatuated with the fancie and Chimerical Felicities of Ancient or Modern Commonwealths as to despise and attempt the ruine of the far more solid Liberty and Happiness to be injoy'd under the English Monarchy On the 28th Day of November 1683 Mr. John Hambden Junior having also sued out his Habeas Corpus was arraign'd for High Misdemeanor and brought to his Tryal the 6th of February following In this Tryal the Lord Howard positively deposed to the same sense as before touching the general Transactions of the Conspiracy till the Earl of Shaftsbury's Death and particularly afterwards of the Meeting of the Council of Six at Mr. Hambden's own House where Mr. Hambden made an Introductory Speech to open the Assembly and the subject of their Debates was concerning the Time Place Men Arms and Mony to be provided towards a Rising and also that then the sending a Messenger into Scotland was proposed and referred to be debated the next Meeting Farther That Mr. Hambden was present at that next Meeting at the Lord Russel's House and amongst the rest deliberated of sending the Messenger into Scotland when Aaron Smith was named and approved to be the Man But the substance of the Lord Howard's Evidence having been before sufficiently set down it will be needless now to follow exactly every Circumstance of it It is enough only to note That most of the same Objections being again repeated by the Defendents Council had the same or like Answers return'd them by the King 's There was indeed one new and very material thing then first particularly and unquestionably made out in this Tryal which was the certainty of Aaron Smith's carrying the Treasonable Message into Scotland This was now demonstrably proved by Sheriff and Bell both Inhabitants of Newcastle Sheriff being the Man at whose House Smith lay in his passage to and fro and Bell the very Guide that went thence to conduct him into Scotland Touching this Matter First Attherbury one of the Kings Messengers testified That Sheriff and Bell had a full view of Aaron Smith who was brought for that purpose from the Kings-Bench before the King That Sheriff and Bell did then own Aaron Smith to be the Man who had pass'd under the Name of Clerk That Sheriff declar'd the said Clerk lay at his House and Bell said that he travell'd towards Scotland with him being hired to shew him the way That to all this Aaron Smith would not answer one word Then Sheriff himself deposed That he keeping the Black-Spread-Eagle in Newcastle Aaron Smith came to his House about the middle of February 1683 That he staid there one Night went away and return'd again in twelve days or thereabout That he travell'd from his House Northward towards Scotland but first desir'd one might be got to shew him the way That to that purpose the Deponent sent for Bell whom Smith presently hired to go with him That when Smith came back he lay another Night at his House and so return'd into the South towards London That Smith went all the while by the Name of Clerk That the Deponent directed him to a Gentleman at Jadburgh which is Forty Miles from Newcastle and within Six Miles of Scotland Then Bell swore That Aaron Smith was the very Man who went by the Name of Clerk That the Deponent living at Newcastle and getting his Livelihood by letting out Horses and guiding of Travellers Sheriff sent for him told him the said Clerk wanted a Guide into Scotland That this happen'd on the Thursday before Shrove Tuesday That the next Morning being Friday he conduced Smith towards Jadburgh that on the Saturday the Deponents Horse was tyr'd so Smith