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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63966	A new martyrology, or, The bloody assizes now exactly methodizing in one volume comprehending a compleat history of the lives, actions, trials, sufferings, dying speeches, letters, and prayers of all those eminent Protestants who fell in the west of England and elsewhere from the year 1678 ... : with an alphabetical table ... / written by Thomas Pitts.	Tutchin, John, 1661?-1707.	1693 (1693)	Wing T3380; ESTC R23782	258,533	487

the Cruelty of Men when in their Power and how the Devil stirreth up his Instruments to pursue those that adventure for the Cause of God and Religion Here were in this County Executed 239. the rest that were Condemned were Transported except such as were able to furnish Coin and that not a little for an account was taken of Mens abilities according to which the purchase for Life must be managed by two of his Favourites who had a small share the rest went into his Lordships Pocket according to the Actions of Rome where Sins of any kind may be pardoned for mony This indeed was a glorious Design in the Eye of Mother Church to root out Heresie by Executions and Transportations to make room for a pack here Expedition must be made to conclude at Wells for that a great Man being fallen our great Judge designing his Chair which in short he had as the Reward of so eminent and extraordinary a piece of Service as he did for the Advancement of the Roman Catholicks Interest which is cruel always where it prevails Thus we leave the Town of Taunton after awarding Execution to many there and their Quarters to be scatter'd up and down the County and so we proceed to Wells where divers Prisoners that had been carried from Goal to Goal in expectation of Evidence against them were in Carts removed to Wells in which place to finish this Expedition the same Method as was at the former Assizes was also taken here by a severe Charge affronting the Gentlemen of this County as he had done in all the Counties before terrifying the Juries when any pleaded to make them to bring in the persons Guilty some of which being over-awed and it is doubted contrary to their Judgments which if so the Lord forgive them Here were many eminent and worthy persons that received the Sentence of Death but the Executions of the County being put together as you have before seen we make no particular Division of the Number here and the Number at Taunton the whole being recited before We shall therefore endeavour to be as brief as we can to give you what we think material and truly matter of Fact my Lord now being come to conclude this extraordinary Commission and in haste to be elevated maketh all manner of dispatch to repair to the King then at Windsor to give an Account of his Transactions and to receive the Reward of his meritorious service in this Butchering of Protestants which is so acceptable to his Holiness and his bigotted Disciples as nothing can be more and indeed if you will believe them a Work that merits Heaven at last besides what Temporal Preferments are thought fit in this World If this cruel Judge were a true Protestant his Case is much the worse being made use of as a Tool to destroy and carry on Popish Designs Thus the Affairs being ended the Country filled with Heads and Quarters of those that were Executed the rest that had not wherewith to purchase their Lives left in Custody in order to Transportation I shall next add the Charge given by the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys at the City of Bristol Monday September 21. 1685. In his Return from his Western Campaigne Gentlemen I Am by the Mercy of God come to this great and populous City a City that boasts both of its Riches and Trade and may justly indeed claim the next place to the great and populous Metropolis of this Kingdom Gentlemen I find here are a great many Auditors who are very intent as if they expected some formal or prepared Speech but assure your selves we come not to make neither set Speeches nor formal Declamations nor to follow a couple of puffing Trumpeters for Lord we have seen those things Twenty times before No we come to do the King's business a King who is so Gracious as to use all the means possible to discover the Disorders of the Nation and to search out those who indeed are the very Pest of the Kingdom To this end and for this purpose are we come to this City But I find a special Commission is an unusual thing here and relishes very ill nay the very Women storm at it for fear we should take the upper hand of them too for by the by Gentlemen I hear it is much in fashion in this City for the Woman to govern and bear sway But Gentlemen I will not stay you with such needless Stories I will only mention some few things that fall within my knowledg for Points or Matters of Law I shall not trouble you but only mind you of some things that lately hath happened and particularly in this City for I have the Kalender of this City in my Pocket and if I do not express my self in so formal or set a Declamation for as I told you I came not to make Declamations or in so smooth Language as you may expect you must attribute it partly to the pain of the Stone under which I labour and partly to the unevenness of this days journey Gentlemen I may say that even some of the youngest amongst us may remember the late horrid Rebellion how men under colour of Law and pretext of Justice after they had divested a most Gracious and most Merciful Prince of all his Royal Power by the Power of the Sword they I say under colour of Law and pretext of Justice which added the more to the Crime that it was done under colour of such pretended Justice brought the most Mild and Meekest Prince next to our ever Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ if we may but compare him to a Man to die a Martyr the first blessed Martyr pardon the expression besides our most blessed Jesu who suffered for us on the Cross I say besides that Blessed Son of God this I say was the first Royal Martyr not suffering him to speak for himself or make his defence a Liberty which is given to the vilest Traitor and this was done not to descant on the number by Forty one The Rebels not resting here for Rebellion is like the sin of Witchcraft Divested the Lineal Legal and Rightful Heir of the Crown of all his Power and Prerogative till the Mighty God of Heaven and Earth God Almighty restored him to his Just Right And he as if begot in Mercy not only forgave all Offences and pardoned voluntarily even all that had been in actual Arms against him excepting those accursed Regicides but also made it a Crime for any one that should but remember or upbraid any of their past Crimes and Rebellions Good God! O Jesu that we should live in such an Age in which such a Prince cannot be safe from the seditious contrivances of Pardoned Rebels Had we not the Rye Conspiracy wherein they not only designed to have Murthered that Most Blessed for so now we may conclude him to be with God Almighty and Gracious King but also his Most ever Dear and Victorious Brother Had we not the Bill

so unjustly many ways from ●he Perjury of their Accusers or the Inequality of their Judges or corruption of Juries and that really because they would not yield themselves but made a vigorous opposition against Popery and Slavery For the VVestern Martyrs we intend a distinct account of 'em at the beginning of those Transactions One thing more ●●at may choak such as have a mind to quarrel is the 〈◊〉 faults and in some or at least one Instance vicious habits and ill Life of those whom we give that high Character But if little Failures if Heats and Weaknesses were any valuable Objection against the Worth or Honesty of a Person 't would be impossible to make any tolerable defence even for many of those great Men who were the happy Instruments of our Reformation Tho it may seen an excuse dull and common yet there 's none who does not find it nec●ssary on his own account That allowances are to be made for the best of Men. Cranmer and the rest of our Reformers as the Learned Dr. Burnet observes in his Letter to Mr. Thevenot Tho' we piously believe 'em Saints and Martyrs yet never pretended to be infallible They were Men and so were these tho' they suffer'd for the same Causes and almost in the same manner For such as liv'd ill if there is more than one instance this certainly will be sufficient that they dy'd well and gave all the tokens of a hearty repentance for their not having liv'd up to so good a Profession Let us then do 'em Justice now they are dead who so nobly defended the Cause of our holy Religion while they were living and at last so freely and joyfully at their Death seal'd it with their dearest Blood If in any accounts met with here some Persons shou'd find some particular Words or Phrases not so usual with 'em let 'em not be so weak or unjust to condemn them as Cant or Nonsense What reason is there why every Man should not express himself in that way which likes him best and with which he has been more acquainted And what matters it if I 'm discours'd to in Yorkshire or London Dialect so I talk with an honest Man and our Sentiments agree tho' our words may a little differ Especially when as before was remark'd all of 'em suffer'd for the same Caus● and with this considerable Circumstance that the first and some of the last Victims of Popish Cruelty were entirely agreeable in their Judgments as to the manners and merits of their Death Sir Edmondbury Godfrey who begins the Rubrick having notoriously declared some days before his Death That he believed in his Conscience he should be the first Martyr And some of those who went last to Glory as will appear below mentioning this as one of their greatest Comforts that they should in after Ages be enrolled among the rest of the Protestant Martyrs Advertisement To make the Book Pleasant as well as Profitable there are inserted some Poems and Elegies made by an ingenious Person who was particularly acquainted with many of those who are the Subjects of ' em An Emblem of our late Martyrs Sr. Ed Bury Godfrey I. DUKE of Monmouth The Earle of Argile Arth Earle of Essex Wm. Ld. Russell Collonell Sydney Alderman Cornish Mr. wm Hewling Mr. Wm. Ienkins The Lady Lisle M rs Gaunt Sr. Tho Armstrong These all dyed in Faith Heb 11.13 A NEW MARTYROLOGY OR THE Bloody Assizes c. Sir Edmond-Bury Godfrey HAD the Person who wrote that Scandalous Libel upon Sir E. B. G. which he calls The Mystery of his Death but always confin'd himself to as much Truth and Reason as we meet with in the very first Lines of his Preface to it he might have gone both through the World and out of it with more Reputation than now he is like to do There will saith he be a time when Truth shall be believed and the Witnesses of it justified But notwithstanding all his boasted Sagacity in winding Alterations at such a distance we may safely affirm that when he writ that Sentence he little thought 't would ever have been apply'd in this manner That Truth would come to life again after all the care he had taken to stifle it and the highest Judicatures in the Nation in one day remove all the black dirt which so many years he had been throwing on its Witnesses and in so Publick and authentick a manner justifie 'em again 'T was in the heat of those Mischiefs and Miseries which all thinking men cou'd long before easily foresee wou'd be the Consequences of such Notions as he broached and were too greedily swallow'd that he publish'd the book before mentioned at such at time when he knew 't was in one sense unanswerable wherein he pretends both to confound all the Evidence given in before the Parliament and Publick Courts of Justice for Sir Edmond's being murthered with Papists and over and above That he was a self-murtherer No better than a second running him through with his own Sword after his Death 'T is some plausible insinuations he has there heapt together which will make it necessary to be a little larger on him than those who came after especially since he led the way both to the Sufferings of the Protestants and Malice of their Enemies Sir Edmond-Bury Godfrey was born of a good Family his Relations are sufficiently known and as justly respected in the City of London But 't is not the intention of this Piece to write the Lives but the Deaths of those who are the Subjects of it at least no more of one than is requisite for describing the other The occasion of his Knighthood is reported to be the good Service he did in giving Directions for quenching a Fire which happend some years past at St. James's which Honour the then Duke of York obtain'd for him having been under a great Consternation at the apprehension of the danger This very probably might be the beginning of his so great Intimacy with the Papists which Sir Roger so often hints in his History and which afterwards cost him so dearly He was a Person of known Vertues For the Instances of his secret Charity the World is oblig'd to that Reverend and Learned Person who preach'd his Funeral Sermon For his Piety and Integrity even his worst Enemy here gives us several Instances thereof that particularly when after those Prophetick bodings of his approaching Martyrdom he took care to settle all things and adjust Accompts exactly and even in Parish Matters to right such as he thought had formerly been injur'd Lastly how vigilant and careful he was in the Execution of that Office the Law had intrusted him with his Death as well as his Life may testifie One thing cannot without great Injury to his Memory be omitted 'T is his extraordinary Conduct and Courage in the time of the Plague in this City whence he never stir'd all the while it rag'd so dreadfully but reliev'd the Poor and fed

forgive as against me but as it is done in an implacable mind against the Lord Christ and his righteous Cause and Followers I leave it to him who is the Avenger of all such Wrongs who will tread upon Princes as upon Mortar and be terrible to the Kings of the Earth And know this also that though ye are seemingly fixt and because of the Power in your hand are writing out your Violence and dealing with a despiteful hand because of the old and new hatred by impoverishing and every way distressing of those you have got under you yet unless you can secure Jesus Christ and all his holy Angels you shall never do your business nor your hands accomplish your Enterprizes for he will be upon you ere you are aware and therefore O that you would be wise instructed and learn is the desire of her that finds no mercy from you ELISABETH GAVNT Postscript SVch as it is you have it from her who hath done as she could and is sorry she can do no better hopes you will pity and cover weakness shortness and any thing that is wanting and begs that none may be weakned or humbled at the lowness of my Spirit for God's Design is to humble and abase us that he alone may be exalted in this day and I hope he will appear in the needful time and it may be reserves the best Wine till last as he hath done for some before me none goeth to Warfare at his own charge and the Spirit bloweth not only where but when it listeth and it becomes me who have so often grieved quenched and resisted it to wait for and upon the motions of the Spirit and not to murmur but I may mourn because through want of it I honour not my God nor his blessed Cause which I have so long loved and delighted to love and repent of nothing about it but that I served him and it no better A brief Account of Mr. Roswell's Tryal and Acquittal ABout the same time Mr. Roswell a very worthy Divine was tryed ●or Treasonable Words in his Pulpit upon the Accusation of very vile and lewd Informers and a Surry Jury found him guilty of High Treason upon the most villanous an improbable Evidence that had been ever given notwithstanding Sir John Talbot no countenancer of Dissenters had appeared with great generosity and honour and testified That the most material Witness was as scandalous and infamous a Wretch a lived It was at that time given out by those who thirsted for Blood that Mr. Roswell and Mr. Hays should die together and it was upon good ground believed that the happy deliverance of Mr. Hays did much contribute to the preservation of Mr. Roswell tho' it is very probable that he had not escaped had not Sir John Talbot's worthy and most honourable detestation of that accursed Villany prompted him to repair from the Court of King's Bench to King Charles II. and to make a faithful representation of the Case to him whereby when inhuman bloody Jeffryes came a littl● after in a transport of Joy to make his Report of the Eminent Service he and the Surry Jury had done in finding Mr. Roswell guilty the King to his disappointment appeared under some reluctancy and declared that Mr. Roswell should not die And so he was most happily delivered The Earl of Argyle WE must now take a step over into Scotland that poor Country which has been harass'd and tired for these many years to render them perfect Slaves that they might help to enslave England to prevent which and secure the Protestant Religion which 't was grown impossible to do but by Arms this good Lord embark'd from Holland about the same time with the Duke and arrived in Scotland with what Forces he could make to which were added some others who joyn'd him which after several Marches and Counter-Marches were at length led into a Boggy sort of a place on pretence or with intention to bring him off from the other Army then upon the heels of 'em where they all lost one another dispers'd and shifted for themselves the E. being taken by a Country-man and brought to Edinburgh where he suffer'd for his former unpardonable Crime requiring Care shou'd be taken of the Protestant Religion and explaining his taking the Test conformable thereto for the Legality of which he had the hands of most of the eminent Lawyers about the City He suffer'd at Edinburgh the 30 th of June 1685. His Speech has a great deal of Piety and Religion nor will it be any disgrace to say 't was more like a Sermon 'T is as follows The Earl of Argyle's last Speech June 30. 1685. JOB tells us Man that is born of a Woman is of few days and full of trouble and I am a clear Instance of it I shall not now say any thing of my Sentence or escape about three years and a half ago nor of my return lest I may thereby give Offence or be tedious Only being to end my days in your Presence I shall as some of my last Words assert the truth of the matter of Fact and the Sincerity of my Intentions and Professions that are published That which I intend mainly now to say is To express my humble and I thank God chearful Submission to his Divine Will and my willingness to forgive all Men even my Enemies and I am heartily well satisfied there is no more Blood spilt and I shall wish the stream thereof may stop at me And that if it please God to say as to Zerubbabel Zech. 4.6 Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts I know Afflictions spring not out of the dust God did wonderfully deliver and provide for me and has now by his special Providence brought me to this place and I hope none will either insult or stumble at it seeing they ought not for God Almighty does all things well for good and holy Ends tho we do not always understand it Love and hatred is not known by what is before us Eccles. 9.1 and 8.11 12 13. Afflictions are not only foretold but promised to Christians and are not only tolerable but desirable We ought to have a deep Reverence and Fear of God's displeasure but withall a firm hope and dependance on him for a blessed Issue in compliance with his Will for God chastens his own to re●ine them and not to ruine them whatever the World may think Heb. 12.3 to 12. Prov. 3.11 12. 2 Tim. 1.8 2 Tim. 2.11 12. Math. 10.18 to 40. Matth. 16.24 to 28. We are to imitate our Saviour in his Sufferings as 1 Pet. 2.23 and 1 Pet. 4.16 to 20. We are neither to despise our Afflictions nor to faint under them both are extreams We are not to suffer our Spirits to be exasperated against the Instruments of our trouble for the same Affliction may be an effect of their Passion and yet sent by God to punish us for sin Tho 't is a

the Times encourages Vice and depresses Vertue Raises those who are consent to be Slaves themselves so they may but make others so and trample on others while they are kick'd themselves while it industriously opposes the very sparks of Ingenuity and Liberty and takes off as fast as possible either by Clandestine Plots or open Cruelty whoever dare be any braver or better or honester than their Neighbo●rs while Providence all the while seems to nod and sit an unconcerned Spectator of the Ravage that 's made in the VVorld then there 's no little danger lest even those who are truly though weakly religious and virtuous should yet be hurried away in the stream of sour and melancholy Thoughts be tempted to think with the Royal Prophet that all things were carried caeco impetu that they have cleansed their Heart in vain and be almost ready with him to condemn the Generation of the righteous 'T is a question whether ever any Age in the VVorld gave more advantage and colour for these kind of Thoughts than this last wherein we have had the sad experience of Debauchery and Villany rampant and triumphant and to all appearance most prosperous and happy wherein 't was much more dangerous either to be distinguishingly vertuous or to forsake Villany than to continue in one and laugh at t'other when so many of the Flower of our Nobility and Gentry either lost their Lives or Estates or Liberties or Country whilst a Crew of Parasites triumphed and fluttered in their Ruins To see a Russel die meanly and ignobly in the Flower of his Age an Essex or a Godfrey sacrified to the insatiable ambition and revenge of their Enemies who yet not content with their Lives would like the Italian stab on after Death and tho' they could not reach their Souls endeavour to damn their Memories These and too many other such melancholy Instances would be ready to make a short-sighted Man exclaim with Hercules in the Tragoedian That Vertue is but an empty Name or at least could only serve to make its Owners more sensibly unhappy But altho' such Examples might a little work on a weaker Vertue that which is more confirmed and solid can more easily resist it 'T is not impatient nor uneasie but still beli●ves that Heaven is awake that the Iron Hands of Justice will at length overtake the Offenders and by their destruction vindicate the Honour and Innocence of those whom they have ruin'd It considers any Riddles in Providence as a curious piece of Opticks which if judged of either before 't is finished or by pi●ce-meal here an Eye and there another distorted Feature appears not only unpleasing but really dreadful which yet if viewed when 't is compleat and taking all the Features together makes a Figure sufficiently regular and lovely VVho almost could have imagined without some such Reflections as these that those brave Men we have seen for some years past pick'd out and cut off one after another with as much Scandal and Obloquy as cou'd be thrown upon 'em by the ungenerous Malice of their Enemies when the very attempt to clear their Reputation has been made almost Capital and involved those who had courage enough to attempt it in little less mischief than what they themselves endured That over these Phoenixes should rise again and flourish in their Ashes That so many great Pens should already have done some of 'em Justice and the VVorld as much to all the rest And with how much more Joy if'twere possible would those Heroes have received their Crowns could they have foreseen their Deaths wou'd have tended so far to work up the Nation to such a just resentment as wou'd at last have so great an Influence as we ●●d it had on our late glorious Deliverance But since we have yet no form'd History of all those who have suffer'd under the Cruelty and Injustice not to use so harsh a word as Tyranny of late years since such a design may be of no little use both to show what our former Discords have cost us and to vindicate the memories of the Sufferers as well from the malice of their Enemies as hasty kindn●ss of their Friends and besides to leave Posterity so many great Examples of those who preferr'd their Liberty and Religion before all else that was dear in the VVorld and because they could not live Free dy'd so For such Reasons as these this VVork is undertaken which if it deserves the acceptance of the Reader no doubt will find it there being few good Books written which have not been favourably received in the VVorld If any be so weak to object that the Subjects of this History are ill match'd some of 'em being of one Communion and some of another It might be enough to send 'em to Fox's Martyrology for an Answer tho' some few years since 't is granted this Objection wou'd have look'd more dreadful wh●re they may find Hooper and Ridley differing in their Opinions but yet agreeing at the Stake and accordingly ranged by that great Man in the same noble Army The Kindness and Gratitude of the Courts of England and Rome made no distinction between 'em nay not so much as to eat either of them last but as occasion served took one or t'other Fas est ab hoste and since they made no difference in their Deaths altho' they endeavour'd it as much as possible in their Lives since there 's no doubt there 's none betwixt 'em now but they all agree in Heaven I see no Reason why any Party should envy the other that Glory which for suffering in the same Cause they 〈◊〉 deserve There has been formerly some Discourse about Town of a weak or malicious Design a-foot to publish an History of Persecutions and charge it on one particular Party of Protestants But as such a thing wou'd be most pernicious to the Common Cause so God knows if it should go round it would be endless This design is quite contrary as ' its hoped its effects will be 'T is to lay the Fault where it ought to be and make those Friends who have been too long impos'd upon almost to each others Ruine Others may be offended with the Title of Martyrs and Martyrdom which so often occurs in the following Papers both because some of those concerned were accused for Plots against the Government and others were in actual Arms. But 't is possible for a Person at the same time to be a Church and State Martyr Naboth's accusation was for speaking blasphemous VVords against God and the King The Apostles of our Saviour and the Christians afterwards were accused as those who turned the VVorld upside down and Enemies of the Empire These Answers 't is own'd may be accommodated to any Party being general things but in the Body of the Discourse we hope to fix 'em and to prove in particular of the Persons mention'd that they deserv'd that great Name both on account of the Cause and their dying