NOTES UPON Stephen College Grounded Principally upon his own Declarations and Confessions And freely submitted to PUBLIQUE CENSURE By Roger L'Estrange LONDON Printed for Ioanna Brome at the Gun at the West-end of St. Pauls Church-yard 1681. To the Reader IT is not the part of a Christian nor indeed of a Man to Insult upon the Miserable either in their Memories or in their Persons Beside that the Criminal here in question has already satisfied Publique Iustice and is gone to his Place to receive according to his Works This does not hinder yet but that a man may honestly endeavour the putting of a Check to those Clamorous Out-crys that are daily sent forth against the Government upon this occasion as if the whole business of College were only a Perjurious Combination of Papists against Protestants in the Person of that Wretched Malefactor and the Protestant Religion to stand or fall with the Protestant Joyner It is the Intent now of these Papers to lay open the Malice and the Falshood of these Calumnies Not so much for the Vindication of the Proceeding as for the Disabusing of the Common People for the Best Argument for Authority is the Reason of the Laws and in these Cases the Vigorous Execution of them upon the Seditious is the only effectual Remedy It is not that I pretend to Illustrate the Iustice of the Court or of the Verdict by any Additional Remarques of my own but effectually upon other Grounds and Evidences to bring the Offender to a new hearing wherein I shall remit my self to the Iudgment and Conscience of any Indifferent Reader whether there be not Matter sufficient from whence fairly to Infer and to Presume him Guilty of the most material Parts of his Accusation even without the aid of anything that was produc'd against him at his Tryal As for those that are curious to be more particularly inform'd I must refer them to the Printed Tryal it self and so I shall close up my Preface with my Lord Chief Justices Opinion upon the Verdict Lord Chief Iustice to the Pris'ner These things when I look upon them and consider the complexion of your defence it makes an easie Proof have Credit But I think there was a full Proof in your Case yet I say if there had been a great deal less Proof the Jury might with Justice have found you Guilty And because you now declare your self Innocent of all you are charged with I think my self bound to declare here in Vindication of the Country and in Vindication of the Justice of the Court that it was a Verdict well given and to the satisfaction of the Court and I did not find my Brothers did dislike it This I say to you out of Charity that you may incline your mind to a submission to the Justice that hath overtaken you and that you may enter into Charity with all men and prepare your self for another life NOTES UPON Stephen College §. 1. The Proceeding against College Represented as a Design against the Protestant Religion THE main stress of the Cause here in Controversie lies upon a Pretended Zeal for Religion and in such a manner too as if the very Name of a Protestant were a Supersed as for a Traytor and an Exemption from the Ordinary Methods of Law and Iustice. This Design says College is not only against Me but against all the Protestants Trayal p. 5. And again This is a most Horrid Conspiracy to take away my life and it will not stop here for it is against all the Protestants in England Ibid. p. 6. 'T is time to have a Care says Aaron Smith when our Lives and Estates and Al are beset here Ibid. p. 13. My Lord says College again I do not question but to prove this one of the Hellishest Conspiracies that ever was upon the face of the Earth And these the most Notorious Wicked Men an absolute design to destroy all the Protestants in England that have had the Courage to oppose the Popish Plot. Ibid. p. 36. And then in his last Speech I am as certainly Murder'd by the hands of the Papists as Sr. Edmundbury Godfrey himself was though the thing is not seen And once again in his other Speech Printed for Edith College I dye says he by the hands of the Enemies of the Great God his Christ his Servants his Gospel and my Country to which I willingly submit and earnestly pray mine may be the last Protestants Blood that Murdering Church of Rome may shed in Christendom It is no wonder if the Ringing of this Emphatical Reflection the Blood of Protestants a Design upon all the Protestants of England c. over and over in the Ears of the Multitude create Unquiet Thoughts and work some extraordinary Effects upon the minds of the common People It will be well therefore to ask Stephen College what he means by that Protestant Religion that is so much Endanger'd and who and where those Papists are upon whom he Charges this Hellish Conspiracy for we have none as yet in sight that can fall within the compass of his Challenge but his Majesty himself and the Ordinary Ministers of Iustice acting according to the Known Laws and in the Regular Methods of Iudicial Proceedings Now upon a due Examination of this matter there will be found a great difference betwixt Colleges Protestants and Ours and betwixt Our Papists and His So that the Snare lies in the double acceptation of the Word by which they labour to Impose upon the World that the Schismatiques are the only True-Protestants and those of the Church of England in a Confederacy against them with the Papists But we shall take Colleges Religion as he has deliver'd it with his own lips and gather from thence what may be the Cause and the Profession that he contends for §. 2. The meaning of Colleges Protestants I Was ever a Protestant says College I was born a Protestant I have liv'd so and so by the Grace of God I 'le dye Of the Church of England according to the Best Reformation of the Church from all Idolatry from all Superstition or any thing that is contrary to the Gospel of our Blessed Lord and Saviour Colleges last Speech In this Clause he Declares himself upon his Death to be a Protestant of the Church of England according to the Best Reformation c. Now there is No Church of England but that which is Established by Law both in Doctrine and Discipline unless you will make the Dissenting Protestants to be Assenters and Consenters and Feake's Owen's Ralphson's Baxter's Meade's Ienkins's Separate Congregations to be severally the Church of England which no man certainly in his Right Wits will pretend to do So that either he dy'd a True Son of the Established Church of England according to the Genuine Import of the Expression and as most manifestly he would have it thought he did or else his Design was to go off with a Desperate Equivocation betwixt his Teeth if he was any
other than what he Pretended to be and it comes all to a Case as to the Truth of his Profession whether ye take him the One way or the Other There may be Another Note upon it which is that he would give to understand by This Profession that he had always Liv'd and that now he Dy'd the same sort of Protestant which is a Point-Blank-Contradiction to that which now follows Upon the Sheriffs Desiring him for the satisfaction of the World to declare what Church he meant whether Presbyterian or Independent or the Church of England or what His answer was Good Mr. Sheriff for your satisfaction for Twenty years and above I was under the Presbyterian Ministry till His Majesties Restauration Then I was Conformable to the Church of England when that was Restor'd and so continu'd till such time as I saw Persecution upon the Dissenting People and undue things done in their Meeting-Places Then I went among them to know what kind of People those were and I take God to Witness since that time I have used their Meetings viz. the Presbyterians others very seldom and the Church of England Last Speech By this it appears that College was a Presbyterian before the Late Rebellion as well as quite thorough it He saies nothing what brought him over to the Church of England at last but that it was the Persecution of the Dissenters that carried him off again And yet he told us but just before that he was of That Reformation which was Freest from Superstition and Idolatry though there was nothing of that we see in this Pretended Cause of his Relapse The Remainder of this Paragraph is Mysterious and Perplext and there is too much Reason to fear that it was Intricated on purpose that he might be Vnderstood one way and Mean another But however if there be any thing to be made out of it at all it is that he dy'd of the Presbyterian Persuasion I would not force any thing to Discredit the words of a Dying man but if any man can reconcile this Passage either to it self or with several other Expressions of his in Prison some two or three days before his death they will do him a Kind and a Charitable Office for I must confess I cannot bring them to any sort of Consistence A matter of two or three days before his Execution two Divines of eminent Piety and Worth gave the Prisoner a Visit and among other Discourses suitable to his Condition and the occasion It was ask'd him Q. What Church are ye of A. Of the Church of England Q. As by Law Establish'd A. No I am not Q. How d' ye mean the Church of England then A Presbyterian A. No. Q. An Independent A. No. Q. An Anabaptist A. No. Q. A Quaker A. No. Q. Where 's that Church in Christendom then that you will own your self a Member of A. That 's to my self I will not tell ye And he gave at another time his Reason for 't If it were known saith he what Church I am of my faults would be laid upon my whole Church How does this agree now with his Profession at the Place of Execution Or where shall we find that Individuum Vagum of Colleges Protestant There were some Circumstances concerning my Lady Rochester of which hereafter and others grounded upon the Information of a Somerset-shire Gentleman that have prevail'd upon many People to take him for a Papist which Information runs thus That the Informant Lodging at the House of one P. a Victualler in Wich-street in Michaelmas Term 1677. there came into the Room where he was upon a Sunday in the Evening a certain Person who was called by the name of College and sitting down there enter'd into a discourse concerning the Lord of Rochester whereupon the Informant told College that he heard the Lady Rochester was turn'd Papist who thereupon demanded what he meant by a Papist to which he answer'd One that maintain'd the Tenents of the Church of Rome mentioning some of them as Purgatory Prayers to Saints c. whereupon the other undertook to defend the said Tenents and with great Vehemence told him that he would bring him Books the next day that should overthrow all Arguments to the contrary And told him farther that his name was Gollege and not College and that he had wrought for my Lord of Rochester at Eumore But the Informant never saw him before nor since only his Landlord told him that he was a Joyner and liv'd at the back-side of his House Colleges Answer to this Point was that he believ'd this might be his Brother who was a Ioyner by Trade and dy'd a Papist in October 1678. He wrote his name Gollege Lodg'd near Wich street and as he conceiv'd had done work for my Lord Rochester at Eumore which seems to have been the ground of that mistake Beside that College had several times Confess'd that he had strong and frequent Impulses on his spirit against Popery Insomuch that if he did but see any book in defence of it he would prefently set all his work aside to get it answer'd declaring himself also against it at the place of Execution in these words I do with all my soul and did ever since I knew what Religion was Abhor and Detest the Church of Rome as Pernicious and Destructive of Humane Society I shall leave it now to the Readers choice whether a Papist or not Although for my part I am strongly persuaded of the Negative but what kind of Protestant to make of him we are yet to seek We shall see next how he stood affected to the Church of England but so as to separate his Opinions from his Practices which are reserv'd for another place He received his Sentence Aug. 18. and Suffer'd upon the 31. In this Interim the Bishop of Oxford provided all that was possible for his Relief and Consolation with infinite Compassion and Honour appointing several eminent Pious and Learned Divines to Administer unto him in his Distress The Reverend Dr. Marshal went to him first who being call'd away by bus'ness Dr. Hall supply'd his place from whose hand he receiv'd the Blessed Sacrament soon after his Sentence but his Devotion-duties were still distracted with some interjected Excursions of his own and he was heard to say that as he did not disdain the Prayers of the Church so he did not delight in such Prayers neither could he joyn heartily with those that did not pray by the Spirit It was observed by one of these Reverend Gentlemen that assisted him that when he came to the Prayers for the King Queen and the Bishops instead of Amen he said Lord have mercy upon them though he joyn'd in an Amen to all the rest Two days before his Execution one of them desir'd him to prepare himself for the Holy Eucharist to whom he return'd this Answer It is no more than a Shell and Form of your own making as if I eat a piece of Bread and
Faction together with his forwardness to thrust himself into all Popular Brawls and Contests and that Stubborn Obstinacy which was natural to him will undoubtedly look upon him as an instrument every way qualified for such a purpose As they were carrying away Sam. Harris about the Treasonous Libel that cost Mr. Fitz-Harris his Life and a Crowd of People about him a very honest Gentleman a friend of mine saw College whispering with a Person then in Power from whom he went immediately to make his way to Harris but the press was so great that he was forc'd to deliver his Message to him over Three or Four Heads and so call'd to him just over the shoulder of the Gentleman my friend Come Sam. says he take a good heart Mr. Such a one naming the person makes no doubt but to bring ye off And to shew ye now what Credit College had with his Party but to what purpose in this particular I cannot say He took his Hat which was very broad Brim'd and holding it in his hands with the inside upward I have given away says he twice as much money as this Hat would hold Brims and all Now I suppose this money was not thrown away to make Ducks and Drakes so that I cannot reconcile this Declaration of his to a certain Passage in his Last Speech viz. I take God to witness I never had one Six-pence or any thing else to carry on any Design and if it were to save my life now I cann't Charge any man in the world with any design against the Government as God is my Witness or against his Majesty or any other Person The Explication of this Clause depends upon the knowledge of what is meant by these words ANY DESIGN for the Expression is too large to be True if it be taken in the Latitude and if it be understood with a Restriction i.e. that he knew of no Design against the King or the Government the Principle of Forty one by him asserted in his Tryal brings him off when the Rebellion it self was declared to be FOR the King and the Government so that 't is but his placing the Government in the People or the Two Houses to Countenance the Equivocation And finally The disclaiming of a Design against any other person goes a little too far methinks for by his own Confession there was a Design carried on against the Papists It would be proper enough in this place to render some Account of his Deportment at Oxford in the Prison He was at first coming Stubborn and Captious Insisting upon the Rights of an English-man and Menacing his Keeper till he was brought to better Terms by telling him plainly what he was to trust to Nothing put him more out of Patience then telling him of his Pictures In his behaviour in Company he seem'd always to be very little concern'd but his Keeper says he had terrible Agonies when he was by himself that kept him waking sometimes whole nights A little before he dy'd Mr. Gregory the Sheriff came into his Room with an Order to have his Body deliver'd whole to his Friends Upon the sight of the Seal he leapt from his Bed with a great deal of Joy expecting it might have been a Pardon but upon finding the mistake he threw himself down again in a deep Disquiet He says in his Dying words Printed for E. College That the Messenger who brought him the Message of his Death told him he might save his Life if he would confess who was the cause of his coming to Oxford and upon what Account which was ill done of the Messenger for it was not only without but contrary to Orders He was in the main very ignorant of any thing of Religion and he would say that he found and that he was guided by the Spirit and this was his perpetual Refuge What Principles he had were Enthusiastical As for Instance He said that Eating and Drinking in the Eucharist and so washing in Baptism was to be understood in a Spiritual Sense aud declar'd that he receiv'd no benefit by the Prayers of the Church He spake of the Quakers as the People of God and particularly of one that had been with him as the honestest man that ever he knew It was reply'd to him by a Reverend Divine that the Quakers deny'd in effect Christianity it self As the Two Sacraments and a Succession of Ministers And next they deny'd both the Divinity and Satisfaction of our Saviour naming Pen whom College said he very well knew but did not own him in that Principle His Favourite was Mr. Baxter whom he heard more than Dr. Owen and his Opinion was that God had a Church in all the Sects in England § 7. College Iustifies the Grounds and the Proceedings of the late Rebellion AFter these Pregnant and Undeniable Proofs of so many Virulent and Audacious Outrages upon the Person and Dignity of his Majesty and the very Form as well as the Administration of the Government It remains now only to be considered how far the Malefactor was Principled toward the Actuating of that Malice and by what Methods he proponnded the putting of those Disloyal Inclinations into Execution First As to his Opinion of the Sovereignty according to the Constitution of this Kingdom we shall not need to look any further for 't than into his own words and the inevitable Conclusion which naturally arises from them He appeals from Mr. Masters to Mr. Charlton in St. Paul's Church-yard about his Justifying the Parliament of Forty and yet it is a known Truth that he has several times justify'd that Parliament in the hearing of Mr. Charleton He does acknowledge in his Tryal Page 82. That he said That Parliament did nothing but what they had Just Cause for and that the Parliament that last sate at Westminster was of the same opinion Now in saying this he takes upon himself the Owning of all the Principles whereupon they proceeded in that Controversie betwixt the King and the Two Houses And in so doing strips the King of all his Regalities and Lodges the Supremacy in the Lords and Commons The Papists began the War he says The Papists broke off the Treaty at Uxbridge and the Papists cut off the Kings Head Page 81. And in that case He Justifies the Old Parliament What can be clearer now than that if this King should have been press'd upon the same Terms with his Royal Father After the same manner as the Papists Began and Pursu'd the Former War and brought his Late Majesty to the Block Just so it should have been call'd another Popish Exploit the Reducing of this King to the same Extremities And as they made the Late King the Church and the Royal Party Papists in the One Rebellion they would have treated this King Church and all his Faithful Subjects too as Papists too in another Rebellion These are the Oxford Papists fairly Expounded And under this Ambiguity it is that he Covers and Disguises his pretext
engag'd against the Kings Person he says c. Did not that Parliament whose Cause Doctrine and Proceedings College has so highly approved say the same thing And not only Disclaim their being AGAINST the Person of the late King but declare openly to the World the greatest Tenderness and Veneration for him that was possible What shall we say then of him that speaks their very Words upon the same Grounds and under the same Circumstances but that he has the same Thoughts also which he in truth Confesses too with those who under that pretence advanc'd a Rebellion against their Sovereign What does he mean again by saying that HE was not to have Seiz'd the King c. Is it that He himself was not to do it with his own hands Or that the Sovereignty being lodg'd in the Two Houses his PERSON might be Seiz'd and the KING remain untouch'd There is another Sentence in the same Speech that speaks a little plainer yet I did not understand says he but when I serv'd the Parliament I serv'd the King too Which in the Acceptation of Forty and Forty-One sounds as much as King and Parliament on the one side in opposition to Charles Stuart on the other Now as to the Plot of Seizing the Person of the King if the Witnesses had not made it out accordingly to the very Letter I should rather have suspected a design under the countenance of Loyal Service to interpose a Force betwixt his Majesty and some Pretended Danger And this officious zeal to be follow'd with seizing half a dozen perhaps of his Majesties most necessary Ministers and Friends And then a Proclamation immediately of some damned Hellish Plot a parcel of good Statutable Knights of the Post to make it good and there had been the work done This would have been no Ridiculous thing to imagine if his Majesty had not had over and above his Guards the Honour and Fidelity of the Two Houses of his Security There are a great many slippery Passages in Colleges two Speeches Had the Papists says he or their Party offer'd to destroy the Parliament as was sworn and fear'd they would I was there to have liv'd and dy'd with ' em Here 's a Disjunction of the Papists OR their Party which I cannot tell what to make of unless he ranges the Servants of the King and the Church in a Confederate subserviency to the Papists which is but consonant to what he has said elsewhere There is a doubtful Clause too in his last Speech Men says he speaking of the Presbyterians without any manner of design but to serve God serve his Majesty and keep their Liberties and Properties Now Colleges way of keeping his Property is to Fight for 't in case the King should Invade it as he profess'd to a Divine a little before his Execution Beside that the word KEEP seems to lean a little that way especially from a man that first supposes his Property to be Invaded and then declares his resolution to resist the King in case of such Invasion We shall now as briefly as may be apply matter of Fact to the Capital parts of his Charge The Designing of the Sculpture to his Raree-Show is prov'd upon him so point blank that he himself had not the face to deny it And that Draught made him as Guilty of and as Answerable for the Malicious intent of it as if the Ballad had been originally his own His Publishing of it was a further Aggravation of the Crime and the Pleasure he took in Singing it up and down as he did to several eminent Persons of quality and in Exposing it made all that was in it his own too In that Doggrel Copy there is Chalk'd out the very Train of the whole Conspiracy and so plainly too that it will not bear any other Construction As for example Help Cooper Hughs and Snow with a Hey with a Hey To pull down Raree-Show with a Ho. So so the Gyant 's down Let 's Masters out of Pound With a Hey Tronny Nony Nony No. Here 's first the King to be pull'd down under the Rarce-Show and Cooper Hughs and Snow being Officers belonging to both Houses are to represent the Lords and Comâ—â—â—â—s in the doing of it which reflects as odious a scandal upon the Two Houses as upon his Majesty In the next place he supposes the King to be down and to answer that phansie there are three Fellows in the Plate lugging of him in the Dirt And then follows Let 's Masters out of Pound which is only to say That now the King is down the Lords and Commons are to take upon them the Administration of the Government But let us see how he goes on And now y 'ave freed the Nation with a Hey c. Cram in the Convocation with a Ho With Pensioners All and some Into this Chest of Rome With a Hey c. The first line here makes the Freedom of the Nation to ensue upon the Deposing of the King The second sends the Convocation after him The third all those whom he is pleas'd to call Pensioners And the fourth makes them all to be Papists Here 's the King the Convocation and the Pensioners gone already Now see what 's next And thrust in Six and twenty with a Hey c. With Not Guilty good plenty with a Ho And Hoot them hence away To Cullen or Breda We have here the very Track of the Conspiracy as it was prov'd at his Tryal The Bishop's are to be dispatch'd away too and the Not Guilty-Lords in the Vote upon my Lord Stafford And at best to be all of them driven out of the Nation as the Late King was and a great part of his Adherents We shall now conclude this point with the two last lines Halloe the Hunts begun with a Hey c. Like Father like Son with a Ho c. I have in my hand the Manuscript of Colleges own writing from whence this Ballad was Printed where it is to be noted that instead of Halloe it was in the Original Stand to 't but that struck out and Halloe interlin'd in the place of it the other being too broad a discovery of the Violence they intended Let me further observe that this Song was Calculated for Oxford that is to say both for the Time and the Place When and Where this Exploit was to have been executed And now for a close What can be the meaning of Like Father like Son but a design and encouragement as appears from the Connexion to serve them both alike and to conclude both Father and Son under one and the same Condemnation The Faction did without dispute flatter themselves that they should find Friends even in the Parliament it self to Authorize them in their Enterprize but they were egregiously mistaken it seems in their measures And they grounded their Hopes upon the Interest they had made in most places of the Kingdom to secure an Election for their turn This Prospect and