and Mr. Hanses The last of whom was Sir Roger your Assistant in your malicious Scriblings and your Brother-Burgess in K. James's Parliament for Winchester They produced for Witnesses about 20 Jesuits and Students of St. Omers who all testified that the Defendant came to St. Omers in December 1677. and went not from thence until June 1678. I shall here observe how these Jesuited Sparks were caressed and cherished both by the Court and Counsel Their Evidence was received without the least Interruption not one cross thwarting or doubting Question being put to any one of them Nay there was not found so much Temper as to permit the Defendant to propose his Questions to them which made him with undaunted Courage cry out That his Defence was under a very great Prejudice and that there was a Turn to be served and therefore he was not admitted to ask the Witnesses Questions and said I do verily believe that at this rate it is more safe for Papists to be Traitors than for any Protestant to discover a Popish Plot. It seems also worth the noting that to insinuate that Oates's Evidence was not always true and credited the King's Counsel produced the Earl of Castlemain and Sir George Wakeman who declared that what he swore against them at their Trials was false Here Jeffries observing the Doctor 's Undauntedness said I wonder to see any one that has the Face of a Man carry it at this rate when he hears such Evidence brought against him To which the Doctor replied I wonder Mr. Attorney will offer to bring this Evidence Jeffries whose Character with K. Charles the Second was that he had the Impudence of ten Carted Whores in a raving Fit retorted Such Impudence was never seen in any Christian Nation you are a Shame to Mankind To which the Doctor 's Reply was No my Lord I am neither a Shame to my self nor to Mankind What I have sworn is true and I will seal it with my Blood if occasion be Ah Ah my Lord I know why all this is and so may the World but THIS WILL NOT DO THE WORK to make the Plot to be disbelieved things are not to be done by great Noises I will stand by the Truth He observed in his Defence that the Indictment against him was six Years after the pretended Perjury That most of the Witnesses who now gave Evidence against him were those who were brought to confront him at the Trial of the five Jesuits and tho there were some fresh Witnesses the Evidence of all of them was the same as then but their Testimony rejected as it was at Langborne's Trial and that the Jury upon convicting the Jesuits were told by the Court that their Verdict was unexceptionable and this by Jeffries himself And Then he produced four or five Witnesses who clearly proved his being in London as he had sworn at the time of the White-horse-Consult in April 1678. After this he offered Objections to the Validity of the Evidence against him As 1. That a Papist in a Cause of Religion is not to be received and believed as a good Witness Here Wythens interposed saying Is not a Papist as good a Witness as a Dissenter Which was answered by citing Bulstrode's Reports Part 2. 155. A Popish Recusant is not to be admitted a Witness between Party and Party which was also my Lord Coke's Opinion Wythens replied May a Presbyterian be a good Witness Mr. Oates And Holloway who had assisted the Blood-hounds to murder Colledge said Or would Colledge have been a good Witness Mr. Oates Most certainly by the Rules of Law the Testimonies of these Persons ought not to have been offered in this Case to delude the People and the Civil Law so fully concurs with our Common Law in rejecting Enemies to be Witnesses in the Cause of their Enemy that it denies Credit to what they may testify in the Cause of their Enemy with their dying Breath after they have received the Eucharist This is the general Conclusion of the Doctors of the Civil Law Inimicus etiamsi in Articulo Mortis constitutus accipisset Eucharistiam repellitur à Testimonio Causa sui Inimici He then urged the Judgments of Papists in Case of Conscience whereby they maintain the vilest Wickedness to be lawful for the Church's Service And they acknowledg they have Dispensations to swear Lies for promoting the Catholick Cause Then he concluded to this effect My Lord this I say The Evidence for which I am indicted is the same which I delivered six Years ago where there were 16 Witnesses against me but what Credit did they receive I do avow the Truth of the Popish Plot and will stand to it whilst I live Was ever Man dealt with as I am or had such Evidence offered against him My Lord this I am sure of if I had been a Witness against those who suffered in the late Fanatick Plot as 't was called I had never been called in question if my Evidence had been false but 't is apparent the Papists have now a Turn to serve and these St. Omers Youths are brought to falsify my Evidence and to bring off the Lords who stand impeached of High Treason for the Popish Conspiracy My Lord 't is not me they indict but the whole Protestant Interest is aimed at in this Prosecution For my own part I care not what becomes of me the Truth will one time or another appear Upon the Day following May 9. 1685. the Doctor was tried upon an Indictment for another supposed Perjury but that Prosecution being of the Complection with what is here presented I trouble not the Reader with it farther than to lay before him the Names of the Jury Sir Thomas Vernon Nicholas Charleton Thomas Langham Thomas Hartop Francis Griffith John Kent George Toriano Henry Loades John Midgley John Pelling Thomas Short and George Peck All Men of the same Kidney still The Juries having according as directed by that Man of Blood Jeffries brought the Doctor in guilty of both the Perjuries comes the Abhorrer of Parliaments the tender-hearted good natur'd Protestant Judg Wythens to pronounce the Sentence previous to it he tells the Defendant that no Christian 's Heart can think of the Innocent Blood which was shed by his Oath without bleeding That every knowing Man believed and every honest Man grieved for it He proceeds God be thanked our Eyes are now open The Judgment besides Imprisonment Fine c. was that on Wednesday next he be whipt from Aldgate to Newgate and upon Friday from Newgate to Tyburn This says Wythens I pronounce to be the Judgment of the Court upon you and I must tell you plainly If it had been in my Power to have carried it farther I should not have been unwilling to have given Judgment of Death upon you This cruel Sentence was executed with all the Circumstances of Barbarity so that tho which Wythens lamented the Law did not allow them to condemn him directly to Death they
have heard you often express your hearty good will to root that Faction out of this Nation I hope your Zeal for the Protestant Religion is not a whit abated yet my Hopes are not without some Fears when I have it by some reported though I cannot give full Credit to it that your Lordship together with the Bishop of Canterbury do maintain R. L'estrange and encourage him in that vile Pamphlet called the Observator in which your Lordship may see the Justice of the Nation is arraigned and by Consequences of his own drawing the Blood of those that were executed upon the account of the Popish Conspiracy charged upon the Government and I do not find him lie under any Censure for that his vile Libel by your Lordship under whose Jurisdiction he is Is the Church in so low a Condition that she stands in need of Roger's Support Is the Government in such a state as none can cure it but he Is Episcopacy at such a point that it cannot be brought to its Pristine State without him Is the Ministry of the Church in such Contempt that none but he by his Penny-Observator can recover its Reputation and Credit How is all this done by Seditious Factious Scurrilous Lies by encouraging Popery by reviling the Protestant Interest by arraigning the Justice of the Nation by villifying the Discovery of the Popish Plot and endeavouring to expose the Discoverers by a heap of infamous Lies to the Nation as Impostors My Lord I am a Minister yea a Minister of the Church of England and have done her more Service than any Clergy-man in England and because I hate those Monsters that are amongst us who were bred in the Protestant Religion and have left this Religion and are reconciled to the Church of Rome and are by that means declared Traytors by our Law I am looked upon by our little Clergymen as a Dissenter from the Church of England But my Lord your Lordship hath I hope better Thoughts of me tho I am grieved to hear your Lordship should be concerned for a vile Observator that hath been so profuse as to call in Question the Truth of the Popish Plot of which your Lordship was convinced and satisfied and for the farther Discovery of which you were so diligent in Parliament and Council in your Examination both of Criminals and Witnesses I purpose to be heard in Council against this L'estrange in order thereunto I have written to Mr. Secretary Jenkins and in that Letter I have inclosed a Petition and Complaint against him and therefore I am an humble Suitor to your Lordship to do me Right and help me to my intended Hearing and if I cannot be heard I must print my Case which you know is an appealing to the People which some have not liked But what must I do I have born his scandalous Reflections so long that I can bear no longer and I conceive as I am a Minister I ought to have been protected by the Bishops and Prelates of the Church in whose Communion I am though I have been misrepresented by L'estrange and others of his Confederates therefore as your Lordship tenders the Justice and Honour of the Government I hope you will not only discountenance the vile Usage of me by L'estrange but also endeavour that he may be silenced for it s he and those of his Crew that have created such Animosities amongst the King's Leige People It hath been the Policy of the Synagogue of Rome to divide Protestants and he is the Tool they make use of to divide us There hath scarce been any one Sober Clergy-man of Note that hath escaped his Lash and what credit the Church can have by such an Elf I cannot conceive My Lord I will not detain you any longer but I shall only protest my Intergrity and Truth in what I have done in reference to the Popish Plot and I have had your Lordship's good word in that particular and question not but upon Consideration your Lordship will be a means of having Right done me in my Complaint 'T is true I lie under the King's Displeasure for what I know not to this Day I thank God I am not conscious to my self of any thing that I have said or done that might have done him any prejudice if I have I should be glad to understand my Error that I might make Reparation In a Word I shall study to appear My Lord Your Lordship 's Obedient Servant Titus Oates March 15. 1683. A Copy of Dr. Oates 's Letter to King Charles II. April 12. 1684. May it please Your most Excellent Majesty I Thought it my duty for the honour of Truth to whom all Men are Debtors and for my own Vindication to apply my self to your Majesty's Ministers and Counsellors for redress against the scurrilous Pamphlets of Roger L'estrange in which I find the Justice of your Majesty's Government arraigned for the Service I did in the Discovery of the Popish Plot. I am exposed by him and his Confederates to the Vengeance of those Men that carried on the Conspiracy against your Royal Person and Government but from them I could have no redress tho as I humbly conceive that the proper way for me to proceed considering the nature of my Complaint and the Circumstances under which I now am Your Majesty when this Popish Plot was first discovered was highly sensible of the danger your Person was in by reason of that Conspiracy so that you were pleased to press your Parliaments to examine it to the bottom and not only so but in all Humility your Majesty did address your self to the Majesty on High and commanded all your Loving Subjects to join with your Majesty in hearty and humble Supplication to Almighty God our Heavenly Father to give a Blessing to the then Discovery of the Popish Plot and to make a farther Discovery thereof and no Man but a Papist will judg any otherwise of your Majesty but that you were in earnest None Sir I say but such will so much as conceive you called Mock-Fasts hence it is that those Blasphemous Cut-throats did compare you to Ahab as I can produce in one of their Pamphlets And besides all this Sir Your Majesty hath been pleased to tell your Loving Subjects how fully you were satisfied in the reality of the Designs of the Popish Party and their Abettors against your Person and Government but by what means it is not yet known that Men have taken the boldness to arraign your Government and charge the Blood of those Jesuits and other Traitors that suffered in that Cause upon you and the Government especially Roger L'estrange who hath abused the Discoverers and Discovery of the Popish Plot And in his seditious Libel called the Observator he as I humbly conceive hath taken a great deal of pains to perswade the Nation that there was no Popish Plot but that it was a meer Fiction the Consequence of which I leave your Majesty to draw Certainly it
will be so foul a Consequence that a Loyal Heart must tremble to consider it I should not have trotbled your Majesty had your Ministers taken my Complaint into Consideration and tho I was not thought worthy of being heard by them yet by their leaves I humbly conceive your Majesty's Proceedings have been so just and good in the executing of those that were in that Hellish Conspiracy that they deserve to be vindicated from these foul Aspersions cast upon them by Roger L'estrange and his Popish Crew and altho by unjust Reports and Misrepresentations I am out of your Majesty's Favour yet I may say if Oates had not been Loyal your Majesty had not been in the Land of the Living whatever the Popish Crew have suggested in their scurrilous Pamphlets against me for discovering their impious Designs against your Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion I sent a Petition to Mr. Secretary Jenkins but could not be heard and I have written to several of your Council but can have no Effects of my just Complaints though I am left to starve yet I may say I have deserved better of the Government than to live in danger of being knockt of the Head as I go along the Streets and for no other Crime but that of the 28th and 29th of September 1678 if I must perish for serving your Majesty and the Government I humbly pray that I may perish quietly and starve in Peace and not be put into a Bear 's Skin in order to be worried to Death by Popish Dogs whose Religion is nothing else but a Cistern of Immorality and their Immorality Treason in the highest Degree Therefore let any Man shew me a Papist and I can shew a Man that is or must when commanded by his Priest be a Traitor especially such a Papist who hath been bred and instructed in the Protestant Religion and is reconciled to the Synagogue of Rome such a Papist I hate and I trust in God to see such ruined unless that Vengeance be prevented by timely Repentance None Sir hath been used like me and this L'estrange hath as I am informed threatned to write against me till he hath writ me out of the World what the meaning is of such an Expression I humbly leave to your Majesty to consider I have in this inclosed a Petition to your Majesty and question not but you will be graciously pleased to take my sad Case into serious Consideration Sir from my Heart and Soul I love your Majesty and the Government established by Law and have I am sure given your Majesty as great Demonstration of my Loyalty and Duty as any one Subject you have in your three Kingdoms and therefore be pleased to give me leave to put your Majesty in mind of the sad Fate of Alphonso the late King of Portugal and how his Ruine was brought about your Majesty knows the Story better than I can express it and a Word is enough to so wise a Prince as your Majesty hath appeared to be I will not trouble your Majesty any farther but that God the King of Kings may bless your Majesty with a long Life and a happy Reign over us is and ever shall be the daily Prayer of SIR Your Majesty's most Dutiful Loyal and Obedient Subject and Servant Titus Oates London April 12. 1684. A Copy of Dr. Oates's Letter to King James the Second Aug. 12. 1688. May it please Your Majesty I Have no Friend that can attend your Majesty with my Petition or else I should not have made my Application to you in this Way it not being usual for Subjects to address themselves in such a Manner to their Prince Necessity drives me to it for contrary to all Law and Humanity I am miserably oppressed by Mr. Ellis the Marshal of your Prison of the King's-Bench who hath within a few Years last past declared himself to be of the Communion of the Church of Rome upon which together with his Authority I humbly conceive he takes Liberty thus to oppress me to revenge himself and those of that Communion upon me He kept my Servant from me tho it 's well known that by reason of my long and miserable Imprisonment I am lame and not able to help my self He stops all People at the Gate from coming at me by which means I must perish because no Succour can come at me unless Care be taken by your Majesty that a stop be speedily put to his Arbitrary Cruel Usage of me I humbly conceive the Causes of my Imprisonment do not lie before him His Business is to keep me in safe Custody and not to oppress me He demands Ten Guineas of me for Civility-Money which is not his due to receive nor in my power to pay for which he threatens me with Irons the Truth is the whole City crys out Shame of his manner of dealing with me and the more because of his Religion I am certain those of the Communion of the Church of Rome pretend to more Humanity than any other People but his Usage of me shews him rather a Turk than a Christian there will be loud Crys against him either at Term or in Parliament for his many Extravagancies in the Execution of his Office What the Causes of his base Usage of me are I humbly beseech your Majesty may be heard Face to Face before Sir Richard Allebone or in such a way as your Majesty shall think fit for at the present I am under great Apprehensions of being murdered by him which you may prevent if you please All which is humbly submitted to your Majesty by Your poor Prisoner Titus Oates Aug. 12. 1688. I am much impaired in my Health and I have done that which a good Subject ought to do so that if I am murdered my Blood will not lie at my Door but at their Doors that should do me Justice for Favour I expect none nor would I be so Ill a Man as to desire any but I cry aloud for Justice that I may not be murthered by a Man who imagines he may do good Service to those of the Romish Church to ruine me while I am in his Custody Therefore once more I pray for Justice POST-SCRIPT HAving affirmed in the foregoing Tract that both the Juries which found Dr. Oates guilty were Men of the same Gang and Kidney to explain my meaning therein I say that most if not every of them were Disciples of L'Estrange and by consequence Tories Children of Passive Obedience Abhorrers of Parliaments Addressers against them Betrayers of Charters and Anti-Exclusioners Nor could it possibly be otherwise for there was at that day a select List of about 200 such Men and no others packt to do the Court's Drudgery as will evidently appear by reading over the Names of the Grand and Petty-Juries which pass'd upon the never-to-be-forgotten Lord Russel Alderman Cornish and Mrs. Gaunt in the second Part of the Display of Tyranny I observe there is not found amongst them one of the Jury which was returned by our Bethel and Cornish and which brought in that honourable Ignoramus upon the Indictment against the Earl of Shaftsbury and I may well say that was in every respect the greatest Jury that was ever returned in England Out of this List were every of the Doctor 's 24 Jury-men pickt and every Man of the first Jury were in the Pannels which North and Rich packt upon my Lord Russel and nine of them were also return'd upon Alderman Cornish and Mrs. Gaunt of the second Jury four were returned upon my Lord Russel Alderman Cornish and Mrs. Gaunt three more upon my Lord Russel singly and the other five upon Alderman Cornish and Mrs. Gaunt divers of them actually served on those Juries and most of those who did not were challenged That I may now set the bloody Tragedy of that day in its true light and shew whence this accursed Practice of packing Juries sprang I shall transcribe a noted Prediction of one of the Guides of the hair-brain'd Tories Heraclitus Ridens who foretold soon after the unhappy Election of Sir John Moore to be Lord-Mayor that at or before 1683 they should have Juries for their turn And then talking to the Whiggs about Hanging told them They must come to 't and they should come to 't I conclude with another very remarkable Prophesy of the Guide of the Inferiour Clergy he at the very Juncture when it was resolved that North and Rich must be Sir John Moore 's Sheriffs foretold the direful Consequences thereof in his Observator of May 20 1682 Number 140 in these words If it should please God to send us SEASONABLE SHERIFFS and fair play for OVR MONEY there are set a foot so many Titles in competition for the Gallows that it would be a hard matter to settle their Claims and say who should go first And in his Observator of May 27 1684. he told us whom he esteemed his Seasonable Sheriffs He says Prithee Whig wilt thou set THEIR CORNISH and BETHEL THEIR PILKINGTON and SHUTE against our NORTH and RICH our DANIEL and DASHWOOD and say which of these Sheriffs are the likelier Men to juggle Protestants out of their Lives Had the poor depressed Whig in that day answer'd the Trepaning Tory this ensnaring Question it had been at the hazard of his Head But now being warranted by Parliament so to do I say that my Lord Russel and Alderman Cornish were barbarously murdered as was good Mrs. Gaunt under pretence and colour of Law which as my Lord Russel well observed is the worst sort of Murder and this I think was juggling Protestants out of their Lives with a witness I also say by the same warrant that the Prosecution of Dr. Oates for Perjury was a Design to stifle the Popish Plot and that the Verdicts against him were corrupt and the Judgments cruel and illegal and all this was accomplished by the same Set of Jury-men Thus to gratify Sir Roger to whom I pay no small deference I have set our Bethel and Cornish our Pilkington and Shute against their North and Rich their Daniel and Dashwood and shew'd him not only who were the likeliest Men to juggle Protestants out of their Lives but who they were that actually did it and so I bid him adieu Imprimatur R. L'S FINIS