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cause_n	witness_v	word_n	world_n	103	3	4.0733	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55629	Mr. Prance's answer to Mrs. Cellier's libel, and divers other false aspersions cast upon him containing likewise a vindication of Sir William Waller from popish scandals, some mistakes in a pamphlet entituled, The narrative of William Boys rectified, and other remarkables : to which is added the Adventure of the bloody bladder : a tragi-comical farce, acted with much applause at Newgate by the said Madam Cellier, on Saturday Sept. 18, instant / faithfully related by an eye-and ear-witness.	Prance, Miles, fl. 1678-1689.	1680 (1680)	Wing P3171; ESTC R1098	18,210	20

is evident That the Scope of this Invention is to abuse the World into a perswasion that I was thus misused only to force me to own my self privy unto and concern'd in Sir Edmundbury's Murder and to charge it on the Papists Now therefore to Knock the whole Lie o' th' head and confute it beyond any possibility of Reply by notorious Matter of Fact I shall only desire the Reader to observe That I was taken into custody the 21 of December 78 as appears by the Warrant of my Commitment That on the next day being Sunday I did upon Examination set forth several particulars of the Popish Plot which I had heard from Fenwick Grove and others as that there would very shortly be 50000 Men in Arms c. And on the next day being December 23. on further Examination by a Committee of the House of Lords I made a Discovery of Sir Edmundbury Godfry 's Murder and the Persons that actually Butcher'd him viz. Fitz-Girald and Dominick Kelly two Priests Henry Berry Robert Green and Laurence Hill upon which the three last were apprehended the said Hill being brought to Newgate the same night Berry the next day being the 24th and Green on the day following being Christmas-day as by the Records of their respective Commitments to which I refer my self does appear Furthermore on the said 24th of December I gave a large Account before His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council of that horrid Murder and its circumstances that fell within my knowledge agreeable in all things to what the day before I had declared to the Committee and which since I have deposed at the respective Tryals and Printed in my first Narrative And for more full satisfaction to His Majesty and their Lordships did then go to Summerset-House and shew to the Duke of Monmouth the Right Honorable the Earl of Ossory and Clarendon and Sir Robert Southwell appointed by His Majesty for that purpose the particular Rooms in which the Martyr'd Body had for several nights been Reposited as most truly and at large is set forth in my said Narrative Page 21. Since therefore I had upon my Oath made such a full Discovery on the 23d of December Confirmed the same the 24th both by Oath and Satisfactory Circumstances And that the Three Assassinates since deservedly Executed were Meerly upon my Information all secured in Gaol for that Fact before the 26th of December What occasion was there to Torture me on the 9th of January following to dispose me to a Confession of that which I had voluntarily and so effectually made above 16 dayes before From all which I suppose the Vanity Incongruity and Utter Falshood of the Story is sufficiently apparent and from thence no less plain That as the Papists have a most Wicked Cause to Manage viz. Treason and Murder so they make no Scruple at all of Forging and Asserting any kind of Lies that may serve their Interests therein And the more Groundless and Improbable such their Lies are with so much the greater Assurance do they Print and Brazen them out to the World to make them Credited Yet is not this Slander of Torture any New Stratagem but hath been us'd oft and long ago by Popish Libellers For Example in one of their Pamphlets Printed Anno 1602. but said to be Written in the year 1599. Intituled An Apology of T.F. and other Catholicks Designing to Out-face the Treason of Edward Squire against Queen Elizabeth for which he had been Legally Convicted and Executed The Contents of the Third Chapter run thus Of the Cruelty of the Rackmasters in England As if Racking of Men were as common amongst us as in the Spanish Inquisition and that Torturers here kept their setled Ordinary Offices and Commenced Masters in the Faculty And presently after he sayes And may it please you to consider the Barbarous Vsage and Tyranny that the Rack-Masters Tormentors and Inferior Officers and Examiners have used in the Causes of Catholicks for many years and daily do use observing no order of Justice nor form of Law And Chapter the Fourth he has these words They Torment the Catholicks on bare Suspitions without any Proof or Witness in the World and that with such Extremity as they Lame some and Kill others and with such Devillish Devises as amongst Christians hath not been heard of And then to make such his Impudent Assertions the better swallowed proceeds thus It is not many years but pray observe he dares not say for fear of a Detection When or Where that Francis Dickenson Priest was taken and Committed to Prison by one of the Persecutors who seeing him to be a very proper young Man in the Flower of his Age and imagining that he might quickly Overthrow him by the sin of the Flesh found means to have a Woman conveyed to his Bed who being repelled by him and the Enemy seeing that the practise took no effect but came to be known not only to all that were in the Prison but also to many others abroad to the Commendation of the Priests Chastity and honor of the Cathalick Religion he was so incensed against him That he caus'd him to be hang'd up first by the Privy Parts which he made to be Pierced in divers places with hot Irons and after by the Hands untill he was half dead and then called in many to see his said Privy parts instamed and rankled with the Burning of the hot Irons saying unto them after they were gone forth again Behold this Chast Priest how he hath dressed and spoiled himself with naughty Women And not content therewith caused him also to be Arraigned and Executed for being a Priest without having any other Matter against him Which kind of Cruelty tending to the Overthrow both of Soul Body Honor and all can hardly be matched with any Example of the Old Heathen Persecutors of the Primitive Churches Thus far that effronted Jesuite for so the Author appears to be and indeed Could any thing be devised more horrid but withall more improbable and remote from Truth yet hereby we see Cellier and her Inspirers wanted not Presidents for their Fiction their Party having so long inur'd themselves to Forging Untruths that now they think they may lawfully Lie by Prescription Having therefore Vindicated not so much my Self as Truth and the Honor of my Country from that Notorious Slander I shall take this Opportunity to wipe off some other Aspersions that have altogether as groundlesly been raised by the Popish Faction and other ill people to the prejudice of my Reputation 1. In the Month of May last there was a Publick Reflection upon me in a Thing called The Domestick Intelligence Suggesting as if I had received 500 l. of one Blunden for my being concerned in the Murder of Justice Godfrey The Truth of which whole matter was thus Some short time before the first Discovery of the Plot I did by the Order of one Fowler a Priest that was a kind of Steward to one

relating thereunto or to the Plot in General or for being Priests is true and that I have not been sway'd therein by Malice Revenge hopes of profit or any other sinister end whatsoever In Testimony whereof I have hereunto subscribed my Hand Miles Prance POSTSCRIPT THe World I conceive is by this time pretty well satisfied in the Character of the famous Mrs. Cellier yet to divert the Reader we would have him take a little further notice of her two Cardinal vertues Ambitious Impudence and a prodigious knack of Counterfeiting As for Impudence to wave the History of her lewd Life her whole Libel is a sufficient Instance particularly p. 29. where she has the Forehead to say of the Lords of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Council That they askt her many Trepanning Questions to insnare her What a mighty Woman would this be counted as if their Honours would turn Treppans to ensnare forsooth such a Draggle-tail'd Prattle-box So p. 35. she intimates her politick officiousness That she carried the names of four Persons to the D. in hopes to have them put into the Commission of the Peace which might conduce much to the breaking of the measures of the Factious that is no doubt being Translated out of the Catholick Cant into honest English Conduce much to diverting the prosecution against Popish Traitors Now was not she think you a rare Gentlewoman to be a Justice-maker In pursuance of which vain ranting Humour after she was questioned for her Libel she had the confidence to quarrel with the King's Messenger that discover'd it For having some time before stopt a Weekly Pamphlet of Intelligence intended to have been publish'd by Mr. Roger L'Estrange Saying as I am credibly inform'd that the said Messenger did very ill in suppressing the same though he acted only pursuant to his Majesties Royal Proclamation and further told him That she would have it Reviv'd and go on for it would be a thing of great use mentioning the said Mr. L'Estrange very familiarly and pretending then to send her Imps Grange and Sing up and down to him Though for all her vain Boasting it cannot I think be imagin'd that so worthy a Gentleman and so much a Protestant as he has shown himself by his late Learned Pamphlets And one that is as I am told of late a Justice of the Peace would have any Correspondence with such a notorious Popish Baggage especially since his Marriage for before it might lie in her way perhaps had he been willing to have oblig'd him As for her Counterfeiting Intrigues and Sham-tricks her whole Life has been but one continued scene of Legerdemain so that all the Gusmans and Gypsies in Europe are but Novices to her and therefore most fit she was to be chosen Tutress to the Younglings of St. Omers It would be too tedious to reckon up half the Stratagems she has invented in her daies only because the Adventure of the sanguine Bladder will do well in after Ages to be join'd to that of the Meal-tub I shall here oblige the World with a brief Relation on 't After she had lately receiv'd her Sentence to stand 3 days on the Pillory c. Some of the Officers of the Colledge wherein her Ladiship at present resides knowing her to be a Woman of Intregue and resolving to observe how she would behave her self gave her intimation on Thursday the 16th instant that she was to stand the next day Hereupon to prevent the worst she got in her Armour of defence and a Cap of Maintainance made of trusty Bull-hide the very same which her brother Giles lately made use of on the like occasion but with all provided her self of a Vomit so that having tim'd the taking of it conveniently when they to carry on the humour came up the next morning as if to call her down she was most busily casting up her Accounts as if she would have disgorg'd a Thousand Sham-Plots and protested it was a distemper had just then seiz'd her they smil'd at the pretty contrivance and left her but when she found they had but made a fool of her and caus'd her to take her Physick a day too soon and troubled her stomack to no purpose she could with all her heart have spewed in their Chaps However understanding that afternoon that she was to stand in good earnest on the morrow being Saturday she knew there was no repeating the same Artifice and so studied another declaring her self with Child and every minute expecting the unlucky hour when she should bless Newgate with a Catholick Babe This appear'd very improbable in a person of her reverend years and one Midwife being sent to her retorn'd a Non Inventus on her Belly but another being call'd at her importunity she dealt so effectually with a small Argument in hand and promises to prefer her to be Midwife to a certain great Lady that the good Woman was prevail'd with to justify her pregnancy The Cheat being thus far advanc'd on the Saturday morning her Maid fit for such a Mistress very early cry'd out to the Keepers and acquainted them that her Mistress was extream Ill and some time after Captain R. sending her up word that she must prepare to go forth to the Woodden Engine she in dying tone replyed that they might do what they would with her but she was not able to stir out of her Bed whereupon he ordered 3 or 4 honest Women to go up and dress her charging them to handle her with all tenderness and let the Maid be by for he knew she would be ready enough to swear he had Rackt and Tortur'd her They accordingly with much adoe Accoutred her but then she would not stir a foot so two men very gingerly brought her down and would have seated her in a Chair but she tumbled her self all along on the floor and roar'd out O my back hold my back hold my sides I am in Labour call some Women for modesty sake let the Men be gone use not a Woman in my Condition more barbarously then Heathens more Savagely than Turks and Indians c. By this time some of her female popish Gang were got about her and all agreed that she was just on point of delivery nay so far had she deluded them that 't is said some of them went to a Magistrate and offer'd to swear it and the Shreiffs Officers she had so satisfied that they were loth to meddle with carrying her abroad She bellow'd out so hideously that one of the Popish Priests was over-heard to say she over-acts it and some of the spectators thought her possest and were ready to call Father Marshall to try according to the laudable practice of their Church his skill in Conjuring and exorcising upon her but others more prudent alledg'd that Monks were better vers'd in raising Evil Spirits than laying them and more fit to put the Devil into such a Woman than cast him out At last after a world of Groanings worse than those of a Soul in Purgatory and a thousand most bewitching wry faces an able Physician and several discreet Women being sent for they search'd her so narrowly that they discover'd the whole Cheat and found that the good Lady was no more with Bearn than the Town-bull but only having over-night privately gotten a Bladder of Blood had used her skill in creating the necessary symptomes and preparing certain Clotts of it and put them into her Body some of which sort design'd for a fresh supply were also found elsewhere about her Thus for I would not grate modest Ears with insisting on so fulsome a story our politick Madam was delivered only of a Moon-Calfe or if you please a few Abortive Blackamores nor is it any wonder that the Birth should prove prodigious for almost a Twelve month ago coming in a Coach from Whitehall when she thought she might shortly be Hang'd she very solemnly declared to an Officer that came with her that just then she Quickned and since a Lioness is said to go with young 10 years why may we not allow 13 or 14 months to such a teeming Bear of fifty odd The Sham being thus detected she was carried to the place of Exaltation How she behav'd her self there every body knows and though she were sufficiently defended by a numerous Guard and her own Armour so that really she receiv'd no hurt from the Multitude yet she pretended her self half-Martyr'd and 't is said had the silly confidence to send divers of the Stones that were cast at her to New-Market which if she did I verily believe the Return scarce answered the Fraight However to carry on the Cheat at home though she were up early the next Morning being Sunday and briskly walking up and down her Chamber and busie in writing Letters c. yet about Noon when she began to expect Visiters she put off her Clothes and went to Bed lying all the Afternoon roaring and complaining of her terrible bruises and that she was not able to stir which rais'd such Compassion in abundance of devout Catholicks that they could not forbear watering their Plants nor she sure chuse but smile in conceit amongst all her outward Lamentations to think how neatly she impos'd upon their foolish Credulity These matters of Fact are notoriously true and ready to be justified and therefore I would entreat all modest Papists if there be any such to reflect what a Championess they have got and what an honour she is like to prove to their Cause A Person who makes no Conscience of any thing she does or says who confesses and denies things with the same breath and mocks God and abuses the World with counterfeiting Childbirth-pains and this by such immodest Practises as are a reproach to Nature and a shame to all her Sex In a word What wickedness might not such a Creature be fit to attempt What Conspiracy not apt to engage in What Villany not ready to execute Whose Head is giddy with Ambition her Heart rancour'd with Malice her Tongue tipt with Lies her very Soul a Juggle and her Complexion all over Brass FINIS