AN ENQUIRY INTO AND DETECTION OF THE Barbarous Murther OF THE Late Earl of Essex Or a Vindication of that Noble Person from the Guilt and Infamy of having destroy'd Himself Whose Hatred is covered by Deceit his Wickedness shall be shewed before the whole Congregation Prov. 26. 26. The Land cannot be cleansed of the Blood that is shed therein but by the Blood of him that shed it Numb 35. 33. Erit vobis locus querendi apud Senatum invocandi leges quod insidiis circumventus vitam pessimâ morte finierim Germanicus ad Amicos apud Tacit. Annal. lib. 2. § 71. Anno 1684. Upon the Execrable Murther Of the Right Honourable ARTHUR Earl of ESSEX MOrtality would be too frail to hear How ESSEX fell and not dissolve with fear Did not more generous Rage take off the blow And by his Blood the steps to Vengeance show The Tow'r was for the Tragedy design'd And to be slaughter'd he is first confin'd As fetter'd Victims to the Altar go But why must Noble ESSEX perish so Why with such Fury drag'd into his Tomb Murther'd by Slaves and sacrific'd to Rome By stealth they kill and with a secret stroke Silence that Voice which charm'd when e're it spoke The bleeding Orifice o'reflow'd the Ground More like some mighty Deluge than a Wound Through the large space his Blood and Vitals glide And his whole Body might have past beside The reaking Crimson swell'd into a Flood And stream'd a second time in Capel's Blood He 's in his Son again to Death pursu'd An Instance of the highest Gratitude They then malicious Stratagems imploy With Life his Dearer Honour to destroy And make his Fame extinguish with his Breath An Act beyond the Cruelties of Death Here Murther is in all its shapes compleat As Lines united in their Center meet Form'd by the blackest Politicks of Hell Was Cain so dev'lish when his Brother fell He that contrives or his own Fate desires Wants Courage and for fear of Death expires But Mighty ESSEX was in all things brave Neither to Hope nor to Despair a Slave He had a Soul too innocent and great To fear or to anticipate his Fate Yet their exalted Impudence and Guilt Charge on himself the precious Blood they spilt So were the Protestants some Years ago Destroy'd in Ireland without a Foe By their own barbarous Hands the mad Men die And massacre themselves they know not why Whil'st the kind Irish howl to see the Gore And pious Catholicks their Fate deplore If you refuse to trust erroneous Fame Royal Mack-Ninny will confirm the same We have lost more in injur'd Capel's Heir Than the poor bankrupt Age can e're repair Nature indulg'd him so that there we saw All the choice Strokes her steady hand could draw He the old English Glory did revive In him we had Plantagenets alive Grandure and Fortune and a vast Renown Fit to support the Luster of a Crown All these in him were potently conjoyn'd But all was too ignoble for his Mind Wisdom and Vertue Properties Divine Those Godlike ESSEX were entirely thine In his Great Name he 's still preserv'd alive And will to all succeeding Times survive With just Progression as the constant Sun Doth move and through its bright Ecliptick run For whilst his Dust does undistinguish'd lie And his blest Soul is soar'd above the Sky Fame shall below his parted Breath supply AMong all the Sins which are said to cry for vengeance there is none to which a louder voice is ascribed in the ears of God as well as Men than that of Murder For as it is the destroying a Creature which carries the stamp and impress of the Divine image and therein a defacing the most visibl ' representation which God hath vouchsav'd unto and left of himself in subâ—unary Beings so it is a most daring insurrection against the Authority of the Supream Lawgiver who designed his inhibition for a sufficient Fence about our Lifes Nor does any Crime more audaciously controul the End of Divine Wisdom in making us sociable Creatures and furnishing us with faculties and powers by which we are inabled as well as instructed to help and shelter one another And therefore in proportion to the heynousness of the guilt of the sin of Murder are both the denounciations of God in the Word and his vindictive dispensations of providence against it wrote in more legible Characters than those wherein we find his displeasure recorded and testified against other Crimes Profane as well as Sacred Story 's are filled with instances of Gods inquisition after the shedding innocent blood and of the wrâ—thful severity which he hath shown against Families as well as persons in whose skirts it hath been found And as no Transgression is more provoking to God so none does so much incense and exasperate mankind The destroying one innocent person is construed as a threatning of all nor can we hear of the cutting our Neighbours throat but we judg our selves alarm'd and bid look to our own Nor is it only by the instinct but by the Authority of the Law of Nature that Murderers have in all places and ages been pursued with an Universal hatred He abandon's his own life to the will and pleasure of the next assailant who esteems it not his duty not only to wrest the weapon out of a murderers hand but to bring the malefactor to publick punishment And tho there is no person so dignified or priviledged in whom assassinations and murders are not highly detestable and to be prosecuted with the utmost impartiality and zeal yet they deserve the greatest abhorrency when perpetrated by those whose duty it is to defend our life 's instead of invading them For if it be criminal in a very enemy to kill the person whom he reckons himself most injured by unless empowered thereunto by a judicial Sentence or a legal warrant how infinitely more enormous is it for those to be Author's of or instrumental in our ruine to whom the care of our preservation is committed and entrusted And by how much any are vested with the Administration of the Law to avenge themselves and the community upon offenders by so much does their crime and guilt become enhanced if when they can not gratifie their indignation in the person and quality of Magistrates they espouse the work and character and assume the weapons of an assassinate And who know's but that as the Attorney General had the boldness in print to call the accusation and commitment of the Earl of Essex a convictment for high Treason but that others upon that conviction might have the impudence to give order for his Execution What more hateful sight can there be to heaven or more enraging spectacle to men than to find those who by the places they are advanced unto and the Trust that is reposed in them ought to watch for our safety conspiring our ruine and what they have not the courage themselves to execute tempting and hiring others to
of bloody and hired Ruffians Nor indeed was a Razor the Instrument which they made use of upon this villanous occasion but it was done by one of another kind as well as form and figure and which as they had prepared and provided on purpose so it was much more convenient for the perpetration of the Fact But it would have too palpably betrayed the Actors to have suffered that to have lain by the massacred Body or to have let it be seen by any honest and indifferent persons who might throng in among others to view and look upon the bleeding Corps And of all the Instruments which they could have thought upon a Razor especially of the fashion which that was that they threw down by my Lord's Body after they had Murdered him was the most unfit for an incision in the Throat of those dimensions as the wound whereby they treacherously killed him evidently appears to have been A certain Gunner in the Tower who may be supposed not altogether a stranger to this affair pitched upon a more convenient and proper Instrument for the doing of it when about Nine of the Clock that morning he reported the death of my Lord in a place not-far distant from thence saying the Earl of Essex had cut his Throat with a Case Knife wherewith he had been carving a Pidgeon for his Breakfast And had they not been infatuated they would have rather ordered such an Instrument to have been laid by the Body in order to blind and deceive the World about the manner of his death than the small French Razâ—r which I have described and by which they have endeavoured to make men believe the gastful and fatal wound was made But if a ParlJament come to sit again in England or if His Majesty will grant a Pardon to such Witnesses as we are ready to produce and allow a Writ of Melius Inquirendum concerning the death of this Noble Peer before equal and imparâ—â—al Judges we shall both describe the Instrument he was killed by and prove the truth of what we say by persons who saw the whole Bloody and Tragical transaction and are as Accessories too far concerned in that horrid Murder Nor want there proofs of my Lords being treacherously Assassinated by others and that he was not a Felon of himself from the Testimonies of these very Witnesses which were produced both before the Coroners Inquest and at Mr. Bradden's Trial to Swear that the Earl of Essex had cut his own Throat And tho it may be pardonable in the Coroner upon the Inquisition into the manner of my Lord's death to have admitted the Depositions of Bomeny and Russel there being not then so just suspitions of their guilt in this matter as afterwards there were yet for my Lord Chief Justice to allow them as competent Witnesses in that affair when the presumptions of their being accessory to that Murder were so strong as they plainly appeared from the whole scope and tendency of that which was sworn said and alledged in Mr. Braddon's behalf at the foresaid Trial was the greatest affront imaginable to Justice and argued a most criminal partiality For with what equity could Bomeny's Testimony be admitted to destroy either the Truth or probability of my Lord 's being assassinated by others seeing it must be granted that in case the Earl of Essex was treacherously Murdered Bomeny being the only Servant who then waited upon him must be an Actor in or at least an Accessory to it And what is this but to admit a fellow under the highest presumptions of guilt to be a witness in his own Cause and to allow his Testimony as a sufficient vindication from the most perfidious as well as barbarous Crime that could be committed and which to have acknowledged would have derived upon him the severest punishment And the same may be said of my Lord Chief Justice's partiality and unreasonableness in suffering Russel's Testimony to pass for good and legal evidence in the matter and case that we are discoursing of For Russel being the Person who that morning my Lord was murdered attended upon him as his Warder must likewise have been either an Actor in or Accessory to the cruelty that was committed on him Nor can it be otherwise thought than that he who contrary to the Duty of his Place and the trust reposed in him instead of assisting and defending my Lord when forcibly assaulted would consent unto or at least connive at the Violence committed upon him should also for the saâ—ing himself as well as others from the Punishment of the said Crime transfer thâ— Murder from himself and charge it upon my Lord. For as Russel was set â—t my Lords door to prevent any endeavours which might have been used by himself or others for an escape so one main end of his being posted ther 〈…〉 was to see that no Violence should be committed upon the Prisoner B 〈…〉 to dismiss this without further enlarging upon it I shall in proof that my â—ord of Essex did not Murder himself but was assâ—ssinated by others observe the Contradictions that are in the Informations of the Witnesses about the manner of his Death and the Circumstances relating to it and how they disagree not only one with another but gainsay themselves in their Testimonies It hath always been admitted as a sufficient ground of disbelieving Winesses and of judging them to Swear falsely when their Testimonies instead of being either harmonious and coherent in themselves or consonant and agreeable one to another do both interfere with and contradict themselves and each other For as Truth is always uniform and consistent so Falshood is contradictious and various Now that this may the better appear and that all Men may see I do neither impose upon the Witnesses nor endeavour to deceive the world I shall transcribe the two Informations which were Sworn by Bomeny and Russel before the Coroner and the Inquest when they sat on my Lords Body upon an Inquisition after the manner of his Death and by what means he came to his fatal End Paul Bomeny in his Deposition made upon Oath the 14 of July 1683. saith That when my Lord came to Captain Hawley 's which was the eleventh of that month my Lord ask'd him for a Penknife to pare his Nails as he was wont to do to which the Informant answered being come in hast he had not brought it but he will send for one and accordingly sent the Footman with a Noâ—e for several things for my Lord amongst which the Penknife was inserted and that the Footm 〈…〉 went and gave the Bill to my L 〈…〉 ds Steward who sent the Provisions but not the Peâ—knife only told the Footman he would get one the next day That when the Footman was come my Lord ask'd if the Penknife was câ—me to which the Informant answered he should have it the next day and accordingly on the â—2 in the Morning before my Lord of Essex was up the Informant
all the Rules of Speech and the Measures of Sence to relate to Thursday also But Friday being the day on which the Earl of Essex was killed and which as both Bomenie and Russel swear was soon after his having received the Razor it was therefore needful that in order to the giving some glose to that part of their Information wherein they swear my Lord cutt his own Throat that Friday should be mentioned tho with never so much incongruity and absurdness How conspicuous is the righteousness of God in suffering a villain who had first consented to the murdering his Master if not assisted in it and then undertaken to transferr ' the crime and infamy from the Assassinates and charge it upon his innocent Lord so evidently to contradict himself in what he swears as thereby to affoord the world an uncontroulabl ' demonstration both of the falshood of his own Deposition and of his Masters being guiltless of what he accused him And as the many contradictions of one kind and another which occurr ' in the informations of the Witnesses do as so many prints and Footsteps lead and conduct us to other Authors and Instruments of my Lords death than himself so the many irregularities which were committed about the â—ody by those who had the oversight and custody of it before the Coroner's Inquest had sat upon it administer unto us new proofs that the Earl of Essex was not Felo de se but that he was treacherously and barbarously murdered by the hands of bloody and suborned Ruffians By the custome of all Nations which is equivalent to a common and Universal Law but most especially by the known and alwaise practiced Custom of England the Body of a person found dead and supposed to have come to an untimely End ought if it be possibl ' to lye in the place and posture that it is found till the Coroners Jury have sat upon the Body and inquired into the manner of the persons death Nor can we think that those in the House where my Lord was killed and found dead could be ignorant of this custom ' seeing it is so well and universally known to the meanest and most ignorant people of the Nation Neither is there any thing more adapted and proper as well as needful towards a discovery whether a person have fallen by his own hands or the hands of others than this received custome and practice is upon many frequent and repeated experiences found to have been For how many circumstances not only may but do often occurr ' from an observation of the Site and posture wherein the Body is found from an inspection of the marks tokens and impressions left upon the Cloaths which the party destroyed wore and from a view of the Footsteps Symtom's and Signes which the place where the Fact was committed and the Body fell may yield and afford all which may have their usefulness and tendency to give light unto the Jury that is to sit upon the Body and whose Du'ty and Office it is to make inquiry into the manner of the persons death But least the Earl of Essex should have been found to have come to his End after an other manner and by other way 's and means than was safe or convenient for some people to have known and believed therefor ' were all things otherwise carried and the custom ' of the Nation in cases of this Nature not only neglected and despised but with the greatest impudence imaginabl ' violated and acted contrary unto For besides their taking my Lords Body out of the Closet where it was found and by consequence ought to have lyen they did not only uncloath stripp and wash it but also wash both the Closet where it was found and the lodging chamber into and through which we must suppose the persons to have come if any assassination was by the violent hands of others committed upon him Yea and as if all this had not been too daring in it self and enough to administer a just suspition to all mankind of some villany perpetrated upon the person of this Nobl ' Lord they proceeded further even to the carrying away the very Cloaths which they would not so much as allow the Jury to see tho some of the Coroners Inquest had the wit and seeming ingenuity as to call for them I do not affirm nor would I have it thought that all these irregularities were committed before the Coroner himself saw the Body for I have been well informed and am fully satisfied to the contrary and have reason to believe that he was prevailed upon to consent and give way to the do'ing of these absurd and illegal things But that which I assert and which will be proved if occasion be both by the several members of the Jury it self and by diverse other persons who saw the Body before the time of the Coroners inquisition is that these irregularities were committed and done ere ever the Jury who were to be the judges of the manner of my Lord Essex's death were admitted or indeed could be to the sight of the Corps For as the Coroners Inquest neither sat upon nor saw the Body till the 14 of July in the forenoon so all these irregular things had been don ' the 13 being the same day on which my Lord was killed Now besides many other circumstances which the Jury might have observed detective of and serving to discover the manner of my Lord Essex's death had all things been suffered to remain as they were at the moment when his Body was found and as they ought according to the custome of the Kingdom and the practice in all cases of that Nature to have done there would have appeared three remarkabl ' things to them which had served to convince all men who had a spark of Reason or degree of honesty that this great and honorabl ' Peer did not destroy himself but was Massacred by hired and suborned Ruffians The first whereof would have been the print of a bloody foot upon one of my Lords Stockins which seeing it could not be an impression made by himself must necessarily have been the effect of a most perfidious cruelty exercised upon him by others Nor is this a fiction of mine raised to vindicate the memory of the E. of Essex from the guilt and infamy of so base and enormous a Crime nor given out to baffle and discredit the belief of the late Plot and deliver the Conspirators from the reproach and danger which that pretended Combination had derived upon them much less is it invented to defame the King cast an aspersion upon the Government and enflame the Nation but there are ey ' Witnesses ready to swear it and one as remote from all likelihood of being the Author of a groundless and Romantick Fabl ' as any man affirmed it before the Coroner and Jury when they sat upon an Inquisition into the manner of my Lords death For Samuel Peck a Servant of the Earl
after it Wherefore that he might tell no more stories nor rise up as a witness against the Assassinates this poor unfortunate Fellow was secretly murdered and thrown into the Tower Ditch And there are several particulars relating to his Death which are not unworthy to be known to the World but it were to advantage the Conspirators and to prejudice our selves to mention them at present Only this is remarkable that as this Robert Meak was for some time before his death very apprehensive of the danger he went in of being privately destroyed for what he had declared concerning the E. of Essex being murdered so he had a greater dread of it the morning before he was killed than he had been possessed with at any other time And therefore from that allarm which his mind suggested to him of his impendent danger he begged of an Acquuaintance and Friend that morning before he died that he would have accompanied and kept with him for that day But such was the poor fellow's fate that tho he told that person the apprehensions he was in of being murdered and he from a sense and belief of it had left his work with a resolution to attend him yet whether from a jealousie he might have of his own safety or upon what other motive I shall not enquire he stole away from and forsook him before Twelve of the Clock But tho the Conspirators and Assassionates had thus by a second murder delivered themselves from the apprehensions they were in of being detected for the first yet there arose an other person who as he had better opportunity of knowing the whole Mystery of the Lord of Essex's death than Meak the Sentinel had so from remorse of Conscience for what he had been accessory unto and from an abhorrency of that bloody Fact which he so well knew the Authors and Perpetrators of he begun to discourse and communicate it with shame and loathing to others The person whom I mean was Mr. Hawley a Warder of the Tower living in Winchester-street being a Person both for Reputation and Estate far above that Hawley in whose house the Earl of Essex was then Prisoner when his Throat was cut and therefore one without whose knowledge consent and contribution it cannot be supposed to have been done And by how much he was not only more capable than others to detect the whole villany of the Noble Man's death and lay open the enormous crime in all the parts and branches of it but was of better credit than the Sentinel and more likely to obtain belief from the World in what he should declare by so much was he to be esteemed for a most dangerous person to the Conspirators and to be treated as one from whom they might dread the most fatal mischief to themselves as well as their cause Hence the intelligence was no sooner conveyed to a great Man and the rest of the Juncto that Hawly had been talking such things concerning the Earl of Essex's death which it concerned them no less than both their Lives and Honours to have concealed but they resolved to destroy him and thereby prevent his prating for the future and being able to tell any tales And being informed that he was inquiring where he might purchase an Estate they employ one to tempt him out of Town under pretence of his seeing a parcel of Land that was to be sold. For they thought that should they cause him to be murdered in or about the City it would fill all men with jealousies of their being guilty of his death especially considering the Reports which went of them and the suspicions that they lay under of having caused Meak to be killed And therefore in order to the getting him destroyed with the more secrecy and the administring the less apprehension about the Authors of his death they prevailed on him by the baite and temptation which I have mentioned to take a journey into the Countrey Whence having resolved that he should never return they employed some to dogg and others to way-lay and murder him And with that Secrecy as well as Obedience were their Orders and Decrees executed that it was a considerable while after his Death before he could be heard of or his Body found But when after long search and enquiry after him his Corps were at last found there were all the marks and Symptoms of a most barbarous Assassination prepared upon him which malicious wit could invent or enraged jealousie and revenge act or commit For besides diverse conâ—usions in the head face and breast from the blows he had received it appeared plainly that he had been also strangled And as he had never administred cause to any other persons save the Conspirators and Instruments of the Earl of â—ffex's death upon which we can with the least shadow of reason fancy his being murdered upon a personal and private Revenge so there are proofs ready to be produced whensoever either a ParlJament comes or a fair Trial can be obtained before upright and impartial Judges not only by whom he was destroyed but by whose Command and Authority Nor was his Wife unsensible and without apprehension even before the Body was discovered both that he might be murdered and upon what motives and inducements it was done so that she told some Friends how she dreaded the consequences and effects of his having so often discoursed about the Earl of Essex's death Yea there is one Glover who is a Servant to His Majesty being at present a Warder in the Tower who being in conference with some people about the Earl of Essex and Mr. Braddon was pleased with more than an ordinary emotion to say Hawley also hath been prating but he was fain to walk for it But the same person being asked after it was known that he had been murdered what he thought of Mr. Hawley's walking appeared exceedingly disturbed and said he knew nothing of it nor would he have the patience to hear any thing spoken about that matter So that we have here an other evidence that the Earl of Essex did not as he hath been defamed and slandered cut his own Throat but that this Person of incomparable Merit and Vertue was Massacred by wicked and suborned Ruffians seeing to prevent the discovery of that heinous and execrable Fact two other men who had advantages of knowing both the Actors in and manner of his death and had talked somewhat freely about it and seemed inclinable to reveal it were barbarously killed And as the destroying as well as oppressing those from whom the World might receive light about the murder of that Noble Peer plainly shews by whose Councels and by what means he came to his faral End so the countenancing protecting and preferring those who are justly suspected to have been deeply instrumental in it and who long ere this would have been publickly indicted for it had it not been partly for the discouragement given by the Court His Majesties Ministers of State and