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
eyes of the people and confirm the belief of the conspiracy There was Digitus Dei in it say's my Lord Chief Justice Jeffryes and enough to satisfie all the world of the Truth of the conspiracy that the Earl of Essex being conscious of the great guilt he had contracted in being concerned in it did rather than abide his Trial and for the avoiding the methods of justice in his own particular case destroy himself The improvement of the Murder of that noble Peer to the establishing the belief of a plot gives no small ground to suspect who were the contrivers of his death and upon what design they did first assassinate and then endeavour to cast and divert the infamy and guilt of it upon himself But I hope they will from their own way 's of argumentation allow us the liberty of inferring that in case my Lord of Essex was not Felo de se that then there was no such Protestant plot as they have filled the world with the noise of seeing the only motives upon which they suppose and alledg ' his having committed that unnatural fact upon himself were the reproach and horror of that conspiracy Nay we doubt not but that all the honest and disinterested part of mankind will upon conviction of their having destroyed that innocent Gentleman become fully satisfied that there hath been no such Treasonable combination as his Majesties Ministers have endeavoured to impose the belief of upon the Nation but that all his Court and Popish Sham and only devised and fram'd for subverting our liberties and Religion by cutting off those that had the integrity and courage to espouse the protection and defence of them And as the end whereunto the unnatural death of my Lord Essex is applied and improved shows by whom it was contrived and effected so the Tim'ing of that murder does further evidence and demonstrate where the guilt of it ought to be charged and what service it was calculated for the promoting of For as if it had not been enough to murder one innocent person in a way of the most barbarous violence imaginable they resolved to adjust it to such a juncture of time as that it might serve to facilitate and compass the ruine of an other Noble Person in the way of their Legal Form's And therefore no sooner was my Lord Russel entred on his Trial for life upon an indictment of being guilt of that pretended conspiracy for which the Earl of Essex stood committed but they assassinated the one in the Tower and immediately dispatched away the news of his having murdered himself to the Old Bayly thereby to amuse and prepossess the jury and byaz them to convict that other virtuous noble and innocent person And with what satisfaction in themselves as well as malice and artifice against the prisoner at the Barr did his Majesties Councel lay hold on the tyd'ings and apply them towards the begetting a belief of the guilt of that admirable person who stood then arraigned and whom they were at that very time harrangu'ing and pleading out of his life As if it had not been enough to impress the minds of a jury sufficiently prejudiced and which to all mens knowledge was grosly partial for the Attorney General to say That my Lord Russel was one of the Council for carrying on the Plot with the Earl of Essex who had that morning prevented the hand of justice upon himself Sir George Jefferys comes after him and adds in the winding up the evidence to the jury just before they went from the Bar and without all doubt the better to mould and determine them to find the arrained person guilty That there was nothing could be said in favour of my Lord Russel's innocency as to what he was accused of but what might be more strongly alledged in behalf of the Earl of Essex who nevertheless from a conciousness of being guilty of that desperate conspiracy had brought himself to an untimely end to avoid the methods of publick justice Yea so evident was it to all impartial persons who were then present at the Tryal that the Murder of the Earl of Essex was not perpetrated by himself but by others and that it was time'd and adjusted to that season in order to influencing the jury to give up my Lord Russel with the more ease as a sacrifice and victime to the rage of the Court that a very noble Lord who was always in the interests of Whitehall and who was then very zealous in the prosecution of those accused for the Plot being at that time on the Bench did upon the hearing of my Lord of Essex's death and who were then walking in the Tower when it fatally fell out and upon observing with what diligence care and artifice the news was brought into Court as my Lord Russel was at the Bar and how the Kings Council thereupon acted their parts rise up in great consternation from the Bench where he sat and pulling his hat over his eyes press out of Court saying he plainly saw the bottom of the business and all the Mysteries wrapt up in it And indeed such influence and success had the news of the Earl of Essex's having murder'd himself from the shame and horror he was under for being concerned in the Conspiracy whereof my Lord Russel stood then arraigned that diverse of the Inquest have confessed and acknowledged that the Report of the Earl's death especially as improved and managed by the Kings Council had greater power over their minds for the convicting him than all the other evidence which was given and that they do really believe they should never have sound him guilty without the intervention of that fatal stroke and the crafty application which the Kings Council at Law made of it But so far was the Earl of Essex from entertaining any foregoing thoughts of murdering himself or from calculating the perpetration of it to that unhappy season that the very day before my Lord Russel's Trial being also the day before his own Throat was cut he gave private directions to his Steward to place himself with all the conveniency in Court which he could at the said Trial the better to take the evidence in short hand instructing him withall how he might afterwards convey it to him for his perusal and to be made use of as he should have occasion And as the Earl of Essex was a person of that sedateness honor and vertue that no rational or good man can believe he would commit so horrid a crime upon himself so such was the entire friendship between him and my Lord Russel that we must renounce common sense and reason before we can admit that the Earl of Essex would be guilty of so heinous an injury to his dearest and best Friend as to calculate and adjust the murdering himself to such a season which he must needs know would be too probable a means to derive the destruction of a person whom he infinitely valued
For I remember that when the late Sr. Thomas Armstrong had come post from Paris to give his Majesty an account how Orleans had poisoned the Princess Henrietta that he only replyed Orleans is a Rascal but pray thee Tom do not speak of what he hath done Yet that his Majesty may not excuse himself hereafter from causing further inquisition to be made after my Lord of Essex's death by saying he never heard otherwise but that he murder'd himself I do therefore tell his Majesty and publish to all the World that if he will grant an indemnity and protection to three or four persons we shall fully and evidently prove a Great Man the Earl of S. my Lord F. c. to have been the contrivers and Authorisers of it and shall name the Ruffians in particular who were employed to perpetrate the hellish and execrable Fact with an account of the several sums of money which they had for the execution of it Nor ought his Majesty to be displeased that I arraign his Brother and principal Ministers of so enormous and bloody a crime for as I write nothing but what I can fully justify so I take the boldness further to tell both him and them that if ever there come a ParlJament in England this matter shall be laid fully open and justice demanded against these impudent and enormous Offenders And as if it were not enough to evidence the E. of Essex did not murder himself but was barbarously assassinated by others that no encouragement hath been given for the discovery of the Authors of that villanous Fact notwithstanding all the rumours and Reports which have run to and fro both of the Manner of his death and the Actors in it it receives both a further and a very convincing accession of proof from this that all means have been used to deterr men from enquiring into that matter and to prevent their detecting what they may know of it The passages to this purpose would fill a volume meerly to relate them and therefore I shall confine my self to two particulars which I shall endeavour to deduce and represent with all the brevity as well as clearness I can Nor can it in the first place but astonish the world to find the Judges with whom the administration of law and justice between the King and his people is trusted I say to find them contrary both to the nature and End of their office and the Oaths they have taken of acting impartially to brand the medling in the matter of the E. of Essex's death as a Reflection upon his Majesty an Affront to the Government and a design to involve and embroil the Nation in trouble For not only the Attorney General stigmatiseth the report and belief of the Earl's being murdered by villanous hands as the throwing that ill thing upon the Government which he had committed upon himself but my Lord Chief Justice Jefferies is pleased to stile it a libelling of it and to have been forged in order to beget heart burnings and jealousies in the Kings Subjects against the Government and to raise Sedition Whereas the Government would never have been charged with this horrid Guilt tho some at the head of affairs might possibly have been accused of it had not these Gown-men involved the Government under the infamy and aspersion of it and done all they can to teach others to lay the barbarous Fact at that Door For as it is not the first time that a Prisoner hath been murdered in the Tower so it was never till now called a Reflection on the Government to endeavour to prove that such or such a person was destroyed by â—iolâ—nt and bloody hands even of whose death the Coroners Inquest had upon their inquisition given an other verdict Nay when the chief Favourites of our Princes and first Ministers of State have been accused as guilty of murdering a Gentleman imprisoned in the Tower whom the Coroners Jury had on their Inquisition declared to have died a natural death yet it was not thought to be an impeachment of the Government or a devolving the guilt of that bloody crime upon the King Of this we have a famous instance in Sr. Thomas Overbury who being committed Prisoner to the Tower in the Reign of King James and there poisoned by the contrivance and instigation of the Earl of Sommerset c. that was then chief Minister as well as principal Favourite was brought in by the Coroners inquisition to have died a natural death And yet it was thought no dishonour to the Government to have the death of that Gentleman afterwards enquired into and to find it proved contrary to the Coroners Inquisition that instead of dying a natural death he was basely and treacherously murdered by Villanous hands through the accession and contrivance of him whom he had faithfully served and with the consent of those to whose care trust and custody he was committed Nay was it not a great Vindication of the honor of the Government and an eminent Declaration of the Justice of the Nation to have the Lieutenant of the Tower and four or five meaner persons executed and the Earl of Sommerset and his Countess convicted and condemned for that bloody and barbarous Fact which the Coroners Inquest had acquitted and absolved all the world from the suspition as well as the guilt of And what an injury will the Judges of the Kings Bench and his Majesties Councel at Law be found to have done the King and the Government by their foolish as well as wicked expressions if at any time hereafter it come to be proved as certainly it will that the Earl of Essex did not murder himself but was assassinated by a company of hired Russians We should be loath in that case to claim the right of their way of Argumentation and to inferr that because my Lord of Essex was murdered in the Tower and at a time when the King was walking there that therefore not only the Government ought to be charged with it but that the King himself had a hand in and had designed it Tho I must say that according to their method of reasoning it will be impossible in that case to avoid such a deduction However it is a convincing proof that the ignominy and guilt of this Noblemans death ought to be ascribed to others than himself that the Judges and the men of the long Robe can find no other way to stifle the suspition and silence the clamor of the People but by interposing the Government as a Skreen to shelter Malefactors from Accusation and abusing the Authority of the Kingdom to deter men from the duty which they owe to God and his Majesty in discovering so execrable a murder Nor is this the only way and method they have taken to frighten and discourage Persons from discoursing of the Earl of Essex's being destroy'd by others without any accession or contribution of his own to his death but they have laid their
window immediately before the news of his death and that all which was deposed concerning a Report in City and Countrey about his having cut his Throat before it was done were false and only invented by the Informers yet as it is evident by the Oaths and Depositions of the Witnesses that Mr. Braddon was not the Forger of these things so it is demonstrable that they were in their nature of that weight and importance upon which a wise as well an honest man might suspect that my Lord had not murdered himself but was destroyed by others Nor could the Gentleman have ever been found guilty but by means of Mercinary Judges and an overaw'd as well as a pick'd and prejudiced Jury who will boggle at nothing tho never so unjust that may but gratisy a great Man and oblige His Majesties Ministers of State And the reason as I have said before upon which Mr. Braddon came to be convicted and found guilty was plainly to skreen a great Man and some other persons from coming to be involved in the guilt of that Noble Man's death and to keep up the belief of a Protesiant Plot which as Justice Withins phraseth it was likely otherwise to lose its credit and to be esteemed a Sham Plot for the taking away Innocent Protestants Lives Nor was the whole Trial against this Worthy and Vertuous Person more extravagant arbitrary and illegal than the Sentence against him upon the Juries finding him convict of the Indictment was unjust and severe For besides the condemning him in a Fine of 2000 l. which is more than his whole visible Estate amounts unto and expressly contrary to the Law of the Land which requires no man shall be fined but with a salvo contenemento i. e. the leaving him as much as may support him in some degree answerable to his quality they have over and above ordered his finding Sureties for good behaviour during life which as I question whether it be lawful by the ancient and Common Law tho it hath been sometimes practised any more than it is to condemn a person to perpetual Imprisonment so I am sure there is no President to be found for the like in a matter that was not of a more criminal and heynous Nature But all serves to prove that whosoever hath the courage or honesty to â—avel into the Earl of Essex's death are to be persecuted oppressed and ruined and by consequence serves to demonstrate that there is a villanous mystery in the manner of his coming to that Fatal End which they are affraid to have searched out and detected And as if it were not enough in the judgment of all rational men to acquit and vindicate the Earl of Essex from the guilt and infamy of having destroyed himself that those have been prosecuted with the utmost sâ—verity and oppressed in their Estates and Liberties who with all imaginâ—ble modesty towards the Government were willing to inquire into the manner of his death and to declare their just suspitions with the grounds of them to persons trusted with the administration of affairs that he did not murder himself but was assassinated by others Behold that as one Crime is not to be concealed but by the perpetration of more so the Conspirators and Authorisors of that Noble Mans death have proceeded to the murdering several other men who as they had a perfect knowledge and comprehension both of the manner of the Fact the villanous bloody Agents who were immediately instrumental to commit it and the Persons who employed rewarded and encouraged them so they had been guilty of what some will call indiscretion to communicate to others what they had seen and observed and too fully understood themselves Among others who partly saw heard and observed themselves and partly learned from others several circumstances relating to the matter of my Lord's death there was one Meak a common Sentinel who had stood on duty all that morning â—â—er unto the place and house where the Earl of Essex was confined For whereas on other days the Sentinels used to stand but two hours at a time on duty there was care taken that morning that those who were on duty when the King and Duke came into the Tower which was about six of the clock should not be changed till both after the time of the Earl of Essex's death which was about nine and till after the King and Dukes departure from thence which was about half an hour after And the reason of this is obvious namely that tho it was impossible to keep all persons from seeing who walk't to and fro and what was transacting yet they resolved to preserve it in as narrow a compass as they could and to admit as few to an opportunity of observing persons and things as might be Whence it came to pass that those Souldiers who entred upon Duty at Four and should according to course have been relieved at Six were suffered and obliged to stay on till Ten. Now this Meak having an advantage from the post he was in of observing the several persons that went that morning to my Lord Essex's Lodgings and having parâ—ly himself seen and partly learned from others divers material particulars relating to the manner of the Assassination of that Noble Person it will be easily acknowledged that he was as capable as any to detect it or at least of letting these who should have the honesty courage and zeal to enquire after my Lord's death so far into it as to be able to unravel that whole villany and to trace it not only to the Instruments but the original Authors and Contrivers This poor fellow both abhorring in himself what he had seen and conceiving the greatest detestation imaginable against all the Villains who had been accessory to it was neither able to conceal his knowledge of what he had seen nor his resentments of so horrid a Fact but at the same time had not the prudence to distinguish betwixt persons who without dammage to the Author might be entrusted with so important a Secret and those who at first would seem forward enough to hear it but would withall make their advantage by revealing it to such as would reward them and destroy him Whence it unhappily came to pass that this poor foolish man not only related it to such as were honest and faithful to him and who will be ready in due time to testify the whole of what he acquainted them with but to others who conveyed it to St. James's as a piece of important intelligence and of wonderful consequence to his Royal Highness And tho it be not yet seasonable to recount the several particulars relating to that barbarous Murder which he declared upon his own knowledge as well as the confirmation of others yet I may take the liberty to digest and branch them into their several heads and to let the World know that some of them were such as preceeded his death others accompanied it and one or two came
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
Officers of Justice and partly not to expose men to that hazard which they must necessarily run by engaging in this affair affords us a new proof of my Lord's innocency from being Felo de se and that the infamy and guilt of his death ought to be devolved upon others There are cases wherein suspition of guilt may so wait on some men that others tho never so well perswaded of their innocency cannot without forfeiture of discretion and becoming Sharers in the reproach and dishonour which attends them give them either the least countenance or yield them any Testimonies of Favour and Kindness till they have vindicated and acquitted themselves from that whereof they are suspected and which common Fame accuseth them of And as all persons pretending to wisdom or who are regardful of their reputation will account themselves obliged to act under the conduct and guidance of this Rule and principle so of all men those in Authority are most concerned not to take upon them the sheltring of those that are aspersed with infamous crimes nor to countenance and advance such whom the cry of a Kingdom chargeth with a barbarous enormous and execrable Fact But to that impudence in Villany as well as contempt of honour and credit are the Gentlemen of the Popish Juncto and Cabal arrived that they not only cause secretly Murther such as would discover a great and heinous offence against God and Mankind but they dare openly and in the face of the Sun both protect and prefer the chief Miscreant and Ruffian whom all sober and impartial persons have in suspition for it It must necessarily be acknowledged that in case my Lord was assassinated by violent and and bloody hands his Valet de Chamber Romeny the only Servant who attended him in the Tower save a Footman must be acquainted with it and accessory to it And so many as well as weighty were the arguments of his being guilty of his Earl and Master's death that he was justly suspected for it both by the rest of my Lord's Servants and all the thinking impartial people about the Town And tho I shall have occasion hereafter to mention divers particulars and recount several circumstances which not only serve to lay him under a suspition but to convict him of being accessary to the death of his Lord yet I care not if I relate one at present namely the apprehension he was in and the trouble he expressed to one of the Lady Essex's Gentlewomen upon a Report which he had heard that my Lord's Murder was to come under a second Examination and that the Body was to be taken up in order to a review Nor was the Countess her self for all the impressions which some great men had endeavoured to possess her with of my Lord 's cutting his own Throat without strong apprehensions to the contrary nor void of jealousie of this French Fellow's being guilty of her Husband's death which made her discharge him her service and dismiss him out of the Family And as no Gentlemen in England would have after this done so foolish a thing or so unworthy of himself as to cherish and entertain such a Rascal so it least of all became the honour of the Court unless there were a further mystery in it than the world is aware of to take him both into their protection and to advance him to an employ and place Let us therefore a little observe and recount what favours this Rascal under all the suspition and infamy of being accessary to his Lord's death hath met with both from his Majesties Ministers of Justice and from the principal persons at Court and chiefest Officers of State Can it be less than a reflexion both upon the honour of the Government and an insinuation that great men were concerned in that horrid fact whereof Bomeny is so justly suspected that my Lord Chief Justice at Mr. Braddon's Trial after he had been affronting interrupting and hectoring all the Witnesses for the Defendant steps in not only to assist and rectifie Bomeny in his Deposition guiding him to say a Razor when the Rogue had said a Penknife but durst represent the Villain under the character of one whose integrity and fidelity to my Lord was confirmed by six years experience of his service and that he was not an upstart and wandering fellow Yea the esteem that this Ruffian was in with our Grandees and which by consequence proves that there is a Mystery in the manner of the Earl of Essex's death which is not yet fully discovered seeing these who are deservedly suspected to have been accessary to it are favoured and befriended by them may be further enlightned and confirmed from the correspondence which Bomeny had with the Secretary of State when he lay concealed from others and the readiness he expressed to converse with any that pretended to enquire for him in Sir Lionel Jenkin's name when he was denied to every body besides For a certain person having occasion to call at his Lodging in order to Subpaena him to Mr. Braddon's Trial and being positively told that there was no such man there took the boldness to say he came from Sir Lionel upon which Bomeny immediately appeared and he who was said not to be there before stept forth with all imaginable readiness to receive the Secretaries Messenger and to know what his Honour's pleasure was And if these two passages which I have related be not enough to evidence the kindness which his Majesties Ministers had for this little and Infamous creature I shall subjoin a third importing the care which the greatest about the Court took of him and the respect they shew him For when he seemed to be abandoned by all others and knew not where to be admitted into a service by reason of the suspition he lay under of being either an instrument that murdered his Lord or who had consented to the doing of it behold a great man and the Officers of his Majesties Forces embrace him under all that ignominy and reproach and list him to ride in one of the Troops of Guards Nor is it possible for any man without renouncing his Reason to imagine that that Great Man as well as divers other persons of Figure and Quality should expose themselves to the censure of the world in entertaining a Fellow judged guilty of so enormous and abominable a crime unless they themselves had been accessory some way or other to that execrable wickedness and except they judged the Rascal to have merited by the Fact But to put it beyond all possibility of any rational contradiction that the Earl of Essex did not cut his own Throat but that he was massacred by others I shall demonstrate the impossibility of it as the manner of his death is represented in the Coroners Inquisition and declared in the Depositions of the Chyrurgions who view'd the Body and searched and examined the fatal wound And where there is a Natural Impossibility that a thing
of Essex's and who had just brought the provisions which Bomeny by my Lords Order had written to the Steward for as the perfidious Rascal was running down Stairs crying out that my Lord had killed himself and that he had found his Body dead in the Closet did thereupon being surprised by Bomenies report run up into the Chamber where he saw his Master lying in the Closet with a great part of his Leggs reaching out of the Closet door and the print of a bloody foot upon one of his Stockins which so far convinced this honest and unbiaz'd man of violence committed upon the Earl of Essex's person that he immediately cryed out they have murdered my Lord. Nor is Peck the only Witness whom we can produce to testifie this but there are others also ready to confirm it upon Oath whensoever his Majesty will be pleased to take them into his protection and indemnifie them from the accession they are guilty of to that horrid and bloody murder But before I dimiss Peck there is one thing further observabl ' namely that having among other things brought wine for my Lords own drinking Russel and others of that fellow's stamp and complexion who stood by fell a jeering the poor man telling him the wine came too late for my Lord to drink but that he had brought it very seasonably for his Funeral Nor is this the only circumstance which would have affoorded the Coroners Jury matter of evidence and light as to the manner of the Earl of Essex death had not the Body been medled with but suffered to continue in the place and posture as it fell but there would have appeared a second circumstance of as great importance and signification in it self and as serviceabl ' as the former to have discovered the barbarous violence committed upon this innocent and excellent person For not only Mary Johnson the woman who was then Servant in the Warders house where my Lord was a prisoner and who affirms that she saw my Lords Body as soon as either Bomeny or Russel did but several other persons besides her have confessed that the Neck or midd'l of my Lords Cravat was cut in four pieces Surely if my Lord as Bomeny tells us had taken off his periwig and hung it up because as the Villain would have the world believe he could not so conveniently have cut his Throat with the Periwig on he would for the same reason have much rather laid aside his Cravat being no less than three times about his Neck and more apt to hinder the accomplishment of that unnatural Fact which the infidous and perjured Rascal hath endeavoured to father upon him than the Periwig was And therefor ' as it is unreasonabl ' to think other wise but that the Earl of Essex would have lay'd by his Cravat had he designed to commit that violence upon himself so it gives just suspition that he was assassinated by others that his Cravat was about his Neck and c 〈…〉 thorough in so many places And whensoever this affair ' of my Lord of Essex's death comes to be admitted to a fair and indifferent hearing and a pardon vouchsaf'd to such as shall give evidence it will be fully proved that the bloody Miscreants came provided and furnished with an Instrument which was able to conquer the resistance which a Cravat tho thrice rolled about the Neck was abl ' to give it And whereas one Webster Bayliff of the Tower liberty being a person who assisted Mary Johnson in stripping my Lords Body hath pretended to some that it was he who cutt the Cravat as not being abl ' readily to untye it this may be easily demonstrated to be a story purposely forged towards the avoiding the suspition which the circumstance of the Cravats being cutt by the same Instrument and stroke that gave my Lord the fatal and deadly wound would have both begotten and cherished in the Minds of unbiaz'd Men. For besides that Mary Johnson who in conjunction with Webster stripp'd the Body hath often asserted the contrary to this which Webster reports and gives out it was not possibl ' that the Cravat should be thrice about my Lords Neck when the wound and Gash was made from the Neck Bone behind the one jugular to the Neck Bone behind the other jugular and not at all cutt or touched by the Instrument wherewith that large and deadly wound was given And as my Lords Cravat could not be tyed harder than he tyed it himself without the intervention of some violent hand that had endeavoured to choak him with it to hinder and prevent his crying out so we cannot suppose that my Lord himself had tyed it so hard but that it might have been easily loosed and untyed without cutting of it And as it was impossibl ' that my Lords Neck should swell after the Gullet and both the jugulars were cutt which if it could have don ' might have been a means and occasion of the Cravats being more strait ' and closs about his Neck so no rational man can apprehend but that had it been never so strait ' they would have taken pains and found a way to untye it especially having a prospect of enjoying it themselves it being usual in England that they who stripp a dead Body are recompenced with the gift and possession of all the Cloaths which they find about it And therefor ' as Websters pretending to have cutt the Cravat when he assisted in stripping the Body is both a confirmation that it was about my Lords Neck when he was killed and that it was cutt into so many pieces as I have declared so the having made it evident that this pretence of Webster as to his cutting the Cravat at such a time is a forgery and fiction of his own I may from the whole very justifiably conclude that this Report was invented to suppress the evidence and light which this circumstance would have given into the manner of my Lord Essex's death and to prevent the questioning such as might thereupon have been suspected and apprehended for assassinating and murdering that vertuous and Nobl ' Peer But besides the two forego'ing circumstances which would have served to detect the manner of my Lords death and the violence which had been used to bring him to his untimely End there was a Third of as great weight and moment as either of them which had the Body been suffered to continue in the place posture and condition as it fell would have clearly discovered the perjury of Bomeny and Russel and wonderfully contributed to the unvailing and laying open the whole Mystery of this barbarous murder For whereas both Bomeny and Russel not only swear that the Closet door where my Lord fell was lock'd when they came up to it but that upon opening the door they found him lying all along on the Closet Floor Peck the Servant that had brought the provisions to my Lord just as Bomeny pretended to have found him
Russel and made appear my Lord's being murthered by others instead of perishing by his own hands To all that we have hitherto said in vindication of the Earl of Essex from the guilt and infamy of having been a Fâ—lon of himself and in proof that he was most treacherously as well as barbarously murdered by others we shall in the next place give an account of some remarkable passages which were observed in the Tower that Morning my Lord was kill'd which will not only inform us there was something requiring great secrecy then transacting but will conduct us home to the Authors and Authorizers of that villanous and ever to be abhorred Assassination The first thing then remarkable was That the Gate at the lower end of those Apartments in the Tower where the Earl of Essex and all the other Gentlemen committed for the late pretended Plot were lodged and secured and which always used to stand open from Morning to Evening was all that Morning kept shut till after my Lord of Essex was dead except that it was once opened to let out my Lord Russel to his Trial being immediately after he was gone lock'd up again And as this could not escape the sight of the persons who were then confin'd so it gave that surprise to some of them being a thing which had not fallen out before that one Gentleman in particular called to his Warder and ask'd him the meaning of it and receiv'd for answer That there was special Order given for it Nor is it difficult to guess the reason of the Order and upon what Motives and in reference to what end command was given for keeping the said Gate shut up all that Morning till after the Earl of Essex was kill'd For the Stage and Theater upon which the bloody Tragedy was to be acted being within that Gate it was needful to keep people out as much as they could to prevent the discovery of the Actors unless it were such as had their parts in some of the Scenes or would be sure to give their Plaudite to the whole A second passage very remarkable which was observed in the Tower that Morning and which speaks as loud to the matter we are upon as the former was that the King and Duke having been at the Lieutenant's house which is about the middle of the Alley where my Lord of Essex and the rest were imprisoned and having stood in a Balcony with a few attending them to see my Lord Russel pass by to his Trial the Duke did soon after with several waiting upon him withdraw from the King down into the Alley the Gate whereof was still kept shut Surely it could not be the pleasure of the walk that made the Duke leave his Majesty at that season but he had something to give Order about and to see the managing of which was of more moment than his Prince's company and which his heart was infinitely more set upon The Third and last thing which fell under the observation of divers then in the Tower was That the Duke having withdrawn from the King there were several persons immediately sent and dismissed from his very side towards the Earl of Essex's lodgings whâ— returned not till after the death of that Noble person that they came and gave an account of the obedience they had paid to his Highness's commands and that the Earl of Essex was kill'd pretending he had cut his own Throat thereby murdering his Memory after they had assassinated his Person It may be expected that I should here mention the Names of those that were sent upon that barbarous errand but there being some of them who may be improved and made serviceable to detect the villanous crime they were assisting to commit it is but Justice to our selves as well as to them to conceal their Names And to publish the Names of the rest were but to set a mark upon the former and expose them to the rage and power of St. James's by not proclaiming them in conjunction with the others But this offer I renew again both to his Majesty and his Ministers of Justice that if a melius inquirendum into the manner of my Lord Essex's death may be ordered and an Indemnity granted to such as shall be willing and able to detect by whom and how he was murdered then shall the Names not only of the Russians who committed the bloody Fact but the Names of the Conspirators who were the Contrivers Authors and Encouragers of it he both discovered to his Majesty and judicial Officers and published to all the World The only thing which remains to be discoursed of in confirmation of the Earl of Essex's being murdered by others and that he was not Felo de se is that of a bloody Razor 's being thrown out of his chamber Window before any noise of his Death or the least intimation that he was killed And indeed this of a bloody Razors being thrown out of his Window has already made a great clamor in the World and was the first thing which raised a suspicion that my Lord had not destroyed himself but that he was assassinated by others For as it was impossible that after his Throat was cut he should throw it out himself so it could not be cast forth by others before the body is pretended to be found or any declaration made that he was killed unless it was by such as were present in the Room when he was slain and who were instrumental in his Murder Nor can any account be given why they did it but that God infatuated them thereby to detect the villany they had committed And it seems they had no sooner recollected themselves but they were sensible it would not serve the end they had design'd it unto namely of making the world believe he had cut his own Throat and in revenge upon the Instrument wherewith it was done thrown it away after the deed was performed and therefore they immediately both caused it to be taken up and carried back into the Closet and have had the impudence ever since to deny that ever such a thing was done Nor can the Story which a certain Gentleman at Whitehal had formed for them stand them in any stead viz. That Bomeny finding my Lord dead in the Closet and the Razor which had been the Instrument of his Death lying by him and that thereupon being struck with Surprize and Astonishment at so unexpected and deplorable an Accident he took up the Razor being acted by Grief and Indignation and not minding what he did threw it out of the Window For besides that the Razor was thrown out of the Window before there was the least noise of my Lord's death this Gloss and Qualification was invented too late to serve the end it was designed unto seeing Bomeny's and Russel's Examinations with which it is inconsistent were publick before Now in proving that a Razor was thrown out of my Lord Essex's Window before the news and tidings of his
he would have both understood the falsehood of his reply and how absurd the reason was which he endeavour'd to justifie and support it by For admitting at the present that the gap at the point might have been so occasion'd which yet was impossible for reasons assigned before yet how was it possible that that part of the Razor which was towards the handle and which must be grasp'd or held in the hand otherwise the Razor could not be used nor the wound given should be most notch'd and gapp'd seeing all must grant that it was so far from approaching the Neck-bone that it could not pass beyond the skin and outward part of the Gullet Surely I the same part of the Razor could not at one and the same time be held fast within the hand and be grating also upon and against the Neck-bone This is so obvious to every child that I know not how to ascribe the Chyrurgeon's Answer to his ignorance but must either impute it to the Consternation which so Tragical an accident had put him into that he remain'd not Master of common sense or it must be resolved into a worse cause namely a fear of tracing the murder of that honourable person to the true and real Actors of it Nor can the Conspirators against the life of that Noble Peer avoid the strength and evidence of this argument but that the Razor must have fallen both from some considerable height and upon some resisting sharp and hard substance or that otherwise it could never have been gapp'd aâ—d nâ—tch'd as it was And I dare upon this Theam challenge Râ—ger Lestrange to do his utmost tho' I know he hath as good a faculty at ridiculing and â—afâ—ling reasons which he cannot answer as my Lord Chief Justice Jefferys has at exposing and hectoring Witnesses the truth of whose testimony he cannot otherwise avoid Thus I have finished what at least I judge fit and proper at this time and juncture to be said concerning the barbarous murder and unparallell'd massacre as well as the violent and untimely end of that honourable and innocent person Arthur late E. of Essex And do greatly rejoice that I have been able to do this piece of service to God and my Country as well as to the memory and vertue of that excellent man For tho' thy Friends great Essex were not so happy as to prevent thy being murdered by the hands of execrable Ruffians yet it is some relief to them under all their sorrows for thy unfortunate and tragical end to be in a condition to vindicate thy Name from the infamy cast upon thee of having destroy'd thy self And tho' we have all the light into assurance imaginable of divers other things yet we do not here publish them because that were both to expose divers persons to the like fate destiny to deprive our selves of the benefit of their testimony at a Bar against the Malefactors We hope never theless that under all the disadvantages under which welie there is that account given of matters circumstances persons that none can reasonably doubt of the truth of my Lord of Essex's being perfidiously assassinated And to set this affair yet farther beyond all question and control I do challenge those who do think themselves injured or agrieved that for their own vindication and the discovery of that murder they would put this matter concerning the manner of the E. of Essex's death into a fair safe and legal way of Trial without danger to them who shall appear as Witnesses or damage to such as shall have the vertue and courage to undertake to prosecute But if instead of this they fall upon ruining men by Actions of Scandalum Magnatum or of assassinating such whom they shall suspect to have detected this bloody and enormous crime I hope it will be lookt upon not as a vindication of their innocency but as an Argument of their Guilt Nor can any man be brought into trouble for having or reading this Book but it will be a fresh proof that there is both a villanous mystery in the manner of the Earl of Essex's death which they would not have known and that there are persons guilty of and accessory to it whom it concerns them to preserve from the Infamy and Punishment thereof Great Essex how ungratefully wert thou recompensed for the Loyalty of thy Family as well as thy own Sufferings and Services in behalf of the Crown Was this the Reward of thy Father's laying down his Life on a Scaffold and of all that thou thy self underwent and did for the King and the Government Is it the Fate of the Capels either to die for the Royal Family or to fall by the Treachery Cruely of some of the Regal Off-spring Vertuous Soul when thou had'st not Crimes for which they could destroy thee thy Worth Integrity became thy capital Offences When their infamous and perjured Witnesses could not administer ground to those at St. James's to reach thy Life thy Love to England and zeal for the Protestant Religion were sufficient Reasons with a great Man and some others to conspire and compass thy Death And thy declining to join with the Papists to subvert the Laws of the Kingdom and extirpate the Northern Heresy was Motive enough first to hate and then to destroy thee And what they despaired to effect by perjured Witnesses and a pack'd Jury of Peers they resolved to accomplish by suborned and hired Assassinates When they wanted the shadow of Law to arraign thee before thy Peers in a publick way they found Men wearing Stars and Coronets who undertook to sit privately upon thee and sentence thee to die Having lived the Patron as well as Darling of thy Country thou fell at last through the malice of the Nation 's Enemies a Victim and Sacrifice for its Rights and Liberties Nor was there any way for thee to have escap'd their rage but either to have been less dutiful to God and thy Country or less tender to them and more their open and avow'd Enemie Had'st thou when time was unravell'd the Popish Conspiracy as thou both might and should have done thou could'st have prevented the misery that is fallen upon the Nation and the deplorable End thou hast been brought unto thy self But thy Zeal for the greatness of the Monarchy and thy Love as well as Compassion to a Great Man have through the injustice and unthankfulness of that Man whom thou wast so industrious to save proved an unhappy occasion of our Slavery and thy own ruin And tho none does more reverence thy memory than I do yet I cannot but observe how conspicuous the Righteousness of God is in the injustice of that ungrateful Man Whil'st his Associates are reserved by Heaven to fall with him they who knew his Designs but out of pity to his Person as well as love lo his Majesty thought sit to conceal them are by an unsearcheable but holy Providence left and suffered to fall by