serve thee in this life by Grace and injoy thee in the next by Glory be pleased to grant by the merits of thy bitter Death and Passion that after this wretched life shall be ended I may not fail of a full injoyment of thee my last end and soverain good I humbly beg pardon for all the sins which I have committed against thy Divine Majesty since the first Instant I came to the use of Reason to this very time I am heartily sorry from the very bottom of my heart for having offended thee so good so powerful so wise and so just a God and purpose by the help of thy Grace never more to offend thee my good God whom I love above all things O sweet Jesus who hast suffer'd a most painful and ignominious Death upon the Cross for our Salvation apply I beseech thee unto me the merits of thy Sacred Passion and sanctify unto me these sufferings of mine which I humbly accept of for thy sake in union of the sufferings of thy sacred Majesty and in punishment and satisfaction of my sins O My dear Saviour and Redeemer I return thee immortal thanks for all thou hast pleased to do for me in the whole course of my life and now in the hour of my Death with a firm belief of all things thou hast revealed and a stedfast hope of obtaining everlasting bliss I chearfully cast my self into the Arms of thy Mercy whose Arms were stretched upon the Cross for my Redemption Sweet Jesus receive my Spirit Mr. Gavan's Speach DEarly beloved Countrey-men I am come to the last Scene of Mortality to the hour of my Death an hour which is the Horizon between Time and Eternity an hour which must either make me a Star to shine for ever in heaven above or a Firebrand to burn everlastingly amongst the damned Souls in Hell below an hour in which if I deal sincerely and with a hearty sorrow acknowledge my Crimes I may hope for mercy but if I falsely deny them I must expect nothing but Eternal Damnation and therefore what I shall say in this great Hour I hope you will believe And now in this hour I do solemnly swear protest and vow by all that is Sacred in Heaven and on Earth and as I hope to see the Face of God in Glory that I am as innocent as the Child unborn of those Treasonable Crimes which Mr. Oates and Mr. Dugdale have Sworn against me in my Trial and for which Sentence of Death was pronounced against me the day after my Trial. And that you may be assured that what I say is true I do in like manner protest vow and swear as I hope to see the Face of God in Glory that I do not in what I say unto you make use of any Equivocation or mental Reservation or material Prolation or any such like way to palliate Truth Neither do I make use of any Dispensations from the Pope or any body else or of any Oath of Secresy or any Absolutions in Confesion or out of Confession to deny the Truth but I speak in the plain sence which the words bear and if I do speak in any other sence to palliate or hide the truth I wish with all my Soul that God may exclude me from his Heavenly Glory and condemn me to the lowest place of Hell Fire and so much to that point And now dear Country-men in the second place I do confess and own to the whole World that I am a Roman Catholick and a Priest and one of that sort of Priests called Jesuits and now because they are so falsly charged for holding King-killing Doctrine I think it my duty to protest to you with my last dying words that neither I in particular nor the Jesuits in general hold any such opinion but utterly abhor and detest it and I assure you that amongst the vast number of Authors which among the Jesuits have Printed Philosophy Divinity Cases or Sermons there is not one to the best of my knowledge that allows of King killing Doctrine or holds this position That it is lawful for a private Person to kill a King although an Heretick although a Pagan although a Tyrant there is I say not one Jesuit that holds this except Mariana the Spanish Jesuit and he defends it not absolutely but only problematically for which his Book was called in and that opinion expunged and censured Aud is it not a sad thing that for the rashness of one single Man whilst the rest cry out against him and hold the contrary that a whole Religious Order should be sentenc'd But I have not time to discuss this point at large and therefore I refer you all to a Royal Author I mean the wise and victorious King Henry the Fourth of France the Royal Grandfather of our present gracious King in a publick Oration which he pronounced in defence of the Jesuits amongst other things declaring that he was very well satisfied with the Jesuits Doctrine concerning Kings as being conformable to the best Doctors in the Church But why do I relate the testimony of one single Prince when the whole Catholick World is the Jesuits Advocate therein Does not Germany France Italy Spain and Flanders trust the Education of their Youth to them in a very great measure Do not they trust their own Souls to be governed by them in the administration of the Sacraments And can you imagin so many great Kings and Princes and so many wise States should do or permit this to be done in their Kingdoms if the Jesuits were men of such damnable principles as they are now taken for in England In the third place dear Countrey-men I do protest that as I never in my life did machine or contrive either the deposition or death of the King so now at my death I do hartily desire of God to grant him a quiet and happy Reign upon Earth and an Everlasting Crown in Heaven For the Judges also and the Jury and all those that were any ways concern'd either in my Tryal Accusation or Condemnation I do humbly beg of God to grant them both Temporal and Eternal happiness And as for Mr. Oates and Mr. Dugdale I call God to witness they by false Oaths have brought me to this untimely end I hartily forgive them because God commands me so to do and I beg God for his infinite Mercy to grant them true Sorrow and Repentance in this World that they may be capable of Eternal happiness in the next And having discharged my Duty towards my self and my own Innocence towards my Order and its Doctrine to my Neighbour and the World I have nothing else to do now my great God but to cast my self into the Arms of your Mercy I believe you are One Divine Essence and Three Divine Persons I believe that you in the Second Person of the Trinity became Man to redeem me and I believe you are an Eternal Rewarder of the Good and an Eternal Chastiser of
Nation that has so eminently as ours refused ever since the very Reformation the Preferments to which their great Birth and Quality gave them pretences or more Heroically underwent the Rage and Fury of all the other Lawes when one Halt or one false Step would have put them within the capacity of their Birth-right Have not all our Protestant Parliaments ownd this â—mplicity by the penal Acts which from time to time they have made for he that denies it makes them worse than Gotams since every body now knows that no Cuckow can be hedg'd in that has wings to fly over the Enclosure Nay did they not explicitly also confess it when in the next Session after the Act passed for putting Catholicks out of Offices they publicly congratulated the success of the Test and then went on to new Rigors Are not these then invincible Arguments that there can be jugling with us in Religion And do not they also amply prove that we are as I first hinted the persons that stand most on Principles seeing there was not one man of any one party here besides our selves that left the least Employment upon the score of the said Test though it commanded not only a Kneeling at the Communion and a Compliance with several other Popish Ceremonies as they are call'd but contained also some speculative Points which many of the Church of England themselves thought very new and thwarting Besides this I appeal to any man of Fashion or Credit that has bin of our Religion and you may assure your selves he will not be over partial whether he has heard that a Catholick without Mortal Sin and any ill man may do it at that rate can deny the least point of Faith or whether we do not look upon every Church Papist or any one else That for by-ends and other pretences defer's to reconcile himself to be in a far worse spiritual state and condition let him be never so kind and advantagious to us by underhand Favours than an open Protestant following the Dictates of his Conscience and Reason If then we are so seâ—â—re in their life time with the Nicodemus's and Dissemblers in Religion notwithstanding all the Good they can do us what shall we be with those that sin at their Death even by calling God as Witness to a Ly We have therefore Reason certainly to complain of our late Usage when thirteen Christian men of great probity even among all their Protestant Friends should be decry'd as most infamous Lyars because with their last breath they solemnly asserted an Innocence which was never question'd or blasted but by the now Testimony of four Execrable Persons who did not urge the least circumstance matter or thing against them that depends not wholly on their bare Word and Credit Nay was there ever Imputation more weak and silly than this that the Expression in their last Speeches As Innocent as the Child Unborn was misterious and design'd and yet every body knows it to be the common Phrase of the Kingdom and that Eighteen out of twenty will certainly use it when they are to assert either their own or anothers Innocence Is it not also pleasant that there could be a Dispensation for Dissembling Lyes when these poor Men on the one side with their blood disown the Power both in the Pope and Church and we on the other deny it also with the loss of our Liberties and Estates seeing we could save both in any storm if Water-men like we could look one way and and row another In the name of Jesus let us not impose such Fanatical Nonsense on our Countrey for if you see that no person is at any time out of the reach of Law but some young or LooseMan that owns himself to the whole Nation a Convert and Desertor where is the benefit of these Dispensations if we had them But perchance his Holiness is never thus Indulgent you 'l say but when a Plot of State is to be concealed and if so I wonder first how he knows that no weak Brother in hopes of life will discover the Design and Stratagem For take but twelve Protestants casually and they perchance will hardly find many Sureties that all of them shall rather choose the Gallows than the Alcoraâ— and yet Christianity is a far plainer Doctrine than the Pope's power of Dispensing even in the Opinion of any Jesuit No my Lords and Gentlemen there is nothing but Innocence can make us thus Resolute and Constant Nay Humane Nature it self is too impotent and feeble for such an Enterprise it being impossible that any number of Conspirators in the hands of Justice should all upon the strength of Fancy or their mutual Promises prefer Death to Confession especially when besides Self-preservation which their respective Tempers and Passions are still suggesting each of them may reasonably fear the weakness of his Companion and consequently deem it madness to be longer obstinate and behind hand In the next place May I not truly say of this pretended Fortitude of ours what Doctor Pierce once fondly said of our Religion Non fuit sic abinitio It was not formerly thus for does not Judge Cook the then Attorney in his famous Speech against Garnet acknowledg that all the Treasons against her Majesty viz. Squire 's William's York's c. were freely CONFES'T by the parties themselves under their own hands and that they remain'd yet extant to be seen How easily in the beginning of King James's Raign might the two Priests Watson and Clerke had the present Doctrin bin true have sav'd the danger or at least the Scandal which was to fall on their Party for being drawn you know into that Protestant Conspiracy by the Lord Grey Cobham Rawleigh c. the Queen 's old Favourites who dislikeing this new Prince fancy'd a couple of Priests sufficient to get them the Assistance of Spain and the other Catholick Princes it had then bin but swearing they were Innocent and taking it upon their Death that these their formerly known Enemies had thrown the Calumny on them to discredit their Friends and Religion with the King at his first Coming I say it had bin but doing thus at least I am sure if their Consciences could have dispens'd with so horrid a thing there was matter enough for Pretences but on the contrary how far were they from it when they both publickly and humbly confest their Crime against his Majesty and when Watson also acknowledged that infamous death to be a just Judgment for his former factious Writings and Designs as may be seen in Father Moors History Again who had seal'd up their Plot with deeper and solemner Oaths than the Gunpowder Traytors and if their Religion could permit them upon a sober consideration to be obstinat and to forswear themselves what needed Fawkes to have made so particular a Confession and Discovery as is printed in King James his Works for there was no necessity that his Imprisonment or the finding out
or believe nor can as a Catholick believe that it is lawful upon any occasion or pretence whatsoever to design or contrive the Death of His Majesty or any hurt to his Person but on the contrary all are bound to obey defend and preserve his Sacred Person to the utmost of their power And I do moreover declare that this is the true and plain sence of my Soul in the sight of him who knows the Secrets of my Heart and as I hope to see his blessed Face without any Equivocation or mental Reservation This is all I have to say concerning the matter of my Condemnation that which remains for me now to do is to recommend my Soul into the hands of my blessed Redeemer by whose only Merit and Passion I hope for Salvation Mr. Hartcourt's speech THE words of dying persons have been always esteem'd as of greatest Authority because uttered then when shortly after they are to be cited before the high Tribunal of Almighty God This gives me hopes that mine may be look'd upon as such therefore I do here declare in the presence of Almighty God the whole Court of Heaven and this numerous Assembly that as I hope by the Merits and Passion of my Lord and sweet Saviour JESUS CHRIST for Eternal Bliss I am as innocent as the Child unborn of any thing laid to my charge and for which I am here to die Sher. How Or Sir Edmund-Bury Godfry's Death Hartcourt Or Sir Edmund-Bury Godfry's Death Sher. How Did not you Write that Letter concerning the Dispatch of Sir Edmund Bury Godfry Harcourt No Sir These are the Words of a dying man I would not do it for a Thousand Worlds Sher. How How have you lived Harcourt I have lived like a Man of repute all my life and never was before the Face of a Judge till my Tryal No man can accuse me I have from my Youth been bred up in the Education of my Duty towards God and Man Harcourt And I do utterly abhor and detest that abominable false Doctrine laid to our charge that we can have Licenses to commit Perjury or any sin to advantage our cause being expresly against the Doctrine of St. Paul saying Non sunt facienda mala ut eveniant bona Evil is not to be done that good may come thereof And therefore we hold it in all cases unlawful to Kill or Murder any person whatsoever much more our lawful King now Reigning whose personal and Temporal Dominions we are ready to defend with our Lives and Fortunes against any Opponent whatsoever none excepted I forgive all that have contriv'd my Death and humbly beg pardon of Almighty God for them And I ask pardon of all the World I pray God bless His Majesty and grant him a prosperous Reign The like I wish to his Royal Consort the best of Queens I humbly beg the Prayers of all those who are in the Communion of the Roman Church if any such be present Mr. Turner's Speech BEing now good People very near my End and summon'd by a violent Death to appear before God's Tribunal there to render an account of all my thoughts words and actions before a just Judge I conceive I am bound in Conscience to do my self that Justice as to declare upon Oath my Innocence from the horrid Crime of Treason with which I am falsely accused And I esteem it a Duty I owe to Christian Charity to publish to the World before my death all that I know in this point concerning those Catholicks I have conversed with since the first noise of the Plot desiring from the bottom of my heart that the whole Truth may appear that Innocence may be clear'd to the great Glory of God and the Peace and Welfare of the King and Country As to my self I call God to VVitness that I was never in my whole life present at any Consult or Meeting of the Jesuits where any Oath of Secrecy was taken or the Sacrament as a Bond of secresy either by me or any one of them to conceal any Plot against His Sacred Majesty nor was I ever present at any Meeting or Consult of theirs where any proposal was made or Resolve taken or signed either by me or any of them for taking away the Life of our dread Soveraign an impiety of such a nature that had I been present at any such Meeting I should have been bound by the Laws of God and by the Principles of my Religion and by God's Grace would have acted accordingly to have dicovered such a devilish Treason to the civil Magistrate to the end they might have been brought to condign punishment I was so far good people from being in September last at a Consult of the Jesuits at Tixall in Mr. Ewer's Chamber that I vow to God as I hope for Salvation I never was so much as once that year at Tixall my Lord Astons House 'T is true I was at the Congregation of the Jesuits held on the 24 th of April was twelve month but in that meeting as I hope to be saved we meddled not with State Affairs but only treated about the Concerns of our Province which is usually done by us without offence to temporal Princes every third Year all the VVorld over Sheriff How You do only Justify your selves here We will not believe a word that you say Spend your time in Prayer and we will not think our time too long I am good People as free from the Treason I am accused of as the Child that is unborn and being innocent I never accused my self in Confession of any thing that I am charged with Certainly if I had been conscious to my self of any Guilt in this kind I should not so franckly and freely as I did of my own accord have presented my self before the Kings Most Honourable Privy Council As for those Catholicks which I have conversed with since the noise of the Plot I protest before God in the words of a dying Man that I never heard any one of them either Priest or Layman express to me the least knowledg of any Plot that was then on foot amongst the Catholicks against the King's Most Excellent Majesty for the advancing the Catholick Religion I die a Roman Catholick and humbly beg the Prayers of such for my happy passage into a better Life I have been of that Religion above Thirty years and now give God Almighty infinite thanks for calling me by his holy Grace to the knowledge of this Truth notwithstanding the prejudice of my former Education God of his infinite Goodness bless the King and all the Royal Family and grant his Majesty a prosperous Reign here and a Crown of Glory hereafter God in his mercy forgive all those which have falsely accused me or have had any hand in my Death I forgive them from the bottom of my heart as I hope my self for forgiveness at the Hands of God Mr. Turner's Prayer O GOD who hast Created me to a supernatural end to
of the Mine had the promise of Secrecy bin valid must have discover'd his Complices nay we find in the said Treatise that he hufft in the beginning like a Scaevola and declar'd he would confess nothing laying all the blame upon himself which the wise Lords of the Counsel laught at knowing that the Gentleman being in Hold they would for all his Bravadoes find presently and so it happen'd the depth of the whole Intrigue 'T was the knowledg of this I mean that in a discover'd Treason there is no Reliance on Oaths that made Winter with both tâ—e Wrights upon Fawkes his Apprehension post out of town as he confessâ—s they did for had they not bin desperate and without further hopes of secrecy and faith they would never have run to seven or eight Gentlemen suppos'd then in Armes who had now up against them both King and Kingdom to their own particular knowledg Nor coul'd Tresham himself escape you see though he still continued as How tells us about the Court that he might thereby seem wholy free and innocent In fine their own Declarations were such that the Publisher of the Proceedings against them in the very Epistle say's That Justice pass'd on the several CONFESIONS of all the Capital Offenders which they openly CONFES'D and confirm'd at their Arraignments in the hearing of multitudes of People And by the way be pleased to remember that no Catholick ever denied this Treason only some question whether Protestant History it self dos not shew us that Cecil to ruin the Party drew those fiery men into it by his subtil Tricks and Artifices This one would think were more than enough to show you how you are by ill men deceiv'd and we abus'd but because no present Pretence shall be left untoucht I will speak a word of the two Examples which our weak Enemies deem so strong and pertinent to prove this Calumny The first is of one Curphy an Irish Papist who being condemn'd they say in his Countrey for Burglary deny'd it with great Asseverations at his Execution but the Rope by chance breaking before he was quite dead he thankt God confessing the Fact and then in spight of the Sheriffs great Intercession was again hanged by the Judge's special Order and Command The next is of the before mention'd Tresham who protested as they will have it in writing upon his Salvation and this just before his death That he had not seen Garnet in 16 years whereas Garnet and Mrs Vaux did both confess that they had been often since that time together As to Curphy then though truly I know not why any Christian or Pagan should be responsible for every Atheist or Libertine of his Proâ—ession give me leave to ask first how our Adversaries can think this so Nicking a Blow for since they themselves must acknowledge him already to have been an impudent Lyar and an ill man why may it not be as possible nay as probable also and then how is the Argument convincing that seeing he could not save his Life by asserting a TRVTH he now hop'd to work on the Judge by attacking him with a LYE on the other hand for the denying of a Fact to death never pleases him that gave sentence especially if the Evidence be in the least questionable nor was the said Curphy's Expectations it seems wholy frustrated since the Sheriff and others did as you see earnestly intercede for him Now for Tresham the Case is plain and at most but a poor simple womans Project and Mr. Att. Cook cannot but confess it in the aforesaid Speech for there he tell 's us That Tresham's wife understanding with great Concerâ—ment that he had confest all against Garnet got him a little before his death even when he could not WRITE himself to dictate the PROTESTATION to her servant so that 't is no wonder since the meer changing of a Word nay a Figure might do it if there were an Error as to the number of years in question But my Lords and Gent if both the Examples were as our Adversaries would have them what Resemblance or Analogy has the Action I beseech you of a single man once in a Century to Twelve that dyed together who were not only free from the least matter or Circumstance that could make them suspected besides the Testimony of most nefarious Persons but had also LIFE add PREFERMENT offer'd them upon their bare CONFESSION Besides do they that thus charge us think their Religion so harmless or us so ignorant that we can show no Precedents against them of this nature Certainly we can and as I suppose much more to the purpose Nay witnest also by Protestants themselves For does not first that most learned New-Gate-Divine declare in the before mention'd Treatise That in his late Experience as Ordinary there he knew some Malefactors condemn'd for Murther and Burglary to have gone out of the World with a Notorious asserting their Integrity although they had twice or thrice confest to him with some seeming remorse that theywere justly condemn'd for the said Crimes so that here Reader we have not only Protestant Penitents denying the truth at their death but a Protestant Confessarius revealing secrets and such another or one at least very like him Hind the famous Robber met with at Worcester being there convicted and hang'd by the evidence of his spiritual Guide But what do you think of a far more eminent Example to wit that of my Lord Castle haven who as all the Writers of King Charles's Reign will tell you was after a Netorious ill life Charg'd and condemn'd at last for prostituting his Daughter in Law for holding his own Wife whilst his servant forc'd her and lastly for Sodomy it self and yet though these Crimes were proved by several plain Circumstances by his wife and daughters Testimony and lastly by Brodway and Patrick his abus'd Patizans who were both hang'd for the facts and own'd the Committing of them to the last he at his Execution most solemnly deny'd all dying as Sanderson affirms not only a true Protestant but assisted also by his Chaplain's to wit the Dean of St Paul's and Doctor Wickham Thus then you see besides the former evident and unanswerable Reasons that we are not only free from this Imputation our selves but that the Protestant Doctrine is guilty of it if the Actions of some few men are sufficient to determine and adjudge the Point In fine then was it not very pertinently askt by the Author of the New Plot That seeing the Councel of Trent has positively declar'd No Absolution available which is not preceded by Detestation of the sin committed and seeing it is impossible freely to do a thing and at the same time to detest it how could it be imagin'd that the late executed Catholicks should hope for any benefit by such an Absolution as is pretended or be thought with the least appearance of Reason to make use of so wretched