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england_n	act_n	king_n	power_n	3,247	5	5.0875	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42804	A letter from St. Omars in farther confirmation of the truth of the Popish Plot upon a consideration of divers circumstances in the trials together with several new matters relating to a farther discovery thereof, and particularly, a letter from Mr. Jennison proving Mr. Ireland to have been in London the 19th of August, contrary to the Staffordshire witnesses and what the five Jesuits (lately executed) insisted upon at their trials : with remarks upon the said letter.	D. G.; Jenison, Robert, 1648-1688. Letter form Mr. Jenison ... touching Mr. Ireland's being in London in August 1678.	1679 (1679)	Wing G8; ESTC R11425	51,290	25

Narrative upon Oath who there affirms what he knew of the same and after what manner he came by it being informed of it in Paris so that coming over to England for the intent of discovering what he knew concerning the same he was clapt into the Tower under the pretext of having some design of making an attempt against the Duke of Monmouth's Life where he was kept four years a close Prisoner without ever being brought to any Hearing or Trial and though he had several times made some discovery of this Plot to Sir John Robinson the then Lieutenant of the Tower he either did not or would not believe any thing of it and would give no information to His Majesty concerning the same as may more fully appear by the Depositions of the said Mr. Everard which certainly is a very great Testimony and very much corroborates the Assertions of the other Witnesses concerned in the Plot this man being none of the Confederacy and so not entrusted with the horrid Intrigues thereof yet so far knew of the same as to have given some Light to the farther discovery of this dark design had he not been thus subtly prevented by some of the Plotters means who are since in custody themselves in Ireland the Province where they were to Act for both that Kingdom and Scotland also was at the same time to have been subverted as well as England But things were not then ripe and God had designed to let them run on yet farther in their wickedness that his Glory might appear more great and perspicuous and that his mercy and protecting care of the King and people of England might be seen in diverting and making known a Plot and Conspiracy so impending and near taking effect being carried on with such secrecy skill and power so many years but to God be given the Glory and let the barking mouths of these Currs be stopped at last and their endeavours to hide and to make this Plot of no account be blasted and come to nought Amen Not withstanding the Artifices of these men to support their credit here abroad and in some measure with you also in England their Complices are like to suffer for their treasonable practices Some of the underlings have already paid for their Treason with the forfeiture of their Lives and the more great and formidable Plotters are like also to be called to account and the very bottom of this horried and hellish design like to be discovered It is therefore now time for them to bestir themselves and inded to say the truth they will leave no stone unturn'd and having first endeavoured to scandalize the Evidence against them they now try to corrupt it and to take them off and this they have procured a subtle Agent to effect one Nathaniel Reading who by great and fair promises of great rewards and some Gold in hand would have taken off Mr. Bedlow one of the chief Evidence for the King against these Plotters but I find that Mr. Bedlow out-witted him and notwithstanding he was a subtle Lawyer brought him to shame and punishment for his Crime which certainly was of a very high Nature and which was punctually proved against him so that none can deny the Truth thereof Now from this I argue If there were no Plot as the Jesuits here have endeavoured to have made us believe why should those accused thereof seek by such unjust means of bribery to take off the Evidence against them and to draw beforehand such matter onely for the Evidence to swear to as might be sure not to make them guilty of Treason and out of the danger of the Law Innocency needs not these shifts and this also to me and all rational men must needs be another proof of their Guilt and that notwithstanding all this stir that they have made to hide their Crime and most horrid Design they are guilty of the same and that there is and hath been a horrid Plot and Conspiracy Since you have desired me to communicate my mind fully to you I hope you will not think me tedious in that I cannot yet leave this matter and that I resolve as briefly as I can to mention to you my thoughts on the several Trials of those persons Condemned both for the Conspiracy and for the Murther of Sir Edmundbury Godfry and to let you know what here hath been said thereupon for they have not onely endeavoured by all means and ways to bespatter and calumniate the persons of those who discovered the Plot the Judges who gave Sentence on the Traytors and the Witnesses against them but also violently to speak against the Justice and legality of the Trials themselves and so far to justify the Criminals and those Condemned and Executed for Traytors as if they died illegally without apparent proofs and Innocent and Martyrs And here I cannot but admire the strange audacity of these men that they should think to be able with bold and lying assertions to lessen and pervert matters of fact and things so notoriously known and acted in the face of a Nation things not privately or clandestinely acted but publickly and before the whole World But what is it that these men will not attempt Tantum Relligio potuit suadere Malorum T is for the sake of Religion and they may doe any thing The first that comes upon the stage is Mr. Coleman a leading man in this horried Plot and Conspiracy and a prime actor and promoter of it by his great correspondency abroad both at Rome and in the French Court I have read the Trial of that person with caution and consideration and however plain the proofs may appear to me and to others of unbyassed judgments yet they have had the confidence here to assert and endeavour to impress it on the minds of the people that nothing could be made out against this man to render him worthy of Death or to make him guilty of Treason and that he died innocent a Saint and a Martyr and that at the Execution he utterly denied there was any such thing a Plot as was pretended though he own'd himself to be indeed a zealour promoter of the Catholick Cause And as I have heard many were so sottishly deluded with this opinion of his innocency that they purchased at dear rates pieces of the Halter that strangled him to keep as reliques of his Saintship That a great argument of his innocency was that he never endeavoured to make any escape or to fly away having his Liberty several days after the discovery of the Plot and his being question'd about the same The men who seem thus to believe nothing and goe about to perswade others to be of their opinion and who raise the objections and reports to cast a mist before the eyes of the people are those no doubt whose Consciences know the contrary to what they pretend to be absolutely true and are and have been agents and promoters of that Plot and Conspiracy they would

cry down and they cannot but know that Coleman and the rest had a fair Trial that the proofs were home and evident against them and that they suffered justly and by due course of Law But it is their interest to seem of another mind and notwithstanding they have endeavoured to render the Lord Chief Justice odious and cunningly to insinuate his illegal proceedings with Mr. Coleman those of their own party could not but acknowledge the words that I shewed them in the seventeenth Page of his printed Trial to be full of honour and integrity For there speaking to Mr. Oates who was then to be sworn as evidence against Mr. Coleman he gives him warning to speak nothing but the truth not to adde the least tirtle that is false for any advantage whatsoever for that since the Prisoner's Bloud and Life was at stake he should stand or fall be justified or condemned by Truth He also then puts Mr. Oates in mind of the sacredness of an Oath and that to falsily it and thereby to take away a man's Life was Murther Therefore he desired he would speak nothing but the down-right Truth that he may not be condemned by any Circumstances but by plain evidence of Fact and so that not onely Mr. Coleman may be satisfied in the justness of his Trial but all people else I think this is sufficient to manifest the uprightness of the Judge and that Mr. Coleman had a free and legal Trial for his Life according to the Laws of England But that they should so boldly and with a consident Brow assert that nothing could be made out against him that should render him guilty of Treason or worthy of Death is very strange when not onely the witnesses that are brought against him do prove sufficient matter of fact but his own Letters produced and read before his face which he acknowledges for his own do in plain words say that he is about a great work no less then the Conversion of three Kingdoms and the total and utter Subversion and Subduing of that pestilent Heresy the Protestant Religion which hath reigned so long in this Northern part of the World and for the doing of which there never was such great hopes since our Queen Marie ' s days as at this time pag. 69. Now can there be any thing more clear then that this subversion of a Religion so generally received in those three Kingdoms and so long and thoroughly established could not be effected but by the subversion of those three Kingdoms and by the destruction of the established Laws the Liberties and the Lives of many thousands within those three Kingdoms and all this could not have been done without bringing in of forein Force or raising a Rebellion amongst your selves or both In his long Letter to Monsiour Le Chese he says pag. 53. He would willingly be in everlasting disgrace with all the world if by the assistance of 20000. li. to be obtained from the FRENCH KING he did not regain to the DVKE his MASTER his former Offices and especially that of being ADMIRAL of the FLEET and again pag. 54. he tells you for what end this design is that it might give the greatest blow to the Protestant Religion in England that ever it received since its birth and therefore in the conclusion of one of his Letters to Le Chese the French King's Confessour he desires the power and assistance of France which next under God he relies upon So that his own hand convicts him of endeavouring to bring in Forein Powers into England to establish the Roman Catholick Religion and to overthrow that now there established This was but one way to bring his designs about the other most horrid and bloudy was the taking away the Sacred Life of the King which Mr. Oates swears against him pag. 21. that he was privy to the Consult at the White-Horse Tavern in the Strand wherein it was resolved that Grove and Pickering should be employed to effect it and that Mr. Coleman did approve of the same so that by this the proof was plain against him for by the Laws of England his assent made him equally guilty with the Assassinates there being no Accessories in Treason And this Resolve he swears was communicated to Mr. Coleman in his hearing in Wild-house and pag. 22. he swears he heard him say the design was well contrived And pag. 24. Oates swears that Mr. Coleman knew of the four Irish Russians sent to Windsor to kill the King and in his hearing asked Harcourt at Wild-house what care was taken for those four Gentlemen that went last night to Windsor who replied there was So. li. ordered to be sent to them which he saw there on the Table most part of it in Guinies and that Mr. Coleman gave a Guiny to the Messenger who was to carry this reward to be nimble and to expedite his journey Then pag. 25. he swears again that Mr. Coleman was privy to the instructions sent by White Provincial of the Jesuits from these parts to impower the Consulters to propose 10000 li. to Sir George Wakeman to poyson the King and that he not onely saw and read these Instructions but copied them out and transmitted them to several Conspirators in this Plot within the Kingdom And pag. 26. he swears Mr. Coleman said he thought 10000. li. was too little and that it would be necessary to adde 5000 li. more that they might be sure to have it done And pag. 27. he swears that he saw Mr. Coleman's Commission for to be Secretary of State from the General of the Society of Jesus by virtue of a Brief from the Pope and that in Fenwick's Chamber in Drury-Lane he saw him open it and own the receipt of it saying it was a good exchange One witness is not enough in this case but I find also Mr. Bedlow a second to strengthen the other's Evidence he swears pag. 43. that he heard Mr. Coleman say at his own house That if he had an hundred Lives and a sea of Bloud to swim through he would spend it all to carry on the Cause of the Church of Rome and to establish that Church in England and if there were an hundred heretical Kings to be Deposed he would see them all destroyed so that both swear to the killing of the King and subverting the Government I cannot find that Mr. Coleman could make any good or satisfactory defence for himself but would have sought starting-holes and shifts to have amazed the minds of the Jury with putting the witnesses to have proved to a day what they averr which is in most things done and would take that advantage where Mr. Oates says pag. 72. he will not be positive that it was such a day but Mr. Coleman cannot bring any positive proof that it was not that day or that the witness contradicted himself as he attempted to doe And indeed though Mr. Coleman was never so wise a man sufficient to be Secretary of

A LETTER FROM S t. OMARS IN Farther Confirmation of the Truth OF THE POPISH PLOT UPON A Consideration of divers Circumstances IN THE TRIALS TOGETHER With several new Matters relating to a farther Discovery thereof AND PARTICULARLY A LETTER from Mr. JENNISON Proving Mr. Ireland to have been in London the 19 th of August contrary to the Staffordshire Witnesses and what the five Jesuits lately Executed insisted upon at their Trials With REMARKS upon the said Letter LONDON Printed in the Year MDCLXXIX A LETTER FROM SAINT OMARS TO A Friend in LONDON SIR I Should be unworthy of that care and friendship which you have expressed towards me if I should not gratefully acknowledge the satisfaction I have taken not onely in your several Letters from time to time giving me an account of the Discovery of that most hellish and horrid Plot so lately made known in England for the alteration of Religion and subversion of Government by Massacre War and Fire but also the great pleasure I have received in the present which you sent me of all the printed and written papers publickly made known and privately dispersed concerning this Plot. I must therefore after I have acknowledged the favour therein let you know the satisfaction I have taken how much it has wrought upon my Conscience what impressions they have made on others the Objections some have made and the Answers I have been enabled to give them grounded on those publick Trials and Transactions which you have sent me And as you have truly convinc'd me of the great Errour I was run into so no doubt by your Argument and Assistance I have been able to do the like on this side the Water to many who erred not wilfully but were led aside by the cunning Discourses of the Adverse Party and to stop the mouths of some of the most malicious and violent Enemies of the Protestants in England who here have endeavoured to make us believe there has been no such Plot contrived by the Jesuits and Papists in England or else that the Plot is onely of the making and contriving of those you call Sectaries and Fanaticks in England and that all this is wrought through their Cunning and Contrivance to scandalize and extirpate the Catholicks and their Religion in England and other stories to the discrediting the King's Evidence as if they had falsely accused and took away the lives of many holy men and Catholicks innocent and unknowing of any such Plot or Massacre thereby begetting a general Odium and Evil-speaking against the Sectaries and Hereticks as they call them in England By these cunning Artifices and sedulous Insinuations they have been very carefull in these parts to take away the scandal and reproach so horrid a design might lay upon the Catholick Party and to invalidate as much as they are able all reports and proofs thereof and therefore have endeavoured to stop and suppress all the light thereof and all Books or Papers that may any way inform the Judgements of the people who are made to believe quite contrary to what you have made me to see And I question not but that also in some measure the same skill and artifice of the Jesuitical Party is used amongst you as well as here and that by their cunning Insinuations and Contrivances they have been able as you seem to intimate to pervert the minds of many in England and to fix on them a strange blindness and disbelief of the Plot not onely of those of their Religion and well-affected to their way but also of many of the more moderate and simply honest of the contrary Party who have been led aside by their specious pretences and sedulous insinuations and diligent aspersions of the Witnesses and startled and confirmed by the pertinacious denying and seeming Innocency of those that suffer'd for the same If then in England where these things are transacted they are able to alienate the minds of many and to keep them in the mist of ignorance and unbelief you may be sure that at this distance and where the power of your Adversaries has more force and strength and where they have far greater means to stifle the breaking forth of the least Ray of the light of Truth that the people are much more ignorant and by that means more prejudiced against you though there are none almost to whom I have made known and communicated those Papers and Letters you sent me but are either convinc'd or know not how to raise any just Argument against the Truth of what they assert It has always been the way of these sedulous Emissaries of the Society to palliate great miscarriages with specious pretences and to daub over the most notable deformities with an holy paint and religious fucus and to colour their detected Crimes by pious frauds lies and perjuries And it is not now they begin to practice those things you seem to hint at in your Letters as may by several instances and known eveniments be made appear and which indeed has been a scandal to many good Catholicks and knowing Christians who have not at all approved of the ways of these Jesuitical Brethren who have converted Religion to principles of State and changed Christianity to meer Policy and by endeavouring to maintain their own greatness and by unjust and politick ways striving to attain their ends of Power and Dominion have lost much the opinion not onely of those of the contrary Religion or Reformed but also of many of those who are Roman Catholicks who have been distasted at their principles and practices For as there were Roman Catholicks before there were Jesuits so were that Order not in being I am apt to believe that their number would not be less for though by their Artifices and Policies they have made themselves great and kept up the power of the Bishop of Rome and by their insinuations into all the Courts of the Princes of Christendom made themselves formidable and knowing of all affairs yet on the other hand by the many miscarriages and detections of many of their Plots and Contrivances and their wicked and evil Machinations they have opened the mouths of the Protestants against the Roman Catholicks too justly and also opened the Eyes to see and alienated the Hearts of many of the Roman Catholicks themselves from their detested ways and abominable courses which they have manifestly taken to establish themselves or as they say to propagate Religion and to extirpate Heresie But certainly Truth does not need the hand of Policy and especially evil and immoral Maxims and unvertuous Contrivances to defend it and as it is far from the Doctrine and Method of Christ and his Apostles and their immediate Successours to propagate his Religion or Christianity by Plots Massacres Force or Cruelty or by any unjust way or means so always the attempt thereof has ever prov'd pernicious and has raised up evil thoughts of Religion in many making some Atheists and others Hereticks and Schismaticks and