necessary to make use of both their joint and utmost Credits to prevent the Success of the Parliament's Evil Designs against them both which of his side he promised really to perform Nay which is more do not you remember the Duke tells the French King of a very dangerous Plot against them both My Lord Arlington was incessantly at work to advance the Interest of the Prince of Orange and the Hollanders and to lessen that of the French King and that he and several others were endeavouring to break the good Intelligence between K. Charles the Second the French King and the Duke wherefore his Royal Highness earnestly sollicites the most Christian King to assist with the help of his Purse to prevent such ROGVERIES You see here is a Triple League against a Triple Confederacy The King of England French King and Duke of York against the Parliament of England the States of Holland and his Royal Highness the Pr. of Orange The French is to furnish the Sinews of War Money The Parliament are declared Enemies K. Charles indeed standing only as a Cypher the French King and the Duke put themselves under the most solemn Engagements to perform what was stipulated and strenuously to assist each other against the Designs of both their Enemies and seeing there was a desperate Design to advance the Prince and to lessen the French the Duke puts in his Memorial to that King demanding his Assistance to prevent such Rogueries But to return to our Narrative The House of Commons is no more to sit No nor was it advisable they should they were proclaimed Enemies to France and to the Duke The French King whose Interest was to be secured in England was fully convinced that they were not only unuseful but very dangerous to both their joint Interests may they ever continue so and it much satisfied the Duke to see his most Christian Majesty altogether of his Opinion in the Point Then with what reason could we expect the use of Parliaments would be continued The Protestant Peers as to be destroyed or excluded the House and the Magpy are to be changed for Purple Bishops And who at this day has the effronted Forehead to say that all this was Fiction Did not they embrew their Hands in the Blood of some of our Nobility And were not more threatned to that degree that 8. Years since no true Protestant Lord in England could at any rate have got his Head or his Seat in Parliament ensured to him for one Year Such was the Case of our Bishops We beheld some of their Diocesses visited by those of the Purple Dye and had not Heaven in a miraculous way delivered them we might not at this day have seen a Black and White One in the Nation In order to the Accomplishment of their sanctified Villanies the Jesuits with the Assistance of French and Irish Papists burnt London and Southwark and that they might the more securely carry on that Design without being detected they cunningly draw in a few silly Fifth-Monarchy-Men and fairly leave them in the lurch to be hang'd as they were about April 1666. When any Popish Plot is near the Point of Execution they ever will have the Dissenters at hand to account for their Villanies The burning this Nest of Hereticks had been concerted both at Rome and Paris and the time for putting it in execution approaching in April 1666 a Fanatick Plot is brought upon the Stage and seven or eight were condemned at the Old-Baily for plotting to kill the King and to burn the City on the 3d Day of September following the very Day the Papists afterwards did it For a more full Account of this I refer the Reader to the London-Gazette of April 30 1666. Numb 48. Thus when they were cock-sure of cutting off K. Charles the Second before Christmass 1678. Mr. Claypole Son-in-Law to Oliver was made close Prisoner in the Tower in July 1678. upon an Accusation of conspiring the Death of the King and it is very probable that had not Dr. Oates's Discovery happily interposed he might have died for it the next Term and the King been soon sent after him Then our Counsels are to be betrayed to France that Part is committed to Mr. Coleman the Duke or Dutchess of York 's Secretary and he is to manage it by a Correspondence with Le Chese Confessor to the French King I cannot with-hold my self from remarking here that this Information was given upon Oath on the 27th of September 1678. before Sir Edmond-Bury Godfrey and before the King and Council the 28th and 29th of that Month that hereupon Coleman was taken up on the 29th and his Papers seized which happily furnished the World with irrefragable Evidence had there been no other of that diabolical Intrigue In fine Trade is to be discouraged that so it was I know none will deny Our Coin was to be adulterated I shall not surely be called upon to prove that that was done to purpose and to crown the day King Charles was not to be reprieved beyond Christmas 1678. and then our Popish Successor was to play us such a Game as never was plaid since the Conquest They mistook the time indeed but the Feat was done and then the Gamester came upon the Stage to play his Game but having an unlucky Hand he quickly plaid himself out and therefore I shall not further pursue him I only say to him as the Welshman did to his Horse There 's a Trick for your Trick and a Stone in your Foot still Proceed we now to the further Narrative of this hellish Conspiracy of which it seems requisite to hint these things Dr. Oates after he had endured a long and most cruel Imprisonment upon a Judgment for 100000 l. Damages given against him to the Duke of York for saying the Duke was a Papist now saw that his irreconcilable Enemy upon the Throne and that he with his Jesuits and corrupt Judges were resolved to run upon him with all their Rage as they did in Easter-Term 1685. ordering him to be tried in the Court of King's-Bench upon two several Indictments for two pretended Perjuries in his Evidence concerning the Plot and that upon the Testimony of those very Popish Witnesses who had confronted him in three several Trials of the Conspirators The Case standing thus with him and remembring that his Life had been several times attempted was now under an Apprehension that they were bent upon his Destruction and therefore in the Month of April 1685. he drew up this ensuing Narrative in the Presence of Sir Robert Thomas Baronet John Arnold and John Dutton-Colt Esqs and having signed it with his own Hand deposited it with a Person of Worth and Quality with whom I am well assured it has ever since remained till upon the 21st of January 1695 6. it was put into my Hands Dr. Oates's further NARRATIVE of the Popish Plot 29 April 1685. THE Malice of my Popish Adversaries being so great that I
upon the first sight of me required of me Whether the Catholick Religion was established in England this was in the Year 1674. in the Month of April and I told him No Why then said he the Dutch War is to no purpose Why said I was our engaging in a War against the Dutch to bring in Popery Well well saith the Friar you will see in time In some few Days we had notice of a Peace with the Dutch What then said he our great King of France is not at Peace with them and he must do the Work In the Year 1675 I had obtained an Interest with Henry Duke of Norfolk then Earl of Norwich and Earl Marshal of England who was very kind to me upon the Account of my contending earnestly for his Right of Presenting to a Living in the Diocess of Chichester to which Living the then Bishop a turbulent Man pretended a Right of Collating And in the Year 1676 I was made his Chaplain and I call the whole Family of the Norfolk Howards to witness to my Fidelity to him and to his Children tho I am but churlishly used by some of them for my Truth and Fidelity to my Lord and Master but God forgive them for their Ingratitude to me especially Charles Howard who owes me more than I shall mention here but I always had a Thought that Popery rendred a Man incapable of being grateful to his Friend I in the Service of the Duke of Norfolk came acquainted with several Priests and being then resolved upon a strict Inquiry into their Designs against us and our Religion and Laws and Liberties I met with one Berry a Priest that had been a Jesuit but had left that Order through some Discontent and Madness that had seized the poor Wretch as he hath told me He was a Scholar in Cambridg was a Minister in England if he told me the Truth then turned Jesuit and then as before left that Order and became a secular Priest and then came to the Church of England and was a Curate at Berking and since is gone to the Church of Rome again This Berry I found a poor zealous Man whose Zeal was far beyond his Knowledg and he fell upon me to come over to their Church and he brought me acquainted with Mr. Langworth a Jesuit who since is dead as he the said Berry hath told me and with Mr. John Keins a great Jesuit and one Mr. Morgan a Jesuit that lived with the Lord Powis in the Year 1676 1677 1678. till the Plot was discovered where he is now I know not I was by Langworth reconciled to the Church of Rome he was then Confessarius to the Ld Petre and his Family and upon my being reconciled I was brought to Mr. Strange the then Provincial of their Order who admitted me into the Society of Jesus when I was admitted it was resolved by the Jesuits that I should pass the time of my Novitiate abroad in dispatching Business for the Society which I chearfully accepted and therefore accordingly they provided for me When I had paid Mr. Luke Roch Commander of the Biscay Merchant Earnest for my Passage to Bilboa the said Strange then Provincial of the Order gave me 100 Pistols for my Supply in order for my Passage into Spain and for my necessary Expences there and ordered me what Money I should need exhorting me to be as good a Husband as I could for they had great Occasions for Money What Letters they sent by me I have set forth in my Narrative but when I had got a competent Knowledg of the Design I found the great Reason why they would murder the late King was because he had deceived them and in Spain they assured me he had been reconciled to their Church and that upon his Reconciliation the Society in Spain had contributed 3000 Pistols to his Support which was paid in by Father Courtney sometime Provincial of the Jesuits in England I say several Letters written to one Father Knot in which the late King did testify his Zeal for the Catholick Religion and promised to restore it whenever he should come to the Enjoiment of his Right in England and that till he had an Opportunity to do it they should have all the Connivance in the World and if the Case should be so hard with him when he came to the Crown that he could not bring about his Desires to make their Religion to be the Religion of the Government yet they should have an Indulgence that should be equivalent however they should not be excluded out of Offices and Employments under him and that they had his Heart and Soul When I found the late King not inclined to believe that he was to he murdered I did in private tell him these things and that the only reason why they did design to take away his Life was because that he had made such Promises to them and assured them he was theirs and that he was reconciled to the Church of Rome when beyond Sea as I had seen by his own Letters The King commanded me to take no notice of his being reconciled to the Church of Rome and declared to me upon the World of a King that now he did believe they had a Design to murder him acknowledging be had written those Letters I had intimated to his Majesty and withal told me if I had come to him privately and acquainted him with the Plot he could of himself have dashed it and though I designed well yet the Discovery of it had created a Jealousy in the People of him Then I acquainted him with his Letters to the Nuns of Ghent when he borrowed Money of them which they waited for several Years here in England now he in that Letter did declare to them he would restore their Religion when he came to his Right and that was another Reason that provoked the Party against him and that St. Germane a French Jesuit had a hand in the Murder of Killigrew's Man when he lay upon the Couch in his Majesty's Cloak Here the King interrupted me and commanded me to take no farther notice of that Business declaring he knew more than I could tell him in that Affair of Killigrew's Man but withal again repeated the great Jealousy the People had of him and that it was much encreased by ill Men that did labour to possess Peoples Minds against him and said unless an extraordinary Care were taken the Phanatick Party would rebel and very much inveighed against the Dissenters and thought himself in as much danger from them as from the Popish Party That upon the Discovery of several Papers found about January 167 8 9 at one Jolliff a Taylor 's I did observe that the late King Charles the First unless his Hand was counterfeited had commissioned several Irish to rise and withal I saw Instructions given to them to give the English no Quarter and I saw a Letter of his to a Titular Bishop the Bishop of Cassal as
become may I say to a Miracle zealous of being the Author and Instrument of so glorious a Work ☞ That which we rely upon most next to God Almighty's Providence and the Favour of my Master the Duke is THE MIGHTY MIND of his most Christian Majesty I must confess I think his Christian Majesty's TEMPORAL INTEREST is so much attracted to that of his R. H. which can never be considerable but upon the Growth and Advancement of the CATHOLICK RELIGION that his Ministers cannot give him better Advice c. Now Gentlemen might not a Man have concluded that what you then read and find here repeated ought to have weaned your Party at least such of you as pretended to be of the Church of England for I well remember you scoffed at the Name of Protestant from your idolized Popish Successor What I could no King please such Churchmen as you but such AZEALOT as would not regard any thing in the World in comparison of overturning our Religion Could no one content you but a Prince whose Interest was avowed to be inseparably united to that of the Grand Tyrant of the Earth Who declared himself fully convinc'd that PARLIAMENTS were not only VNVSEFVL but very DANGEROVS to the JOINT INTEREST both of England and France None but him by whom the French King's Interest was to be secured in England None but him who undertook to give the greatest Blow to the Protestant Religion here that it ever received from its Birth None but him who should he once get above us after the Tricks we had then plaid him by the way he remembers we have plaid him a worse since WOVLD NOT TOTALLY FORGET the Vsage he has had at our Hands Finally could nothing please you but a King whose MIGHTY WORK as you were forewarned was to be no less than the Destruction of the Nations under the Notion of converting them and who was utterly to subdue our Religion as a PESTILENT HERESY One of whom our inhumane Enemies promised themselves greater Hopes than ever they had since the Death of cruel Queen Mary A Prince whom they boasted was become to a Miracle zealous of being the Author and Instrument of so glorious a Work as that of razing the Foundations of the Church of England Could I now believe that I discourse to rational Creatures and not to Brutes void of all Understanding I should hope to make you blush at your past Frenzies if not perswade you to cease doting on your old Bondage and hankering after the Flesh-Pots of Egypt to give over your Murmuring and no longer to foment Jealousies between the King and his People no longer to be throwing in Sparks of Discontent and endeavouring to blow them up into Flames of Mutinies and Rebellions Allow me to remember you in the Words of a loyal and learned Person that God has given our King a People who tho they may sometimes be practised upon to run into Vproars yet Loyalty is so inlaid in their Tempers and annealed to their Souls that the secret Enemies of our King and Peace could never yet make their Earnings out of them nay that God has converted our Danger into our Security that he has made the People not the Terror of the Government but of its Enemies That some ill Men have an ill and envious Eye upon the Throne but they fear the People Mr. Alsop's Thanksgiving-Sermon at Westminster 8 Sept. 1695. Run not then I caution you headlong to Destruction but be advised to consider what you are doing why will you be helping forward your Countries Ruine by labouring to subject it to that mighty Nimrod the securing whose Interest in England was the wicked Design so long since on foot 'T is evident to all the World that you under the Name of TORIES in which you gloried brought Church and State to the very Door of Destruction gave us the dismal Prospect of Slavery in our Persons Consciences and Estates and by your Procurement we beheld every thing that was dear and valuable to us upon the Brink of Subjection to a foreign Power and all by pleading for and adhering to your darling Popish Successor Nay 't is beyond Contradiction clear that you were blinded deluded and beguiled in that Point by the subtile Jesuits those Firebrands of all Europe Now seeing it has pleased God to bless us with the grateful Surprize of a Deliverance from such great Evils will you be perswaded to become a loyal quiet People disposed to Obedience To inforce this upon you as 't is your Interest as well as Duty I shall recount to you what was in vain laid before you when you first ran a madding after Popery and Slavery A sincere Lover of his Country then argued with you to this Effect You were then truly told that those who were for the Duke of York 's Interest were most certainly for these three Interests viz. 1. For the Popish Interest 2. For the French Interest 3. For Tyranny or Arbitrary Government term it as you will and by Consequence against these other three things 1. Against the Interest of the Church of England and the Protestant Religion 2. Against the Interest of England your native Country 3. Against the Interest of Parliaments and so against your own Freedoms as you were Englishmen You were then exhorted seriously to consider these things your Religion your Lives your Liberties your Estates your All being deeply concerned therein 1. You were rightly admonished that if you stood for the Duke's Interest you did undoubtedly so far stand for that of the Pope and would thereby give the greatest Blow to the Church of England it ever had since it was a Church The Matter was thus expostulated with you Can you once imagine that by bringing in a Popish Successor you will not inevitably set up Popery Will such a King think you have so great a Love for another Religion as his own or for those of another Profession whom he esteems Hereticks as for those of his own Nay then will it not naturally follow that he will advance the one and discountenance and depress the other Will it not be the only way to get into Office or Preferment to turn Papist What will the Effect of this be in a little time think you Will it not be a great weakning to the Church of England to have her Members allured and seduced from her and turn'd and kept out of Places of Trust Profit and Honour whilst her Enemies are placed in them Consider further whether in endeavouring to make a Papist Head of the Church of England you do not labour to make her a Monster for if our Head reckon us his Body rotten Hereticks where 's our Body Where will our Church be What Agreement between the Head and the Body Will it not inevitably run into Confusion Shall we have a Father of our Church who by his own Faith stands obliged to destroy her and is bound by the Romish Principles to deal with her
as a Harlot Consider now are you willing to send your selves Wives Children Fathers and Mothers to be burnt at the Stake for Hereticks Will you yet persist to endeavour to put your Religion once more into the Hazard of a wicked Queen Mary 's Persecution 2. In being for the Succession of the D. of York you are undoubtedly for the French Interest and so consequently against the Interest of England your native Country That he did ever espouse that Tyrant's Interest is evidently discovered and by a Copy of a Letter which was taken amongst his Secretary Coleman's Papers will be yet further evinced tho indeed it was not made out that it was drawn by the Duke's Direction nor could it be expected that Coleman should accuse his Master who flatter'd him to the last Moment of his Life with the vain Hope of a Pardon That Letter was entituled The Copy of the Letter to Monsieur Le Chese the French King's Confessor which Mr. Coleman confessed he himself wrote and counterfeited in the Duke's Name it runs to this Effect The 2d of June last past his most Christian Majesty offered me most generously his Friendship and the Vse of his Purse to the Assistance against the Designs of MY ENEMIES AND HIS and protested unto me that his Interest and mine were so clearly link'd together that those that opposed the one should be look'd upon as Enemies to the other and told me moreover HIS OPINION of my Lord Arlington and the PARLIAMENT which is that he is of opinion that neither the one nor the other is in his Interest or mine I was much satisfied to see his most Christian Majesty altogether of my Opinion so I made him answer the 29th of June by the same Means he made use of to write to me that is by Coleman and entirely agreed to his most Christian Majesty as well to what had respect to the Vnion of our Interests as THE UNUSEFULNESS of my Lord Arlington and THE PARLIAMENT in order to the Service of the King my Brother and his most Christian Majesty and that it was necessary to make use of our joint and utmost Credits to prevent the Success of those evil Designs resolved on by the Lord Arlington and the Parliament against his most Christian Majesty and my self which of my side I promised really to perform Of which since that time I have given reasonable good Proof Moreover I made some Proposals which I thought necessary to bring to pass what we were obliged to undertake assuring him that nothing could so firmly establish OUR INTEREST with the King my Brother as that very same Offer of the Help of HIS PURSE by which means I had much Reason to hope I should be enabled to perswade to the dissolving of the Parliament and to make void the Designs of my Lord Arlington who works incessantly to advance the Interest of the PRINCE OF ORANGE and the Hollanders and to lessen that of the King your Master Seeing that my Lord Arlington and several others endeavoured by a thousand Deceits to break the good Intelligence which is between the King my Brother his most Christian Majesty and my self to the end they might deceive us all three ☞ I have thought fit to advertise you of all that is past and desire of you your Assistance and Friendship to prevent THE ROGUERIES of those who have no other Design than to betray the Concerns of France and England also Review this I intreat you and deny it if you can that these Kings were early of one Piece The French King wrote himself to the Duke yet we are to believe it if we will that Coleman counterfeited this Answer and his Royal Highness had not the good Breeding to acknowledg the Receipt of the Letter of so generous a Confederate who offered the Vse of his Purse against the Designs of THEIR ENEMIES We here find the Enemies of the one declared Enemies of the other and the Parliament in the Interest of neither Their joint and utmost Credits are to be made use of to prevent the Success of the WICKED DESIGNS of the Parliament against the French King and the Duke which was to exclude them both the one by the Help of the others Purse is to be enabled to perswade to the dissolving the Parliament and to make void the Designs to advance THE INTEREST OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE and the HOLLANDERS and to lessen that of the French King which Designs were only an honest Purpose to set Bounds to that impetuous Torrent which then highly threatned to overwhelm this Part of the World To remark no further the French Aid is here craved to prevent THE ROGUISH DESIGNS of an English Parliament against the then LEAGUE WITH FRANCE ☞ To proceed now to the third Head from which we have digressed 3. It was urged upon you that if you were for a Popish King then by Consequence you were for Arbitrary Government and against Parliaments Is it not notoriously known that the Duke bears an implacable Hatred to Parliaments and that none more than he ever set himself against them If then he should succeed his Brother or as the Case at present stands should ever return adieu to Parliaments You are then at best to expect French Slavery and were you to enjoy it alone I am almost provok'd to wish you were now in the possession of it You were thus told what would be the Manner of the King that you would have reign over you and what reason you would find to cry out in that day because of your King Now instead of following the Text and saying the Lord will not hear you in that day I do here observe that all the good People of these Nations are laid under the highest Obligations to praise the Almighty for having heard their Cry in the day of their Distress because of your King and to give us such a Prince as we groaned for such a Prince as we wanted such a Prince whose Interest leads him to espouse the Cause and Interest of the Land which he saw to be visibly betrayed and which our Enemies would at once have ravished from us had not Providence over-ruled them Finding now that I have insensibly launch'd out into this wide Ocean of the Popish Plot I shall take leave to discourse a little further upon that Subject purposing to present my Reader with a concise Abridgment of the History of that transcendent Villany and shall in this place very briefly touch some Points relating to it and to the first Discoverer because my old Friends the Tories did and do impudently deny the Thing or at least extenuate it and falsly suggest that very few were concern'd in it that it was nothing so bad as the World took it to be and that notwithstanding the Votes of divers Parliaments that there was a Plot to murder the King alter the Government and subvert the Established Religion I have met with Insinuations which at first view seem plausible