Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n
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A31103
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A compleat and true narrative of the manner of the discovery of the Popish Plot to His Majesty, by Mr. Christopher Kirkby with a full answer to a late pamphlet entituled (Reflections upon the Earl of Danby) relating to the murther of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, in a letter to a friend.
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J. B.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing B98; ESTC R18232
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7,720
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9
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that Mr. Kirkby would make this business known to the King earnestly requesting him not to acquaint any other person with it which Mr. Kirkby promised And about two of the Clock in the Afternoon went to Whitehall but could not all that Afternoon meet with an opportunity of seeing the King except in Company of His Royal Highness so he returned to the Dr. and advising what to do and how to proceed Mr. Kirkby writ a few lines to present to His Majesty the next morning as He should walk in the Park signifying that if His Majesty would be pleased to give him a quarter of an hours Audience he should make known something that as it was of the greatest Importance so it was only proper for His Royal Ear and not to be delayed without eminent danger And accordingly upon the 13th of August he waited His Majesties coming into the Park and in the outer-Gallery presented it to His Majesty which he read as he went down the Stairs and afterward called Mr. Kirkby to Him and asked him what he had to say who answered that His Majesties Enemies had a design against His Life And therefore humbly pray'd His Majesty to keep himself within His Company for he did not know but that He might be in danger in that very Walk And His Majesty asking how that could be was answered that it might be by being shot at but that a privater place was necessary for a more particular Accompt Thereupon His Majesty commanded him to wait His return out of the Park and in the mean time to go to Mr. Chiffins who would conduct him into His Closet but Mr. Chiffins not knowing his business refused to conduct him thither and therefore he was necessitated to wait His Majesties Return in the Gallery and His Majesty returning into His Bed-Chamber and not finding Mr. Kirkby there was coming out when he espied Mr. Kirkby he called him in commanding him to tell Him what he knew whereupon Mr. Kirkby told His Majesty that there were two men by name Pickering and Grove that were set to watch an Opportunity to shoot His Majesty and that Sir George Wakeman was imployed to poison Him and being asked how he knew this he replyed he had seen it in writing in the hands of his Friends who the day before had acquainted him therewith And that he had then waited an Opportunity to declare it to His Majesty that his friend was neer at hand and ready with the Papers to be brought before Him when His Majesty should command which he was pleased should be between eight and nine of the Clock in the Evening at which time Mr. Kirkby and Dr. Tonge attended on His Majesty and were commanded into the Red Room where the 43 Articles copied out by the Dr. who kept the Original for his own Security were delivered to His Majesty both of them humbly requesting that those Papers might be kept secret and safe otherwise the full Discovery would be prevented and their lives in hazard further proposing that under the notion of Chymists they might have Access to His Person to prevent all suspition To which His Majesty was pleased to answer that He was going the next morning to Windsor but that He would safely transmit the Papers into the hands of one with whom he would entrust both his Life and Crown and with whom he would answer for their lives ordering them to wait upon the Earl of Danby then Lord Treasurer the next morning which accordingly they did But the Lord Dumblaine having been very ill that night and the Lord Treasurer having sate up late with him it was about four of the Clock in the Afternoon before they could be Admitted when being entred his Closet they found him with the Papers in his hand which he said he had received from His Hajesty sealed up and found them to be of the greatest Concern imaginable and then asking the Dr. about them desired Mr. Kirkby to withdraw which he accordingly did Two or three daies after the Dr. received more Informations which Mr. Kirkby copied out and the Dr. carried them to the Treasurer with whom he said he could hardly come to speak but that my Lord had appointed one of his Gentlemen to receive the sealed Papers from him About the 20th of August the Dr. told Mr. Kirkby he had offer'd to bring Pickering and Grove into St. James's Park to be taken there with their Guns about them if it were thought convenient his Informant having assured him he could do it if the King were walking there The 23th of August Mr. Kirkby went to Sommerset-House to see Pickering as he attended the Priests at Mass but could not that day see him but the Sunday following he did and the Sunday seven night after shewed him to Mr. Lloyd one of the Lord Treasurers Gentlemen And that week he had been alone to espy out Keins and learn to know him and in Company of the Dr. to enquire after Grove who was to have gone to Windsor if he had not been sick The 26th of August the Dr. told Mr. Kirkby that he had informed the Treasurer how to intercept Letters that came to Grove and the Treasurer being some daies after gone out of Town he was resolv'd to know if any were intercepted And on Saturday the 31th he went to a friend of his Mr. Henry Kirkby by name a Letter-Carrier in the Post-Office and desired to know if any Letters came to one Grove living in York-street in Covent-Garden who promised to enquire of the Letter Carriers for that part of the Town whom he should meet on Monday at the Office and on Tuesday would give him an Account Monday the second of September Dr. Oats came to Mr. Kerby's Lodgings at Fox-Hall where he first saw him or heard him named and there he furnished him with money for his necessary Expences appointing to meet him the day following at the Pheasant in Fullers-Rents to receive farther Informations and to give less suspition by his being often seen in Company of Dr. Tonge and so be all discovered The third of September he met Mr. Henry Kirkby who told him that he had spoken to the Inland and Forein Letter-Carriers who told him that Grove had usually Letters every week amounting to three or four pound and it being insisted on what he had received the day before he promised an Account the day following which accordingly he did by a note that the Foreign Letter-Carrier had delivered to Grove the second then instant four shillings in Letters and that the Inland Letter-Carrier had delivered several Letters but the value he could not tell Mr. Oats having given an Accompt in his Depositions of the Contents of the Letters from Scotland and of the death of Mr Westby being killed there for endeavouring to discover the Plot from thence Mr. Kirkby went to Dr. Oats and having received from him what he had to communicate appointed to meet the next morning at Heaven in the Old Pallace-Yard
A Compleat and True NARRATIVE OF THE Manner of the Discovery OF THE POPISH PLOT TO HIS MAJESTY By Mr. Christopher Kirkby WITH A Full Answer to a Late Pamphlet Entituled Reflections upon the Earl of Danby Relating to the MURTHER OF Sir Edmundbury Godfrey In a Letter to a Friend LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Henry Million at the Bible in the Old-Bayley 1679. July the 12th 1679. SIR BY Yours of the fourth Instant which came not to my hands till yesterday though it did to my house three daies before I being then out of Town I find that you are much stagger'd in your belief touching the Authors of your late friend Sir Edmundbury Godfrey's Murther and that after the Tryal Condemnation and Execution of three of the Principal Actors therein and the Confession of a fourth in his Printed Narrative together with so many Concurring Circumstances as make good the Truth of the Evidence given against them at their Tryal you begin to be perswaded as you say many other Gentlemen of Quality and good Judgment are either that the Persons who suffered for that Execrable Deed Died Innocent or at least that their Instigation proceeded not from any of the Popish Plotters but from a Person whose Interest it was as you are made to believe to have Sir Edmundbury Godfrey removed out of the way as the only Witness capable to prove Misprision of Treason against him And this Alteration of your perswasion proceeds as you your self intimate from a Printed Paper scattered abroad under the Title of Some Roflections upon the Earl of Danby in Relation to the Murther of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey I shall not trouble you with the Scribler of that Paper the thing it self does sufficiently demonstrate what his Principles are only this that I am confidently assured of what I did before but guess that he is of the Popish Party and then endeavour to set you right again touching this matter and with you those other Gentlemen of Quality and Judgment which you speak of though I take not upon me the Defence of the said Earl as to any thing he stands Charged with in Parliament yet to lay the Saddle upon the right Horse as to this particular which is no part of his Charge I have taken the pains to reperuse the said Printed Paper and to Examine the Truth of that particular Matter of Fact upon which principally the Scribler thereof for he deserves not the name of an Author hath built all his weak and foolish Arguments to induce you and others to this misbelief and I find the whole drift and design thereof to be nothing else but a cunning and knavish device whereby if it were possible to translate the Guilt of that Horrid Murther from the Popish Party and to lay the ill-favoured Bastard at the Doors of the Earl of Danby and his Instruments for the saving of the Credit of the Popish Politicks more dear to them than that of their Honesty or Allegiance This Act being as he himself acknowledgeth in his said Printed Paper the worst mischief to their Cause that they could have thought of in the world In the first place therefore you may please to take notice that he lays the foundation of all his said Arguments upon this notorious Lye of his own Invention viz. That the Earl of Danby knew of the Popish Plot a long time before His Majesty had heard any thing of it and that he had Correspondence with Dr. Oats and Dr Tonge by the means of Mr. Kirkby a Merchant Brother to Collonel Kirkby long before the time he pretended to have heard of it from the King thereby insinuating though not in direct Terms that the Earl must needs be guilty at least of Misprision of Treason in the Concealment if not of the Original Treason in the Complotment and this he backs with several other Lyes of the same stamp impudently telling you contrary to all Truth that this long fore-knowledge of the Earls was confessed by both the Doctors to Sir Edmundbury Godfrey at the time of their Examinations by him taken upon their Oaths And that Sir Edmundbury Godfrey was the person who sent his Royal Highness the first Account of the Plot by Mr. Coleman to Windsor and adds several other things of like Invention from all which he would have you conclude That Sr. Edmundbury Godfrey being the only person who could possibly detect this Misprision of Treason in the Earl it was consequently the Earls interest above all others to have him taken away And because he had power and probably had will to accomplish it and wanted not Instruments to â—â—lâ— it in execution therefore he must needs be the person by whose means or command the said murther was committed And this in â—â—â—â—h is the samm and substance of that foolish paper wherein he cunningly to his own apprehension forgets in the mean time that it was much more in the power of Dr. Oates and Dr. Tonge if what he asserts were true to detect the said Earl of this pretended Misprision of Treason then it was in Sr. Edmundbury Godfreys And therefore that this single Murther could not sufficiently secure him from the Discovery To let pass therefore the non Sequitur's of all these his arguments though both his Major and his Minor in each of them were admitted to be true which will be too long to trouble you with in a Letter we shall sufficiently cause this Scriblers whole superstructure to fall to the ground by demonstrating the utter untruth and falseness of his Foundation viz That the Earl of Danby knew of the Popish Plot a long time before it was made known to His Majesty wherein to convince you that it was a meer invention of one of the Eldest Sons of the Father of Lyes to impose upon the belief of the Credulous and thereby to acquit the hellish contrivers of the Popish Plot of the guilt of that execrable Murther I must pray you to take notice of the ensuing Narrative the particulars whereof I assure you I long since received from Mr. Kirkbys own Mouth a person of unquestionable Loyalty to the King and of known Integrity in all his Words and Actions and who will be alwaies ready as I presume to attest the truth thereof if occasion shall require upon his Corporal Oath which particulars are as followeth viz. A Compleat and True Narrative of the Manner of the Discovery of the Popish Plot to His Majesty by Mr. Christopher Kirkby MOnday the 12th of August 1678. about twelve of the Clock Dr. Tonge acquainted Mr. Christopher Kirkby with the Conspiracy of the Papists against the King's Sacred Person and the Protestant Religion shewing him 43 Articles in writing upon which Mr. Kirkby declared that Matters of that concern ought not to be Concealed by him but that he would acquaint His Majesty therewith though he foresaw many dangers and difficulties he should meet with in the Discovery whereupon the Dr. declared his great satisfaction