Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A59348
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A supplement to The narrative in reply to the dulness and malice of two pretended answers to that pamphlet / written by E. Settle.
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Settle, Elkanah, 1648-1724.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing S2720; ESTC R37374
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28,150
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21
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Inconsiderable Marshalsea Jail-Birds for the production of it 'T is not the first time that Quality and Rascality have club'd together and like the spurious Off-spring of Nilus there goes some Sun-beam not all mud to make up the Monster Oh but the greatest and most damnable Crime in the Narrative is it has ridiculed the whole Popish Plot and consequently affronted the King Lords and Commons that have so unanimously and so frequently asserted their Belief of the Popish Plot. Now to clear this Imputation from the Narrative and the Author he hereby declares that no man in the World can pay a greater Reverence to the King or his Parliaments then himself But in the height of all that Veneration due to Heavns Vicegerent both from a Subject and a Christian I must say that the King Lords and Commons together are but Men and as such not Infallible And Inadvertency and Surprize may sometimes deceive both Kings and Potentates The King and his Parliament have declared there was a Plot against the Kings Life and yet they have decreed no penalty or punishment to him that says that Pickering was one of the worst Gunners in Christendom and St. James's Park the worst spot of Ground for such an Assassination The Plot Discoverers have been credited by the King and Parliament and yet if any Man shall but ASSERT what the Discoverers SWEAR as sacred as their Testimony has been the Law will lay him by the heels for it For he that shall aver that Wakeman was engaged to Poyson the King or Kerney one of the four Ruffians was hired to stab him is lyable to be punisht for it for they have stood Tryal and been acquitted by LAW and as such they have their Action against him that asperses and traduces the Innocent 'T is true I neither do nor dare say that poor Pickering and Groves were Innocent and why because the Law has pronounced them Guilty And yet I may safely say that had they had the good Fortune to have lived a Year and a half longer than they did 't was not impossible nor unlikely they might have dyed in their Beds for all their Screwed Guns or Silver Bullets Besides without Derogation to Kings or their great Councels not only their Votes have been several times Humane and Fraile but even their Deliberate Acts and Statutes are not always Gospel For Instance King Henry the 8th and one of his Parliaments made an Act that illegitimated both Mary and Elizabeth his Daughters and decreed a punishment for any Man that should but assert their Right to the Crown or so much as call them Legitimate 28th of Hen. 8th And the same Henry and another of his Parliaments 35th of Hen. 8th Legitimated them Both again by Virtue of which Legitimation they both successively wore the Crown of England And all this Legally done by the King and the great Councel of the Nation And yet in the Case of Legitimacy which relates to their Birth and Blood which is unchangeable either the pro or the con must be Erroneous And what if in our case in the same Nature only vice versâ the King Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament anno 78 and 79 should have declared the Popish Plot sworn by Titus Bedlows Dugdale France Dangerfield Duffy Murfey Macnamar Zeale Lewis c. was LEGITIMATE and the King Lords and Commons in another Parliament in 83 or when His Majesty pleases should declare the aforesaid Plot to be ILLEGITIMATE I know nothing to the contrary but it lyes in their Breasts and pleasures to do it But however Elkanahs Narrative has scurrilously and basely arraigned the Justice and Judges of the Nation And why so Is there one passage through the whole Book that says or Hints that the Popish Conspirators had not their Legal Tryals and tho amongst so many Hundred Treasonable Letters Commissions and what not against them their Accusers produced nothing but HEARTY SWEARING for their Conviction yet do not the Lord Chief J. at Whitebreads Tryal say that 't is by the Oaths of two Witnesses that our Lives and Fortunes stand or fall And does the Narrative say or insinuate that they had not two or more Witnesses whose Oaths condemn'd them for which the Jury brought them in Guilty and the Judges according to their Duties condemn'd them as such and how then is the Justice or Judges of the Nation Impeached when on the contrary they were so far from dying unjustly that they dyed even summo jure by the highest Justice in the Kingdom Besides suppose Pickering was never engaged to Pistol the King and has yet dyed for it So I have heard of some People that have been hang'd in Chains for a Murder when the supposed Murdered Person has some Years after been found alive and all this while the Judge and the unfortunate Jury neither arraigned nor arraignable for their Sentence or Execution Who then has the Narrative wronged the Kings Evidence No. That 's Impossible for to tell truth can wrong no body and the Narrative is so far from belying them that it recites not one passage but is recorded from their own Oaths And why a Recital of what is sworn in the Plot should be a Burlesquing of the Plot I cannot understand Oh but telling Truth says the Proverb may sometimes do harm and in this case the whole Book tho with never so much truth in it tends to the lessening the Discoverers Testimony and a Stifling the whole Popish Plot. Now 't is true indeed why should Elkanah be such a Cudden as to endeavor the Stifling of the Popish Plot when it saves him the labor and Stifles it self The Meteor wanted a Body to last and so the short liv'd Exhalation has spent it self and is expired But for my part I pay such a profound respect to the Plot that I heartily wish that it may have that preheminence above all Plots whatsoever as to be the ONLY more than Phoenix of the Kind and be never equalled from the beginning to the end of the World and that it may find its just Merit in deathless Records I de have it annexed to the History of AMBOYNA and when the Turk comes farther into Christendom have it presented him to bind up with the Alcoran Besides I solemnly avow the Plot was a good Plot especially whilst 't was hot and fresh and if it has been set by till 't is cold and stinks 't is no fault of mine I acknowledge the Ingredients of the Plot are Rarities in their kind but if the Plotters and Discoverers between them have unfortunately made a Hotch Potch instead of an Oleo and put them so fulsomly together till they nauseate can I help it If the Swearers have contradicted each others Testimony and sometimes their own is Elkanah to answer for it Besides as the Discoverers have sworn the Jesuits to be the greatest ROGUES in the World through the whole Popish Plot so Elkanahs Narrative has proved them through the whole Plot to be