ANIMADVERSIONS ON THE Last Speech and Confession OF THE LATE WILLIAM Lord RUSSEL HAving perused a certain Printed sheet called The Speech of the Lord Russel to the Sheriffs together with the Paper delivered by him to them at the place of Execution I could no â—… imagine the said Paper to be the Words of a Person of his Quality or indeed of a dying Christian till â—…ound underwritten Printed by J. Darby by Direction 〈◊〉 the Lady Russel Upon this satisfaction I could not forbear seriously â—…d thoroughly examining the Contents of the Speech â—…d Paper and upon full consideration thereof I think 〈◊〉 the Duty of a good Subject to give the World my â—…inion of the several Protestations and Assertions â—…roughout it and the Tendency they naturally bear In his short Speech to the Sheriff he says little only that be expected much noise at that place and therefore â—…ng not fond of much speaking and much less at that 〈◊〉 He tells the Sheriff He had set down in that Paper â—…en and there given him all that he THOVGHT FIT 〈◊〉 â—…ave behind him And truly in that he spoke like an â—…e for in the said Paper he has left no more behind â—…m as he says then he Thought fit indeed In true he continues in the said Speech to affirm 〈◊〉 the words of a dying man I know of no Plot either against â—…e Kings Life or the Government The Truth and Vaâ—…dity of which dying Protestation we shall see fully examined in his following Paper The subject of the first Paragraph in the Paper is only his Thoughts of another World and his Preparations made for Death his Thanks to God for his Inâ—…ite Blessings both in the Advantages of his Worthy Parents and Religious Education with the Assurance of the Love and Mercy of God through the Merits of Christ and Fullness of Joy in his Presence c. All which I have nothing to say to but only to wish with Cordial Christian Charity that he has found that Mercy from the hands of a Gracious God which his own hopes assured him For Heaven forbid the highest of Criminals should be punish'd beyond the Grave or that a Temporal punishment with a true Penitence might not be a sufficient Expiation for the greatest Guilt In the second Paragraph he gives you an account of his Faith saying I dye of the Reformed Religion a true and sincere Protestant and in the Communion of the Church of England though I could never yet comply with or rise up to all the heights of many People Here it is true he is of the Church of England's Communion but indeed such a Mungril Communicant of that Church that he cannot comply with or rise up to the heights of many people of that Communion Now how he has lag'd below the Members of our Church not only the Fatal Cause that brought him to his End demonstrates but a farther sample of his Religion we have upon Record in the Learned Works of his own good Chaplain the Author of JVLIAN Where the Doctrine of Rebel my Country-men is so elaborately handled and that great pattern of Christ Submission to Magistracy and that distinguishing Shibboleth of Christianity Passive Obedience is so Artfully attaqued that truly-from such a Pastor and such Principles 't is undoubtedly evident that to use his Expression he was not extreamly well taught to reach to the heights of the Church of England From this part of his Paper to the end of the Chapter his Lordship begins to bear up smartly to the matter and the whole Paper throughout is but a Compact of the highest Uncharity against the King and Court a continued Arraignment of the Judge and Justice of the Kingdom and indeed the whole Government it self A heap of Exclamations against the monstrous dangers of Popery and an Appeal to the very Mobile to remove them and lastly a feeble and lame pretence of his own Loyalty and Innocence crutch'd up with so many Reservations Evasions and Equivocations that even through his Lordships own Spectacles were never seen in the Rankest of Jesuits 3 which you 'll find as follows But first for a taste of his Innocence in Paragraph the 8th he avers I never was at Mr. Shepherds with that Company but once and there was no undertaking then of securing and seizing the Guards nor none appointed to view or examine them which nor none I 'll be so charitable not to take in the Affirmative but read it nor any Some discourse there was of the Feasibleness of it had several Times by ACCIDENT in general discourse elsewhere I have heard it mentioned as a thing might easily be done but never consented to as fit to be done And particularly at my Lord Shaftsbury 's there being some general discourse of this kind I immediately flew out and exclaimed against it and ask'd if the thing succeeded what must be done next but Massacring the â—…nâ—…s and killing 'em in Cold Blood which I look'd upon as so detestable a thing and so like a Popish Practice that I could not but abhor it And at the same time the Duke of Monmouth took me by the Hand and told me very kindly My Lord I see you and I are of a Temper did you ever hear so horrid a Thing Here observe the prettiest piece of more than Jesuitical Equivocation The Conference at Shepherds contained no Vndertaking of Securing or Seizing the Guards c. Only some Discourse about the Feasibleness of it If so eminent a piece of work as Seizing the Kings Guards were only a piece of Title Tatle amongst these great men a Tryal of Skill to argue for Wit-sake or to pass away the time over a Glass of Mr. Shepherds Sherry How comes it about the Lord heard it by his own Confession SEVERAL TIMES and oh wonderful all by Accident A thing never intended to be put in Action could never be the dull reiterated impertinent Talk so many times over amongst persons of such Sense nor could the Lord Russel's Exclamation of What kill 'em in cold Blood And harmless Monmouth's Oh horrid to it be a rational Repartee to a Chimera or a Discourse only én Passant No no the business is this the Lord Russel is to die as Innocent as a Sucking Lamb for Child unborn's out of fashion and because the seizing of Guards was only Sworn against him at the Meeting at Shepherds to make the Witnesses Perjured the Discourse of it at the other several Times and Places might be in order to the putting it into Execution and what Treason ye please but at that one onely Time 't was all harmless Prattle and nothing but the Feasibleness of the Thing the matter in debate However tho' the Innocent Lord lets us know and all this with no less than the words of a dying Protestant that the feasibility of the business was the only Argument of the Guards seizing in this 8th Paragraph In the 10th Paragraph he gives a farther Narrative of this Meeting at
Shepherd's and there as damnable ill fortune would have it he relates so different an account of the Thing that Bedlow's and Prance's description of Sir Edmundbury's Murder are little less contradictory viz. he says in these words The day before that Meeting I came to Town for two or three days and the Duke of Monmouth came to me and told me he was extreme glad I was come to Town for my Lord Shaftsbury and some hot men would undo us all How so my Lord I said Why answer'd he they 'll certainly do some disorderly thing or other if some care be not taken and therefore for Gods sake use your endeavours with your Friends to prevent any thing of this kind He told me there would be Company at Mr. Shepherd 's that night and desired me to be at home that evening and he would call me which he did and when I came into the Room I saw Mr. Rumsey sitting by the Chimney tho' he swears he came in after and there were things said by some with much more HEAT than JUDGMENT which I did sufficiently disapprove and yet for these things of stands condemned But I thank God my para was sincere and will meant Here we find the faâ—e of Affairs strangely alter'd for now the Duke of Monmouth comes with an Out-cry that my Lord Shaftsbury and other Hot men were for doing things so disorderly as threaten'd no less than to undo 'em all and Shepherds being the place of assignation my Lord Russel heard some things said there with more Heat than Judgment Now that those things said must signifie the business of seizing the Guards is plain by my Lords owning it to be that for which he stoud condemned and that the debate must be upon the down-right Resolution and Proposals of putting the project into a speedy Execution is every way manifest For if the above-said harmless feasibleness of it were all that had been argued amongst them there had been no need either of Monmouth's Allarum the Lord Russel's Reproof or the Companies Heat out-running their Judgments nor was there any occasion for his thanking God that his part was sincere and well meant if theirs had been so too And that the Reader may not mistake and think possibly these two different Accounts of the Guards seizing might be at two different times the Lord answers expresly No for be never was at Shepherd ' s in that Company but once However the Lord Russel still upholds his Innocence and tells you in the last Paragraph It was inferred from hence that I was acquainted with those Heats and ill Designs and did not discover them But that was but MISPRISION of Treason at most I shall not answer for what pass'd at the Tryal because 't is not yet publish'd nor was I present to hear it and therefore I leave the dispute of that to the Judges learned in the Law that were not of my Lord Russel's Opinion But supposing my Lord would insinuate himself only guilty of Misprision of Treason from the proofs against him at the Tryal yet by his own proofs against himself in this intended Vindication he was recorded himself to all Posterity plainly guilty of High-Treason in that very Paper where he arrogates the highest of Innocence For suppose as he affirms that the proof of his being in a Company once at Mr. Shepherd's where Treason was spoken and the concealing it were only Misprision Misprision being imagined to be a mans unfortunate hearing of Treason spoken in ill company and afterwards the wanting of prudence or care to detect that Treason Yet in his Paper his Crime is of a deeper dye He confesses there He held Amity and Correspondence with persons that did not once or twice but several times treat upon the same numerical Treasonable Projection He visited 'em at their own Houses as Shaftsbury's for instance and give 'em meetings abroad And tho it be Misprision of Treason to conceal the hearing of it tho' a man abjures and avoids the company of the Traytor that speaks it yet this Innocent Lord continues the highest friendship with these very Treason-mongers herds and nests with them at all turns and has the continued Repetition of Treasonable Machinations in his ears and yet his want of discovery is and shall be only 〈◊〉 bare Misprision of Treason But the Noble Lord makes a very honest and charitable excuse for his silence in not discovering viz. I hope no body will imagine that so mean a thought could enter into me as to go about to save my life by accusing others That is my Lord could hear Shaftsbury and his Crew projecting to play the Cut-throats if no less than the Kings Guards and that too in cold blood tho' indeed himself abhorr'd such a Popish practice yet at the same time he affirms it a more Gentleman like Quality to be true to Cut throats than Kings to Treason than Loyalty and hopes no man will imagine him capable of so mean a thought as to have discovered this Rand of Associating Murderers tho' threatening no less than the Murder of the Kings Guards But my Lords is to be Innocent still and must and shall be so for alas the seizing of the Kings Guards was no Design at all God knows upon the Kings Persons for in the next Paragraph he is very outragious to think how hard a Sentence be had for he says Nothing was sworn against him but some discourses about making some STIRS a pretty Puritanical mincing word for a National Insurrection which by no means he will allow to be levying War against the King Besides by a strange Fetch the Design of seizing the Guards was construed a Design of killing the King and so I was cast Good Heavens that Ignoranous was our of fashion and that a pack of Popish Tory Jury-men should ever interpret a Combination for seizing the Guards of a King to be the least ill intention against the Person of Majesty Nay the dying Lord is so extravagantly possess'd not only with his own undoubted Innocence but even of those very men too that with all this Hear and Fury so many several times machinated so Murderous and Treasonable a Design that in the 13th Paragraph he wishes that the Gentlemen of the Law would make more conscience than to run men down by strains and fetches and impose on easie and willing Juries to the Ruine of Innocent men for to kill by forms subtilties of Law is the worst sort of Murder But I wish the rashness of hot men the partiality of Juries may be stop'd with my Blood which I would offer up with more joy if I thought I should be the last were to suffer in such a way In this 't is plainly intimated that his very Brethren in iniquity those that not like himself dissented and disapproved of seizing the Guards but the very Promoters Defenders of the Design are all Innocent too insomuch that 't is his last Prayer That their guiltless Blood may
not be sacrificed like His but himself may be the last of Martyrs in this Cause I protest I am so startl'd at the latitude of some mens consciences and the extravagance of some mens self-justification that I wonder what 't is they will allow to be Treason or whether or no they have not expunged all those Texts in their Bibles that teach Obedience to Kings as the Ordinance of God till at last they believe there is no such Duty in the whole Body of Christianity and no such thing as Treason in Rerum Naturâ But to return to his Lordships Confession Amongst those unanswerable Demonstrations of his Loyalty to the Crown and love to the King with the description of his miraculous Innocence he gives you his sense of the present State of the Nation and in the second Paragraph he says I wish with all my Soul all our unhappy differences were removed and that all sincere Protestants would so far consider the danger of Popery as to lay aside their Heats and agree against the common Enemy In that good wish I hope all good Protestants will joyn with him provided his Vniting and Agreeing be honest as I much suspect the contrary For he goes on and I says For Popery I look on it as an Idolatrous and Bloody Religion and therefore thought my self 〈◊〉 in my â—…ion to do all things against it And by that I foresaw I should procure such great 〈◊〉 to my self and such 〈◊〉 ones that I have now been for some time expecting 〈…〉 And blessed be God I fall by the Ax 〈◊〉 not by the 〈◊〉 Tryal Here his Protestant Lordship 〈◊〉 cunningly but most venomously too makes his Death 〈◊〉 Popish Conspiracy against him and that from his fatal Zeal against Popery he foresaw the great and powerful Enemies he should procure and expected the very Fate befel him And to explain himself was born on this Topick paragr the 7th he says that his earnestness against the Duke about the Bill of Exclusion had no small instaence on his present Sufferings And again par the 5th he says I did believe and do still that Popery is breaking in upon the Nation and those that will advance it will stop at nothing to carry on their Designs I am heartily sory so many Protestants give their helping hand to it But I hope God will preserve the Protestant Religion and this Nation tho' I am affraid it will fall under very great Trials and very sharp Suffering Here we have his Lordships Scheme of the whole Nations Destruction by the already All commanding power of Popery and himself no less than one of the 〈◊〉 Martyrs to it only he thanks God he falls by the Ax not the Faggot And who is in this damnable new Popish Plot against the Lord Russels life but that great and powerful Enemy the Duke of York for his Bill of Exclusion earnestness was the great influence in his Fall And to effect this new Diabolical Popish Conspiracy those that advance it will stop at nothing to carry on their Designs nay the very Protestants have a hand in it insomuch that he plainly insinuates that all those new Protestant Evidences against himself and the rest of the late Plotters tho' men of Quality and Fortune tho' men of their own Faction are only so many Popish Tools engaged by Subornation and Perjury from the great Popish Enemies of our Religion to remove the great Zealots for the Protestant Religion and cut the Throats of the Innocent by no less than the most unexampled and most infernal of Perjuries Nay the Root of all this premeditated Plot against their Protestant lives lies not in the Witnesses and their Suborners only but in the very Judges and Juries themselves For he says in para the 13th From the Time of choosing Sheriffs I concluded the Heat in that matter would produce something of this kind And I am not much surprized to find it fall upon me And I wish what is done to me may put a stop and satiate some peoples Revenge and that no more Innocent Blood be shed Here 't is observed that not only the Justice of the Nation is impeached but the wanting of the old Ignoramus Sheriffs and Juries is an evident combination against the lives of Loyal Innocent and Protestant Subjects nay tho' the kind Lord confesses that Shaftsbury himself once acquitted by Ignoramus with the rest of his Accomplices were really Guilty of Conspiring the seizing the Guards and murdering 'em in cold Blood and raising of Stirs alias Insurrections yet the want of Sheriffs and Jurice to plead Ignoramus even to such audacious Conspiracies is a bringing of Innocence and Loyalty to Scaffolds and Gibbers a gratifying the insatiate Revenge of Popish Courtiers Conspiring for Guiltless Blood and â—o less than making Popery rule the Assendant of the whole Court and City By this Insinuation of such a Popish Confederacy into the heads of the Vnwary and Ignorant Reader and indeed the whole Babble of the Kingdom too easily â—…ed into such an Apprehension the Zealous Lady 〈◊〉 to lose no time in so good a Design having set it to Printing a day before the Lord died Here 's a plain perfect and visible Incentive to the Multitude to Revenge the Death of this Innocent Lord and rise up in Arms to prevent the growth of Popery and the effusion of more Guiltless Blood still threatned But truly the peaceable Lord in the 6th paragraph says I forgive the whole World particularly all those concerned in taking away my Life and I desire and conjure my Friends to think of no Revenge but to submit to the Holy will of God c. Here indeed the good Lord desires no Revenge but at the same breath he intimates that his Blood calls for it only his forgiving Charity forbids it But this is so transparent a Mask that half an eye may see through it and this seeming Christian like Dehortation of the people from Rebellion is but adding a new provocation to 'em to begin it whilst the generosity and goodness of this Murdered Lord as he calls himself is but setting a higher price on his Blood Thus after so many false colours on his own Integrity and appealing to God he had as Passion by end or ill Design in him Tho' at the same time he tells you both his Comrades and their Character and his own privity to their abominable Practices the Projections he publishes that false inflaming Narratives his own pretended Innocence that is not to be maâ—… by any thing but the Speech of the Noble Peer and 〈◊〉 serves the same Fate Thus every Design against the Peace of the Nation and all Plots and Machinations whatever against tâ—… King and Government tho' never so plainly made oâ—… or by more substantial Evidence are to be instantly â—…ned into Popish Perjury and Subornation And Guilt whatever can or shall lie at any door but the Pâ—… Jesuits whilst the Execution of this Lord is to be 〈◊〉 no other a Tool than the Kings intended Assassiâ—…tion viz. a Popish Combination and a Popish Blow 〈◊〉 yet see the wretchedness of the Project in all this vâ—…mence for Innocent Protestant Blood I defy any 〈◊〉 partial Reader to look o're but this short Paper of my Lord Russels and to tell me there is not 100 times worse matter discuss'd and bandyed by the Lord Shaftâ—…bury and his Colleagues even in my Lord Russels single Sheet of Paper and all for the proving a Plot against the Kings Life and the Government than in all Coleman's voluminous Letters the great and almost only Gorgon of Popery I shall only finish with my true and cordial sence oâ— the publication of that Paper that 't is a much greateâ— Dishonour to the Noble Family of that Great Man that the Scaffold he died upon FINIS LONDON Printed for T. Graves MDCLXXXIII