commands and injunctions upon such as they have power and authority over and whom they thought conscious either to the manner of that Noble Peers fatal End or capable of detecting any circumstances which might let in light upon that affair And therefore knowing that the Soldiers who were upon Duty in the Tower that morning when the Earl of Essex was killed had not only taken notice of several Persons and made Observation of diverse things from which both the murder of that vertuous Lord might be inferred and concluded as well as by whose hands it was perpetrated but that divers of them had talkt too freely and lavishly of it abroad as well as among themselves accordingly on the Saturday morning being that which immediately succeeded to the day of the Earls death did a Military Officer after They and other Soldiers were called together charge them with the highest threats and menaces that they should not dare to speak of what they had seen or heard the day before adding that whosoever should be known to divulge what had passed in the Tower on the Friday in the forenoon should severely suffer for it This divers of the Soldiers have confessed and related to their friends who are willing to testifie it when occasion serves And among others one Robert Meak of whom I shall afterwards have occasion to say somewhat more declared the whole of this passage to two men that are ready to swear it whensoever their Depositions may be of advantage to the publick and can be made without exposing themselves to ruin It will not be denied by rational men but that the Souldiers who were then upon Duty in the Tower had advantages of knowing more in reference to the Earl of Essex death than most other persons can pretend unto seeing that as some were so posted as both to see all that went into his Lodgings and to hear the noise and bustle which was made in his Chamber upon his resistance and the force and violence which the miscreants used towards him so others were placed in that manner as to observe whence and from whom they came and whither and to whom they returned that were employed to commit the Hellish and Tragical deed Nor can any suspect that men who march under the Ensigns of his Majesty should forge a story so much tending to the dishonor of a great man and the Kings Ministers and so likely to displease persons that had power to cashier and otherwise punish them as this of my Lord Essex not cutting his own Throat but being Assassinated by others was adapted unto and would infallibly do Yea I do affirm with all the Sacredness which becomes a Man and a Christian in a matter of this weight and importance that this is no Calumny imposed on the Souldiers and their Commander in order to traduce the Government and enflame the Kingdom but that whatsoever is here affirmed is built upon the greatest moral certainty that an Affair of this nature is capable of And all I do desire in order to the justifying what I have now related and declared is only that his Majesty would cause order a writ of Revieu or melius Inquirendum to be issued out with an assurance of pardon to such as shall be willing to come in and be able to testifie by whom and after what manner this Noble Lord was Assassinated and Murdered Nor can his Majesties Ministers escape this Dilemma either of lying under the infamy of being conscious of and accessary unto the assassination of that Honorable person or of being obliged to obtain a Revieu of this matter with a promise of indemnity to those who shall appear witnesses and be able to give evidence in the case And I shall take the liberty further to say that it is not only the duty but the interest of those very Ministers who may not be directly concerned in the Guilt of my Lord of Essex blood to promote and second this overture and proposal and that not only for the Honor of the Government but for their own Vindication from being accessary to so enormous and detestable a Crime For the time may possibly come that their meer connivance at the concealment of this murder may rise in judgment against them and render them more lyable to punishment than they seem at present to apprehend Our Laws which expressly requires the least Officers in the Common-wealth to pursue Robbers Fellons and Murderers with Hue and Cry or otherwise makes them obnoxious to penalties never intended that privy 〈◊〉 whoâ— by the duty of their place are to watch and advise for the 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 of the Subject as well as the preservation and honer of the King should be esteemed Innocent and not be liable to any punishment by Law tho they be found to connive at the destruction of his Me 〈…〉 people and at the involving his Person and Government under an indeâ—â—ble reproach and infamy And therefore tho it cannot be supposed that those of his Majesties Ministers who are directly criminal by contriving and câ—mmanding this Murder should countenance or encourage an inquiry into and a detection of it yet it may not only be exspected but ought to be claimed of the Marquis of Hallisax the Earl of Radnar my Lord Fal 〈…〉 ridg and some others who have still the priviledge of being in the publick manage of Affairs and admitted to sit in his Majesties Councel that they would not both to their own danger and dishonor as well as the prejudice of the King in his reputation and safety continue to connive at this Excrable and Barbarous Murder but that they would apply themselves as becomes the duty of their places and the regard they ought to have for their own honor to obtain of his Majesty what is here desired in order to the detection of the assaâ—â—ination of my Lord Essex and the bringing the Maleâ—actors to undergo that severity which the Justice of the Law subjects them unto But as if the precedeing Tâ—pick did not administer sufficient Evidence that the E. of Essex was assassinated by others howsoever his memory comes to be branded for cutting his own Throat there is a further proof ariseth in confirmation of it from this that they have not only discouraged and frighted such as might be willing to lay open the whole Mystery of that divelish work of darkness but they have beyond all law and president persecuted and â—ppressed those who were either found inclined to inquire into the manner of that honorable persons death or to have vented what they had heard which might give suspition of his being brought to his End by the treache 〈…〉 villaâ—y of bloody misereants Nor shall I here enlarge on the proceedings against old Mr. Edwards the Custom-house Officer who besides his â—â—ing shamefully upbraided and standered by my Lord Chief Justice at the Trial of Mr. Bradden was afterwards turned out of his place where he had served for 39 years and for no other
say in reference to Mr. Braddon namely that he was ravelling into such a business but that he was resolved to ruine him if all the Law of England would do it makes every man affraid as well as sensible what he may encounter if he have the boldness to interest himself in this affair O degenerate off spring of brave and heroick ancestors were it not much more eligible to run hazard by acquitting your selves as persons of honour in discharge of your duty than to seek for safety by involving your persons and posterity under the guilt of that abominable and villanous Fact And besides can they otherwise hope than that through conniving at so horrid a murder committed upon another person and one who was of a rank and condition equal to themselves they shall at last undergo the same or the like fate whensoever they have the unhappiness and misfortune to fall under the wrath of a certain Gentleman at St. James's But over and above the two Letters that were sent to noble persons very near the King to be communicated to his Majesty there was another Letter addressed to the Countess of Essex and in order to the being conveyed to her Ladyship directed to be left with one Mr. Cadman a Bookseller in the New Exchange in the Strand the Tenor whereof was that if her Honour would prevail with the King for a pardon to one that would discover how my Lord came by his death or obtain of his Majesty a proclamation assuring forgiveness to any who should come in and detect by whom and after what manner my Lord was murder'd that upon either of those securities the way of the Earl of Essex's assassination should be revealed and laid open with all its circumstances This Letter was in August last brought by a young woman to Mr. Cadman's Shop who finding him sleeping on the inside of his Counter told him that she had brought him a Letter directed to my Lady Essex concerning my Lords death which she desired he would read being to that end left open and unsealed But Cadman being drowsie and still inclined to sleep instead of taking notice what she said thrust her from the Counter as an officious and troublesome person and commanded her to goabout her business Yet having after his being throughly awake both perused the Letter and considered the importance and consequence of it he judged himself in prudence obliged to carry it to a Magistrate which accordingly he did to one Hinton a Justice of Peace in Covent Garden who as I have been credibly informed went with it to one of the Secretaries of State This Letter as is most justly conceived was written by Bomeny forasmuch as he not only seemed about that time to be under some Remorse in reference to the death of my Lord but because some of Bomeny's handwriting being shewed to Mr. Cadman it appeared to him according to the best of his remembrance and judgment to be the same hand or at least very much like unto that which the letter was written in This much is plainly evident that it must have been written by one that was willing to be known seeing it was both sent open and by a person that was able to declare of whom she had received it For had the writing of this Letter been only a contrivance to avert the infamy of my Lord's death from himself and deliver those Gentlemen accused for the Plot from the consequences unto which the Earls imagined murdering himself was improved against them it would never have been left unsealed for Mr. Cadman to read nor seat by a person that was acquainted with the contents of it as it plainly appears the bearer was but would both have been sealed to prevent Cadman's looking into it and conveyed by a porter or some such hand that would have been less lyable to be questioned either about the contents or the Author of it Nor does any thing more amaze and astonish thinking people than that notwithstanding the many Reports as well as Universal jealousies of my Lord of Essex being murder'd in the Tower yet all this time his Majesty hath not published one word to encourage an inquisition into the manner of his death or to secure a pardon to such as shall be able to discover whether he was assassinated and by whom and after what manner he was brought to an untimely End For considering the obligations which the King and the Royal Family lay under to the late Earl of Essex as well as to his Father my Lord Capel and considering the many aspersions thrown upon the Court in relation to the death of the said Earl it hath been expected that his Majesty as well in justice to the Family of the Capels as in vindication of his own honour from the infamy of having a person of my Lord Essex's merit and figure assassinated in his Majesties prison and Palace would have issued out a proclamation ascertaining forgiveness to any that should be able to prove his being murdered by others and that he did not destroy himself as some people have been industrious to give out And that which encreaseth the surprise and wonder is the consideration of the forwardness which the King hath expressed in some other cases for the detection of murders of this nature For besides the tender of a pardon there was the promise of 500. l. to any who should discover the murder of Sr. Edmondbury Godfrey and reveal the miscreants by whom he was assassinated And I would be loth to think that his Majesties proceeding so differently in that case from what he hath done in this was rather to be ascribed to his apprehensions of a ParlJament which was then in Being than to his love of justice or the desire of delivering the Nation from the guilt of innocent blood But I am willing to believe that the reason why the King doth not encourage the discovery of this late murder of my L. of Essex ariseth from the fear he is in of the persons that were accessory to it For in case he would authorise the detection of the Assassinates of this Noble Earl he will find himself obliged not only to bring the Earl of S. and my Lord F. but his Royal and dearly beloved Brother I D. of Y. to punishment And who knows but that he dreads left in calling these Gentlemen to account for cutting the E. of Essex's throat He too much hazard and expose his own Nor is it at all surprizing that the King who had not courage to resent the poysoning his own Sister by her husband the Duke of Orleans at a juncture when He might have made France feel the effects of his justice and displeasure should not have the boldness to question his Brother and other principal persons of the Popish Faction for the assassination of Essex especially at a time that he hath divested himself of all power to hurt them and by seeming offended may only stir up their wrath against himself
of Essex's and who had just brought the provisions which Bomeny by my Lords Order had written to the Steward for as the perfidious Rascal was running down Stairs crying out that my Lord had killed himself and that he had found his Body dead in the Closet did thereupon being surprised by Bomenies report run up into the Chamber where he saw his Master lying in the Closet with a great part of his Leggs reaching out of the Closet door and the print of a bloody foot upon one of his Stockins which so far convinced this honest and unbiaz'd man of violence committed upon the Earl of Essex's person that he immediately cryed out they have murdered my Lord. Nor is Peck the only Witness whom we can produce to testifie this but there are others also ready to confirm it upon Oath whensoever his Majesty will be pleased to take them into his protection and indemnifie them from the accession they are guilty of to that horrid and bloody murder But before I dimiss Peck there is one thing further observabl ' namely that having among other things brought wine for my Lords own drinking Russel and others of that fellow's stamp and complexion who stood by fell a jeering the poor man telling him the wine came too late for my Lord to drink but that he had brought it very seasonably for his Funeral Nor is this the only circumstance which would have affoorded the Coroners Jury matter of evidence and light as to the manner of the Earl of Essex death had not the Body been medled with but suffered to continue in the place and posture as it fell but there would have appeared a second circumstance of as great importance and signification in it self and as serviceabl ' as the former to have discovered the barbarous violence committed upon this innocent and excellent person For not only Mary Johnson the woman who was then Servant in the Warders house where my Lord was a prisoner and who affirms that she saw my Lords Body as soon as either Bomeny or Russel did but several other persons besides her have confessed that the Neck or midd'l of my Lords Cravat was cut in four pieces Surely if my Lord as Bomeny tells us had taken off his periwig and hung it up because as the Villain would have the world believe he could not so conveniently have cut his Throat with the Periwig on he would for the same reason have much rather laid aside his Cravat being no less than three times about his Neck and more apt to hinder the accomplishment of that unnatural Fact which the infidous and perjured Rascal hath endeavoured to father upon him than the Periwig was And therefor ' as it is unreasonabl ' to think other wise but that the Earl of Essex would have lay'd by his Cravat had he designed to commit that violence upon himself so it gives just suspition that he was assassinated by others that his Cravat was about his Neck and c 〈…〉 thorough in so many places And whensoever this affair ' of my Lord of Essex's death comes to be admitted to a fair and indifferent hearing and a pardon vouchsaf'd to such as shall give evidence it will be fully proved that the bloody Miscreants came provided and furnished with an Instrument which was able to conquer the resistance which a Cravat tho thrice rolled about the Neck was abl ' to give it And whereas one Webster Bayliff of the Tower liberty being a person who assisted Mary Johnson in stripping my Lords Body hath pretended to some that it was he who cutt the Cravat as not being abl ' readily to untye it this may be easily demonstrated to be a story purposely forged towards the avoiding the suspition which the circumstance of the Cravats being cutt by the same Instrument and stroke that gave my Lord the fatal and deadly wound would have both begotten and cherished in the Minds of unbiaz'd Men. For besides that Mary Johnson who in conjunction with Webster stripp'd the Body hath often asserted the contrary to this which Webster reports and gives out it was not possibl ' that the Cravat should be thrice about my Lords Neck when the wound and Gash was made from the Neck Bone behind the one jugular to the Neck Bone behind the other jugular and not at all cutt or touched by the Instrument wherewith that large and deadly wound was given And as my Lords Cravat could not be tyed harder than he tyed it himself without the intervention of some violent hand that had endeavoured to choak him with it to hinder and prevent his crying out so we cannot suppose that my Lord himself had tyed it so hard but that it might have been easily loosed and untyed without cutting of it And as it was impossibl ' that my Lords Neck should swell after the Gullet and both the jugulars were cutt which if it could have don ' might have been a means and occasion of the Cravats being more strait ' and closs about his Neck so no rational man can apprehend but that had it been never so strait ' they would have taken pains and found a way to untye it especially having a prospect of enjoying it themselves it being usual in England that they who stripp a dead Body are recompenced with the gift and possession of all the Cloaths which they find about it And therefor ' as Websters pretending to have cutt the Cravat when he assisted in stripping the Body is both a confirmation that it was about my Lords Neck when he was killed and that it was cutt into so many pieces as I have declared so the having made it evident that this pretence of Webster as to his cutting the Cravat at such a time is a forgery and fiction of his own I may from the whole very justifiably conclude that this Report was invented to suppress the evidence and light which this circumstance would have given into the manner of my Lord Essex's death and to prevent the questioning such as might thereupon have been suspected and apprehended for assassinating and murdering that vertuous and Nobl ' Peer But besides the two forego'ing circumstances which would have served to detect the manner of my Lords death and the violence which had been used to bring him to his untimely End there was a Third of as great weight and moment as either of them which had the Body been suffered to continue in the place posture and condition as it fell would have clearly discovered the perjury of Bomeny and Russel and wonderfully contributed to the unvailing and laying open the whole Mystery of this barbarous murder For whereas both Bomeny and Russel not only swear that the Closet door where my Lord fell was lock'd when they came up to it but that upon opening the door they found him lying all along on the Closet Floor Peck the Servant that had brought the provisions to my Lord just as Bomeny pretended to have found him
Motive it could be invented unless to palliate the Crime of those who had destroyed him But should it be granted that the late Earl of Essex used to speak with all Candor and Respect of the Duke of Nâ—â—thumberland who slew himself in the Tower it was no more than what might be expected from a Gentleman of Civility and good Breeding partly out of Decorum and Complacency to his Lady whose Grand-father the said Duke was and partly out of respect to that Noble Mans Personal Merit and Worth being upon many accounts a truly great Person For is it not enough to condemn a Fact without heaping Obloquy and Reproach upon him that hath been guilty of it It is sufficient to represent the Evil of a Thing in Thesi and to demonstrate the Sin as well as Dishonour in committing it but it neither agrees with the Rules of Religion nor the Measures of Conversation among Persons of Quality to be over severe in Hypothesi and to pronounce this or that Man wicked and infamous though upon the score of that which we have doctrinally and in way of Argumentation censured and condemned Nor was the Earl of Essex's Case parallel to that of the Duke of Nâ—rthumberland that the latter should make the former a President For whereas that Duke was not only accused but condemned for High Treason when he committed that Fact the Earl though accused and committed not only knew himself innocent of the Crime wherewith he was charged but was well assured that there was no Evidence upon which they could proceed to try and much less to condemn him For of all the Witnesses who had undertaken the Drudgery of swearing Men out of their Lives there was only my Lord H. that could pretend to so much as acquaintance with him Whose Testimony being but that of one Man and a very infamous one too it could not found an Indictment of Treason much less be esteemed a sufficient Proof in Law for the Conviction and Condemnation of the meanest Subject And this leads me to another Topick that the Earl of Essex did not destroy himself but was murthered by others For whereas it is not only sworn that he cut his own Throat but that he had ordered his Servants two days before to provide a Pen-knife for him on pretence of cutting his Nails but with an Intent as Bomeny insinuates in his Deposition of committing that fatal and tragical Act I doubt not but to make it appear that he was so far from any previous Intention of that nature that he took all imaginable care in reference to his Safety and being fully secure as to any hurt he might do himself was only apprehensive and jealous of what might be attempted upon him by others and was accordingly solicitous how to prevent it And therefore he had the very day before his Murther appointed his Servants to bring up out of the Country several Vessels of Silver necessary for the preparing and dressing of Victuals with an intent to have them brought into the Tower not so much because he would have his Diet provided and prepared by his own Cook by reason of being curious in what he eat but because he was jealous of his Safety whilst his Meat was made ready by any of the Officers of the Prison and was not without Suspition that some violent and illegal means would be used towards his Destruction Nor is it unworthy of our further remark that he was so far from having abandoned himself to despair or having entertained the least thought of being his own Executioner that the very day before the perpetration of the barbarous and horrid Fact upon him he had ordered a considerable quantity of the best sort of Wines to be bought and brought into his Lodgings for his own Drinking resolving out of a Regard to his Safety rather than his Health to taste none that was sold in or about the Tower And whereas he knew that they had no intentions at Court of bringing him to a Tryal nor indeed could having but only one Person that pretended to be a Witness against him he had accordingly appointed the providing such a quantity for him as would have sufficed some Months for his own drinking till he could have been delivered in a due Course of Law Nor can unbiassed and impartial Men make any other Inference and Deduction from these Circumstances than that the Earl of Essex instead of having designed any Violence upon himself was only suspitious of what might be attempted against and perpetrated upon him by other Hands But if we will allow our selves leave to observe what Ends the violent Death of that Earl hath been improved unto and what Designs his Majesties Justices and Ministers have studied to serve by it we shall both let our selves and the World into a fuller view and knowledge of this hellish Mystery of Darkness and be able to detect the Contrivers of it and by whose encouragement and Authority that excellent though unfortunate Person was brought to an untimely and bloody Death In order whereunto we are to recollect how that after diverse Contrivances and Essays of involving Protestants in Sham Plots against the Person of the King and the established Government they were at last possessed of a Pretence of a Conspiracy of this nature and had furnished themselves with some Witnesses who undertook the swearing the best and chiefest men of the Kingdom into a conjuration for levying war and destruction of his Majesty But being conscious that their witnesses were not of a reputation to win belief to what they had prepared in charge against the principal Patriots of our Religion and Laws they resolved to murther the Earl of Essex being one of these they had committed upon an accusation of being guilty of that pretended conspiracy and then to give out that he had destroyed himself from the shame and horror of being concerned in so treasonabl ' a design This they judged to be the most effectual way to support the credit of their witnesses and gain over the Nation to give faith to the truth and reality of the plot For as his Mejesties Ministers knew what infamous persons most of the witnesses were and how far from deserving that any thing should be received from their Testimony so they were very sensibl ' that the generality of the Kingdom were not over inclinabl ' to believe a Protestant plot there having been so many endeavours before of imposing upon them in this way and kind This was the design in order to which the murder of this honourabl ' and innocent person was contrived and resolved and to this end did the Attorney General and my Lord Chief Justice with all the Eloquence and Artifice as well as all the malice they are Masters of endeavour to make it useful and subservient The Lord of Essex being committed to the Tower for the Plot and killing himself there was more say's the Attorney General than a thousand witnesses to open the
and loved after it Having now shown the end unto which the murder of this incomparable Earl was designed and adapted and the improvement which was made of it not only through endeavouring to establish thereby the belief of a Protestant Plot in general but to compass and facilitate the ruine of that religious and noble person my Lord Russel in particular we shall as a further inducement to perswade and convince the inquisitive part of mankind that some about St. James's and Whitehall where the contrivers and authorisers of that barbarous assassination lay open and unfold the motive and pique upon which it was done and what it was which gave the original rise to some mens implacable malice against that loyal as well as virtuous person And as it cannot be denied but this late Nobl ' Earl had received Titles of honor and places of Trust interest and advantage from his Majesty so it will be acknowledged that not only his Father but himself had laid all the obligations upon the Crown which it was possibl ' for Subjects in way of Acting or Suffering to do Nor is it less evident that notwithstanding both the Father my Lord Capel's Laying down his life for Charles the First and the English Monarchy and his Son Essex's manifold sufferings and services for Charles the Second and the Royal Family yet this honorable Person instead of quietly possessing any longer the just rewards of his own and Fathers merits or enjoying any more the wonted signs of his Princes favour was not onely debarred from and deprived of the respect and confidence which his Majesty had used to show him but was become the object of a great mans implacable hatred and boundless malice For though the Earl of Essex was a person whom nothing could corrupt from his loyalty to the King and the Established Government yet he was also a sincere and zealous Patriot of the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and a couragious Defender as well as owner of the Protestant Religion And as he was none of those mercinary base and timorous Lords who would either connive at or concur in the introduction of Slavery and Popery so he was one of the principal of those heroick and generous Peers who had been active in detecting the Popish Conspiracy and who had laboured with the greatest industry to prevent the effects of that hellish conjuration of the Valican Louvre and St. James's for the extirpation of the Reformed Worship and the subversion of the ancient Laws and Priviledges of England And as he was known to understand more of the nature and extent of the Popish Conspiracy and who were concerned in it and to what degree than most persons in the Kingdom either were or ever had oportunities for so nothing can be more certain than that as hereby he became the most dangerous man in the whole Nation to the Papists but that he must consequently be the most special object of their jealousie fear and hatred 〈◊〉 as his publick Station in Ireland as well as his having been long a Member of His Majesty's Privy Council in England furnished him with manifold advantages which others wanted of knowing the tendency and penetrating into the bottom of all the Designs and Counsels which have been carrying on against our Religion and Legal Government so his scorning and abhorring to sacrifice his Conscience and Honour by either falling in with the Conspirators or by avoiding to withstand and oppose them in their attempts for the introduction and establishment of Popery and Arbitrariness made them to think of all ways and means how to destroy him And besides these forementioned advantages which he had above other men of knowing all the dimensions of the Popish Plot he received no small accession of light in that affair by having been always a Member of those Secret Committees which had the Examination of Persons and Inspection of Papers concerning that devilish Conspiracy Nor was the Earl insensible of the danger he was in upon this account and accordingly was wont sometimes to say to his intimate friends that as generally all the Papists and more particularly such of them as make the greatest figure in the Kingdom dreaded him by reason of the detection he was able to make of their horrid Machinations so he could not be without apprehension but that they would seek to destroy him in order to prevent it Alas poor Essex thy respect to some whom I forbear to name made thee wanting to save the Nation and thy self by revealing that while we had ParlJaments the knowledge whereof would have been a means to have prevented our ruine and as thou art now ill rewarded for thy tenderness to those ungratefull men so we are at once unhappily robb'd of the great Instrument that could have unmasked persons and things and denied ParlJaments from whose legal Authority as well as united Counsels and Wisdom we can only under God hope for the preservation of England from becoming the Seat of Popery and the Theatre of Tyranny Nor ought it to seem strange that the malic◠of the Papists and of those who have conspired against our Rights and Priviledges should transport them to that measure and degree of rage against a person who had not only faithfully served his Majesty and the Crown but from whom they could expect no opposition but what was founded in the authority of our Laws and promoted in a ParlJamentary-way and which the King himself is bound by his Oath as well as the duty and trust reposed in him to second and give countenance unto For besides diverse Gentlemen of that temper and character whom they have destroyed or condemned by and under a Form of Law but indeed contrary to all the Laws of the Land and against the worst presidents even in the most absolute and despotical times there may be several Gentlemen mentioned whom they have cut off without the Form of any Process meerly because they either thought themselves prejudiced and withstood by them in their designs or were afraid of them by reason of the discovery which they were able to give of their conjurations against the Kingdom and of the villanies they had committed in subserviency to the establishment of Popery and Tyranny For not to mention either the Condemnation of that most Honourable Person the Earl of Argyle nor the Condemnation and Execution of that gallant Gentleman Collonel Sydney nor the late Barbarity used against their ancient Servant Sir Thomas Armestrong all which were directly repugnant to the Laws of the respective Kingdoms and contrary to all proceedings in other criminal and capital Cases were not my Lord Lucas Sir Robert Brook◠and Sir Edmondbury Godfrey without being so much as arraigned or accused murthered by them only because they either found them opposite to their Romish and Arbitrary designs or knew them capable of revealing their hellish Counsels and Actions against the Nation the established Government and the Reformed Religion What Family in England had
For I remember that when the late Sr. Thomas Armstrong had come post from Paris to give his Majesty an account how Orleans had poisoned the Princess Henrietta that he only replyed Orleans is a Rascal but pray thee Tom do not speak of what he hath done Yet that his Majesty may not excuse himself hereafter from causing further inquisition to be made after my Lord of Essex's death by saying he never heard otherwise but that he murder'd himself I do therefore tell his Majesty and publish to all the World that if he will grant an indemnity and protection to three or four persons we shall fully and evidently prove a Great Man the Earl of S. my Lord F. c. to have been the contrivers and Authorisers of it and shall name the Ruffians in particular who were employed to perpetrate the hellish and execrable Fact with an account of the several sums of money which they had for the execution of it Nor ought his Majesty to be displeased that I arraign his Brother and principal Ministers of so enormous and bloody a crime for as I write nothing but what I can fully justify so I take the boldness further to tell both him and them that if ever there come a ParlJament in England this matter shall be laid fully open and justice demanded against these impudent and enormous Offenders And as if it were not enough to evidence the E. of Essex did not murder himself but was barbarously assassinated by others that no encouragement hath been given for the discovery of the Authors of that villanous Fact notwithstanding all the rumours and Reports which have run to and fro both of the Manner of his death and the Actors in it it receives both a further and a very convincing accession of proof from this that all means have been used to deterr men from enquiring into that matter and to prevent their detecting what they may know of it The passages to this purpose would fill a volume meerly to relate them and therefore I shall confine my self to two particulars which I shall endeavour to deduce and represent with all the brevity as well as clearness I can Nor can it in the first place but astonish the world to find the Judges with whom the administration of law and justice between the King and his people is trusted I say to find them contrary both to the nature and End of their office and the Oaths they have taken of acting impartially to brand the medling in the matter of the E. of Essex's death as a Reflection upon his Majesty an Affront to the Government and a design to involve and embroil the Nation in trouble For not only the Attorney General stigmatiseth the report and belief of the Earl's being murdered by villanous hands as the throwing that ill thing upon the Government which he had committed upon himself but my Lord Chief Justice Jefferies is pleased to stile it a libelling of it and to have been forged in order to beget heart burnings and jealousies in the Kings Subjects against the Government and to raise Sedition Whereas the Government would never have been charged with this horrid Guilt tho some at the head of affairs might possibly have been accused of it had not these Gown-men involved the Government under the infamy and aspersion of it and done all they can to teach others to lay the barbarous Fact at that Door For as it is not the first time that a Prisoner hath been murdered in the Tower so it was never till now called a Reflection on the Government to endeavour to prove that such or such a person was destroyed by â—iolâ—nt and bloody hands even of whose death the Coroners Inquest had upon their inquisition given an other verdict Nay when the chief Favourites of our Princes and first Ministers of State have been accused as guilty of murdering a Gentleman imprisoned in the Tower whom the Coroners Jury had on their Inquisition declared to have died a natural death yet it was not thought to be an impeachment of the Government or a devolving the guilt of that bloody crime upon the King Of this we have a famous instance in Sr. Thomas Overbury who being committed Prisoner to the Tower in the Reign of King James and there poisoned by the contrivance and instigation of the Earl of Sommerset c. that was then chief Minister as well as principal Favourite was brought in by the Coroners inquisition to have died a natural death And yet it was thought no dishonour to the Government to have the death of that Gentleman afterwards enquired into and to find it proved contrary to the Coroners Inquisition that instead of dying a natural death he was basely and treacherously murdered by Villanous hands through the accession and contrivance of him whom he had faithfully served and with the consent of those to whose care trust and custody he was committed Nay was it not a great Vindication of the honor of the Government and an eminent Declaration of the Justice of the Nation to have the Lieutenant of the Tower and four or five meaner persons executed and the Earl of Sommerset and his Countess convicted and condemned for that bloody and barbarous Fact which the Coroners Inquest had acquitted and absolved all the world from the suspition as well as the guilt of And what an injury will the Judges of the Kings Bench and his Majesties Councel at Law be found to have done the King and the Government by their foolish as well as wicked expressions if at any time hereafter it come to be proved as certainly it will that the Earl of Essex did not murder himself but was assassinated by a company of hired Russians We should be loath in that case to claim the right of their way of Argumentation and to inferr that because my Lord of Essex was murdered in the Tower and at a time when the King was walking there that therefore not only the Government ought to be charged with it but that the King himself had a hand in and had designed it Tho I must say that according to their method of reasoning it will be impossible in that case to avoid such a deduction However it is a convincing proof that the ignominy and guilt of this Noblemans death ought to be ascribed to others than himself that the Judges and the men of the long Robe can find no other way to stifle the suspition and silence the clamor of the People but by interposing the Government as a Skreen to shelter Malefactors from Accusation and abusing the Authority of the Kingdom to deter men from the duty which they owe to God and his Majesty in discovering so execrable a murder Nor is this the only way and method they have taken to frighten and discourage Persons from discoursing of the Earl of Essex's being destroy'd by others without any accession or contribution of his own to his death but they have laid their
crime but affiring his Boy had said he sawâ—a blâ—â—â—â— Razâ—â— thrown â—ut of â—he E. of E 〈…〉 ex 's Window immediately before the 〈◊〉 of 〈…〉 s Death But that which I shall more largely insist upon is the course and method that hath been 〈…〉 red towards Mr. Braddon himself which as it is without all president so it hath been extravagant and arbitrary in the highest degree All who understand any thing of the Law of England know that in all Cases and Indictments of Murder except upon Appeals the Charge and Accusation not only runs in the Kings Name but he is according to and in the sense of the Law the proper Plantiff And there is this reason for it because as others through the death of the person destroy'd may have lost a Relation Acquaintance or Friend so the King alway's loseth a Subject from whom he was to have Allegiance and Service and whom by vertue of his Office he was trusted with the care and protection of and in the Sense and esteem of the Law made responsible for It was upon this account that the Conspirators against the life and Authorisers of the Assassination of this late Peer and to prevent the advantage and benefit which Mr. Braddon would have had in bringing an Indiâ—â—ment of Felony and Murder against Bâ—meny and others took the start of him and caused an Information to be preferred against him of subornation and spreading false Reports whereby to bring the Government of the King into hatred disgrace and contempt And by this means they did not only obstruct the Kings being made Plantif and party against the murderers which he must have been in case way had been given to Mr. Braddons getting any of them Indicted but they commence an Action against that poor Gentleman wherein they make the King party and Plantiff against him and in effect no less than Advocate und Voucher for the Innocency of those that were to have been Indicted for a most execrable and barbarous Assassination Which as it was a most divelish Artifice for the oppressing an honest Gentleman who had done nothing but what he was bound unto in Conscience to God and duty to his Majesty so it was a most villanous and enormous crime against the King through making him to be the Skreeâ— and Patron of those of whom he should have been the prosecutor and puâ—isher and at the same time to be the pursuer and ruiner of a wâ—rthy person whom he was bound to have countenanced encouraged and protected It would fill a whole Volumn to relate the severities which Mr. Bradden hath encountred and upon no other score but because he was willing in order to delivering the Throne and Kingdom from the Guilt of Innocent Blood to gather up such Informations as might have served to convince the King of the murder committed upon the E. of Essex while he was in a special manner under the protection of his Majesty and the Law being not only a Prisoner but standing committed to the Tâ—wer of London where-with respect to the quality of the place Captives ought to be supposed more safe from violence than in other Prisons But as it is not yet a season to present the world with a History of the Sufferings of this Honest and Ingenious Gentleman so it were but to en-tangle and perplex the affair I am upon to interweave it with a large narrative of another mans troubles tho they all sp 〈…〉 ng from his being concerned in enquiring and discovering how and by what hands and means this noble Man was brought to so fatal and untimely an End I shall therefore only briefly intimate some few things which may serve to enlighten and confirm the Tâ—pick and Head which I am now discoâ—â—ing from And whatsoever proves the ill treatment of those who keeping themselves within the bonds of loyalty and modesty have endevoured to detect the Assassination of that honorable person does by consequence demonstrate that he was not Felo de se but that he was Murdered by the malice and violence of other men The first unexpected entertainment which this Gentlemen Mr. Braddon met with was his being taken into Custody and carried before the Council on his having gone to White-hall to wait upon my Lord S. in order to inform his Lordship what a certain Boy whom he took thither along with him had reported concerning a Razor which he saw thrown out of the Earl of Essex Window immediately before the noise and report of his Death And not to mention what other Treatment he met with there which some of the Honorable Menbers of that Board themselves have declared to have been very unbecoming his Majesties presence and no way 's agreeable to the gravity wisdom and honor of such an assembly he was required to give 2000 l. Bail to answer an Information for having suborned the Boy a thing very unsuitable to the service he had been performing for the Honor of his Majesty and the Government and very surprising to all indifferent persons that heard of it And tho this poor Gentleman was discharged at that time and restored to his liberty upon giving the forementioned 2000 l. Bail to answer the said Information yet his troubles did not end and terminate here but this was rather only a commencement and beginning of the hardships and oppressions which he was to meet with for having had the honesty and courage to appear in a business which so neerly affected a great man and so many of his Majesties principal Ministers of State For though they had laid him under a necessity of making all the provisions he could for Vindicating himself from being the Author and Forger of that Report concerning a Razor 's being thrown out of the E. of Essex window just before the cry and noise of his death being that which gave the suspition of my Lords being murdered by violent treacherous and bloody hands and that he did not destroy himself as was endeavoured to be obtruded and imposed upon his Memory and the Faith of the Nation yet Mr. Braddon was no sooner gone into the Country to enquire into the truth of an other Story which very much strengthened and confirmed the suspition and jealousie that my Lord was not Felo de Se but this poor Gentleman fell into new troubles and found persecution and oppression awaiting him whithersoever he went For having received intelligence from a friend that on the very day on which the Earl died it was reported at Marleborough that my Lord of Essex had cut his Throat in the Tower he judged it very useful and subservient both to the acquitting himself from the Slander of being the first Author of the Report that my Lord was murdered by others and also to the evidencing and clearing up that he really was so to search into the truth of that Information which his Friend had given him and to learn out the persons to whom that News had been told and
withheld from him and positively denied to give up the 10000 l. Bonds which he and his Sureties had entred into for his being a true Prisoner nor would they so much as restore him the Fees he had payd upon the sealing of them And it being now the long Vacation and there remaining no way of helping and relieving himself till the Term he was forced both to continue a close Prisoner under no less Expence than two l. Sterl per week and to lie under the Weight and Terror of the 12000l Bayl which they had wrested from him But tho he was denied the Succour and Benefit of the Law and sound neither Justice nor Mercy in Men yet he could not be rob'd of the Comforts of a good Conscience nor deprived of the Refreshments and Supports which the Knowledg of his own Integrity and Innocency administred unto him And I have been fully informed by credible Hands that neither the troubles and oppressions which he lay then under nor the further Persecutions and Sufferings he was in prospect of were able to give him any Discomposure or create him any vexation Grief in himself nor yet to transport him to a behaviour in word or deed that could furnish his Enemies with an advantage against or yield them matter of insulting over him In this state and Condition he continâ—â—d till Michaelmass Term which being come and the Westminster Courts begun to fit he caused move the Court of Kings Bench the very first day for a Rule to the Marshal to bring him up the next morning in order to discharge the Bayl he had given by Appointment of the Council Board about the answering an Information of pretended Subornation Which Rule being granted by the Court and obeyed by the Marshal his Appearance was recorded and his Bayl discharged Now having succeeded in this which my Lord K. had refused in the time of the Vacation to grant him the next step he took was for the obtaining his own Liberty in order to which he did on the fifth day of the Term move the Court for a Habeas Corpus to be brought up and bailed Which being also immediately granted he was after a few days and a little delay which I shall not complain of the occasion of brought up to the Court of the Kings Bench and there discharged from his Imprisonment upon he giving 3000 l. Bayl whereof himself stood â—ound in a Bond of a 1000 l. and his four Sureties in 500 l. a Man From all which we may not only collect the Hardships and Oppressions which this honest and worthy Gentleman met wit meerly for enquiring into the Truth of some Reports which if admitted do clearly prove that the Earl of Essex was assassinated by others and did not murder himself but we may also observe and infer after what an arbitrary and illegal manner his Majesties Subjects are treated by some of his judicial Officers as well as prime Ministers for attempting to discover a most execrable and barbarous Murder wherein a great Man and the chief Heads of the Popish Faction would have been found deeply concerned and involved Nor did Mr. Braddons troubles upon this account issue here all these things being only Praeludiuars to what he was further to encounter from the Rage and Malice of St. James's and therefore the next Scene that opened was the bringing him to a Trial for endeavouring in the Earl of Essex's Death to cast Aspersiens upon the Government and defame the King And all I would desire of any unprejudiced and impartial Person is only to read the said Trial being fully confident that he will thereupon not only acquit the Gentleman from the Guilt of any such thing but that he will find himself obliged in conscience to acknowledge that there was barbarous villany used in bringing my Lord of Essex to that Fatal and untimely End And the first thing remarkable as an Introduction to that Trial is that my Lord Chief Justice was not only that morning for some time at Whitehall before he went to Westminster but was attended upon by Lord F. whom we have reason to accuse of being one of the Contrivers and Authorisers of the Earl of Essex murder at the lighting out of his Coach in Westminster and discoursed with both as he was conducted through the Hall and in a corner near unto the Court before his Lordship ascended to the Bench. Which hath given many men ground to suspect that his business at the first place was to receive such Instructions as he was to follow and attend unto in the work of the day and that the reason of the others according and discoursing him where he did was to impress him with a fresh sense of the business that was to be before him and to represent the dreadful consequences which would ensue to a great Man and His Majesties Ministers in case Mr. Braddon should come to be acquitted And whosoever did either observe the behaviour of the Bench at that time or hath since read the Trial where tho what was said on all sides may be related yet the Gesture Countenance Passion Heat and Air with which many things were spoken cannot be represented must be forced to acknowledge that my Lord Chief Justice and his Brethren were rather sworn parties against the Defendant than equal Judges in a Cause betwixt the King and him I should be obliged to transcribe most of the Trial did I undertake to give an account of the ungentile slanderous and malicious language vented against himself or the interrupting menacing and hectoring of his Counsel or the imposing upon prescribing unto as well as byassing the Jury against him and therefore instead of that I entreat and desire the world to do both themselves and Mr. Braddon that right as to peruse the Trial and if in their hearts they subscribe not to what I say I am contented to undergo the character both of a person that understands nothing of the Rules and Measures which ought to be observed in Courts of Judicature and of one who is not sufficiently regardful of his Credit and Fame in the things which he delivers And if I be not wonderfully mistaken there is nothing more needful but an impartial reading and weighing of that Trial for the vindication of Mr. Braddon's enquiring into the Reports which seem'd to imply that the Earl of Essex had not killed himself nor to justify his innocency as to the crime whereof he was accused namely of maliciously conspiring and endeavouring to defame the Government and as Justice Withins was pleased to express it of charging the King with taking away an innocent mans blood and of murdering an innocent man and as it was layd in the Indictment of his procuring and suborning false Witnesses to prove that the Earl of Essex was not a Felon of himself but was killed and murdered by unknown persons For admit that all which was sworn concerning a bloody Razor 's being thrown out of my Lord Essex's
after it Wherefore that he might tell no more stories nor rise up as a witness against the Assassinates this poor unfortunate Fellow was secretly murdered and thrown into the Tower Ditch And there are several particulars relating to his Death which are not unworthy to be known to the World but it were to advantage the Conspirators and to prejudice our selves to mention them at present Only this is remarkable that as this Robert Meak was for some time before his death very apprehensive of the danger he went in of being privately destroyed for what he had declared concerning the E. of Essex being murdered so he had a greater dread of it the morning before he was killed than he had been possessed with at any other time And therefore from that allarm which his mind suggested to him of his impendent danger he begged of an Acquuaintance and Friend that morning before he died that he would have accompanied and kept with him for that day But such was the poor fellow's fate that tho he told that person the apprehensions he was in of being murdered and he from a sense and belief of it had left his work with a resolution to attend him yet whether from a jealousie he might have of his own safety or upon what other motive I shall not enquire he stole away from and forsook him before Twelve of the Clock But tho the Conspirators and Assassionates had thus by a second murder delivered themselves from the apprehensions they were in of being detected for the first yet there arose an other person who as he had better opportunity of knowing the whole Mystery of the Lord of Essex's death than Meak the Sentinel had so from remorse of Conscience for what he had been accessory unto and from an abhorrency of that bloody Fact which he so well knew the Authors and Perpetrators of he begun to discourse and communicate it with shame and loathing to others The person whom I mean was Mr. Hawley a Warder of the Tower living in Winchester-street being a Person both for Reputation and Estate far above that Hawley in whose house the Earl of Essex was then Prisoner when his Throat was cut and therefore one without whose knowledge consent and contribution it cannot be supposed to have been done And by how much he was not only more capable than others to detect the whole villany of the Noble Man's death and lay open the enormous crime in all the parts and branches of it but was of better credit than the Sentinel and more likely to obtain belief from the World in what he should declare by so much was he to be esteemed for a most dangerous person to the Conspirators and to be treated as one from whom they might dread the most fatal mischief to themselves as well as their cause Hence the intelligence was no sooner conveyed to a great Man and the rest of the Juncto that Hawly had been talking such things concerning the Earl of Essex's death which it concerned them no less than both their Lives and Honours to have concealed but they resolved to destroy him and thereby prevent his prating for the future and being able to tell any tales And being informed that he was inquiring where he might purchase an Estate they employ one to tempt him out of Town under pretence of his seeing a parcel of Land that was to be sold. For they thought that should they cause him to be murdered in or about the City it would fill all men with jealousies of their being guilty of his death especially considering the Reports which went of them and the suspicions that they lay under of having caused Meak to be killed And therefore in order to the getting him destroyed with the more secrecy and the administring the less apprehension about the Authors of his death they prevailed on him by the baite and temptation which I have mentioned to take a journey into the Countrey Whence having resolved that he should never return they employed some to dogg and others to way-lay and murder him And with that Secrecy as well as Obedience were their Orders and Decrees executed that it was a considerable while after his Death before he could be heard of or his Body found But when after long search and enquiry after him his Corps were at last found there were all the marks and Symptoms of a most barbarous Assassination prepared upon him which malicious wit could invent or enraged jealousie and revenge act or commit For besides diverse conâ—usions in the head face and breast from the blows he had received it appeared plainly that he had been also strangled And as he had never administred cause to any other persons save the Conspirators and Instruments of the Earl of â—ffex's death upon which we can with the least shadow of reason fancy his being murdered upon a personal and private Revenge so there are proofs ready to be produced whensoever either a ParlJament comes or a fair Trial can be obtained before upright and impartial Judges not only by whom he was destroyed but by whose Command and Authority Nor was his Wife unsensible and without apprehension even before the Body was discovered both that he might be murdered and upon what motives and inducements it was done so that she told some Friends how she dreaded the consequences and effects of his having so often discoursed about the Earl of Essex's death Yea there is one Glover who is a Servant to His Majesty being at present a Warder in the Tower who being in conference with some people about the Earl of Essex and Mr. Braddon was pleased with more than an ordinary emotion to say Hawley also hath been prating but he was fain to walk for it But the same person being asked after it was known that he had been murdered what he thought of Mr. Hawley's walking appeared exceedingly disturbed and said he knew nothing of it nor would he have the patience to hear any thing spoken about that matter So that we have here an other evidence that the Earl of Essex did not as he hath been defamed and slandered cut his own Throat but that this Person of incomparable Merit and Vertue was Massacred by wicked and suborned Ruffians seeing to prevent the discovery of that heinous and execrable Fact two other men who had advantages of knowing both the Actors in and manner of his death and had talked somewhat freely about it and seemed inclinable to reveal it were barbarously killed And as the destroying as well as oppressing those from whom the World might receive light about the murder of that Noble Peer plainly shews by whose Councels and by what means he came to his faral End so the countenancing protecting and preferring those who are justly suspected to have been deeply instrumental in it and who long ere this would have been publickly indicted for it had it not been partly for the discouragement given by the Court His Majesties Ministers of State and