Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	believe_v	speak_v	word_n	6,852	5	4.5022	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63173	The tryal of Edward Coleman, Gent. for conspiring the death of the King, and the subversion of the government of England and the Protestant religion who upon full evidence was found guilty of high treason, and received sentence accordingly, on Thursday, November the 28th, 1678.	Coleman, Edward, d. 1678, defendant.; England and Wales. Court of King's Bench.	1678 (1678)	Wing T2185; ESTC R4486	80,328	98

to be lost by things that my self cannot answer I deny the Conclusion but the Premisses are too strong and artificial L. C. Just You cannot deny the Premisses but that you have done these things but you deny the Conclusion that you are a Traitor Pris I can safely and honestly L. C. Just You would make a better Secretary of State than a Logician for they never deny the Conclusion Pris I grant it your Lordship You see the advantage great men have of me that do not pretend to Logick L. C. Just The labour lies upon their hands the Proof belongs to them to make out these Intrigues of yours therefore you need not have Counsel because the Proof must be plain upon you and then it will be in vain to deny the Conclusion Pris I hope my Lord if there be any Point of Law that I am not skill'd in that your Lordship will be pleased not to take the advantage over me Another thing seems most dreadful that is the violent prejudices that seem to be against every man in England that is confess'd to be a Roman Catholick It is possible that a Roman Catholick may be very innocent of these crimes If one of those Innocent Roman Catholicks should come to this Bar he lies under such disadvantages already and his Prejudices so greatly byasseth humane Nature that unless your Lordship will lean extremely much on the other side Justice will hardly stand upright and lie upon a Level But to satisfie your Lordship I do not think it any service to destroy any of the Kings Subjects unless it be in a very plain case L. C. Just You need not make any preparations for us in this matter you shall have a fair just and legal Trial if Condemned it will be apparent you ought to be so and without a fair Proof there shall be no Condemnation Therefore you shall find we will not do to you as you do to us blow up at adventure kill people because they are not of your perswasion our Religion teacheth us another Doctrine and you shall find it clearly to your advantage We seek no mans blood but our own safety But you are brought here from the necessity of things which your selves have made and from your own actions you shall be condemned or acquitted Pris It is supposed upon Evidence that the Examinations that have been of me in Prison are like to be Evidence against me now I have nothing to say against it But give me leave to say at this time that when I was in Prison I was upon my ingenuity charged I promised I would confess all I knew And I onely say this That what I said in Prison is true and am ready at any time to Swear and Evidence that that is all the truth L. C. Just It is all true that you say but did you tell all that vvas true Pris I know no more than what I declared to the Two Houses L. C. Just Mr. Coleman I 'll tell you when you will be apt to gain credit in this matter You say that you told all things that you knew the Truth and the whole Truth Can Mankind be persuaded that you that had this Negotiation in 74. and 75. left off just then at that time when your Letters vvere found according to their Dates Do you believe there was no Negotiation after 75. because we have not found them Have you spoke one vvord to that Have you confessed or produced those Papers and Weekly Intelligence When you answer that you may have credit vvithout that it is impossible For I cannot give credit to one word you say unless you give an account of the subsequent Negotiation Pris After that time as I said to the House of Commons I did give over Corresponding I did offer to take all Oaths and Tests in the World that I never had one Letter for at least two years yea that I may keep my self within compass I think it was for three or four Now I have acknowledged to the House of Commons I have had a cursory Correspondence which I never regarded or valued but as the Letters came I burnt them or made use of them as common Paper I say that for the general Correspondence I have had for two or three years they have had every one of them Letters that I know of Attor Gen. Whether you had or no you shall have the fairest Trial that can be And we cannot blame the Gentleman for he is more used to greater Affairs than these Matters or Forms of Lavv. But my Lord I desire to go unto Evidence and vvhen that is done he shall be heard as long as he pleaseth vvithout any interruption If he desire it before I give my Evidence let him have Pen Ink and Paper vvith your Lordships leave L. C. Just Help him to Pen Ink and Paper Record Then we desire to go on in our Evidence We desire that Mr. Oates may not be interrupted Court He shall not be interrupted Attorn Gen. The first thing we will inquire what account he can give of the Prisoner at the Bar whether he was any way privy to the murther of the King Lord Ch. Just Mr. Oates we leave it to your self to take your own way and your own method only this we say here 's a Gentleman stands at the Bar for his life And on the other side the King is concerned for His life you are to speak the truth and the whole truth for there is no reason in the world that you should adde any one thing that is false I would not have a tittle added for any advantage or consequences that may fall when a man's bloud and life lieth at stake Let him be condemned by truth you have taken an Oath and you being a Minister know the great regard you ought to have of the sacredness of an Oath and that to take a man's life away by a false Oath is murther I need not teach you that But that Mr. Coleman may be satisfied in the Trial and all people else be satisfied there is nothing required or expected but downright plain truth and without any arts either to conceal or expatiate to make things larger then in truth they are he must be condemned by plain Evidence of Fact Mr. Oates My Lord Mr. Coleman in the Month of November last did entertain in his own House John Keins which John Keins was a Father Confessor to certain persons that were Converted amongst which I was one My Lord I went and visited this John Keins at Mr. Coleman's House then in Stable-yard Mr. Coleman inquiring of John Keins who I was He said I was one that designed to go over upon business to St. Omers My Lord Mr. Coleman told me then he should trouble me with a Letter or two to St. Omers but he told me he would leave them with one Fenwick that was Procurator for the Society of Jesuits in London I went on Monday Morning and took Coach went

to hold by to deceive you so that now you may look upon it there is nothing will save you for you will assuredly dy-as now you live and that very suddenly In which I having discharged my Conscience to you as a Christian I will now proceed to pronounce Sentence against you and do my duty as a Judge You shall return to Prison from thence be drawn to the place of Execution where you shall be hanged by the Neck and be cut down alive your bowels burnt before your face and your Quarters sever'd and your Body disposed of as the King thinks fit and so the Lord have mercy upon your Soul Coleman My Lord I humbly thank your Lordship and I do admire your Charity that you would be pleased to give me this admirable Councel and I will follow it as well as I can and I beg your Lordship to hear me what I am going to say your Lordship most Christian like hath observed wisely that Confession is extreamly necessary to a dying man and I do so too but that Confession your Lordship I suppose means is of a guilty evil Conscience in any of these points that I am condemn'd for Of maliciously contriving c. if I thought I had any such guilt I should assuredly think my self damn'd now I am going out of the world by concealing them in spite of all Pardons or Indulgencies or any act that the Pope or the Church of Rome could do for me as I believe any one Article of Faith Therefore pray hear the words of a dying man I have made a Resolution I thank God not to tell a lie no not a single lie not to save my life I hope God will not so far leave me as to let me do it and I do renounce all manner of mercy that God can sh●w me if I have not told the House of Commons or offer'd it to the House of Commons all that I know in my whole heart toward this business and I never in all my life either made any proposition or received any proposition or knew or heard directly or indirectly of any proposition towards the supplanting or invading the Kings Life Crown or Dignity or to make any Invasion or Disturbance to introduce any New Government or to bring in Popery by any Violence or Force in the world if I have my Lord been mistaken in my method as I will not say but I might have been for if two men differ one must be mistaken therefore possibly I might be of an Opinion that Popery might come in if Liberty of Conscience had been granted and perhaps all Christians are bound to wish all People of that Religion that they profess themselves if they are in earnest I will not dispute those ills that your Lordship may imagine to be in the Church of Rome if I thought there was any in them I would be sure to be none of it I have no design my Lord at all in Religion but to be Saved and I had no manner of Invitation to invite me to the Church of Rome no not one but to be Saved if I am out of the way I am out of the way as to the next world as well as this I have nothing but a sincere Conscience and I desire to follow it as I ought I do confess I am guilty of many Crimes and I am afraid all of us are guilty in some measure of some failings and infirmities but in matters of this Nature that I now stand condemn'd for though I do not at all complain of the Court for I do confess I have had all the fair play imaginable and I have nothing at all to say against it but I say as to any one act of mine so far as acts require Intention to make them acts as all humane Acts do I am as Innocent of any Crime that I now stand charg'd as guilty of as when I was first born L. C. J. That is not possible Coleman With submission I do not say Innocent as to any Crime in going against any Act of Parliament then it is a Crime to hear Mass or to do any Act that they prohibit but for Intending and Endeavouring to bring in that Religion by the Aid and Assistance of the King of France I never intended nor meant by that Aid and Assistance any Force in the world but such Aids and Assistances as might procure us Liberty of Conscience My Lord if in what I have said no body believes me I must be content if any do believe me then I have wip'd off those scandalous Thoughts and abominable Crimes that c. and then I have paid a little Debt to Truth L. C. J. One word more and I have done I am sorry Mr. Coleman that I have not Charity enough to believe the words of a dying man for I will tell you what sticks with me very much I cannot be perswaded and no body can but that your Correspondence and Negotiations did continue longer than the Letters that we have found that is after 1675. Now if you had come and shown us your Books and Letters which would have spoke for themselves I should have thought then that you had dealt plainly and sincerely and it would have been a mighty Motive to have believed the rest for certainly your Correspondence held even to the time of your apprehension and you have not discovered so much as one Paper but what was found unknown to you and against your will Coleman Upon the words of a dying man and upon the expectation I have of Salvation I tell your Lordship that there is not a Book nor Paper in the World that I have laid aside voluntary L. C. J. No perhaps you have burnt them Coleman Not by the Living God L. C. J. I hope Mr. Coleman you will not say no manner of way Coleman For my Correspondence these two last years past I have given an account of every Letter but those that were common Letters and those Books that were in my House what became of them I know not they were common Letters that I use to write every day a Common Journal what past at home and abroad my men they writ e'm out of that Book L. C. J. What became of those Letters Coleman I had no Letters about this business but what I have declared to the House of Commons That is Letters from St. Germans which I owned to the House of Commons and I had no methodical Correspondence and I never valued them nor regarded them but as they came I destroyed them L. C. J. I remember the last Letter that is given in evidence against you discovers what mighty hopes there was that the time was now come wherein that pestilent Heresie that hath domineer'd in this Northern part of the World should be Extirpated and that there never was greater hopes of it since OUR Queen Maries Reign Pray Mr. Coleman was that the concluding Letter in this affair Coleman Give me leave to say it upon my dying I have not one Letter c. L. C. J. What though you burnt your Letters you may recollect the Contents Coleman I had none since L. C. J. Between God and your Conscience be it I have other apprehensions and you deserve your Sentence vpon you for your offences that visibly appear out of your own Papers that you have not and cannot deny Coleman I am satisfied But seeing my time is but short may I not be permitted to have some immediate Friends and my poor Wife to have her freedom to speak with me and stay with me that little time that I have that I might speak something to her in order to her living and my dying L. C. J. You say well and it is a hard Case to deny it but I tell you what hardens my heart the Insolencies of your Party the Roman Catholicks I mean that they every day offer which is indeed a proof of their Plot that they are so bold and Impudent and such secret Murders Committed by them as would harden any mans heart to do the Common favours of Justice and Charity that to mankind is usually done they are so bold and insolent that I think it is not to be endured in a Protestant Kingdom but for my own parlicular I think it is a very hard thing for to deny a man the Company of his Wife and his Friends so it be done with Caution and Prudence Remember that the Plot is on foot and I do not know what Arts the Priests have and what Tricks they use and therefore have a care that no Papers nor any such thing be sent from him Coleman I do not design it I am sure L. C. J. But for the Company of his Wife and his near Friends or any thing in that kind that may be for his Eternal good and as much for his present satisfaction that he can receive now in the condition that be is in let him have it but do it with Care and Caution Cap. Richardson What for them to be private alone L. C. J. His Wife only she God forbid else Nor shall you not be deny'd any Protestant Minister Coleman But shall not my Cosin Coleman have Liberty to come to me L. C. J. Yes with Mr. Richardson Col. Or his Servant Because it is a great Trouble for him to attend always L. C. J. If it be his Servant or any he shall appoint 't is all one Mr. Richardsson use him as Reasonably as may be considering the Condition he is in Court Have a care of your Prisoner On Tuesday the Third of December following being the Day of his Execution Mr. Coleman was Drawn on a Sledge from Newgate to Tyburn and being come thither he declared That he had been a Roman Catholick for many years and that he thanked God he died in that Religion And he said he did not think that Religion at all prejudicial to the King and Government The Sheriff told him if he had any thing to say by way of Confession or Con●●●●ion he mig●● proceed otherwise it was not Seasonable for him to go 〈…〉 Expressions And being asked if he knew any thing of the 〈…〉 of Sir Edmondbury Godfry he declared upon the 〈…〉 he knew not any thing of it for that he was 〈…〉 Then after some private Prayers and Ejaculations to 〈…〉 ●he Sentence was Executed he was hanged by the Neck Cut 〈◊〉 alive his Bowels burnt and himself 〈◊〉 FINIS

satisfaction and I assure you that its length did not make it seem tedious I should be very glad on my part to assist in seconding your good intentions I will consider of the Means to effect it and when I am better informed than I am as yet I will give you an Account to the end I may hold Intelligence with you as you did with my Predecessour I desire you to believe that I will never fail as to my good will for the service of your Master whom I Honour as much as he deserves and that it is with great truth that I am Your most Humble and most Obedient Servant D. L. C. At. Gen. We made mention of a Declaration by his long Narrative it plainly appears that Mr Coleman would have had another Parliament And the reason why he was pleased to publish a Declaration was thereby to shew the Reasons for its Dissolution Sir Philip Floyd did you find this Writing among Mr Coleman's Papers Sir P. F. I did finde it among his Papers At. Gen. Pray read the Declaration Clerk of the Crown reads the Declaration The Declaration which Mr. Coleman prepared thereby shewing his Reasons for the Dissolution of the Parliament WE having taken into our Serious Consideration the heats and animosities which have of late appeared among many of our very Loyal and Loving Subjects of this Kingdom and the many fears and jealousies which some of them seem to lye under of having their Liberties and Properties invaded or their Religion altered and withal carefully reflecting upon our own Government since our happy Restauration and the end and aim of it which has always been the ease and security of our People in all their Rights and Advancement of the beauty and splendour of the true Protestant Religion established in the Church of England of both which we have given most signal Testimonies even to the stripping our Self of many Royal Prerogatives which our Predecessours enjoyed and were our undoubted due as the Court of Wards Purveyances and other things of great value and denying to our Self many advantages which we might reasonably and legally have taken by the Forfeitures made in the times of Rebellion and the great Revenues due to the Church at our Return which no particular person had any right to instead of which we consented to an Act of Oblivion of all those Barbarous usages which our Royal Father and our Self had met withal much more full and gracious than almost any of our Subjects who were generally become in some measure or other obnoxious to the Laws had confidence to ask and freely renounced all our Title to the Profit which we might have made by the Church-Lands in favour of our Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Ministers out of our zeal to the glory of our Protestant Church which Clemency to wards all and some even high Offenders and zeal for Religion we have to this day constantly continued to exercise Considering all this we cannot but be sensibly afflicted to see that the frowardness of some few Tumultuous heads should be able to infect our Loyal and good people with apprehensions destructive of their own and the general quiet of our Kingdome and more especially their perverseness should be powerful enough to distract our very Parliament and such a Parliament as has given as such Testimonies of its Loyalty Wisdom and Bounty and to which we have given as many Marks of our affection and esteem so as to make them mis-conster all our endeavours for to preserve our People in ease and prosperity and against all reason and evidence to represent them to our Subjects as Arguments of fear and disquiet and under these specious pretences of securing Property and Religion to demand unreasonable things manifestly destructive of what they would be thought to aim at and from our frequent Condescentions out of our meer grace to grant them what we conceived might give them satisfaction though to the actual prejudice of our Royal Prerogative to make them presume to propose to advance such extravagancies into Laws as they themselves have formerly declared detestable of which we cannot forbear to give our truly Loyal Subjects some instances to undeceive our innocent and well-minded people who have many of them of late been too easily misled by the factious endeavours of some turbulent Spirits For example we having judged it necessary to declare War against the States of Holland during a recess of Parliament which we could not defer longer without loosing an advantage which then presented it self nor have done sooner without exposing our Honour to a potent Enemy without due preparation we thought it prudent to unite all our Subjects at home and did believe a general Indulgence of tender Consciences the most proper expedient to effect it and therefore did by our Authority in Ecclesiasticks which we thought sufficient to warrant what we did suspend penal Laws against Dissenters in Religion upon Conditions expressed in our Declaration out of Reason of State as well as to gratifie our own nature which always we confess abhorr'd rigour especially in Religion when tenderness might be as useful After we had engaged in the War we Prorogued our Parliament from April to October being confident we should be able by that time to shew our People such success of our Arms as should make them cheerfully contribute to our charge At October we could have shewn them success even beyond our own hopes or what they could possibly expect our Enemies having lost by that time near 100 strong Towns and Forts taken in effect by us we holding them busie at Sea whilst our Allies possessed themselves of their Lands with little or no resistance and of which the great advantage would most visibly have been ours had not the fewds we now complain of which have been since unhappily started and factiously improved by some few dis-united our people distracted our Counsels and render'd our late endeavours vain and fruitless so that we had no reason to doubt of our peoples ready and liberal concurrence to our Assistance in that Conjuncture Yet our Enemies proposing to us at that time a Treaty for Peace which we were always ready to accept upon Honourable Terms and considering with our self that in case that Treaty succeeded a far less sum of Money would serve our occasions than otherwise would be necessary We out of our tender regard to the ease of our People Prorogued our Parliament again to February to attend the success of our Treaty rather than to demand so much Money in October as would be fit to carry on the War But we soon finding that our Enemies did not intend us any just Satisfaction saw a necessity of prosecuting the War which we designed to do most vigourously and in order to it resolv'd to press our Parliament to supply us as speedily as may be to enable us to put our Fleet to Sea early in the Spring which would after their Meeting grow on apace And being informed that