Selected quad for the lemma: war_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
war_n	death_n	king_n	treason_n	2,761	5	9.5559	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63180	The tryal of Laurence Braddon and Hugh Speke, gent., upon an information of high-misdemeanor, subornation, and spreading false reports endeavouring thereby to raise a belief in His Majesties subjects that the late Earl of Essex did not murther himself in the Tower ... / before Sir George Jeffreys.	Braddon, Laurence, d. 1724.; Speke, Hugh, 1656-1724?; England and Wales. Court of King's Bench.	1684 (1684)	Wing T2196; ESTC R24641	100,437	81

seditiously did conspire together to make the Kings Subjects believe That the Inquisition aforesaid was unduly taken and that the said Earl of Essex did not murther himself but was by certain Persons unknown in whose custody he was murthered And it further sets forth that these Defendants Laurence Braddon and Hugh Speke designing to disturb and disquiet the minds of the Kings Subjects and to spread false reports did conspire to procure certain false Witnesses to prove that the said Earl of Essex was not a Felon of himself but was by some Persons unknown killed and murthered And to perswade other Subjects of our Sovereign Lord the King to believe the said Report they did falsly malitiously Unlawfully and Seditiously cause to be declared in Writing That the said Laurence Braddon was the Person that did prosecute the said Earls Murther And this was to the great Scandal of the Government to the evil Example of all Persons in like case offending and against the Peace of the King his Crown and Dignity To this the Defendants have pleaded Not Guilty if we prove it upon them we make no question you will find it Mr. Att. Gen. May it please your Lordship and you Gentlemen of this Jury Mr. Speke and Mr. Braddon these two Gentlemen are accused of as High Conspiracy as ever has or could well happen in our days of throwing the Murther of a Person that killed himself upon the Government And I must acquaint you their design was of an higher Nature than barely that for this Gentleman my Lord of Essex was committed to the Tower for the late Plot and being so committed when he had killed himself there that was more than a thousand Witnesses to open the eyes of the People and confirm the belief of the Conspiracy And one would have thought after that there had been an end of the design that these Protestant Gentlemen as they call themselves were carrying on when the Earl of Essex a Person of that Quality and Worth should go to Murther himself upon the sense of what he was Guilty of So that the Design Gentlemen was to stifle the Plot and at the same time they must throw this ill thing that the Earl had committed upon himself upon the Government that Gentlemen was the main disgrace in order to stifle that great Evidence of the Plot. And Mr. Braddon must of his own head not being put on by any of the Friends of the Earl of Essex who were all very sensible the Earl had done this Fact committed this Murther upon himself but I say he out of a true Principle to manage the Protestant Cause as they call it but indeed it was the Plot he becomes the Prosecutor of this business and you will find him by the proofs in the Case a man of many like Projects For you will find him value himself upon these Titles That he is the Prosecutor of the Earl of Essex's Murther and the Inventor of the Protestant Flails an Instrument I suppose Gentlemen you have all heard of Now Gentlemen to make this appear to the World Letters are sent into all Parts of England of this Bruit and Report He himself goes about to find Evidence for it was so great a truth and there was such a plain proof that the Earl of Essex had killed himself that he must labour it to get Evidence And he goes about it accordingly and at length he meets with a little Child of Twelve years of Age and he prepares for him all with his own hand-writing a Deposition which is a feigned Story all of it and in every part of it will appear to be false and there he mightily solicits this young Boy to sign it He comes to his Fathers House carries him in a Coach forces him away and forces him to sign this Paper that he had thus prepared for him all of his own invention and writing and with the like confidence as he appears here for so he does appear with very great Confidence as you may observe he attests it himself And Gentlemen we shall shew you that here up and down the Town he makes it his common discourse what he was in hand with and makes his boast of himself to be the Prosecutor of the Earl of Essex's Murther and he had as good a Confederate as himself Mr. Speke and he having an Interest in the Country whither the news must be sent all abroad and Mr. Braddon must go to pick up Evidence I know not where a great way off of a Murther committed in the Tower We shall prove to you he had Letters Missive and recommendatory from Mr. Speke to a Gentleman with whom Mr. Braddon was to advise for they looked upon it to be as dangerous an Enterprize almost as the Plot it self as indeed it was therefore they must be wary and Mr. Braddon is advised to go by a wrong name so this Mr. Speke and Braddon were to carry on and make up this Tragi-Comedy for I can call it nothing else for the ridiculousness as well as the dangerousness of the Design The report was to be that this Murther of the Earl of Essex was committed by the Officers that attended my Lord and to fall out in time when his Majesty was in the Tower as if the King himself had a hand in it We shall trace it in all the parts of it by several Witnesses and hope you will make them an Example first by finding them Guilty and the Court afterwards by a severe Punishment for such a villainous practice to scandalize the Government with the Murther of a Noble Peer We shall begin with shewing you the Inquisition or rather first with the Convictment of the Earl of Essex for High-Treason because that is said in the Record by way of inducement Call Mr. Reynolds who was sworn Have you the Warrant of Commitment of my Lord of Essex Mr. Reynolds Yes Mr. Att. Gen. Shew it the Court. Let the Clerk read it Mr. Reynolds This is the Commitment that was delivered the Lieutenant of the Tower together with my Lord of Essex Cl. of Cr. This is directed to Thomas Cheek Esquire Lieutenant of his Majesties Tower of London Subscribed Leolin Jenkins and dated Sir Leolin Jenkins Knight of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Council and Principal Secretary of State THese are in his Majesties Name to will and require you to receive into your Custody the Person of Arthur Earl of Essex herewith sent you being committed for high-High-Treason in compassing the Death of the King whom God preserve and conspiring to Levy War against His Majesty And him the said Earl of Essex to keep in safe custody until he shall be delivered by due course of Law And for so doing this shall be your Warrant Given under my Hand and Seal at Whitehal the 10th day of July 1683. L. Jenkins To Thomas Cheek Esquire Lieutenant of His Majesties Tower of London Mr. Att. Gen. My Lord we will then read the Inquisition that the Earl

my self in it any further at all than Writing the Letter which I did not well know what I Writ L. Ch. Just Well have you any more to say Mr. Speke Mr. Speke No my Lord. L. Ch. Just Have you any more Mr. Bradden Mr. Bradden My Lord I have only this to say for my self It has not been proved directly or indirectly That I used any evil Arguments to perswade these Witnesses to testify what was false but I dealt with them with all the Candour that any Person in the World could use and used all the Caution that I could to hinder them from speaking any thing that is false There has been nothing proved of evil Practice used by me and I desire the Gentlemen of the Jury to take no other notice of any thing that has been or shall be spoken but what has been Proved L. Ch. Just Gentlemen of the Jury The Evidence has been very long that has been given both for and against the Persons against whom this Information is exhibited 'T is an Information exhibited by the Kings Attorney General in His Majesties Name against Lawrence Bradden and Hugh Speke And the Information does set forth That the late Earl of Essex Murdered himself in the Tower and that thereupon there was an Inquisition taken before the Coroner that did find that he had so Murdered himself he being before that time Committed for High Treason in Conspiring the death of the King and levying War to disturb the Government And these Persons did render that Inquisition as tho' it had been Fraudulently and Irregularly obtained and also to breed ill Blood and spread false Rumours among the Kings Subjects by endeavouring to perswade them to believe That the Earl of Essex was Murdered by some other hand and had not Murdered himself and had procured false Witnesses to testify some such matter in order to the spreading about that false Rumour This is the Substance of the Information To this Information they have both pleaded Not Guilty and the Evidence as I was telling you has been somewhat long but according to the best of my Memory and for the assistance of yours I will mind you of as many things as occur to me that have been said against them and what has been said on their behalf I mean so much of it as is Evidence For I must tell you all Hear-says and common Discourses of other Persons is not Evidence and I will give you that Reason that is sufficient to satisfie any man that is Unbiassed That if in case the Person that so told the Story had been here if he had not told it upon Oath you could not have believed that Person Therefore surely there is less credit to be given to him that tells a Tale out of another bodies mouth And I tell you this because there has been great Allowances given and ought to be when people are accused of such great and weighty Crimes for these are monstrous Crimes that these Gentlemen are accused of but 't is you that are to try whether they are Guilty or not Certainly there is scarce in Nature a greater Crime that can be committed than This that is now before you for I think Robbery or any other such Felonies are not such monstrous Crimes in their true real Weight tho' in consideration of Law in respect of Punishment they are greater yet in point of Crime they are surely less for to spread false Reports in order to raise Sedition Ill-will Heart-burnings and Jealousies in the Kings Subjects against the Government and to suborn Witnesses to that evil purpose is surely a much greater Crime than robbing on the High-way Now Gentlemen 't is not unknown to most of you what indeavours have been of late made to possess the minds of the King's Subjects of great Injuries designed to be done them by the King or His Authority And in order to foment Differences and Misapprehensions between the King and his People and among the People between one and another all Arts have been used to Proscribe People that they are minded to Expose Those they bare ill will to must be called Papists or Papists in Masquerade but They and their Confederates are the Sober Party the true Protestants as if there were none Sober or True Protestants but such as are Factious and Troublesom in the Government But by these things they bring an Odium upon the Name of a Protestant their aim is by distinguishing to divide us whereas if they were Protestants in truth the true Church of England Protestants they would have another behaviour they would learn to obey and submit to Authority and not go buzzing from House to House and spreading false Reports but study to be quiet and do their own business And tho' Mr. Bradden made use of the 5 th Chap. of the Acts to the Child he would have done well to have taken notice of some other parts of Scripture that are as much Scripture as That that enjoyn Obedience and Submission to the Magistrate and being quiet and minding his own business it's odds he had never come to that trouble he is now likely to meet with But the Crime he is accused of carries all the Venom and Baseness the greatest inveteracy against the Government that ever any Case did that I have met with For it s insinuated That because the King and the Duke were walking in the Tower that day and near that time when this unfortunate thing happened now it must be whispered as though the King and the Duke had designed this Murder How Base How Devilish and Hellish a Design is this But yet this must be spread about and endeavoured to be distilled into the minds of the Kings Subjects But besides Gentlemen you are to consider as was opened by the King's Counsel to what this thing tended for in as much as there was an horrid bloody Conspiracy to take away the life of the King and of his Dear Brother his Royal Highness the Duke of York And forasmuch as several persons have been duely executed for that Conspiracy who were concerned along with this unfortunate Lord I cannot help the naming of it though I am sorry for his misfortune for the sake of that Honourable Family but rather than he would abide his Tryal God knows what other reason he had but the probability of the thing speaks it he being conscious the great Guilt he had contracted in being concerned in such a Conspiracy made him destroy himself And 't is easie to imagin how far that might prevail upon him it being done immediately after my Lord Russel who was one of the Conspirators with him was carried to his Tryal It cannot be thought but it was to prevent the methods of Justice in his own particular Case And Gentlemen there was Digitus Dei in it and it is enough to satisfie all the World of the Conspiracy though we live in an Age wherein men are apt to believe only of one side they can believe