THE KING's Evidence JUSTIFI'D OR Doctor OATES's VINDICATION of Himself And the Reality of the PLOT AGAINST A Traiterous Libel CALLED The Compendium Contrived by the JESUITS To the Dishonour of the King and Kingdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theog 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 613. Quanto perditior quisque est tanto acrius urget Horace Sat 1 2 15 London Printed for Jonathan Edwin at the Three Roses in Ludgate-street 1679. TO ALL Our Worthy Patriots And all other Impartial Readers OF WHAT Rank or Condition soever My Lords and Gentlemen WEre it not but that the Inveterate Rage and partial Obstinacy of those that labour to defend the silly Poppetry of the Roman Catholick Religion if I may so terme it has been so apparent for many Ages It might be matter of Amazement how it could possibly happen that after so many Legal Tryals and those also publish'd by the Chief Judges of the Nation to shew the World how guilty the Papists have been any Subject of the King of England should dare to be so hardy as to Print his mutinous Reflections upon the Concernments of his Soveraign and arrogantly jostle the Votes of the Parliament of the Nation in both their Houses But there are great men in the same Danger and Policy with Reward goes beyond Strength The most Unfortunate Mr. Reading took the wrong course to tamper clandestinly with a single Witness Here 's one aimes at the full breast of Truth He shall have all the Hundred Pounds a Year to himself and the Land in Glocester-shire to boot For assuredly this Compendium is but an Engine contriv'd by Men of leasure to batter down those Testimonies which they themselves are conscious to be most fairly levell'd at their Crimes This is call'd Preparation in the Interim and agrees with Policy and Self-preservation For truly if the Gentleman has given himself all this trouble out of pure Zeal it argues him to have little Religion since no bad Subject can be a good Christian He might have allow'd his Prince so much Discretion as to be able to judge of Crimes committed against himself or otherwise have been more respectful to his Royal Dignity then in the Metropolis of his Dominions publickly to tax him with shedding Innocent Blood and from thence to insinuate an arrogant kind of Admonition to his Soveraign to be more Cautious and Wary for the future Which being the absolute and only Construction to be made of all his Toyle I would fain ask the Rational world this Question what would have been the unhappy Fate of a Compendium of this nature written by the Protestants in their own justification under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition But setting aside all his Marginal Industery which has cost him the Expence of a Rhodomando and his gaudy mixtures of Roman and Italick he must not think to vapour here in England with his false Assertions that the Dispute is still on foot unless it be among Fools and those of his own Party or that the Champions for his Friends still keep their Ground unless it be within the Lists of Rome or St. Omers And let him wonder till Dooms-day the Epitomiser will find the want of Consideration very erroniously thrown upon the Good People For when his beloved Friends put themselves upon their Country their Country then who were the people as able as the Epitomizers Worship to judge of an Evidence were persons of that Integrity that they would not have found them Guilty unless they had well Examin'd matters at their Tryals And there was then as much spoken at the Bar as was afterwards made publick to the World But he thinks 't is time to stop the Currant of the Peoples Examination of things which has occasion'd the trussing up of so many of his dear Brethren in several parts of the Nation besides what are still in deserved Captivity some of which are discover'd to be as Infamous for their Debauchery as their open Hostility against the Laws of the Land I would fain know of the Mr. Epitomiser whether he thought the King and Council were not in the same fault with the ignorant people when His Majesty was pleased to Issue forth his Warrants to the Judges of Assize for the Execution of those that lay Condemn'd in the Country Jayles The last Paragraph of his Dedication looks like one of Poor Robins Advertisements made only for the advantage of the Printer who as his prudence foresaw would be no great gainer by this exact Compendium of his and therefore he strains hard to give it the best Encomium he can at the beginning for pithiness and briefness to launch it into the world alleadging it to be five times better then the late History of the Plot because 't is five times shorter Nay he is so conceited of his Exactness that he expecteth that all the Executed Criminals should Rise again and admire it Else what he means by the Persons concern'd will be a great doubt among the Criticks For the Kings Evidence who are Alive are no way Concern'd but only to let him know that such puny Extravagancies must not pass uncorrected And so to the matter it self Concerning Mr. Coleman THe Epitomizer begins his Laborious Abbreviation with that of Colemans Tryal where he comes with the Sheirs of his Consideration and falls a pruning as if he were at work by the Great Were it possible for his Libel to succeed you should see he would fall a snipping again till he had brought it within the compass of a Nut-shell to be worn about the Ivory Necks of Ladies in honour of the within-mention'd Martyrs Now for the better and more plausible carrying on his Design he Challenges and Defies any man to shew him where he has lessen'd the force either of the Charge or Answer But such is the Nature of these be-jesuited Bygots that they can as well leave their Leasing as the Catt turn'd to a Woman in the Fable could leave her Mousing What is it to the World whether he cite true if he do not quote all Or if he leave out the most Material Points that make against him It may be he states the Charge right but he leaves out the Principal Answer made to the Defence Now whither this be not True let the first Proof of the Epitomizer's Honesty determine He Sums up Mr. Oates's Evidence in these Words That in November 1678. Coleman did write Letters by him to St. Omers in which he called the King Tyrant and said Pag. 17 18. That the Match with the Prince of Orange would prove the Tyrants and Traytors Ruine That a Letter under Colemans hand was also then inclosed to La Chaise thanking him for the Ten Thousand Pound which he promised should be employ'd to no other Use but to cut off the King That this Letter was written by the Provincial Strange's direction because he * Pag. 19. had hurt his hand and Mico his Secretary was ill That the Answer was carried to
saith the Observator Berry calls his Maid who witness'd That upon the 16th of October at Night her Master came Home from Bowls in the Dusk of the Evening and that he was not out an Hour all the Night after That he lay within her Chamber and went to Bed about Twelve a Clock All which might very well be and yet her Master might slip out and she never the wiser But that saith the Commentator which surpriz'd the People most was the Testimony of the Three Sentinels who Watch'd that Night from Seven till Four in the Morning at the Great-Gate of Somerset-House through which the Body was affirm'd to be carry'd in the Sedan For they attested not only That there came in no Sedan besides that which stood there every Night but that none ever went out during their respective Watches It being impossible for the Gate to be opened or for any to pass by without their Knowledge Nor did they Drink one Drop while they Watch'd or stir a Pikes Length from the Gate Let him not make such a hideous Noise with his Three Sentinels for there is but One that we are to take Notice of or that could be thought to speak to the purpose Now this Sentinel did see the Sedan brought in because he was Awake but he did not see it go out nor hear the Door open'd because he was Asleep It being the Property of SLEEP to Close the Eyes and Stop the Eares both at once Which the Court had they examin'd the Sentinel to that point would have most certainly found to have been the reason of his deafness and blindness at that time of the Night For most assuredly Let all the Epitomizers Papists and Sentinels in England say what they will the Sedan was carry'd out that way that it came in that Night So that notwithstanding the Drowsie Testimony of Mounsieur Trollop the people were so far from being Supriz'd with it as the Epitomizer Fabulously Poetrizes that the Malefactors were no sooner brought in Guilty but the whole Assembly gave a great shout of applause to see such Criminals as they so fairely convicted so near the punishment of so detestable a Crime With these Omissions and these Reflections has our Parti Perpale Narrative-pairer Half Observator half Abbreviator labour'd to the utmost of his Power to Palliate one of the most Barbarous Murthers that have been Committed for many Ages I expected from the Epitomizer when he came to Annihilate this Murther that he should have huff't and ding'd and fum'd and foam'd and curs'd and swore and bann'd and sunk and damm'd Himself that there was never any such Person in the World as Sir Edmund-bury Godfrey That there was never any such Man Born or ever should be Born as long as the World endures Or else that he would have contrived some fine Story Garnish'd out with some of Mr. Coleman's Rhetorical Flowers and have told us of a certain great Person at Court that either out of Malice or Revenge or else for Favour or Affection or for some other probable Reason had politickly caus'd Sir Edmund to be put out of the Way and then thrown it upon the poor Innocent Papists on purpose that he might perswade the King to a General Persecution of them their Wives and Children and beg their Estates But to come sneaking and peaking and Crouching and Cringing to the Consideration of the people with his How can it be so 's and how is is it probable's that 's so much below the High-soaring pride of St. Omers and Salamanca that I rather conjecture him to be of some Sorry Mendicant order whom his Party will be so far from relieving that they will rather give him a Saint Andrews Cross Discipline for attempting so far beyond his Ability Where are all old Irelands Protestations Imprecations and bold Summonings of God to witness the Impostures of the Hereticks Here 's a murther Cravatted with a wannion They that could strangle a Justice of the Peace so Cleverly could they not suffocate a Murther more Artificially and hide it with the Common dexterity of deluded Virgins For now by this silly Justification it appears far fowler then ever It will be impossible for a Jesuite to put on a white Surplice for it will turn Crimson as soon as it comes upon their shoulders Since then all the Wash ball-Protestations of suffering Malefactors cannot cleanse away this unfortunate staine let it lye on And so it will as long as History can utter to the World the story of this Age. Certainly Villany and Impudence were never so unluckily coupl'd together since the Creation As if they had thought that the whole ruine of their designes had depended upon Sir Edmund Berry Godfreys Life or that they had absolutely believ'd they had had the wish of Caligula All the Necks of English Protestants in the Twisted Handkercheif that strangl'd him But so Heaven order'd it that this poor Gentleman should fall by their bloody Hands to awak'n the drowsie Nation that scarcely would believe before those Impious designes of Popery that threaten'd its Eternal ruin Yet as God permitted the Murther out of his secret providence so was he gratiously pleas'd Miraculously to discover it by their own Instruments as Guilty as themselves till penitence and discovery had wip'd away their Offences and Seal'd their pardon Nay as if they themselves had been sick to confirme the justice of their Friends Condemnation by a speech formally penn'd and stollen into Hills Pocket they have plainly acknowledg'd themselves to be accomplices in the Murther For to what end should they be so much concern'd to make speeches for the Malefactors but that they thought to purge themselves by their dying words On the other side how sillie and palpable a Cheat it was to put such study'd and flory'd expressions into the hands of an illeterate person that knew not how to manage'em His own home-spun Language would have done better and have been sooner believed then such flowers of Rhetorick out of his Mouth It was plain then that it was not his own as not being his hand writing by the Confession of his Wife and therefore being written by some body else whether any overaw'd and truly obedient Roman Catholick well instructed in the Arts of denyals and mental resenvation and soundly threaten'd by his Priest do think himself oblig'd to speak the Truth when he onely superficially repeats the Conn'd Expressions of another man I leave to the Consideration of the people He that speaks not his words at the Gallows promptly fluently and without an unaffected and uncounterfeited Earnestness can never speak from the bottom of his heart and he that does not speak from the bottom of his heart can never be believ'd especially when he comes to discharge his Soul from the burthen of a Crime What is then all this Florid Language for For nothing but to shew the Contradictions of the Fool that made it For here are Charity and Revenge in a diametrical Opposition
they might not have run a fair Risgo of our National Justice To whom I will only apply the Story of Joab and Abner that those old Cinq and Quaters having a mind to have a little sport before they dy'd sent for the Young Men from St. Omers to Play before 'em for their last Recreation Concerning Mr. Langhorn THe Epitomizer comes now to the Tryal of Langhorn who was a person from whom as from a man grounded in the Laws of the Land strange things were expected it was thought by his Party that all the Paper in London would not have suffic'd for Panegyricks upon his Parts and the Chronicles of his behavior The opinion of his Intellectuals can so high that he would wipe his back-side with a protestant Commission of Oyer and Terminer though all the four Inn's a Courts were upon the Bench. But for my part when I heard how simply he had driven his own Bargain for registring consults and conveyance of Jesuits Lands I did very shrewdly suspect him Nay I found he was conscious of his own weakness to suffer himself to be decoyd into such a Villanous Plot upon the hopes of an Advocate Generals place out of his rode who might have mov'd in his own Sphear and have Stalk'd in his Collar of SS's for asking But alass when he came to the proof never did man pretending to Law and Reason make a sillier defence for he made not the least use of either as if they had both forsaken him in his necessity and had beg'd his excuse for appearing in his bad cause As for his Plea that he had been a close Prisoner so long and could not foresee what the Evidence would testifie it was extreamly frivolous For there is no man tax'd of a crime but knows the Substanee of what will be evidenced against him as well as the witnesses can tell him upon the examination of his own conscience A perfect and clear innocence will shew it self in spight of fate and he must be a weak Judge who cannot discern the malice or interest of an Accuser which are the chiefest vermine with which the wicked hunt that ermin vertue Neither did Mr. Oates bear upon the Innocence of any one of the parties Condemned For then he would have accus'd them hand over head without distinction But he charges one with one thing another with another as he knew they acted in their several Sphears of Treason and mischief Some were for consulting and signing Orders some for execution some for regestring and some for managing Forraign Intelligence Which acts as they were all necessary for the carrying on such a thorough pac'd Plot as this was and that there was a Plot is plain by the Murther of Sir Edmunbury Godfrey to which these very men that suffer'd were privy as contriv'd by their own Gang who can be so silly as to think Mr. Oates hath done himself wrong or believe them to be Innocent unless they could themselves have brought out the Parties that were really guilty and that had been the only way to have invalidated Mr. Oates's Testimony It had been impossible for Mr. Oates to have borne up his head in the publick face of the World to have stood the strict Examinations of a great Monarch his Council and his Parliament which implies all the Wisdom Judgment and Policy of a Nation had not his discovery been substantially true which could not so have been had he been deceived in the persons of the Actors Unless there be any of the people so brutish as to believe that the King and the whole Flower of the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation were in a Conspiracy with Mr. Oates against a Company of Tatter de mallion Jesuits and their deluded Associates who might have been buried among the forgotten Crowd had they not like the firer of the Ephesian Temple made themselves Famous by their Infamy But for the satisfaction of the people the Abbreviator must have his Face washt a little and so be sent away to School with his Bottle and his Basket to learn more manners against his next Compendium Oates saith he charges Langhorn that in a Letter to the Fathers wherein he ordered Five pounds to his Son who had been in Rebellion and was reconcil'd to him again by the Intercession of the said Fathers he exprest his great care of the Catholick design and told them among other things that the Parliamentt Flagging they had a fair opportunity to give the blow which saith the Observator seem'd very odd to many that in an ordinary Letter of Domestick Concerns he should treat of such high and secret matters This looks like the Canvassing of some Catholick Coffee-house Neither is it material what descants People might make upon Mr. Langhorn's discretion rather let it seem odd to all Men of Reason That the Observator should think to invalidate Mr. Oats's Evidence by quoting those Proofs against which the Prisoner himself made no Defence As odd as it was the thing was true because it was never disprov'd nor so much as any Reply made to it by the Party accused Mr. Langhorne perhaps had a mind to conceal such an odd piece of Indiscretion and the Epitomizer has here brought it upon the Stage to be publickly wonder'd at He goes on and tells us how Oats depos'd That he saw Commissions in Langhorne's Study upon his Desk when Langhorne appeals to all the Company that frequented his Chamber whether any of them ever saw a Desk in his Study What a Potgun of an Objection is this The stress of the Oath does not bear upon the word Desk but upon the sight of the Commissions No question the Advocate General had a place in his Study to write upon now because a Man gives to this or that place or thing the general Appellation of a Desk there must be a solemn Appeal to All and some Whether Mr. Langhorne ever had a Desk in his Chamber Well if it were such a dishonour for Mr. Langhorne to have a Desk in his Chamber we will allow That there was no such thing there as a Desk according to the Logical definition of a Desk For as long as the Commissions were seen in his Study to which Mr. Langhorne said little or nothing 't is no matter whether they were seen upon a Desk or any thing else which in a Lawyers Study might appear like a Desk Here 's a Catch indeed for a Lawyer to make such a noise withall He should have appeal'd to the Croud of his Clients whether they had ever seen any such thing as a Study or a Chamber of his in the Temple But to put the stretch of such a proof as this ought to have been upon the dubious Explication of a Nomenclator was to say any thing rather than nothing and to play at Push-pin for his life As if Mr. Langhorne could have found out no better way to clear himself from having discourse with a Man in his Study and of having Trayterous
Register The stress of Sir George's Objection lay in this That the Charge of the King's Evidence was not so ample before the Lords of the Council as at the Bar of Oyer and Terminer To which the Answer of Mr. Oates was very fair and probable and the Reasons of that Omission were altogether as credibly balanced in his behall as the Averment against him the truth of which I think has been made appear something to the uneasie inconvenience of the Gentleman He was sworn to be in as weak and feeble a condition as ever any man was seen in being tir'd by public and eminent Service and therefore there was no such reason to aggravate contrary to former custom such a worshipful Objection to such an egregious height as if it had been done on purpose to throw shame and disgrace upon desert and make way for unseasonable Compassion Now then to confirm Mr. Oates's Testimony and that if he had been remiss before it was only the Failure of his faint and feeble condition of Body Mr. Bedloe swore that upon the delivery of a Bill of 2000 l. by Harcourt and promise of the rest in due time and upon farther discourse Harcourt told Sir George That the Business must be well follow'd and observ'd because so much depended upon it For if we should miss to Kill Him at Windsor and you miss your way which we hope you will not we will do it at Newmarket Here the Chief Justice made a Hesitation saying He said quite another thing then he said before till the Lord North Mr. Recorder and Sir Robert Sawyer unanimously answer'd No he said the same before Whereupon demanding What was Sir George's Answer He reply'd that Sir George's Answer was If I find you ready I will be ready in all things And that this was all a continu'd Discourse Which put Sir George into such a consternation that he said privately to his Fellow-Prisoners There is my Business done If there could be any thing plainer then this let the Consideration of the People judge For why Coleman should be hang'd for the payment of 5000 l. upon the Accompt of Treason and Sir George be Acquitted for receiving the same 5000 l. for the same Treason is a Riddle worth expounding But to return to the Epitome As for Corker says the Abbreviator Oates charg'd him to have seen a Patent in his hand to be Bishop of London He should have added that Mr. Oates also heard him say That he hop'd it would not be long Pag. 34. ere he should be in the Exercise of his Function which made all the People laugh That Corker being President of the Benedictine Monks did consent to the Raising of Six thousand Pound to be contributed by them toward the Design That he heard Corker dislike the choice of Pickering to Kill the King because he attended upon the Altar and might miss an opportunity while he was at Mass That Marshall knew of Pickering's design and made the same Objection against him and that he saw him at the Consult in August Here the Observator is offended that Mr. Oates would not be positive when Marshall ask'd him What day it was he was at the Consult Yet Corker could say for himself That no mortal Man could tell where he was or what he did and said every day and hour of his whole life So that Mr. Oates must be Immortal or else must be no Witness for the King But what they urg'd against him made the more for him For the less positive he was the more he was to be believ'd in regard that such a Testimony could not be tax'd of Malice or Rashness As for Corker and Marshall themselves the first made a Pedantic or rather School Boy-like Declamation to prove in the first place the Impossibility of the Plot because so many Persons of Quality were engaged in it But he might have remember'd that it was not the Rabble but the Chiefest and most Noble among the Senators of Rome that were engaged in the Conspiracy of Catiline and the chiefest Nobility of France in the Guisian League against their Sovereign Henry III. Bie-and-bie because he would have two strings to his Bowe he argues the same Improbability of the Plot because it was known to so few So that first he wonder'd why such a design should be communicated to so many and then he admir'd so few should know it A Harangue so little to the purpose and so full of impertinent Extravagancy as if his Brains has been as invisible as his pretended Witnesses Seeing then the Court would swallow none of these gilded Pills he flew at the Evidence and accus'd them to be or else have been men of scandalous Lives Clodius accusat Moechos For grant them to be or have been men of scandalous Lives they could never be more scandalous then He who at that time stood Impeach'd of Forethought Murder and Treason and whose Acquittal has rather confirmed the guilt of his Crimes then justifi'd his Innocence But as these were things barely said without any proof in the world the Kings Evidence must and will live to the Reproach of a rash misprision Jury Marshall told a Story of a mark in his head behind talking as if he had a knock in his Cradle which vanishing upon the Testimony of Sir William Waller he made a great stir of what Witnesses he could have had had he had time but that Point was clear'd that he had both leave and time sufficient by Captain Richardson These Cards failing they both fell upon Mr. Oates for not Apprehending them sooner Arguing from thence That if Mr. Oates had known they had been in the Plot he would have apprehended them sooner But this was all but Supposition so that as long as they were apprehended it was well enough He was then in a hurry about apprehending the more considerable Instruments He was not to burthen his memory too much having so many to charge and therefore took his time and was not bound to tell them when they should be apprehended And though Marshall popping accidentally into a House where a Search was making affirm'd He might have gone away if he would it was sworn That he would have gone away if he could But that Sir William Wasler had given Order that any Body might be let in but that no Body should be let out Then they call'd one Nell Rigby a confident Slut to testifie that Mr. Oates came a begging to Pickering for Charity and that Pickering bid her shut the door against him A very likely Tale of a Draggle-tail that Mr. Oates should come a begging to Pickering for Charity when Whitebread at the same time owed him Fourscore pound by Bill under his hand not yet paid However Marshall made his conclusion That it was an improbable thing that they should trust him with such a Plot and suffer him to want and more then that send him with such a flea in his car when he might easily supply himself