He wrote a long vindication of himself, which bishop Burnet fays he had read; and that he fummed up the fubftance of it in the paper which he gave to the fheriffs: and fufpecting they might fupprefs it, he gave a copy of it to a friend. It was a fortnight before it was printed; though the fpeeches of those who died for the popish plot, were published the very next day: and it would not have been suffered to have been printed, but that written copies were daily difperfed. He met death with an unconcernedness which became one, who had fet up Marcus Brutus for his pattern. He was but a few minutes on the feaffold on Tower-hill; he fpake little, and his prayer was very short; and his head was cut off at one blow, on the 7th of December 1683, aged about fixty-one years. The next day his body was interred with his ancestors at Penfhurft. The paper'which he delivered to the fheriffs fets forth his innocence, and the violent treatment which he had undergone with fuch force, that it deferves to be inferted here at full length.

Men, Brethren, and Fathers; Friends, Countrymen, and Strangers!

It may be expected, that I should now say some great natters unto you; but the rigor of the feafon, and the inirmities of my age, increased by a close imprisonment of above five months, do not permit me.

Moreover we live in an age that makes truth pass for treafon: I dare not fay any thing contrary to it, and the ears of thofe that arc about me will probably be found too tender to hear it. My trial and condemnation doth fufficiently evidence this.

West,

Weft, Rumfey, and Keyling, who were brought to prove the plot, faid no more of me, than that they knew me not; and fome others, equally unknown to me, had ufed my name and that of fome others, to give a little reputation to their defigns. The lord Howard is too infamous by his life, and the many perjuries not to be denied or rather fworn by himself, to deserve mention; and being a fingle witnefs, would be of no value, though he had been of unblemished credit, or had not feen and confeffed, that the crimes committed by him would be pardoned only for committing more; and even the pardon promised could not be obtained till the drudgery of fwearing was over.

This being laid afide, the whole matter is reduced to the papers faid to be found in my clofet by the king's officers, without any other proof of their being written by me, than what is taken from fuppofitions upon the fimilitude of an hand that is eafily counterfeited, and which hath been lately declared, in the lady Car's cafe, to be no lawful evidence in criminal causes.

But, if I had been seen to write them, the matter would not be much altered. They plainly appear to relate to a large treatife written long fince in answer to Filmer's book, which by all intelligent men is thought to be grounded upon wicked principles, equally pernici ous to magiftrates and people.

If he might publish to the world his opinion, That all men are born under a neceffity derived from the laws of God and nature, to fubmit to an abfolute kingly govern ment, which could be reftrained by no law, or oath; and

that

that he that has the power, whether he came to it by creation, election, inheritance, ufurpation, or any other way, had the right; and none muft oppofe his will, but the perfons and estates of his fubjects must be indispenfably fubject unto it; I know not why I might not have published my opinion to the contrary, without the breach of any law I have yet known.

I might, as freely as he, publicly have declared my thoughts, and the reasons upon which they were grounded; and I am perfuaded to believe, that God had left nations to the liberty of fetting up fuch governments as best pleased themselves.

That magiftrates were fet up for the good of nations, not nations for the honour or glory of magiftrates.

That the right and power of magiftrates in every country was that which the laws of that country made it to be.

That thofe laws were to be obferved, and the oaths taken by them, having the force of a contract between magiftrate and people, could not be violated without danger of diffolving the whole fabric.

That ufurpation could give no right; and the most dangerous of all enemies to kings were they, who raifing their power to an exorbitant height, allowed to ufurpers ail the rights belonging unto it.

That fuch ufurpations being feldom compaffed without the flaughter of the reigning perfon or family, the worst of all villanies was thereby rewarded with the most glorious privileges.

That if fuch doctrines were received, they would stir

up men to the deftruction of princes with more violence than all the paffions that have hitherto raged in the hearts of the most unruly.

That none could be fafe, if fuch a reward were proposed to any that could deftroy them.

That few would be fo gentle as to fpare even the beft, if, by their deftruction, a wild ufurper could become God's anointed, and by the most execrable wickedness inveft himself with that divine character.

This is the scope of the whole treatise; the writer gives fuch reafons, as at prefent did occur unto him, to prove it. This seems to agree with the doctrines of the most reverenced authors of all times, nations and religions. The beft and wifeft of kings have ever acknowledged it, The prefent king of France has declared, that kings have that happy want of power, that they can do nothing contrary to the laws of their country; and grounds his quarrel with the king of Spain, anno 1667, upon that principle. King James, in his Specch to the Parliament, anno 1603, doth in the highest degree affert it; the fcripture feems to declare it. If nevertheless the writer was mistaken, he might have been refuted by law, reafon and fcripture; and no man for fuch matters was ever otherwife punished, than by being made to see his error; and it has not, as I think, been ever known that they had been referred to the judgment of a jury, composed of men utterly unable to comprehend them.

But there was little of this in my cafe; the extrava, gance of my profccutors goes higher the above-mentioned treatise was never finished, nor could be in many years,

and

and most probably would never have been. So much as is of it was written long fince, never reviewed, nor fhewn to any man; and the fiftieth part of it was not produced, and not the tenth part of that offered to be read. That which was never known to those who are faid to have confpired with me, was faid to be intended to stir up the people in prosecution of the designs of those conspirators.

When nothing of particular application to time, place or perfon could be found in it, as has ever been done by those who endeavoured to raife infurrcctions, all was fupplied by innuendo's.

Whatfoever is faid of the expulfion of Tarquin; the infurrection against Nero; the flaughter of Caligula or Domitian; the tranflation of the crown of France from Meroveus his race to Pepin and from his defcendants to Hugh Capet and the like; was applied by innuendo to the king.

They have not confidered, that if fuch acts of ftate be not good, there is not a king in the world that has any title to the Crown he wears; nor can have any unless he could deduce his pedigree from the eldest fon of Noah, and how that the fucceffion had ftill continued in the eldeft of the eldest line, and been fo deduced to him.

Every one may fee what advantage this would be to all the kings of the world; and whether, that failing, it were not better for them to acknowledge they had received their crowns by the confent of willing nations, or to have no better title to them than ufurpation and violence; which, by the fame ways, may be taken from them,

But