often visited me, and still his discourse would be concerning Lopping the two sparks;' that was the word he used, meaning the King and the Duke; and proposed it might be done at a play. This was his frequent discourse; for he said, then they would die in their calling: it was his very expression. He bought arms to do it with, without any direction of mine; I never saw the arms, nor I never saw the men that were to do it; though they said they had fifty employed to that end. I told several of them, that the killing the King would carry such a blemish and stain with it, as would descend to posterity; that I had eight children, that I was loth should be blemished with it; and withal I was confident the Duke of Monmouth would revenge his father's blood, if it were but to vindicate himself from having any hand in it. Mr. West presently told me that the Duke of Monmouth did not refuse to give an engagement, that he would not punish those that should kill the King."

Hone, who appears to have been a weak man, confessed he had been drawn in, and-quoted the words of Scripture, "Thou sawest a thief,

and thou consentedst to him." He said, he had never been at any of the clubs. He owned he had said, he had rather kill the King and save the Duke of York; but when asked if he

had rather a papist should reign over us, he said, he did not know what to say to that.

Rouse gave a very long detail, but reported nothing except on hearsay. He had been told by one Leigh, (one of the witnesses against him,) that Goodenough had a design to secure the King's person without shedding blood. Rouse, as well as the other two, accused the witnesses against him of being the most forward to incite others.

Lord Russell was much rejoiced, when he heard what these men had said; and considered it would destroy all the credit hitherto given to the witnesses.

In the confession of Holloway, we find much vague talk about a plot, and a proposal of his own to surprise Bristol.

The following are the most important passages in Holloway's confession:

"About the beginning of May I came up to London again, in company with Mr. Wade, and some other Bristol men; but when we came up, my business being in the city, and theirs about the Temple, we parted; after two or three days, I met with Mr. Wade, and asked how he found things, who told me, he doubted all would prove a sham, for he thought there was nothing intended, finding nothing materially done in

order to what had been so long discoursed. Then we went to Mr. West, and discoursed him fully about the contents of his letters, who told us, they were resolved to kill the King and Duke as they came from Newmarket; in order to which, he had provided arms for fifty men, pistols, carbines, and blunderbusses; and that they were promised the house of one Rumbold, a maltster, which lay in the road, and the King must come by his door, there the men should have been lodged. Then we asked, who was to have acted it, to which he could give but a slender answer, and could or would name but two men, who were Rumbold and his brother, saying, if they could have raised six or eight hundred pounds to have bought horses, and something to encourage men, they should have had men enough; so that we found they had few men, if more than two, and no horses, only a parcel of arms; which afterwards he showed us at a gunsmith's house, in a little lane near Temple-Bar. Then we asked him what they designed if it had taken effect: to which he answered, that the men should have come up with all speed to London, and dispersed themselves immediately, declaring for the Duke of Monmouth, and that the King and Duke being dead, no opposition could be. made; then we asked who were for this design, he named Colonel

Rumsey and Richard Goodenough, and, as far as I can remember, no more; so we found it was carried on by them, contrary to the knowledge or approbation of those who managed the general design: then we declared our great dislike of it, telling him, it was a base, dishonourable and cowardly action, and would seem odious to all the world, that any pretending themselves Protestants, should be concerned in such a bloody action; and that we thought it was his cowardice put him upon it, to which he said, that he could not fight, but would be as forward with his money as any one of his capacity. At this meeting, Rumsey and West would be often saying, there was nothing like the lopping business, meaning the taking off the King and Duke; and that it might be easily done, as they went to or from the play-house; but I never heard any agree with them in it. Rumsey, was still upon the old strain of killing the King and the Duke, saying, at this the last meeting I was at, going for Bristol next morning, that it might be done in Windsor-park, and that he would undertake it; but not except every one there present would go with him, to which not one consented."

These passages are very material, as they form part of a confession made by a man already con

demned to death, but still influenced by the hope of obtaining the King's pardon. They fix the project of assassination upon Rumsey and West, and none other: for the two Rumbolds, and Goodenough, are named upon their authority.

Holloway was asked, at his execution, if he was ever acquainted with Lord Russell; to which he replied in the negative,

The solemn denial of Armstrong is still more weighty. Though he had lived a dissolute life, his last days were spent in prayer and thoughts of a future state: " his pride and his resentments," says Burnet," were subdued and forgotten." From such a man, we may expect the truth. He says, in the paper he delivered to the sheriff," I take God to witness, I never was in any design to take away the King's life; neither had any man the impudence to propose so base and barbarous a thing to me; neither was I ever in any design to alter the government of England. What I am accused of, I know no otherwise than by reports, and prints; which I take to be uncertain. So that it cannot be expected I should make particular answers to them. If I had been tried, I could have proved my Lord Howard's base reflections upon me to be a notorious falsehood; for there were at