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Mr. Coleman's last Speech.

It is now expected I should speak, and make some discovery of a very great plot. I know not whether I shall have the good fortune to 'be believed better now than formerly; if so, I do solemnly declare, upon the words of a dying man, I know nothing of it. And as for the raising of sedition, subverting the government, stirring up the people to rebellion, altering the known laws, and contriving the death of the king, I am wholly ignorant of it; nor did I ever think to advance that religion (which people think I am so zealous of) hereby. I thank God I am of it, and declare I die of it; nor do I think it prejudicial to king or government. But though I am, as I said, a Roman catholic, and have been so for many years, yet I renounce that doctrine, (which some, wrongfully," say the Romish church doth usher in to promote their interest) that kings may be murdered, and the like; I say, I abominate it.'

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Here he was interrupted, and told, if he had any thing to say by way of confession, or sorrow for his guilt, he might proceed; otherwise it was unseasonable to go on. He said, he had nothing to confess, that he had never any intention to subvert the government, or to act any thing contrary to law, but what every man of a contrary religion would do in a peaceable manner if he could. He added, that the witness who swore against him did him wrong; and as for Bedloe, upon the word of a dying man, he never saw his face before his trial. He also declared, upon the word of a dying man, that he knew nothing of the death of sir Edmundbury Godfrey, for that he was a prisoner at that time. Then after some private prayers and ejaculations to himself, says the conclusion of his printed trial, the sentence was executed; he was hanged by the neck, cut down alive, his bowels burnt, and himself quartered.'

192. * William Ireland, Priest, S. J.-193. Thomas Pickering, Lay-Brother, O. S. B.-194. John Grove, Layman.-1679.

WILLIAM Ireland, alias Ironmonger, was of a gentleman's family; his uncle was killed in the king's service, and his relations, the Giffards and Pendrells, were instrumental in saving king Charles the second, after the defeat at Worcester. He was born in Lincolnshire, brought up at St. Omer's, entered the society at the age of 19, September 7, 1655; in which he had the character of a man of extraordinary piety and regularity, and a wonderful evenness of mind in all events. He was sent upon the English mission, anno 1677, and was apprehended upon the first breaking out of Oates's plot. He suffered much in prison, from the loathsomeness of the place, and the load of his chains, and was at length brought on his trial on the 17th of December, 1678, together with Thomas Pickering, a lay-brother of the order of St. Bennet, professed in the English monastery of Douay; and John Grove, a catho

* From a short view of the trials relating to the plot, p. 9. Florus Anglo-Bavaricus, p. 140: a manuscript sent me from St. Omer's, and the continuator of Baker's Chro nicle, p. 693.

lic layman, employed as a servant by the English jesuits in their affairs about town.

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There were arraigned with them, says the continuator of Baker, p. 693, Thomas Whitebread, and John Fenwick, both jesuits. Oates ⚫ and Bedloe swore against Ireland directly, that he had been present at a consult held in August for killing the king; and Oates swore the same 'positively against Whitebread and Fenwick. But Bedloe charged 'those two only by hearsay, so that for want of two positive witnesses, they must have been acquitted by the jury in course. Upon this occasion the court committed a most enormous and crying act of injustice for when they saw these two must be cleared, they, by a quirk in law, pretended to discharge the jury of them, and put off their 'trial to another time, though they had pleaded to the indictment, and the jury was sworn, and the witnesses examined. They pretended in'deed they had precedents for this; but, as a great man observes, pre'cedents against reason only prove that the like injustice has been com⚫mitted before. As to Pickering and Grove, Oates and Bedlow swore, that they were appointed to shoot the king; and that the latter being a layman, was to have 1500l. and the former who was a priest, “a "religious man," 30,000 masses, which at a shilling a mass amounts to the same sum; that they used to walk together in St. James's * park with pistols for that purpose; that one time Pickering had an opportunity to shoot at the king, but that the flint of his pistol was loose; another time there was no powder in the pan; and again the third time, the gun was charged only with bullets, by which accidents the king's life was saved. These diasters, one upon another, made a very unlikely story; but it was all imputed to a special providence, which solved the difficulty at once. The prisoners absolutely denied the whole, and Pickering averred, that he had never shot off a pistol in his life. Ireland brought witnesses to prove, that he was in Staffordshire at the time Qates swore he was in London. But Oates producing a woman, who said, she saw him in London about the middle of August, which was the time he swore to, this defence was overruled. So that they were found guilty, condemned, and executed; but denied stedfastly to the last moment, all that was sworn against them.' So far the historian.

Mr. Ireland, after his condemnation, being carried back to Newgate, wrote there a journal, which shewed where he was every day, and who saw him from the third of August to the 14th of September, being the time of his absence from London. The chief places were Tixhal, Holywell, Wolverhampton, and Boscobel; the persons that saw him were of great quality, as my lord Aston and his family; sir John Southcot and his family; madam Harwel, and hers; several of the Giffords of Chillington; several of sir John Windford's relations; madam Crompton, and Mr. Bidolph of Bidolph; sir Thomas Whitgreave, Mr. Chetwin, Mr. Gerard, and his family; Mr. Heningham and his; the Pendrels of Boscobel, and above 40 more; nor is there one day during the whole time, in which there are not produced above a dozen of these witnesses.

On Friday the 24th of January, after two reprieves, father Ireland and Mr. Grove were drawn from Newgate to Tyburn, abused all the

way, and pelted by the mob, whose insults they endured with a christian and chearful patience. At the place of execution, Mr. Ireland spoke as follows:

'We are come hither, as on the last theatre of the world, and do therefore conceive we are obliged to speak. First then we do confess, that we pardon all and every one whatsoever, that have any inte rest, concern, or hand in this our death. Secondly, we do publicly profess and acknowledge, that we are here obliged, if we were guilty ourselves of any treason, to declare it, and that if we knew any person faulty therein, (although he were our father) we would detect and discover him; and as for ourselves, we would beg a thousand and thousand pardons both of God and man; but seeing we cannot be believed, we must beg leave to commit ourselves to the mercy of almighty God, and hope to find pardon of him through Christ.

As for my own part, having been twenty years in the low countries, and then coming over in June was twelvemonth, I had returned again, had I not been hindered by a fit of sickness. On the third of August last I took a journey into Staffordshire, and did not come back to ⚫ town till the 14th of September, as many can witness, for a hundred and more saw me in Staffordshire, and thereabouts; therefore how I should in this time be acting here treasonable stratagems, I do not well know or understand.'

Here one of the sheriffs told him, he would do well to make better use of his time, than to spend it in such like expressions, for nobody would believe him; not, said he, that we think much of our time, for we will stay, but such kind of words arraign the proceedings of the court by which you were tried.

Then Mr. Ireland proceeded, I beg of God Almighty to shower down a thousand and a thousand blessings upon his majesty, on her sacred majesty, on the duke of York, and all the royal family, and also on the whole kingdom. As for the catholics that are here, we desire their prayers for a happy passage into a better world, and that "God would be merciful to all christian souls. And as for all our ene

mies, we earnestly desire that God would pardon them again and again; for we pardon them heartily, from the bottom of our hearts; and so I beseech all good people to pray for us, and with us.'

Then Mr. Groves said, we are innocent, we lose our lives wrongfully, we pray God to forgive them that are the causers of it.'

Then having commended their departing souls into the hands of their Creator, they were executed according to sentence; father Ireland be ing then in the 43d year of his age, and the 24th of his entering into religion.

Mr. Pickering was reprieved till the 9th of May, either in hopes of his making discoveries, or because the king was very unwilling to con sent to his death. But on the day aforesaid he was drawn to Tyburn, and there executed. He expressed a very great joy that he was so happy as to yield up his life to God, in a case where his conscience assured him his religion was his only guilt: and he took it upon his salvation, that he was innocent in thought, word, and deed, of all that was laid

to his charge. Being taxed for a priest, he replied with a smile, no, I am but a lay-brother. He prayed for his accusers and enemies; and when he was just upon the point of being turned off, being called upon by some to confess his guilt, pulling up his cap, and looking towards them with an innocent smiling countenance, is this, said he, the countenance of a man that dies under so gross a guilt? And so he ended a pious, religious life with a holy death, ætatis anno 58, and went smiling off the stage; regretted by many, who esteemed him a very harmless man, and of all men living the most unlikely, and the most unfit for that desperate undertaking of which he was accused. He was of a loyal stock, his father having lost his life in the king's quarrel, during the civil wars.

Next comes on the trial and execution of the pretended murderers of sir Edmundbury Godfrey. This knight was the justice of peace to whom Oates had brought three copies of his narrative of the plot, and had made oath before him to the truth of it on the 27th of September, 1678; and on the 12th of October, being Saturday, he was missed, and seen no more, till his body was found in a ditch on Primrose Hill, with his sword thrust through him, on the Thursday following. The people, upon this, concluded that he was murdered by the catholics, because he had taken Oates's depositions; and nothing more contributed to confirm them in the belief of the plot, than this unhappy incident. It will, I believe, remain a secret to the day of judgment, who they were that really committed this murder; though the arguments of sir Roger L'Estrange, in the history of the times, have made it highly probable, that it was the justice himself; for as to the particular persons against whom it was sworn by Prance, there are all the reasons in the world to believe them innocent; and as to any other catholics, as the continuator of Baker's Chronicle very well observes, page 689, that they should murder this gentleman because he had taken Oates's depositions, seems not likely for the only motive they must have for it, must be revenge; for these depositions being immediately after laid before the council, could not be suppressed by killing him: and there could be no grounds ❝ even for resentment; for he was entirely passive in the matter, and it was not without reluctancy that he was brought to do what he did; and he lived in good terms with them before. So that it seems improbable, that the papists should, at so critical a season, do such an act, 'which must enrage the fire already kindled against them, only for the sake of an unprofitable and unprovoked revenge.' So far the historian : who adds, that a proclamation was published, October 20, with a pardon, and 5001. reward to the discoverers of the murder; the hopes of which reward brought Bedloe first upon the stage; who deposed, that he had seen Godfrey's body at Somerset-house, and that a servant of Lord Bellasis offered him 4000l. to assist in carrying it away. Some time after another evidence was produced, and this was one Miles Prance, a goldsmith, who worked for the queen's chapel at Somerset'house. This person had in his house a lodger, whose name was John Wren, with whom he had had some difference about his rent which was ' in arrear. It seems Prance had laid out of his house two or three nights the week before the murder: Wren calling to mind this absence, but forgetting the difference of a week's time, either really sus

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pected he was then employed in the murder, or used it as a ground of accusation, so that he went and informed against him.-Prance was 'taken up by a warrant of council, and Bedloe, who was the first dis'coverer, was called upon to give an account of him. Bedloe foreseeing this, had found means to get a sight of him privately before, so 'that when he was planted in the room where Prance was brought, he started up, and with a cursed oath cried out, this is one of the rogues I saw with a dark lanthorn about sir Edmundbury Godfrey's body, but ' he was then in a perriwig. Prance was brought before the committee of council, where Bedloe charged him directly with the murder, and 'Wren with being out of his house those nights that Godfrey was missing. He denied the least knowledge of the murder, or the plot. He was sent to Newgate, where also at first he denied every thing; but at last (whether compelled by barbarous usage, as he afterwards swore, is uncertain) he made a confession. But afterwards again he ' retracted it before the king in council. And thus he went on for some 'time, denying one day, and confessing another, till at last he settled upon a confession.' Baker's Chronicle, page 695.

The Persons accused by Prance as actors in the murder were Lawrence Hill, servant to Dr. Godden, Robert Green, an ancient feeble man, cushion-keeper of the queen's chapel, and Henry Berry, the porter of Somerset-house. They were brought on their trial the 10th of February 1678-9, Prance and Bedloe appearing as evidences. And though Bedloe in his former information had not mentioned any of the three, nor even at the trial could charge them with having seen them about the dead body; but named quite different persons, yet were they found guilty by the jury, They brought witnesses, says Baker's 'chronicle, p. 695, to prove that they came home in a good hour, on those nights in which the fact was said to be done. Those who lived in Godden's lodgings deposed, that no dead body could be brought thither " as was pretended by Prance" for they were every day in the ' room that Prance had named. And the centinels of the night " in 'which he was pretended to be carried out in a sedan" said they saw no sedan brought out. This defence was very strong, but it was for'ced to give way to the fury of the times; for they were found guilty, ' condemned and executed. But they denied to the last moment all that was sworn against them.

The same historian tells us, p. 689, That there were other informations given in upon oath a few years after, of many foul and enormous practices with the author of this discovery "Prance" and with others. And that in those times, I speak it (says he) with horror, perjury ' and subornation grew so common, that no dependance can, I think, 'be reasonably had on any informations of that kind, viz. such as Prance's and Bedloe's were.

Mr. Hill and Mr. Green were carried to Tyburn, February 21, and there executed. Mr Hill upon this occasion spoke as follows:

'I am now come to the fatal place of execution, and in a little time 'must appear before the tribunal of God Almighty, who knoweth all things; and I hope it will be happy for me, because I am innocently put to death. I take God, men and angels to witness, I am innocent of the death of justice Godfrey and believe it will be well for me,