DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0032
xviii
editor’s introduction.
Catholic religion; and the not ill-founded suspicion that there was
a plot to change the religion; as well as to overthrow the liberties
of the country. The bloody proceedings on Titus Oates’s plot are
now scarcely conceivable; but if we consider the extreme appre-
hensions under which every body then laboured, we shall have no
difficulty in accounting for their having been thus carried away by
the passion of the moment. It is probable; however; that the
violence of these proceedings contributed; more than any other
thing; to the patience with which the nation bore the tyrannical
proceedings of the court during the King’s last years, and to the
quiet accession of the Duke of York.
The period of arbitrary government which followed Charles’s
last parliament; was distinguished by a plot not much less
sanguinary than that of Titus Oates’S; which afforded the court a
pretence for making away with some of the most influential of its
opponents.
“ After the Popish plot,” observes Evelyn on the 28th of June,
1683;* “there was now a new, and (as they calledit) a Protestant
plot discover’d; that certaine lords and others should designe the
assassination of the King and the Duke as they were to come from
Newmarket; with a general rising of the nation; and especially of
the citty of London; disaffected to the present government; upon
which were committed to the Tower the Lord Russell; eldest son
of the Earle of Bedford, the Earle of Essex, Mr. Algernon
Sydney, son to the old Earle of Leicester; Mr. Trenchard, Hamp-
den; Lord Howard of Escrick, and others. A proclamation was
issued against my Lord Grey; the Duke of Monmouth; Sir Thomas
Armstrong; and one Ferguson, who had escaped beyond sea. . .
. . . The Lords Essex and Russell were much deplor’d, few
believing they had any evil intention against the King or the
church , some thought they were cunningly drawn in by their
enemies, for not approving some late councils and management
* Evelyn, vol. iii. pp. 85, 86.
editor’s introduction.
Catholic religion; and the not ill-founded suspicion that there was
a plot to change the religion; as well as to overthrow the liberties
of the country. The bloody proceedings on Titus Oates’s plot are
now scarcely conceivable; but if we consider the extreme appre-
hensions under which every body then laboured, we shall have no
difficulty in accounting for their having been thus carried away by
the passion of the moment. It is probable; however; that the
violence of these proceedings contributed; more than any other
thing; to the patience with which the nation bore the tyrannical
proceedings of the court during the King’s last years, and to the
quiet accession of the Duke of York.
The period of arbitrary government which followed Charles’s
last parliament; was distinguished by a plot not much less
sanguinary than that of Titus Oates’S; which afforded the court a
pretence for making away with some of the most influential of its
opponents.
“ After the Popish plot,” observes Evelyn on the 28th of June,
1683;* “there was now a new, and (as they calledit) a Protestant
plot discover’d; that certaine lords and others should designe the
assassination of the King and the Duke as they were to come from
Newmarket; with a general rising of the nation; and especially of
the citty of London; disaffected to the present government; upon
which were committed to the Tower the Lord Russell; eldest son
of the Earle of Bedford, the Earle of Essex, Mr. Algernon
Sydney, son to the old Earle of Leicester; Mr. Trenchard, Hamp-
den; Lord Howard of Escrick, and others. A proclamation was
issued against my Lord Grey; the Duke of Monmouth; Sir Thomas
Armstrong; and one Ferguson, who had escaped beyond sea. . .
. . . The Lords Essex and Russell were much deplor’d, few
believing they had any evil intention against the King or the
church , some thought they were cunningly drawn in by their
enemies, for not approving some late councils and management
* Evelyn, vol. iii. pp. 85, 86.