[470] See Note I.
[471] William Bower, who engraved the medal.
[472] See the engraving of Shaftesbury's medal where the sun breaks from a cloud over the Tower, in which he had lately been imprisoned. Dryden intimates, his head should have been placed there; and indeed the gory heads and members of Shaftesbury's adherents were shortly afterwards too common a spectacle on Tower-Hill, the Bridge, Temple-Bar, &c. Roger North mentions it as a very unpleasant part of his brother Dudley's office of sheriff, that the executioner came to him for orders, touching the disposal of the limbs of those who had suffered. "Once, while he was abroad, a cart, with some of them, came into the court-yard of his house, and frighted his lady almost out of her wits. And she could never be reconciled to the dog hangman's saying, 'he came to speak with his master." Life of the Hon. Sir Dudley North, p. 138.
[473] A tract, in three parts, written to prove the innocence of Shaftesbury, Colledge, and the Whigs, from the alleged machinations against the king at Oxford. The first part is said to have been written chiefly by the earl himself; the two last, by Robert Ferguson, the plotter.
[474] Alluding to the king's proclamation against tumultuous petitions, dated 12th December, 1679.
[475] A pamphlet written by Andrew Marvel, and reprinted in the State Tracts. It was published in 1677-8; and, as it traced the intrigues of the court of England with that of France, it made a great impression on the nation. I cannot help thinking, that it was upon the horror which this piece had excited for the progress of Popery, that Oates and Tongue grounded their legend, and that they found the people prepared to receive it by the previous tract of Marvel.
[476] See "The Defence of the Duke of Guise," and the "Postscript to the Translation of Maimbrurg's History of the League," where Dryden pursues this parallel.
[477] The Whig writers observed a prudent degree of ambiguity concerning the draught of the Association, found in Shaftesbury's study; for, while they endeavoured to defend the purpose and principles for which it was proposed, they insinuated, that it might possibly have been shuffled in amongst Lord Shaftesbury's papers, by the messenger who seized them. It was said, to strengthen this suspicion, that Wilson, the earl's secretary, was employed by him to indorse all the papers which the messengers seized and carried off, and that this scroll bore no such indorsement: it was even added, that Wilson himself was imprisoned, to deprive Shaftesbury of the benefit of his evidence to this point. There is, however, no reason to think the paper was not actually found in the earl's repositories.
[478] In 1584, there was a general association entered into by the subjects of Queen Elizabeth, for the defence of her person, supposed to be endangered by the plots of the Catholics and malcontents. Many of its most striking expressions are copied into the draught found in Shaftesbury's house. It was confirmed by act 27th of Queen Elizabeth, and cannot but be supposed as acceptable to the crown, as that of Shaftesbury would have been obnoxious.
[479] How literally Dryden's opponents adopted the licence here given, appears from the "Loyal Medal Vindicated," published in 1681, and addressed,