[76] The first letter is dated Sept. 21. In the second letter, in the same bundle, the day of the month is not given. The letter is numbered 164. Another paper in the Record Office, dated August 20, 1681, reports that the Countess of Rochester said “Colledge was a Papist to her knowledge, and had been so for a long time.” There are other statements to the same effect. Thomas Hyde (September 1, 1681) writing from Oxford, says that Colledge would not acknowledge what religion he was of, but that “he was of the Anabaptists.”
[77] It is added “this fanatic’s name was formerly Bishop, but being a hater of bishops changed his name into Marten; and because he is by that name known for a notorious villain he hath changed it again.”—Dom. Charles II.
[78] Ibid., August 27, 24.
[79] The confession, of which a portion is missing, bears date August 24, 1681. State Papers, Dom. Charles II. The dying speech is in MS. in the same collection dated August 31. It was published as a distinct tract, 1681; also it is printed in The Dying Speeches and Behaviour of several State Prisoners. Ed. 1720. The reason for his being called the Protestant Joiner he thus describes:—“The Duke of Monmouth called me to him, and told me he had heard a good report of me, and that I was an honest man, and one that may be trusted: and they did not know but their enemies, the Papists, might have some design to serve them as they did in King James’s time by gunpowder, or any other way; and the Duke with several Lords and Commons did desire me to use my utmost skill in searching all places suspected by them, which I did perform: and from thence I had as I think, the popular name of The Protestant Joiner, because they had entrusted me, before any man in England to do that office.”—Dying Speeches, 387.
[80] There is amongst the State Papers, one dated November 26, 1681, Dom. Charles II., by George Evans, who complains that there was a bonfire on Cornhill, and that gentlemen were stopped in their coaches and required to drink Lord Shaftesbury’s health. This was on the occasion of the Grand Jury ignoring the bill against him. There are a number of documents relating to Shaftesbury under the year 1681.
[81] Campbell’s Lives of the Chancellors, iv. 229. Lord Campbell has not done justice to Shaftesbury. It should be remarked to Shaftesbury’s honour, Earl Russell says, “that though in the secret of every party, he never betrayed any one: and that the purity of his administration of justice is allowed even by his enemies.”—Life of Lord William Russell, 61.
[82] From a mass of illustrations I select the following in reference to the last point:—
Dom. Charles II., 1681, Sept. 9. “I was interrupted,” says the Archdeacon of Durham, “in the execution of my office, as I was officiating in my own church, by a very bold and insolent fanatic, who though indicted at our last assizes, escaped punishment—to the great contempt, I hear, of God’s house and service—I am sure to the great trouble of the clergy, who fear it may go very hard with them, in the execution of their offices, when so great a violence offered to the Archdeacon should go unpunished. Since a Churchman can expect to meet with no more favour from a lay judicatory, I am forced to fly to the ecclesiastical courts, where this person stands presented, for disturbing the minister in time of Divine service, and I think no ecclesiastical judge can be of the same mind with the jury, that what was done between the Nicene Creed and the sermon, was not done in time of Divine service, upon which point he was found not guilty, to the admiration [wonder] of those that understood the rubric.”
John Strode, of Rye, writes, September 13, “that the new Mayor chosen by the fanatics refused to grant warrants according to the Act of Parliament, pretending some frivolous thing.”
[83] November 7, 1681.