Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/37

 S. N 2., JAN. 12. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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declared that he would have forty thousand men to assist the Protestant duke against the Papist duke. Hugh Speke says the charge was false, which is probable as to the exact words; but that the father was, had been, and continued _to be, an outspoken gentleman, after the Cavalier fashion, is plain enough from an intercepted letter in the State Paper Office, written by another of his sons, who thus reports :

" Since his return, notwithstanding the number of en- treaties and advices to be silent, and not concern himself with public affairs by words, yet the truth is, he gives himself more liberty; talks more at random and dan- gerous than ever formerly, which is a great affliction to all his friends." Robert's Monmouth, vol. ii. p. 318.

In fact, what with zeal and fanaticism perse- cution on the one side, and flattery on the other the Speke family, with perhaps one exception, were gone wild and half mad ; and so were many other men and families.

When the Duke ofMonmouth entered on his memorable progress through the West of England, nowhere was he received with more daring enthu- siasm than at White Lackington. Two thousand horsemen met him ten miles in advance, and twenty thousand persons are said to have been assembled in the park to welcome him.

Then followed the Rye-house Plot, in which John Trenchard was deeply implicated ; and the death of Essex, who all true Protestants be- lieved, or affected to believe, had been murdered. Lawrence Braddon, a young barrister, put him- self actively forward on this occasion in a hunt for evidence ; Hugh Speke joined him, and both were prosecuted. Speke, whom even the foul- mouthed Jeffreys spoke of as " a man of quality," was fined 1000Z., and committed to prison until he could find securities for good behaviour for life ; and in prison he remained for more than four years. Meanwhile, before his trial, and, as he says, to prevent him from giving further aid to Braddon, Speke was arrested in an action for scan, inag., at the suit of the Duke of York ; and though the trial was never brought to issue, Speke was confined for eighteen weeks^ before he was admitted to bail, and the prosecution, he says, cost him WOOL

Speke, however, was not to be silenced by shut- ting him up in prison. There now appeared An Enquiry into, and Detection of, the Barbarous Murder of the late Earl of Essex. Braddon, forty years after, in his comment on Burnet, gave, so far as he knew, or chose to remember, a his- tory of this pamphlet, to which he attributes the death, or rather murder, of Charles II. The pam- phlet, he says, " was writ and printed in Holland," hundreds of copies were brought to England, and in one night scattered abroad ; most of them laid at the doors of privy-councillors, noblemen, and justices of the peace. One copy was conveyed to

the king, who was so startled by the revelations it contained, that he resolved to have a strict in- quiry into the cause of the death of the earl, and instructed Lord Allington accordingly. While the subject was still under discussion, the Duke of York entered "argal;" the king and Lord Allington were soon after seized with such, an illness, as was thought to be " effects of poyson," and both died.

That this pamphlet was printed in Holland, I doubt. Speke acknowledges that he was about this time, or shortly after, instrumental in printing and circulating some of Johnson's pamphlets, " of great use to the Protestant cause, having all along kept a press for secret serf ices (managed by a faithful haidt) at his own expense." This " En- quiry" was, I suspect, printed through Speke's agency, and the manner of printing and of cir- culating it was much after the fashion by which, subsequently, currency was given to the forged " Proclamation." Braddon's assertion as to the " writ and printed in Holland," enabled him to consider the writer as another and an independent witness. H. S. F. D. P.

(To be continued.)

INEDITED LETTER FROM JEFFREYS.

The following letter from Jeffreys, whose warm interest in the celebrated election for Buckinghamshire in 1685 is described by Macaulay (vol. i. p. 476.), written to Secre- tary Sunderland, is preserved among the MS. Domef. (1685) in the State Paper Office.

WM. DCRRANT COOPER.

Pardon me (my most hon. Lord) for giving you this trouble, it being, I thought, for his Majesty's service that you shold know that this day I have had severall gentlemen of the countrey hereabouts w th mee, who are resolute in the affaire to oppose Wharton and Hamden. But they have beene very industrious to spread false reports. Its certaine Hamden will assigne his interest to S r Roger Hill, who now setts up, a horrid Whig, his father one of the murthered martyr King Ch. the First judges, and this sparke a fierce exclusioner. S 1 Tho. Lee does us a greate deale of mischiefe by joining w th our adversaries, and threatens us \v th the parliament. I know my Lord Treasurer has a power over him ; and if his lordship would be pleased to influence twixt this and the election, he would doe us a kindnesse ; he and Hamden have beene labouring togeather, and he much values himself, as Mr. Wharton does, for having kissed his Majesty's hands, and thereby o r mis- chiefe comes. A word from yo 1 ' lordsliip to Mr. Waller, to engage his son, who is at p'sent fierce against us, togeather with his interest, would lie of service to us. O' election v/illw on Wednesday next. I shall not be wonting, either in my person