Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/310

300 man; that he was weak in his underſtanding, and abſurd in his conduct. The activity he diſcovered in Oates’s plot, had raiſed him to ſuch reputation, that he was unable to bear it, and therefore the natural enthuſiaſm of his temper prompted him to make himſelf a ſacrifice, from a view of advancing the Proteſtant cauſe, as he knew his murther would be charged upon the Papiſts.

Mr. L’Eſtrange’s reaſoning, being only conjectural, and very improbable, is therefore far from concluſive: It is certain that there never was a more intricate affair than this. We have read the trials of all thoſe who ſuffered for this murther, chiefly upon the evidence of one Prance, and one Bedloe, who pretended to have been accomplices; but their relation is ſo inconſiſtent; their characters ſo very infamous, and their reward for being evidences ſuppoſed to be ſo conſiderable, that the moſt candid enquirer after truth, can determine nothing poſitively concerning it. All who ſuffered for the popiſh plot, denied their knowledge of it; the four men who were executed, as being the perpetrators perſiſted to the laſt in proteſting their innocence of it. After all, the murther of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey is perhaps one of thoſe ſecrets, which will ever remain ſo, till the hearts of all men are laid open.

The ſervices, which Mr. L’Eſtrange rendered the court, procured him the honour of knighthood; and he ſerved as a member for Wincheſter, in the parliament called by king James the IId. 1685. But things taking quite a different turn in that prince’s reign, in point of liberty of conſcience, to what moſt people expected, our author’s Obſervators were dropt, as not being ſuitable to the times. However he continued licenſer of the preſs ’till the acceſſion of the prince of Orange to the throne; in whoſe reign, on account of his Tory principles, and his attachment to his late maſter, he met with ſome troubles. He was ſuffered however to deſcend to