against the queen, his royal highness, and the kins freely, and of my own voluntary accord, earl of Danby; I desire God to forgive me the without any manner of promise made, or hopes wrong I did them, and do heartily beg their given me by him from the king of saving my life by this confession, I having given him to pardon. "I do further declare and protest, That this understand beforehand they were masters of confession and declaration of mine I own sin-consequence, and such as chiefly concerned the cerely, as a dying man, and not to save my good of the king and kingdom. life; and I call God and his angels to witness the truth of it; and I renounce mercy at the hands of God Almighty, if this be not true. "And I do further declare and protest, as a dying man, unto James Walmesly, Edward Pattel, and Mary Walmesly, That I have made this confession and declaration unto Dr. Haw "I give the doctor my hearty thanks for all his prayers, counsel, and charitable offices he hath done me, and I pray God to bless him for ever for it. I forgive all the world, and desire all the world to forgive me; and the Lord have mercy on my soul. "EDWARD FITZHARRIS." In the same Year, 1681, and we may suppose shortly after the Execution of Fitzharris or Fitz-Harys, the following Articles were published: viz. A NARRATIVE, being a true Relation of what Discourse passedbetween Dr. HAWKINS and EDWARD FITZHARYS, esq. late Prisoner in the Tower; with the Manner of taking his CoNFESSION. Published by Authority. London: Printed for Samuel Carr, 1681. TO THE READER. THERE will need no other apology for the exposing of these Papers, than the command and warrant of the following Order of Council for their publication: At the court at Whitehall, this 2d day of July 1681. By the king's most excellent ma'jesty, and the Lords of his majesty's most 'honourable privy council. from his own tongue and pen, as his own volun. tary act, without any art or inducement of mine directly, or indirectly, to draw it from him. And as I have made a conscience of keeping myself exactly to the truth in this relation, without any injury to the memory of the dead, so I have done all I could, on the other side, to spare the names of the living, separating the fact from the persons reflected upon in the It was this day ordered by his majesty in story; my business being only to communicouncil, That the confession of Edward Fitz-cate the substance of the discourses I had with Mr. Fitzharris. But as I have, upon a point harris, this day delivered by Dr. Hawkins to of tenderness, left only spaces for, instead of the board and here read, be, and it is hereby ormentioning several names concerned in this dered to be forthwith printed and published. Narrative, I shall be ready to discharge myself upon my oath in that particular also, whenever required by a lawful authority so to do. And the said Dr. Hawkins is desired to take care to see the same done: And likewise to cause to be printed and published a narrative of what communication he had with the said •Fitzharris upon that subject. PHIL. LOYD,' Now, as I did not at the first intermeddle with Mr. Fitzharris but by order, so neither have I done any thing in the business concerning him without a sufficient authority for what I did. And it will appear likewise that I have put it off as long as I could, till now at length the unreasonable clamours and calumnies of ill minded men have rendered it absolutely necessary, as well for the vindication of common justice, as of my particular duty. As to the truth of what I now deliver, and the confession of Mr. Fitzharris, formerly published, I do solemnly here declare unto the world, upon the word of a minister of the gospel, that it is a candid impartial report of what I had A True RELATION of the occasion of Dr. Hawkins's going to Mr. Fitzharris, late prisoner in the Tower, sentenced to die, and since executed at Tyburn; of the manner of taking his Confession, and of all that passed between Fitzharris and him. Upon Friday the 17th of June, about four o'clock in the afternoon, I received orders from captain Cheek lieutenant of the Tower, to go to Mr. Fitzharris, who (as Mr. Lieutenant of the Tower had before informed me) seemed to be disturbed in his mind, and was very troublesome to his warders and those about him. As I entered his room, he saluted me, and said, I was welcome to a poor prisoner, and if I would come and see him now and then, it would be ● great comfort to him in his sad condition. Sir, (said I), I shall be ready to do all that becomes me, and will do you all the service I can. Then Mr. Fitzharris began to complain of some hard usage, in that his wife and friends were not permitted to come to him; whereas it was, (he said) the only favour he begged of the court after sentence was passed, that his wife and friends might have liberty to see him; but, (said he) I hear my wife is in custody, and not one friend of mine can come near me: this troubles me extremely, and makes me restless in my mind, and so uneasy to my keepers. I desired him to have patience, and said, I durst assure him, the Lieutenant of the Tower would not deny him any favour the court had granted him. Then he desired we might be alone; but I told him, I had no orders to be in private with him. He spoke to one of the warders to go to the Lieutenant of the Tower to know his mind in it; and the messenger returnpresently with leave for us to be as private as we would, so the keepers withdrew. Then I laid before him the danger of his condition, and the indispensable necessity of doing all that lay in his power to make his peace with God; that he must needs discharge his conscience, and give the world satisfaction before he died. He answered, he had already done all that he could; he was heartily sorry for all the sins he had committed, and he hoped God would have mercy upon him. I told him, I would pray for him, and was come to profer him my assistance. He thanked me, and desired me to assist him with my prayers. Then he began to relate how he came to fall into that great misfortune he was in; he told me how he had lived abroad, and his fortune being small, after his return into England, he took upon him an employment which (he said) was much against his inclinations, but he must do something to live; his father lost his estate in Ireland, which was the ruin of their family; and he most unfortunately took upon him to find out libellers against the king, which led him into the company of ill men, and had brought him to that condition. Would you (say I) hazard your life, only to live? You should have brought down your mind to your fortune, and endeavoured to have been content with your condition, for nothing runneth gentlemen into ill courses like a mind above their concondition. I need not ask your religion, I suppose you are a Papist. He answered he was brought up in the Roman Catholic Religion, yet never had a good opinion of the Jesuits, for they are, said he) an order of men, who, for their meddling with government, are ill thought of in all parts of the world. Their principles, (said I) do strangely influence their minds to be tampering with government; the pope's supremacy (of which they are the great upholders) must needs interfere with the power of the civil magistrate; and to keep up the authority of their church, they will ever be lessening the power of princes, but while they so contend for a superiority over kings, they bring a disparagement upon their religion; for any opinion in VOL. VIII. religion that encourages the subject to attempt Yet (he said,) he was in a good measure satisfied, he might lawfully take them, for he had the opinion of some learned men about them; and particularly of an acquaintance of his, a doctor of Sorbon, and canon of St. Bennets in Paris, who told him, the oath of supremacy might lawfully be taken by all the catholic subjects of the king of England; it was no more than what the catholic church of England had done, before they were forbidden by the pope's order; which order, being but a private order of the pope's and not of a general council, was not according to the canon, and therefore of no force. Why did you not, said I, take the oaths, seeing you was so well satisfied about them? He replied, it was the test that went more against him than the oaths; beside, I was advised, said he, by a person of quality, not to take the oaths; and he gave me this reason for his advice: That so long as I was not, obliged to the king by oath, I might act against him with the more freedom. That, said I, was a special friend to the government: But you say, it was the test went against you. He said, he would not be compelled by an act of parliament to declare his opinion of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. Points in religion, he said, were not to be determined in parliament. My answer to this, was, That when the bishops and those of the clergy of the convocation, commanded by the king's writ, have met, and consulted, and are agreed in a point in religion, it is afterwards brought into parliament to receive a civil sanction. If I could, said he, be satisfied about the real presence, I could come up to all things else in the church of England; as for the word transubstantiation, I do confess, I never understood it. Sir, said, I this is not a time for you to puzzle yourself about difficulties in religion, your business is repentance; yet for your better satisfaction, I will turn you to a short answer in our church catechism: Where the question being asked, What is the inward part, or thing signified by the outward elements? Answer is made, The body and blood of Christ, which is verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful. Endeavour to understand these words in their proper sense, and you need trouble yourself no further. As you cannot, without offering violence to both your reason and your senses, believe the elements upon the words of consecration, to be turned into the natural body and blood of Christ. So not to believe Christ to be present in that Sacrament in a more especial manner than many do, that talk of sym2 D bols and figures, naked elements, is a mean opinion, and unworthy the greatest mystery in the Christian religion: The body and blood of Christ is verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful. You and I will not dispute the manner of it at this time. I enquire no farther, said he, I will receive the Sacrament of you before I die, and the Lord fit me for it. Amen (said I ;) and since you have made this resolution of your own accord, you must give me leave to mind you of it. He said, there was nothing hindered him from receiving, but the disturbance he was in, for the absence of his wife and friends; he could give no directions concerning his poor wife and children, and until he had seen his wife, and disposed the affairs of his family, and thereby settled his mind, he durst not receive. I told him, he must not discompose himself; the seeing his wife was not his great concern, he must prepare to die, and if he were not fit to receive the sacrament, he was not fit to die: Wherefore, said I, you must needs lay aside all thoughts of this world, and prepare for another; you must examine yourself, and set your si..s in order, and lament the follies of your past life; the work you have to do is great, and your time is but short, and you stand upon the very brink of eternity; and if you neglect, or be not sincere and hearty in what you do now, you are lost and undone for ever. Here Mr. Fitzharris began to be very much moved, and fell a weeping, and said, he would deal ingenuously with me; he thanked me for my admonitions, and falling upon his knees begged of me to hear him; for he was resolved, he said, to give the world satisfaction. I lifted him up, and desired him to keep his chair. Sir (said he) you are a stranger to me, and to my knowledge, I never saw you before in all my life; yet the good opinion I have of you, that you deal faithfully by me, shall oblige me to say that to you, which I have refused to say to others; I will declare to you all that I know of public matters. Mr. Fitzharris, said I, I have no orders to hear you in those matters; I come to you as a divine, as a guide to your soul, to help your devotions, and to complete your repentance; I am not a fit person to whom you should declare yourself in things of state; you have had some of the greatest ministers of state with you, who came to you on purpose to have you declare your mind; they were the fittest persons to whom you should have done it; they could have served you, I cannot; I can give you no hopes of life, whatever you declare: Let me desire you to send for them again, I will go to them from you, and acquaint them, that you desire they would come to you once more, and you will speak your mind. No, said he, they are great men, and I care not to speak before them; beside, what I shall declare, is for the discharging of my conscience, and not out of hopes to save my life by it; I do not believe the king will pardon me; and those assurances that have been given me from others have made me obstinate; I have been made believe all along that I should be brought off; but I see, now it is too late, that I have been deluded; and to declare to the king's ministers would be to no purpose, I shall not save my life by it; yet, if you will hear me, I will declare the truth, and you may acquaint the king with it; for they are things of consequence, and such as concern the good of the king and kingdom. Well, said I, if you are resolved to declare, I am obliged to hear you, and if they be things of moment, I can do no less than let the king, or some lords of the privy council know, what you declare; but as for any hopes to save your life, I can give you none: It is towards evening, and I have neither pen, nor ink, nor paper; I will take my leave of you for to night, and will be with you (God willing) again in the morning; a good night to you, and I pray God be your comfort. -) Saturday June the 18th, about 10 o'clock in the morning, I went up to Mr. Fitzharris again; and after some discourse concerning his hopes of a better life after death, he began to declare, how he had been employed to find out libels and things of that nature against the king; as you have it in his confession; and he further declared how Mr. Everard methodized and put the libel for which he suffered, into form, and writ it fair; and when he came to Mr. Everard for the libel, he scrupled delivering it, unless he could be secured, Mr. Fitzharris would not betray him: So Mr. Fitzharris left part of the libe! (mentioning those eight heads, he said, he had of with Everard as a pawn for his fidelity: then Everard gave him the libel, perfected, and fair written with his own hand; and Fitzharris said, he went presently to court with the libel, but could not deliver it that night: In the mean time sir William Waller, whom Everard had made privy to the secret of the libel, with an intent to discover Fitzharris, goes to a secre tary of state, and informs against him, as the author of the libel, who is thereupon ordered to be taken into custody, and being brought before a secretary of state, and examined; after some interrogatories, he took sir William Waller aside, in the secretaries chamber and told him, that if he designed he should accuse the he was mistaken, he would run any hazard before he would betray friendship. This I took in short notes, as he spoke it, and then repeated it to him, and asked him, whether I understood him right, and charged him to say the truth, as he would answer it to God, and he protested it was true, and I have it under his hand. What he declared next, was the design to seize the king; of this he spoke often, and said, when they (the party he always called them) had seized the king, they would have obliged him to call a parliament, which should sit until the bill of exclusion against the duke was passed; all evil counsellors removed; and men of their chusing put into places of trust; the militia settled, and the navy put into good hands; all grievances redressed, and all things ordered to their own liking: And had this de sign succeeded, he said, the bishops and others of the clergy would have suffered severely. The party that were engaged in this design, he said, were men of interest, and had 60,000 men at command, at very short warning: Besides the encouragement mentioned in his confession, he told me, that himself was to have had a company of foot, Heyns a company, and one John O'Neil a company; and a person whose name he purposely concealed, was to have had the command of a man of war. This I likewise writ down, and repeated, as before; and this way I took in all that he declared unto me; and then I demanded of him to speak as a dying man whether this that he had declared, concerning the design to seize the king, were true, and he called God to witness, that it was every word true. Then he went on, and declared what happen- this, Tell Fitzharris, that I, After this, he declared, how sir and sir he came to him to examine him: sir said, did not stay long; he only asked him a few questions, and bid him recollect himself; but sir — was with him about three hours, and was earnest with him to speak to several heads, chiefly to the murder of sir Edmundbury Godfrey; and when he came to that of sir swearing at him, I said, surely the would not swear: But he answered, that he did swear those very words mentioned in his confession; and he vowed it so amazed him, to be hectored to speak against his conscience, that he wished himself dead rather than live to be so used. When I had taken this in writing, I read it to him, and he affirmed it to be true, falling down upon his knees, and wishing he might never see the face of God, if all this that he had declared to me were not true. He declared several times, that he was sorry with all his heart for what he had said against the queen and the duke, and sworn against the earl of Danby; what he deposed against the earl of Danby, he said, he was put upon it, and it was purposely designed to stave off his trial until a parliament; and he desired me when I saw the earl of Danby next, to tell his lordship, he humbly begged his lordship's pardon for the wrong he had done him. I complied at the first, said he, with them merely to save my life, and not being then upon my oath, I did comply; but withal considered, that before they could make use of me as a witness, they must procure my liberty, which so soon as they had done, I was resolved to have made my escape beyond sea, and to have sent over a public declaration, that all that I had declared in that examination (which was published as my act, when nothing was more against my conscience) was purposely to save my life: And he said, he would have retracted publicly what he had said against the queen, and the duke, and sworn against the earl of Danby. Then I took my leave of him for that time; and the same day June the 18th, I went to Windsor to acquaint the king or some of the lords of the privy council with what Fitzharris had declared to me; and at my lord Conway's lodgings, I related to his lordship, to my lord Hyde, to Mr. Seymour, and Mr. Secretary Jenkins, all that he had declared; and the next day June the 19th, I related the same again, to the king: Before I was dismissed, I humbly desired directions what I should do; The king was pleased to say, he would give no directions in such a case; but Mr. Secretaries advised me to assist Mr. Fitzharris, as a divine, and if he said any thing more, to take notice of it, and acquaint them with it. So on Monday June the 20th I returned to the Tower, and as soon as conveniently I could, I went up to Mr. Fitzharris, who had sent for me often in my absence. I asked him how he did, and prayed God be his comfort; and gave him an account of my journey to Windsor. Upon Tuesday the 21st of June, in the af | siderable person of his acquaintance, whose name he mentioned, said to him, I prithee Fitzharris find me out men that will swear the murder of Godfrey against the duke; and, said he, to comply with his humour, I answered, there are men if there were money; the person replied, find me the men, and the money shall not be wanting. ternoon, Fitzharris writ the substance of what he had declared under his own hand, which occasioned my going to Windsor a second time, to deliver that paper to the king; in the close of that writing, Fitzharris begged mercy of the king, but withal said, while he was writing, that he did not do it with hopes of having his petition granted, for he was sure, he said, the king would not forgive him, yet he would not omit to ask pardon. His majesty rejected theclared to Fitzharris, in the presence of two petition; and so I returned June the 23d, and let Fitzharris know what I had done in this matter! When he understood the king's answer to his petition, he said, he hoped God would forgive him; God's will be done, ... not afraid to die. S Then we discoursed of things of another nature, and such as concerned his soul, and we went to prayers; and from day to day, I was with him twice or thrice in a day, sometimes an hour and sometimes two at a time, and some days, I scarce went from him, from morning until night. In his repentance he was free and open hearted to tell me the sins of his constitution, and such as by his nature he was most prone to; he shed an abundance of tears daily; and in his devotions he was very earnest; he made often confessions of his sins to God, and was continually turning the penitential Psalms into confessions. There was one thing undone, and which, I desired by all means, he would do, and that was to receive the sacrament; I frequently minded him of it, and he would say, there was nothing he desired more, but he must dispose of the business of his family first; and ever when I put him in mind of receiving, he made me this answer; and his wife not coming to him, but once (and then she staid not long, and in company of the warders) until the night before he was executed, he did not receive at all; on the morning of his execution, he said, he hoped God would accept the will for the deed, for his desire all along was to receive. ; One day as we were sitting and talking together of the matters contained in his confession (for he talked daily of them) he desired me to give him a piece of paper, on which he writ this passage. That captain Cheek told him before Dr. Burnet, that he would appear a witness against him, on the behalf of that be told him in the boat, that he could say nothing against as to the libel, but could sufficiently in other matters; I cannot, says he, charge my memory, that I said such a thing; but suppose I did, I did not design to impart my mind to him, neither did I understand the libel and the heads gave me, to be the same thing. Upon Friday, June 24, he was saying, how the queen, R. H. and the earl of Danby were the persons chiefly aimed at; and, said he, Mr.- told me, that prince Don Mario Pluti, a prisoner in the Fleet, would appear a witness against the duke. And Fitzharris said, that to his knowledge Heyns was tampered with to come in against the queen, the duke, and the earl of Danby. And he told me, how a con And at another time, the same person de other persons, that he would not stay a day longer in England, than he could fire a pistol at the duke, if he were sure the duke were to come to the crown. This Fitzharris told me the same day June 24. He told me moreover, that a Paper of instructions was put into his pocket in Westminster-hall, wherein he was bid to speak boldly and not to spare the greatest (meaning the king) if he were present; and if he did not speak against the queen, R. H. the lord Powis and his lady, lord Arundel, lord Bellasis, lord Peters, lord Danby and the lord Peterborough, all his friends would forsake him: This paper, he said, was under-writ by his wife, with these words: My dear, these instructions come from your solicitor: and, he said, he believed, they are written with his hand. Upon Sunday, June 26, in the evening, Mrs. Fitzharris and her maid came to see him, and I was with him at the same time; when I asked Mrs. Fitzharris where that paper of instructions was? And she told me, she knew where the paper was, and could produce it; I desired her to take care the paper were not lost, but might be forthcoming when there might be occasion for it. Upon Monday, June 27th, he told me, that while his wife was with him overnight, she had whispered him, how a certain person (whose name he gave me) had been with her, from a great lord (whose name also he mentioned) to desire her, to persuade him, to say nothing when he came to die, and they did not value what he had said to me elsewhere; and if she could persuade him not to declare any thing against them when he came to be executed, they (the party) had promised to continue their allowance to her of three guineas a week, and to make her the same present of three hundred guineas (that was the sum he mentioned to me) on the day of his execution, which should have been made him on the day of his trial, had he been acquitted. Mr. Fitzharris desired me to acquaint Mr. Secretary Jenkins with this, which I did, and to move Mr. Secretary, that the place of execution might be appointed somewhere near the Tower, for he was loth to be put into the hands of the sheriffs, and said, he feared, they would endeavour to make him unsay all that he had said to me; but he would never do it, yet he did not care, he said, to be tempted to it by them. Upon Wednesday, June 29, he desired me to let him write a letter to his wife, which he would leave with me, seeing he did not expect to see her any more; so I furnished him with |