10 Jan. 1683–4, the interlocutors were renamed Observator and Trimmer. This series ended on Saturday, 7 Feb. 1684–5, with No. 215. The third and last series, beginning on Wednesday, 11 Feb. 1684–5, ended with No. 246 on Wednesday, 9 March 1686–7. Each series on its completion was reissued separately in volume form with indexes, and to the third volume (London, 1687) was prefixed ‘A brief History of the Times,’ dedicated to posterity, in which Oates and his plot were finally exposed.
In this periodical L'Estrange dealt unsparingly with dissenters and whigs. In Nahum Tate's contribution to ‘Absalom and Achitophel,’ pt. ii. (published in November 1682), L'Estrange, under the name of Sheva, was extravagantly praised for his loyal zeal in meeting in his paper the attacks on the government of ‘factious priests and seditious scribes.’
‘He with watchful eye
Observes and shoots their treasons as they fly,
Their weekly frauds his keen replies detect,
He undeceives more fast than they infect.’
Parodies on the periodical abounded. One was entitled ‘The Loyal Observator; or Historical Memoirs of the Life and Actions of Roger the Fiddler, alias The Observator,’ in dialogue between Ralph and Nobbs (London, 1683, 4to; reprinted in ‘Harleian Miscellany,’ vi. 61–4, 1745). Another broad sheet was called ‘The Gyant whipped by his Godmother, in a loving Epistle wrote to the most notorious Observator, Monsieur L'Estrange.’ A third, an essay in Rabelaisian humour, with a text from Pantagruel, was called ‘A Sermon prepared to be Preached at the Interment of the Renowned Observator, with some remarques on his Life by the Reverend Toryrorydammeeplotshammee Younkercrape, to which is annexed an Elegy and Epitaph by the Rose-ally-poet and other prime Wits of the Age,’ London, 1682. In a mock petition ‘of the loyal dissenters to his majesty’ (1683) it was satirically demanded that ‘L'Estrange and all that write for King, Law, and Government,’ should be hanged (Lemon, Cat. of Broadsides, p. 136).
The declining popularity of the whigs led to no abatement in the fury of the ‘Observator's’ blows. In the autumn of 1683 L'Estrange defended the government's attitude to the Rye House plot in ‘Considerations upon a printed sheet entitled the Speech of the late Lord Russell to the Sheriffs, together with the Paper delivered by him to them at the Place of Execution on July the 21st, 1683,’ London, 4to (cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 365 b). On 24 Feb. 1683–4 Titus Oates petitioned the privy council to prevent L'Estrange from continuing his attacks on him in his periodical. But Oates was now to be finally discredited. On 20 June 1684 informations involving him in serious offences were laid before L'Estrange (Luttrell, i. 311), and next year he was convicted of perjury, largely owing to L'Estrange's activity. On 30 Jan. 1684–5, L'Estrange wrote to a friend, the Countess of Yarmouth: ‘The press of Oates's business lying wholly upon my hand takes up every moment of my time in some respect or other, what with attendances and informations’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 534).
On the death, in January 1685, of William Jenkyn [q. v.], the dissenting minister, in Newgate, L'Estrange replied in the ‘Observator’ (29–31 Jan.) to expressions of popular sympathy with the old man's sufferings, by denouncing him as a blasphemous impostor who had received a righteous punishment. He vowed to wage war on all mock saints and martyrs, whether dead or alive. The savagery of his polemics was approved by the clergy, who believed in his reiterated cry of the ‘church in danger,’ and according to Burnet he received frequent gifts of money from them or their patrons. The ‘minor clergy’ at this period is said to have thronged Sam's coffee-house in order to listen to L'Estrange, who sat among them ‘prating’ to them ‘like a grave doctor’ (State Poems, ii. 182). But some sober-minded critics still believed that his action was prompted by his leanings to Rome. A ‘new ballad with the definition of the word Tory’ (1682) called him ‘The English Bellarmine,’ and on 7 May 1685, when the whigs had been temporarily routed, Evelyn wrote of his policy in the ‘Observator:’ ‘Under pretence to serve the church of England he gave suspicion of gratifying another party by several passages which rather kept up animosities than appeased them, especially now that nobody gave the least occasion’ (Diary, ii. 463). In ‘The Observator Defended’ (1685) L'Estrange appealed to his diocesan, Henry Compton, bishop of London, to protect him from such calumny (cf. Ranke, Hist. iv. 267–8).
James II generously acknowledged L'Estrange's services. On 16 March 1684–5 he was elected M.P. for Winchester, and Bishop Ken stated in a private letter that the election was in accordance with the king's wish (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. pt. v. p. 123). On 30 April 1685 L'Estrange was knighted (Luttrell, i. 340). On 21 May a warrant was issued directing him to enforce strictly the regulations concerning treasonable and seditious and scandalous publications (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 409 a),
