to prove the plot[1] said no more of me than that they knew me not; and some others equally unknown to me had used my name, and that of some others, to give a little reputation unto their designs. The Lord Howard is too infamous by his life, and the many perjuries not to be denied, or rather sworn by himself, to deserve mention; and being a single witness he would be of no value, tho he had been of unblemished credit, or had not seen and confessed that the crimes committed by him would be pardoned only for committing more; and even the pardon promised could not be obtained till the drudgery of swearing was over.
This being laid aside, the whole matter is reduced to the papers said to be found in my closet by the king's officers, without any other proof of their being written by me, than what is taken from suppositions upon the similitude of a hand that is easily counterfeited, and which hath been lately declared in the Lady Carr's case to be no lawful evidence in criminal causes. But if I had been seen to write them, the matter would not be much altered. They plainly appear to relate unto a large treatise written long since in answer to Filmer's book, which, by all intelligent men, is thought to be grounded upon wicked principles, equally pernicious unto magistrates and peo-
- ↑ The Rye House plot of 1682–83 was a conspiracy to kill Charles II. and his brother, the Duke of York, afterward James II., and thus may be said to have anticipated the Revolution of 1688. It took its name from a house in Hertfordshire where the conspirators met.
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