TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE Lords and Commons Assembled In PARLIAMENT, The Humble Remonstrance and Petition of English Protestants against English and Irish Papists.

IT is not a time now to Dispute but Act, and that vigorously
too, or England’s lost. POPERY, that Enemy to God,
by setting up Idols; to Christ, by its New-found Mediators; to
the Holy Ghost, by putting a Pope in his place; to the Scriptures,
by its Legends and corrupt Traditions; to Reason, by its
imposed Absurdities; to common Sense, by its most foolish but
most idolized Transubstantiation; to all tender dissenting Consciences
by Fire and Faggot; and to all Civil Government that refuse
to be subject to it, by Plots, Assassinations and horrid Massacrees,
its usual and notorious steps to Worldly Advancement.
This monstrous Popery, this common Enemy to Mankind, that
hath so often contrived our Ruin, and several times been at the
very point of effecting it, has once more attempted us, and with

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that Violence and Design that it looks like the last time: Nay,
the great Sticklers of it are got within our Works, and promise
themselves the Guarrison, because they say they have Friends in
Disguise among us. ‘Tis true, they have lost some Men in the
Attempt, but they are not much daunted at that; for the whole
Papal World they bragg have conspired their Success, and the
Air Rings with the Thousands of Masses that are daily said for the
Prosperity of the Design, as if their Intention were to convert
the World, and not to Kill the King, Garble the Parliament,
Shamble all good and sober Protestants of every Party, Fire and
Plunder Citie, and finally, Change the Government and Religion
of the Kingdom, which is the Plot.
Nor will the more impudent of them deny the thing in general,
but much the contrary, insulting to us with Tertullians Implavimus
omnia against the old Pagans, We fill your Courts, your
Armies, your Navies, it must take, you can’t avoid it; ‘tis a just
Cause to extirpate Hereticks Root and Branch.
But one and may be the worst part of the Plot has fail’d
them, they resolv’d to surprize you, to make a Night Work of
it, to let you and yours never see day more for such Deeds become
Darkness as they did in France and Ireland in those most
Bloody Massacrees of poor harmless Protestants. But God, the
infinitely good and gracious God, that hath alwayes watcht over
this poor Island an hundred times design’d to destruction and
whose Eye pierceth through the Secrets of men, hath notwithstanding
the Greatness, as well as multitude of our Sins not to
be equalled by any thing but his Patience and Compassion discovered
this impious, Conspiracy we hope too early for the Plotters
Purpose; he has beaten up our Quarters, and given us the
Alarm, if we will take; methinks we should, where the Noise
of Fire and Sword is in our Ears; when we cannot walk the
Streets without Danger of being stabbed, nor sleep in our Houses
for fear of being burned, witness the dreadful Fire at London,
the Fire of Southwark, and that the other day of Limehouse,
where three poor Souls were burned quick, to say nothing of
forty Attempts they have made in other places. To which let
me add the Design in general of Massacreeing all the best People
in the Kingdom, begun and amply confirmed in the most barbarous
Murder of that Worthy Knight and Judicious Magistrate
Sir Edmundberry Godfry; and here I must stay a while. Murder is
a great Sin against God and our Neighbour; but alas! what
induced them to it here? Sir Edmundberry Godfry was one of
the Mildest Men to these Bloody Papists that was in Commission
for the Peace; for though he hated Arbitrary Power and Popery,
as the Cause or Effect of it, yet a Man for a due Liberty
to all sober People pretending Tenderness of Conscience, and
saved them from many a Pinch on that score, hoping, as many
more did, that after an hundred years Experience, Intermarriages,
Conversation and large Indulgence, they were grown wiser,
if not more Christian than to cut their Way to Government
through Blood, and Kill for Religion pardon me the use of the
word about Popery, that has nothing of Religion but the Name
but Gratitude restrains not men of his stamp, their Principle
knows no Kindred, no Obedience, no Obligation that stands in
the way of their conspired Dominion. Well but was it that
they would be revenged of him, for having Courage Courage
I say, as the World goes to take Depositions upon Oath of
their Devilish Plot? But where’s the Crime here, which can
properly give their Act the term of Revenge, since Examination
is neither Judgment nor Execution? even a Saint is not injur’d
to be examin’d, much less a Papist: Innocency gets on Tryal, if
falsly accused; but that’s not the Case; for Truth seeks no
Corners, nor yet Ditches to lay a Murder’d Man in after having
Strangled him in a House for the purpose: What then can
be the plain English of the business but this, that they concluded,
his former Kindness thus abused would forever disingage him for
the future; and that since he could not be prevail’d upon to stifle
the Evidence he had and might yet have produced for he acknowledg’d
to some, he had been both tamper’d with & menac’d
they would strangle him; which is such a Demonstration of their
Folly as well Malice hath given of the whole to be true, that
none can now deny it to be a Plot but those that are of it, or
will lose by the Discovery.
But some say, He Killed himself. That’s a likely Business indeed;
for what I pray? a sober, Charitable, judicious Man. O
But he was Melancholly, that is, he was a serious man; but why
now more Melancholly than ever, because he had wronged the
innocent Papists? Is that it? Where’s the Wrong? is it, That
he heard what Persons upon Oath declared of the most horrid
Conspiracy that ever was on foot in the World; but the Murdering
of the Son of God? but be this Deposition true or false, it
was his Duty and Place to take it, he was Sworn to do it, it was
a great and the best part of his Office; he had deserv’d a Plotter’s
Punishment to have refused the thing. Here is no Virulency, Suborning
of Evidence, Condemning or Murdering them in all
this: Where’s the Sin then that should trouble his Conscience?
But they that will Murder, will Lye to cover it.
Besides, ‘tis plain that he was strangled, and his neck broke before
stab’d, because he could neither strangle himself nor break
his Neck after he was Stab’d through his Heart, nor Stab himself
after he was Strangled, and his Neck broke: moreover had
he been Stab’d before dead or soon after, Blood would have appeared
on the Hilt of his Sword on which he lay, or on the
Ground, it being a dry place, or on his Cloaths; but no Blood
was to be seen; and when the Sword was drawn out of his Body
which his Murderers put in to paliate the Butchery; nothing
issued from him but a dark Water, as is usual where Blood is coagulated,
as his doubtless was before he was Stab’d: for we are of
Opinion there was a good time betwixt Strangling and Stabing
him, and that the latter was upon great deliberation, and that
on purpose to hide the Actors, and cast the Murder upon himself.
O Lord God! that ever Men should be so much the Children
of the Devil; as first to Murder, then charge it upon the
Innocent Soul Murdered. But the Devil was ever a Fool, and
so in this. For besides what we have observed, this further is to be
said, they that killed him would have us think ‘twas himself, because
neither Cloathes, nor Money, nor Rings were taken away.
True, but though they that are concerned in the Plot
wanted neither his Cloathes, nor Money, nor Rings, to carry it on,
yet they took what they wanted, and they wanted what they
took with a witness, and that was his Pocket-Book of Depositions
and Examinations, which puts it out of doubt that they that
were so much concerned in them, both Murdered him and took
it; for none can think that Father Coniers, the D. of Norfolks
Confessor taking the Air over Hedge and Ditch to Primrose Hill,
dropt just upon him and pickt his Pockets of the Book: Well, but
why may he not have Hang’d himself, and his Kindred to save his
Estate Stab’d him afterwards, and carry him thither? This is
deadly cunning; but why was his Pocket-Book only wanting,
wherein the Plotters were concern’d? Tricks won’t do here:
furthermore, why did they not keep his Gold, Silver, and
Rings that were found in his Pocket, but expose them? why not
strip him in some degree, make wound in his Sword Arm, and
hack, bend or break his Sword that it might look like Robbery?
But last of all; why should they carry him out exactly
as he used to go quite drest, and want a Band, especially since
they were so punctual as to take his Sword, Belt, Gloves and
Stick with them. He went out in the Morning with a great
lac’d Band, none was found, as well as the Book of Examinations;
of that we have already spoke; for the Band ‘tis a plain case they
Strangled him, and being a long-Neckt Man, and wearing an high
strong Collar, he strugling to save himself, and they striving to
dispatch him that way, the Band was torn in the Fray, and to
have let it go so, had been to have tould the Story too plainly,
that is, that the Man was Strangled to Death by Violence, & that
the stab of his own Sword was an after-trick to cover the business.
Thus this poor Gentleman, but worthy and brave Patriot,
ended his dayes by the Assassinating Hands of Papists, whose
Butchery made him the Common Martyr of his Religion and
Country, and his Death is to us the Earnest of their Cruelty;
in him they have Massacree’d us all, we must take it to ourselves,
and can no more be unconcerned in his Death, than disinteressed
in the Cause of it.
The Plot is opened, the Tragedy is begun, our Wives are frighted,
our Children cry; no man is sure of his Life a day; the choice is
only, what Death we shall dye, whether be Stabbed, Strangled
or Burned. This Consternation and Insecurity must needs obstruct
all Commerce, scare people from following their lawful

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Occasions, deter all Officers of Justice from their Duty, and
in fine, dissolve humane society, and reduce the World into its
first Chaos.
For the Lord’s sake let us consider our Condition, let us all
turn to the Lord with unfeigned Repentance, let us look and cry
to him for Help, that he who has discovered would confound this
Bloody Conspiracy, and shew Mercy, and bring us Deliverance,
that we may yet see his Salvation, and serve him all the dayes of
our Lives; and in order to our Security, these things are earnestly
requested of you.

First, Take effectual Care to preserve the King; they say and
we believe he is not for their turn; we would not have him for
his sake and ours: In order to this, pray find out the Achitophels,
the Dangerous men about him; you know who they are; Be free
and bold, prize your time, the Conjuncture is great.

Secondly, Vote an Address to the King to Banish all Irish Papists
out of the Army, Navy and Kingdom by such a Day, and
all Papists out of the City of London, whose gross Ignorance
and base Desperateness renders them the fittest men for Assassinations.
Besides, it is a shame that the Children and Kindred of
Irish Rebels, nay some of them the very men themselves that
were Actors in that horrid Massacree in the year 1640. about
thirty seven years since, in which above Three Hundred Thousand
Protestants were Murder’d in the Kingdom of Ireland,
without regard to Age or Sex, should be employ’d either in the
English Army or Navy; but more scandalous is it, that St. James’s
should be their Head Quarters, and the Park turned into an
Irish Walk. What do so many Irish Papists Teigs and Rebels do
swarming there? No Good to be sure; their Parts, Courage
and Skill can invite no man of any to entertain them; it must only
be their Ignorance and Cowardly Cruelty which make them
Instruments of Mischief, and fit to be used by those that love soul
play. But that poor dissenting Protestants should be daily molested
and pilledged for the sake of their peaceable Consciences,
whilst Teigs and Irish Rebels go by whole droves under the Nose
of King and Duke in their Royal Park, and Walks of Pleasure,
is almost insupportable. Is this to maintain Protestant Religion,
and discountenance Popery? Expede Herculem.

Thirdly, For God’s sake call for the Plot, look thoroughly
and strictly into it; fear not favour no man; Fiat Justitia:
But fear God, do what you do as in his Presence, to whom you
must render an Accompt. ‘Tis the great Action of your Life,
discharge your Trust, and quit your selves now like Men. This
has been the perpetual Troubler of our Protestant-Israel; as you
would see God with Comfort, and secure your Posterity from
civil and spiritual Tyranny, slip not this Opportunity God has
so wonderfully cast into your hands; be not found Despisers of
his Providence, neither be you careless or fearful of improving
it; Now or Never: had they you on this Lock, and at this Advantage,
you nor yours should never see Day more. What
once you could not have so well done before, they have now
made easie and necessary for you to do; and what before you
scarcely might do, is now become your Duty. Be not cheated
by a Sacrifice; let not the Lives of two or three Plotters be the
Ransome of the rest, or your Satisfaction; ‘tis not Blood but
Security, prospect future Safety, an Eternal Prevention of the
like Miseries for the future; otherwise we shall only sit down
with the Peace and Joy of Fools, and sat our selves Sacrifices
with more Security against their next Slaughter. Therefore,

Fourthly, Raise the Trane-Bands, and let them be put not so
much as into the hands of men Popishly affected, for those men
that would pull off the Visard in case Popery prevailed, that otherwise
keep their Credit by not discovering themselves, are the
most dangerous to be Trusted; I fear Popery thus entring more
than any other way: examine the Counties well, for some of
base Principles are entrusted.

Fifthly, Let there be Power given to raise Auxiliaries, that
such honest Protestant-Gentlemen as are willing at their own
Charges voluntarily to serve their Country by raising Troops or
Companies, or serving in them, may be permitted and encouraged
so to do.

Sixthly, Let every Protestant Family be well Armed, and
every Popish Family be utterly disarmed; they have tryed our
usage of Arms with ease, we theirs with Cruelty enough.

Seventhly, Let there be an Act with a strickt Penalty, that after
such a Day, no Gun-Smith shall sell Guns or Pistols, Cutlers
Swords or Daggers, and dry Salters, Gunpowder or Bullets,
without License of the Aldermen of the Ward in London, or
some chief Officer, if in any other Corporations, and that the
Person so buying them shall before the said Officer subscribe a
sufficient Test against Popery; but more especially that no Papist
be suffered to make or sell any such Implements of War.

Eighthly, That care be taken to prevent fraudulent Conveiences
of Estates by Papists to escape the Law where they have done mischief
for this is to cheat the Government, and invalidate the Law.

Ninethly, That it shall be Treason for any Papist to Entertain
a Priest, Jesuit or Seminary in their House, because mortal Enemies
by Principle and Practice to the civil Government. Consider
of the Swedish Law, or a better way to clear the Land of all
of them; let’s buy them out to be safe.

Tenthly, That in all Schools, particularly in Universities, care
be taken to Educate Youth in a just abhorrence of Romish
Principles, especially the Jesuits immorral morrals, shewing
the inconsistency thereof with human Nature, Reason and Society
as well as pure and meek Christianity; of which there has
been great neglect.

Eleventhly, That our Youth be not suffer’d to travel abroad, but
between twelve and sixteen, and that under the Conduct of approved
Protestants; for the present way of Education is chiefly
to pleasure and looseness, which makes way for Atheism or
Popery, no Religion, or false Religion.
Twelfthly, That speedy care be taken to release all oppressed
Protestants in this Kingdom; and since the Papists mark all Protestants
out for one fate, and esteem them one Body of Hereticks,
that they may be as one Body of Protestancy against that common
Enemy. This is the Language of Gods present Providence, those
that withstand it are such a love Rome better then London: every
Protestant, Dissenter or not, has the same thing to say against
Popery. Agree then so far, and let a general Negative Creed be
concluded upon, and from thence let some general Positive Truths
be considered of, in order to a better understanding among
them: For this purpose, let there be a select Assembly of some
out of All Perswasions, in which these two Proposals may be
duely weighed, that whosoever Believe and Own what shall be
therein contained, shall be Reputed and Protected as true Protestants.

Lastly, and more especially, Let all the Laws in force against
immorallity be speedily and effectually executed: ‘Tis Sin which
is the Disease and Shame of the Nation; we have forgotten God,
and cast his Law behind us, and we deserve nor this beginning of
Deliverance: Our Pleasures have been our Gods, and to them
we bow, and have little or no Religion at Heart; therefore ‘tis
that Iniquity abounds, and in that variety too, and to such a degree
as no Kingdom can parallel. Blush, O Heavens, and be
Astonished O Earth, a People loved of God, and so often saved
by his wonderfull Providences, are become the Tyre and Sidon,
the Sodom and Gomorrah of the World. Let us Repent in Dust
and Ashes; let us turn to God from the bottom of our hearts,
with the fervent Love and good Works of our martyr’d Ancestors,
or their Life, Doctrine and Death will rise up in
Judgment against us, and God will yet suffer their and
our Enemies to swallow us up quick. And be assured,
as Looseness and Debauchery were design’d by the Papists
as a State trick to dispose the minds of the People to receive,
at least suffer Popery that to say true cannot live with
better Company so the discouragement of it, and cherishing
of all vertuous persons, with a serious and hearty prosecution

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of the forementioned Proposals, will stop, and in time wear it
out of the Kingdom; for Popery fears nothing more then Light,
Inquiry, and Sober Living. Hear us, we beseech you, for Jesus
Christ’s sake; take heart, we will never leave you, don’t you leave
us: Provide for the King, provide for the People; for God
alone knows when we lie down, if we shall ever rise, or when
we go forth, if we shall ever return. Remember the Massacree
of Paris, in which so many thousands fell, and with them that
brave Admiral Coligny, infamy enough one would think to shame
the Party, did they know such a thing; but instead of that, ‘twas
Meritorious, yea ‘tis subject or Triumph; look into the Vatican
at Rome, and among the other rare Feats perform’d by Christian
Kings against Infidels; this Massacree of Paris now about 100.
years old, is to be found, and so carefull was the Designer to
do it to the life, that he has not omitted to shew us how the
Noble Admiral was flung dead out of the Window into the
Street, to be used as people use Cats & Dogs in Protestant Countries,
but good enough for an Heretick, whom the worse they use,
the better they are: But to shew they own the Plot, and glory in
the Action, and for fear one not read in the Story should take
Coligny for Jezabel, they have gallantly explained the Action
upon the Piece, and writ his name at large
But there is a Cruelty nearer Home, no less barbarous, the
Irish Massacree in 1640. nay, it exceeded: first in number, there
were above Three hundred thousand Murder’d: Next, in that
no Age or Sex was spared: And lastly in the manner of it, ‘twas
general throughout the Kingdom; and as they were more Savage,
so more Cruel, they spared not either Sick or Lying-in
Women; they kill’d poor Infants, and innocent Children, tossing
some upon their Swords, Skeens, and other Instruments of Cruelty;
flinging others into Rivers, and taking several by the
Legs, dasht their Brains out against Walls or Rocks, O Lord
God avenge this Innocent Blood, it still crys: But that these
Actors of this Tragedy, or their Bloody-minded Off-spring
should swarm in England be Pensioners here, as if they were
the old Souldiers of the Queen, men of Eighty eight, Cripples
of Loyalty, laid up for their good Services, and St James’s their
Hospital; this scandalizes us: we think them the worst Cattel
of their Country, and pray that there may be an exchange, that
you would prohibit their Importation instead of more usefull
Beasts. For the bloody Massacree of Piedmont, you have it at
large described by Sir S. Morland.
But we must never forget the horrid murder of Henry the third,
and of Henry the fourth of France, our Kings renowned Grand-Father.
And would to God our King would consider that all his
Humanity to them can never secure him from their stroak; they
were both better Catholicks, and yet both Assassinated; the
first a bred Papist, yet because he would not Murder all the
Hugonots or Protestants of his Kingdom, and his known best Subjects,
they did as much for him: The last was their Convert, all
they seem’d to desire of him, and all they can expect from our
King, yet how did they use him? they did twice assassinate
him, and the last time kill’d him. What security then can any
Prince promise to himself from men that make not the profession
of the same Religion, a protection to them that own it, but upon
humors or suspicions of their own, or to introduce another
Person or Family, more immediately under their influence, and
disposed to their turn, will make no scruple of killing him? What
Slaves are Kings with such men, and under such a Religion ? let
not the mildness of our Prince be thus abused; show yourselves
his great and best Council in this Conjucture, and deliver him
from these men of ingratitude: Men that will never be contented
but with that which they must not have; of such Qualifications,
that what may be esteem’d Ambition, Revenge or Interest in all
other parties, is a settled Principle with them: This their greatest
Doctors tell us, and to excite men in the persuit of it, they
declare all such Acts more then ordinarily meritorious: But what
hold can we have of such men that have no Conscience? this conclusion
looks hard, and besides their practice for if that were
alwayes to cast the Scale, it would go hard with many Protestants
too; ‘tis their avowed Doctrine, they Glory in it and make
it our reproach to have any such thing. I say, that Papists have
no Conscience, or no use of Conscience in their Religion, which
is the same thing; for what is Conscience but the Judgment a
man makes in himself of religious matters according to the knowledge
given him of God; But this is out of Doors with them,
‘tis Heresie; Authority rules them, not Truth; as if a man were
to be credited for his Age, not his Reason. Conscience is a domestick
and private Judge, dangerous to the Chair, the Pope, for
it rather hinders then helps subjection, the less there be of it, the
sooner men turn Captives to their Mysteries: So that putting
out the Eyes of our Mind, and a Blind before our Understandings,
best fit us for Popish Religion: as if Religion had not so
great an Enemy as Reason, nor Faith as knowledge. ‘Tis strange
that a man cannot be a Papist without renouncing the only distinction
of a Man from a Beast: Therefore it is we pray to be
secured from Papists, because at best they unman us, and are
not their own men. ‘Tis true, as Protestants don’t alwayes live
up to their good Principles, neither do Papist, to their bad Ones,
Breding, good Humor, Generosity and a better Principle they
know not of may byase some of them to worthy things,
but this is not according to their Principles; for if they will be
true to them, they must abandon choice, and obey their Superior,
Right or wrong, and every immorality he commands is duty
upon Damnation; the more contrary to their Reason, and averse
to their Nature, the greater the Merit. Hesitation is weakness,
Dissent, Schism; Opposition, Heresie; the Consequence, Burning:
From this Religion, O Lord God deliver us, O King and Parliament
protect us: ‘Tis your duty to God and your obligation to
the people. We beseech you excuse us and take all in good part;
our fears are great, we fear just, and our desires reasonable:
Remember our dreadful Fires, consider this horrid Plot, and
think upon poor, yet worthy Sir Edmonbury Godfry; let not
God’s providence and his Blood rise up in judgment against you,
God of his great Mercy annimate you by his power, and direct
you by his wisdom, that the Succession of his deliverances from
Queen Elizabeth’s dayes, may not be forgotten, nor his present
Mercy slighted; Let us do our duty and God will give us that
blessing which will yet make England a glorious Kingdom, the
joy of her Friends, and terror of her Enemies, which is the
fervent and constant prayer of yours, &c.

FINIS.