This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this text, in whole or in part. Please contact project staff at eebotcp-info@umich.edu for further information or permissions.
HE had been all his Life a firm Servant and Friend to the Royal Family, in their Exile and afterwards: He had been in Prison for 'em under Cromwel, and in danger both of Execu∣tion and Starving; for all which they now rewarded him. He had a particular Honour and De∣votion for the Duke of Monmouth, and push'd on his Interest on all Occasions, being a Man of as undaunted English Courage, as ever our Country produced.
In his Paper he thus expressed himself, That he thanked Almighty God, he found himself prepa∣red for Death, his Thoughts set upon another World, and weaned from this; yet he could not but give so much of his little time as to answer some Calumnies, and particularly what Mr. Attorney accu∣sed him of at the Bar.
That he prayed to be allowed a Tryal for his Life according to the Laws of the Land, and ur∣ged the Statute of Edward 6. which was expresly for it; but it signified nothing, and he was with an Extraordinary Roughness condemned and made a precedent; tho' Holloway had it offered him, and he could not but think all the World would conclude his Case very different, else why refused to him?
That Mr. Attorney charged him for being one of those that was to kill the King; He took God to witness, that he never had a Thought to take away the King's Life, and that no Man ever had the Impudence to propose so barbarous and base a thing to him; and that he never was in any Design to alter the Government.
That if he had been tried, he could have proved the Lord Howard's base Reflections upon him, to be notoriously false— He concluded, that he had lived and now died of the Reformed Religion, a Protestant in the Communion of the Church of England, and he heartily wished he had lived more strictly up to the Religion he believed: That he had found the great Comfort of the Love and Mercy of God, in and through his blessed Redeemer, in whom he only trusted, and verily hoped that he was going to partake of that fulness of Joy which is in his pesence, the Hopes whereof infinitely pleased him. He thanked God he had no repining, but chearfully submitted to the Punishment of his Sins. He freely forgave all the World, even those con∣cerned in taking away his Life, tho' he could not but think his Sentence very hard, he being denied the Laws of the Land.
On the Honourable Sir Thomas Armstrong, Executed June 20. 1684.
HAdst thou abroad found Safety in thy Flight, Th' Immortal Honour had not flam'd so bright. Thou hadst been still a worthy Patriot thought; But now thy Glory's to Perfection brought. In Exile, and in Death, to England true: What more could Brutus or just Cato do?