The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 4Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 4
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
Great Britain -- History -- James II, 1685-1688; Great Britain -- History -- William and Mary, 1689-1702
to his knowledge, a design had been formed in Suffolk against the life
of King James, and named a peer, several gentlemen, and ten Presbyterian
ministers, as parties to the plot. Some of the accused were brought to
trial; and Young appeared in the witness box; but the story which he
told was proved by overwhelming evidence to be false. Soon after the
Revolution he was again convicted of forgery, pilloried for the fourth
or fifth time, and sent to Newgate. While he lay there, he determined to
try whether he should be more fortunate as an accuser of Jacobites than
he had been as an accuser of Puritans. He first addressed himself to
Tillotson. There was a horrible plot against their Majesties, a plot as
deep as hell; and some of the first men in England were concerned in it.
Tillotson, though he placed little confidence in information coming
from such a source, thought that the oath which he had taken as a Privy
Councillor made it his duty to mention the subject to William. William,
after his fashion, treated the matter very lightly. "I am confident," he
said, "that this is a villany; and I will have nobody disturbed on such
grounds." After this rebuff, Young remained some time quiet. But when
William was on the Continent, and when the nation was agitated by the
apprehension of a French invasion and of a Jacobite insurrection, a
false accuser might hope to obtain a favourable audience. The mere oath
of a man who was well known to the turnkeys of twenty gaols was not
likely to injure any body. But Young was master of a weapon which is, of
all weapons, the most formidable to innocence. He had lived during
some years by counterfeiting hands, and had at length attained such
consummate skill in that bad art that even experienced clerks who
were conversant with manuscript could scarcely, after the most minute
comparison, discover any difference between his imitations and the
originals. He had succeeded in making a collection of papers written by
men of note who were suspected of disaffection. Some autographs he had
stolen; and some he had obtained by writing in feigned names to ask
after the characters of servants or curates. He now drew up a paper
purporting to be an Association for the Restoration of the banished
King. This document set forth that the subscribers bound themselves in
the presence of God to take arms for His Majesty, and to seize on the
Prince of Orange, dead or alive. To the Association Young appended the
names of Marlborough, of Cornbury, of Salisbury, of Sancroft, and of
Sprat, Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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