The Earl of Barkeshire, that had lain long of a languishing sickness in Paris, was pleased to let me know he desired to advise with me about a physician. This was in March last. I told his lordship I was acquainted with an able man of our own nation, and one of the college of physicians in London, but I was of opinion his Lordship’s Roman Catholic friends would not approve of him because he was not only a strict protestant, but one that did publicly defend the doctrine of the church of England, and as publicly declare the English Roman Catholics were prosecuted on just grounds. His Lordship said that mattered not, he should not dispute that point with him, nor did he value any man the worse for differing from him in judgment, and that he was not so strait-laced as others of his opinion, and did commit himself to the charge of the said Doctor Budgeon; but it did prove too late, for this gentleman soon told his Lordship what condition he was in, and he came to my lodgings and signified to me his Lordship’s great desire to speak with me, telling me his Lordship in all human probability could not live long; and I waited upon his Lordship the morning following, and he having commanded his servants out of the chamber, and to suffer nobody to come in till he called, spake to me as I remember these very words:— Colonel Scot, you are my friend; I must commit a secret to you; there has been a foolish and an ill design carried on in England: I don’t tell you the Roman Catholic religion is a foolish business, for it is the faith I will die in, but ’tis the giddy madness of some of that religion I blame. I knew nothing on’t till my Lord Arundel, Mr. Coleman, and others told me the business could not miscarry, and that I should be looked upon as an ill man if I came not in in time, and truly I believed them. I was none of the contrivers, I was not consulted with till towards the latter end of the day, nor did I ever hear anything mentioned about killing the king; if I had, I would have discovered it, and so indeed I ought to have done what I did know, as well for the personal obligations I had to his Majesty as that which my allegiance obliges me to, and every man too; for my Lord Bellasis is an ill man; he and others were accustomed to speak ill of the king, indeed very irreverently.