On January 10 a similar order was given for the admittance of William Boyce, an old friend of Prance, to be with him in prison. Cooper passed two nights with the prisoner. His sleep was irregular, and he spent long periods raving and crying out that “it was not he murdered him, but they killed him.” In spite of his wild talk Prance seemed to behave rather as if he wished to be thought mad than as if he actually were so; he ate heartily, used a bed and blankets which had been given him, and adjusted his dress with care.[247] Boyce also visited him, and found him sometimes reasonable, at others apparently out of his senses. Once he found him lying at full length on the boards of his cell and crying, “Guilty, guilty; not guilty, not guilty; no murder”; but when he first went to the prison Prance met him quietly and said, “Here am I in prison, and I am like to be hanged. I am falsely accused.” Shaftesbury’s threats had terrified him for the safety of his life, but he was anxious to learn that Green, Berry, and Hill had not been set at liberty, and in a conversation of January 11 told Boyce “that he would confess all if he were sure of his pardon.”[248] On Friday, January 10, Dr. Lloyd visited Newgate and found Prance in a very wretched condition. The weather was intensely cold, and the prisoner suffered severely from it, despite the covering with which he had been provided. He was very weak and denied his guilt sullenly, but after a time begged Lloyd to come again the next day, when he would tell everything that he knew.[249] Accordingly on the evening of January 11 the dean returned, and Prance was brought to him by the hall fire. For some time he remained stupefied by the cold; he was without a pulse and seemed almost dead; but after warming himself at the fire threw off the lethargy and conversed with Lloyd briskly and with freedom. The dean reported to the council: “He appeared very well composed and in good humour, saying that he had confessed honestly before, and had not wronged any of those he had accused.” He proceeded further to tell of a plot to murder the Earl of Shaftesbury, and said that a servant of Lord Arundel, one Messenger, had undertaken to kill the king. Lloyd warned him to be careful of speaking the truth; Prance protested that he would do nothing else. When he had finished his confession he asked to be lodged in a warmer room and to have the irons knocked off.[250] From that time onward he remained steadfast to his first confession. Writing many years later, when everybody connected with the Plot had fallen into discredit and Prance had pleaded guilty to the charge of perjury, Lloyd assured L’Estrange that he had never believed the informer’s evidence. In this he was deceived by his after opinions, for at the time he told Burnet that it was impossible for him to doubt Prance’s sincerity.[251] Lloyd did not escape the calumny which pursued every one who refused to be an uncompromising supporter of all the