gnd §, Ne2., Jan. 12. 756.) 
NOTES AND 
QUERIES. 29 
declared that he would have forty thousand men 
to assist the Protestant duke against the Papist 
duke. Hugh Speke says the charge was false, 
which is probable as to the exact words; but 
that the father was, had been, and continued to 
be, an outspoken gentleman, after the Cavalier 
fashion, is plain enough from an intercepted letter 
in the State Paper Office, written by another of 
his sons, who thus reports : 
“ Since his return, notwithstanding the number of en- 
treaties and advices to be silent, and not concern himself 
with public affairs by words, yet the truth is, he gives 
himself more liberty; talks more at random and dan- 
gerous than ever formerly, which is a great affliction to 
all his friends.” — Robert’s Monmouth, vol. ii. p. 318. 
In fact, what with zeal and fanaticism — perse- 
ution on the one side, and flattery on the other— 
the Speke family, with perhaps one exception, 
were gone wild and half mad; and so were many 
other men and families. 
When the Duke of Monmouth entered on his 
memorable progress through the West of England, 
nowhere was he received with more daring enthu- 
siasm than at White Lackington. Two thousand 
horsemen met him ten miles in advance, and 
twenty thousand persons are said to have been 
assembled in the park to welcome him. 
Then followed the Rye-house Plot, in which 
John Trenchard was deeply implicated; and the 
death of Essex, who all true Protestants be- 
lieved, or affected to believe, had been murdered. 
Lawrence Braddon, a young barrister, put him- 
self actively forward on this occasion in a hunt 
for evidence; Hugh Speke joined him, and both 
were prosecuted. Speke, whom even the foul- 
mouthed Jeffreys spoke of as “a man of quality,” 
was fined 1000/. and committed to prison until 
he could find securities for good behaviour for 
life; and in prison he remained for more than 
four years. Meanwhile, before his trial, and, as 
he says, to prevent him from giving further aid 
to Braddon, Speke was arrested in an action for 
scan, mag., at the suit of the Duke of York; and 
though the trial was never brought to issue, 
Speke was confined for eighteen weeks before he 
was admitted to bail, and the prosecution, he says, 
cost him 1000/7. 
Speke, however, was not to be silenced by shut- 
ting him up in prison. There now appeared An 
Enquiry into, and Detection of, the Barbarous 
Murder of the late Earl of Essex. Braddon, 
forty years after, in his comment on Burnet, gave, 
so far as he knew, or chose to remember, a his- 
tory of this pamphlet, to which he attributes the 
death, or rather murder, of Charles II. The pam- 
phiet, he says, “ was writ and printed in*Holland,” 
undreds of copies were brought to England, and 
in one night seattered abroad; most of them laid 
at the doors of privy-councillors, noblemen, and 
justices of the peace. One copy was conveyed to 
the king, who was so startled by the revelations it 
contained, that he resolved to have a strict in 
quiry into the cause of the death of the earl, and 
instructed Lord Allington accordingly. While 
the subject was still under discussion, the Duke 
of York entered—‘“argal;” the king and Lord 
Allington were soon after seized with such an 
illness, as was thought to be “effects of poyson,” 
and both died. 
That this pamphlet was printed in Holland, I 
doubt. Speke acknowledges that he was about 
this time, or shortly after, instrumental in printing 
and circulating some of Johnson’s pamphlets, “ of 
great use to the Protestant cause, having all along 
kept a press for secret services (managed by a 
faithful hand) at his own expense.” This “ En- 
quiry” was, I suspect, printed through Speke’s 
agency, and the manner of printing and of cir- 
culating it was much after the fashion by which, 
subsequently, currency was given to the forged 
“Proclamation.” Braddon’s assertion as to the 
“writ and printed in Holland,” enabled him to 
consider the writer as another and an independent 
witness, H.8.F.D.P. 
(To be continued.) 
INEDITED LETTER FROM JEFFREYS. 
The following letter from Jeffreys, whose warm interest 
in the celebrated election for Buékinghamshire in 1685 is 
described by Macaulay (vol. i. p. 476.), written to Secre- 
tary Sunderland, is preserved among the MS. Domest. 
(1685) in the State Paper Office. 
Wm. Durrant Coorrr. 
Pardon me (my most hon. Lord) for giving you 
this trouble, it being, I thought, for his Majesty’s 
service that you shold know that this day I have 
had severall gentlemen of the countrey hereabouts 
w* mee, who are resolute in the affaire to oppose 
Wharton and Hamden. But they have beene very 
industrious to spread false reports. Its certaine 
Hamden will assigne his interest to S‘ Roger Hill, 
who now setts up, a horrid Whig, his father one 
of the murthered martyr King Ch. the First 
judges, and this sparke a fierce exclusioner. S¥ 
ho. Lee does us a greate deale of mischiefe by 
joining w" our adversaries, and threatens us w‘* 
the parliament. I know my Lord Treasurer has 
a power over him; and if his lordship would be 
pleased to influence twixt this and the election, 
he would doe us a kindnesse; he and Hamden 
have beene labouring togeather, and he much 
values himself, as Mr. Wharton does, for having 
kissed his Majesty’s hands, and thereby o* mis- 
chiefe comes. A word from yo™ lordship to Mr. 
Waller, to engage his son, who is at p'sent fierce 
against us, togeather with his interest, would be of 
service to us., OF election wilbe on Wednesday 
next. I shall not be wanting, either in my person 
