CHARGES. CCCXXV 



Were, with their crew, employed in hunting for charges: 

 and, so ready was the community to listen to complaints, 

 that it mattered not by whom they were preferred; 

 &quot; greatness was the mark, and accusation the game.&quot; One 

 of his many faithful friends, (a) Sir Thomas Meautys, rose 

 to resist this virulence. He admonished the house of the 

 misstatements that would be made by such accusers, 

 men without character, (b) under the influence of motives 

 which could not be misunderstood. &quot; I have known,&quot; he 

 said, &quot; and observed his lordship for some years : he hath 

 sown a good seed of justice; let not the abandoned and 

 envious choke it with their tares.&quot; He had as much 

 prospect of success as if he had attempted to stop the 

 progress of a volcano. 



as she said after, gave it my lord. That, in after, she put 200/. more 



into a purse, and took the money from Gardener at York House, went in 

 to my lord, and as she said, delivered it to my lord, and had after presently 

 the decree. 



To the fourth article of the charge, namely, &quot; In a cause between the 

 Lady Wharton and the coheirs of Sir Francis Willoughby, he received of 

 the Lady Wharton three hundred and ten pounds,&quot; I confess and declare 

 that I did receive of the Lady Wharton at two several times, as I re 

 member, in gold, two hundred pounds and one hundred pieces, and this 

 was certainly pendente lite ; but I have a vehement suspicion that there 

 was some shuffling between Mr. Shute and the register in entering some 

 orders, which afterwards I did distaste. 



(a) Not so all his servants. Upon his being in disfavour, his servant 8 

 suddenly went away : he compared them to the flying of the vermin when 

 the house was falling. Aubrey, 1656. 



(6) Mr. Meawtys. Touching the persons that inform, I would entreat 

 this honourable house to consider, that Keeling is a common solicitor (to 

 say no more of him) ; Churchill, a guilty register, by his own confession: 

 I know that fear of punishment, and hopes of lessening it, may make them 

 to say much, yea, more than is truth. For my own part, I must say, I 

 have been an observer of my lord s proceedings ; I know he hath sown a 

 good seed of justice, and I hope that it will prove, that the envious man has 

 sown these tares. I humbly desire that those generals may not be sent up 

 to the lords, unless these men will testify them in particular. 



