APPENDIX IV
f)35
to my Lord Langford who told me it was an intimation how he designed to dispose of his estate. He engaged me to assure your Lordship he dyed a true honourer of your Lordship and made it his request if his son Richard escaped you would please to entertain him as your servant which he would not do Qut that he was most confident he would serve you faithfully . And he desired of my Lord Langford and your Lordship that all his books, writings and manuscripts whatsoever, might be given to his son Richard if he should not be condemned. And he further desired me to acquaint your Lordship that it was his earnest request that the last Midsummer Quarter rent in Hatton Garden might be payd to his brother for the maintenance of his son in Prison and that you would please so order Mr Monteage so to pay it. But he would not have his wife nor my Lord Langford know it. And that as for his daughter it was his desire she should have no dependence on her mother but that care might be taken to free her from the Tyranny of her mother : that in a few months she would be of age to choose a guardian, and that he had acquainted her so and advised her to choose the Lord Langford or your Lordship" * (B.M. Add. MS. 29572, f. 126) . . Another letter of Charles Hatton to Lord Hatton, dated 20 January 1679/80, concerning the trial of the six priests, gives an eyewitness impression of the almost unbelievably slipshod conduct of the prosecution-
"Last Saturday 6 priests were tried and condemned. One Russell alias Napper, Coll. Starkey, Marshall, Corker, Anderson alias Munson, Paris alias Parry. There was a Scotchman one Lumsden tried and found to be a priest but found speciall whether being a Scotchman he can be condemned upon a statute made in the reign of Q. Eliz upon which he was tried which makes it treason for anyone who hath taken orders from the see of Rome to come into any of the Queen's Dominions. There was one Kemish a very old man arraigned but he was so very sick and infirm that he was sett aside till next sessions. He was almost in the agony of death yet the Attorney Generall unwilling to have him set by, but the whole bench prevailed upon him to consent. You well know ColI. Starkey's case and therefore I will say nothing of it, but Munson had writt against the Temporal authority of the Pope and if he went into any Popish country he would have been in danger of his life but yet would upon the King's proclamation have gone beyond sea but the King gave him a protection and commanded him to stay. Marshall and Corker were tryed with Wakeman for the plott and acquitted then but now tryed as priests. Against Marshall there was only at first two witnesses Bedlo and another [Oates inserted]. Bedlo in court denied he knew him to be a priest only that he had seen him in his Monk's habit and heard him called Father. Tho Mr Bedlo had upon Oath
* Cf. Correspondence of the Family of Hatton, pp. 187-8.