of his pen,
to do that office under him, and so he did, though not constantly,
till about 1671; after which time they were constantly written by
under secretaries, belonging to those that are principal, and do
continue so to this day.'

Soon after the popish plot, when the Tories began to gain the
ascendant over the Whigs, Mr. L'Estrange became a zealous promoter of
the Tory interest. He set up a paper called the Observator, in which
he defended the court, and endeavoured to invalidate those evidences
which were given by Oates's party against the Jesuits. He likewise
wrote a pamphlet, in which he attempts to prove, that Sir Edmundbury
Godfrey's murther, for which so many suffered, and so great a flame
was raised in the nation, was really perpetrated by himself. He
attempts to shew that Sir Edmundbury was a melancholy enthusiastic
man; that he was weak in his undemanding, and absurd in his conduct.
The activity he discovered in Oates's plot, had raised him to such
reputation, that he was unable to bear it, and therefore the natural
enthusiasm of his temper prompted him to make himself a sacrifice,
from a view of advancing the Protestant cause, as he knew his murther
would be charged upon the Papists.

Mr. L'Estrange's reasoning, being only conjectural, and very
improbable, is therefore far from conclusive: It is certain that there
never was a more intricate affair than this. We have read the trials
of all those who suffered for this murther, chiefly upon the evidence
of one Prance, and one Bedloe, who pretended to have been accomplices;
but their relation is so inconsistent; their characters so very
infamous, and their reward for being evidences supposed to be so
considerable, that the most candid enquirer after truth, can determine
nothing positively concerning it. All who suffered for the popish
plot, denied their knowledge of it; the four men who were executed,
as being the perpetrators persisted to the last in protesting their
innocence of it. After all, the murther of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey
is perhaps one of those secrets, which will ever remain so, till the
hearts of all men are laid open.

The services, which Mr. L'Estrange rendered the court, procured him
the honour of knighthood; and he served as a member for Winchester, in
the parliament called by king James the IId. 1685. But things taking
quite a different turn in that prince's reign, in point of liberty
of conscience, to what most people expected, our a