Note 756 — Chapter XII

Ralph, p. 498. The atrocious libel, entitled, "An Appeal from the Country to the City," published in 1679, and usually ascribed to Ferguson (though said in Biogr. Brit. art. L'Estrange, to be written by Charles Blount), was almost sufficient of itself to excuse the return of public opinion towards the throne. State Tracts, temp. Car. II.; Ralph, i. 476; Parl. Hist. iv. Appendix. The king is personally struck at in this tract with the utmost fury: the queen is called Agrippina, in allusion to the infamous charges of Oates; Monmouth is held up as the hope of the country. "He will stand by you, therefore you ought to stand by him. He who hath the worst title, always makes the best king." One Harris was tried for publishing this pamphlet. The jury at first found him guilty of selling; an equivocal verdict, by which they probably meant to deny, or at least to disclaim, any assertion of the libellous character of the publication. But Scroggs telling them it was their province to say guilty or not guilty, they returned a verdict of guilty. State Trials, vii. 925.

Another arrow dipped in the same poison was a "Letter to a Person of Honour concerning the Black Box." Somers Tracts, viii. 189. The story of a contract of marriage between the king and Mrs. Waters, Monmouth's mother, concealed in a black box, had lately been current; and the former had taken pains to expose its falsehood by a public examination of the gentleman whose name had been made use of. This artful tract is intended to keep up the belief of Monmouth's legitimacy, and even to graft it on the undeniable falsehood of that tale; as if it had been purposely fabricated to delude the people by setting them on a wrong scent. See also another libel of the same class, p. 197.

Though Monmouth's illegitimacy is past all question, it has been observed by Harris that the Princess of Orange, in writing to her brother about Mrs. Waters, in 1655, twice names her as his wife. Thurloe, i. 665, quoted in Harris's Lives, iv. 168. But though this was a scandalous indecency on her part, it proves no more than that Charles, like other young men in the heat of passion, was foolish enough to give that appellation to his mistress; and that his sister humoured him in it.

Sidney mentions a strange piece of Monmouth's presumption. When he went to dine with the city in October 1680, it was remarked that the bar, by which the heralds denote illegitimacy, had been taken off the royal arms on his coach. Letters to Saville, p. 54.