Series 1 > Journals of Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall, with his observations on public affairs and other memoranda, 1665-1676

FRENCH CONSPIRACY LAWS
91
absolute then [he] tho not served so. Yea some have bein so
impudent as to impute (count)1 the murder of our late King
(which 1000 tymes hath bein casten up to me) as a iust
iudgement of God on them for their pride. I cannot forget
whow satyrically they have told this, saying that the peaple of
great Britain keip their Kings at their beck, at their pleasure
not only to bereave them of their croune but also of their life.
I endewored to show them that they understood not things
aright, that the same had bein practicat in France on Henry
the 4t: the cases are not indeed alike, since our King was
brought to a Schaffold, the other slain be a Assasin, Ravelliak,
and regretted. To make the case lump the better, I remitted
them to ther History to sie wt what publick consent Henry
3d was slain be Clement the Jacobine, yet heir their was no
iudiciall procedure as against our King. Whence I had
recourse to Chilperick, whom the peaple, tho legittime heir,
first deposed then cowed him, and thrust him in a Monastry
surrogating Pepin his brother in his roome. This wexed them,
they could never answer this sufficiently.
Sewerall tymes in France persones have suffered because they
had discovered some plot or conspiracy against the King or
estat and could not prove it. The Law is the same wt us, tho
it seimes to carry iniustice. On all hands I am in danger : if I
do not reveale it I am equally guilty of the treason as the
actors are; if I rewealle it, I am immediatly made prisoner,
tortured to show all I know of it, put to prove what I say,
in which if I failly I lose my life. What can a man do when
he have no proofes ? He most tho’ reveall it and consequently
lose his life; since after the truth sal appear and he sal be
held be all to have died gloriously as a weill wisher to his
country.
Its was strange of Cardinal Richelieu who know 2 all things
that past thorow France as if he had bein present, and 2 of
the most intimate sould not have spoken ill of him at Poictiers
but he sould have knowen it or 4 dayes at Paris. Some
imputed it to a familiar spirit he had, others to his spies he
had every wheir. He was toute en toute in France in his tyme.
1 Interlined.
2 Lauder’s way of spelling knew. Compare p. 98, slow for slew.