Chap. X. The HISTORY of the PuRITAN!. mily were to be banijhed. The fiory was received with pleafure, and Cha~(;fn. Dangerjield bad a prefent, and a penfion of three pounds a week, to 1679 . carry on his correfpondence. Having got !ome little acquaintance with ~ colonel Manjel in Wejiminfter, he made up a bundle of feditious letters, with the ailifiance of Mrs. Cellier, and having laid them in a dark corner of Manfel's room behind the bed, he fent for officers from the Cuflomhoup, to fearch for prohibited goods while he was out of town, but none were found, except the bundle of letters, which, upon examination of the parties concerned, before the king and council, were proved to be counterfeit; upon which the court di!owned the plot, and having taken away Dangerjield's penfion, fent him to Neugate. Search being made into Mrs. Cetlier's houfe, there was found a little book in a meal tub, written very fair, and tied up with ribbands, which contained the whole fcheme of the fiCtion. It was dictated by lady Powis, and proved by her maid to be laid there by her order, from whence it obtained the name of the meal tub plot. Drmgerfield, who was a notorious lyar, finding himfel f" undone if he perfifted in what be could not fupport, made an ample confeflion, and publilhed a narrative, wherein he declared, that he was emplo;•ed by the popifh party; and chiefly by the popijh lords in tbe Tower, with the counteji if Powis, to invent the MEAL TUB PLOT, which was to have thrown the POPISH PLOT wholly upon the prejbyterians. It was prin ted by order of the houfe of commons in the year I 68o. Dan– gerfieldbeing pardoned, went out of the way into Flanders; but returning to England in king Jame/s reign, he was tried for it, and fentenced to be whipt at the cart's tail from 1Ve·wgate to '!)·burn; in his return from whence be was murdered by one Prances in the coach. Mrs. Cellier was tried June I I, 16So, before lord chief jufiice Scroggs, and acquitted for want of evidence. But the difcovery, infiead of relieving the papifrs from the charge of the popilh plot, turned very much to their difadvantage; for when the next parliament met, the houfe of commons refolved, that Sir Robert Can be expelled the houfe and fen t to the StateTraB:s, Tower, for declaring publicly in the city of Brij'tol, that there was no Vol. II. p. popijh but a prejb)'terian plot. Sir Robert Yeomans was fent for into 21 7· cuftody on the lame accoun t; and Mr. Richard 'Ihompfon a clergyman, was impeached for de~::rying the popiih plot in his fermon, Jan. 30, 1679, and for turning the fame upon the prottjiants; for which, and for preaching againfi the liberty and property of the fubject, and the privileges of parliament, the hou{e declared him a Jcandal and reproach t{}c his profefjion. . This y:a: died the reverend and learned Mr. Matthew Pool M. A. the Death of Mr ejected m1111fier of St. Michael's §(_uerne; be was born in Ybrkjhire, and Matt. Pool. educated in Em'tmuel Go/lege Cambridge, a divine of great piety, charity, 4 Y 2 and
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