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Provided always, and be it enacted, that no Person or Persons shall be indicted, arraigned, or condemned, convicted, or attainted for any of the Treasons or Offences aforesaid, unless the same Offender or Offenders be thereof accused by the Testimony and Deposition of two lawful and credible Witnesses, upon Oath, which Witnesses, at the Time of the said Offender or Offenders Arraignment, shall be brought in Person before him or them, Face to Face, and shall openly avow and maintain upon Oath what they have to say against him or them concerning the Treason or Offences conteyned in the said Indictment, unless the Party or Parties arraigned shall willingly without violence confess the same.

Provided always, and be it enacted, that this Act, or any thing therein conteyned, shall not extend to deprive either of the Houses of Parliament, or any of their Members, of their just ancient Freedom and Priviledge of debating any Matters or Business which shall be propounded or debated in either of the said, Houses, or at any Conferrences or Committees of both, or either of the said Houses of Parliament, or touching the Repeal or Alteracion of any old, or preparing any new Laws, or the redressing of any public Grievance. But that the said Members of either of the said Houses and the Assistants of the House of Peers and every of them shall have the same Freedom of Speech, and all other Priviledges whatsoever, as they had before the making of this Act: any Thing in this Act to the Contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding.

Provided alwayes, and bee it further enacted, that if any Peer of this Realme, or Member of the House of Commons shall move or propose in either House of Parliam'. the Disherision of the rightfull and true Heir of the Crown, or to alter or change the Descent or Succession of the Crown in the right Line; such Offence shall be deemed and adjudged High Treason, and every Person being indicted and convicted of such Treason, shall be proceeded against, and shall suffer and forfeite, as in other Cases of High Treason menconed in this Act.

Provided always, and be it ordained and enacted, that no Peer of this Realm shall be tryed for any Offence against this Act but by his Peers: and if his Majestie shall grant his Pardon to any Peer of this Realm or Commoner convicted of any Offence against this Act after such Pardon

granted, the Peer or Commoner so pardoned shall be restored to all intents and Purposes, as if he had never been convicted: any thing in this Law to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.

IV. Account of RUMBOLD, from Lord FOUNTAINHALL'S MS. Memoirs. See P. 232.

COLONEL Richard Rumbold, another Englishman, was also taken at Lesmahago, by Hamilton of Raploch and his militia-men. He was flying into England, being conducted by one Turnbull, a man of Polwart, (for Polwart had secured himself by flight sooner than the rest had done.) He was bold, answerable to his name, and killed one, and wounded two, in the taking, and if one had not been some wiser than the rest, by causing shoot his horse under him, he might have escaped them all; however, he undervalued much our Scots soldiers, as wanting both courage and skill. What had unfortunately engaged him in this enterprise was, that he had been from his infancy bred up in the republican and antimonarchic principles; and he owned he had been fighting against these idols of monarchy and prelacy, since he was nineteen years of age; (for he was now past sixtythree,) and was a lieutenant in Oliver Cromwell's army, and at Dundee, and sundry of the Scots battles; and by the discovery of the English fanatick plot in 1683, it was proved and deponed against him, that this Rumbold had undertaken to kill the late King in April 1683, as he should return from Newmarket to London, at his own house, at the Rye in Hogsdown, in the county of Hertford, where he had married a maltster's relict, and so was designed the Maltster; and intended to have a cart overturned in that narrow place, to facilitate their assassination. But God disappointed them, by sending the accidental fire at Newmarket, which forced the King to return a week sooner to London than he designed: see all this in the King's printed declaration. But Rumbold absolutely denied any knowledge of that designed murder; though on the breaking out of that plot he fled with others to Holland, and there made acquaintance with Argyle.

FOUNTAINHALL'S Decisions, Vol. I. p. 365.

On the 28th (June, 1685,) the said Richard Rumbold, maltster, was brought to his trial. His indictment bore, that he had designed to kill the late King, at the Rye or Hogsdown, in his return from Newmarket to London, in April, 1683. But in regard he positively denied the truth of this, (though sundry had sworn it against him in England,) the King's advocate passed from that part, lest it should have disparaged or impaired the credit of the said English plot; therefore he insisted singly on the point, that he had associated himself with the late Argyle, a forfeited traitor, and invaded Scotland, &c. All this he confessed and signed; and being interrogated if he was one of the masked executioners on King Charles the First's scaf fold, he declared he was not, but that he was one of Oliver Cromwell's regiment then, and was on horseback at Whitehall that day, as one of the guard about the scaffold; and that he was at Dunbar, Worcester, and Dundee, a lieutenant in Cromwell's army. He said that James Stewart, advocate, told them Argyle would ruin all their affair, by lingering in the Isles and Highlands, and not presently marching into the inland country; wherein he had proved a true prophet, but might see it without a spirit of divination. And being asked if he owned the present King's authority, he craved leave to be excused, seeing he needed neither offend them, nor grate his own conscience, for they had enough whereon to take his life beside. He was certainly a man of much natural courage. His rooted ingrained opinion was, for a republick against monarchy, to pull which down, he thought a duty, and no sin. And on the scaffold he began to pray for that party which he had been owning, and to keep the three metropolitan cities of the three kingdoms right; and if every hair of his head were a man, he would venture them all in that cause. But the drums were then commanded to beat, otherwise he carried discreetly enough, and heard the ministers, but took none of them to the scaffold with him..

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