A STRANGE COINCIDENCE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sra,—I have just read the letter about " St. " Oliver Plunkett in your latest issue, and think it only just that another view of the same incidents should be presented. Bishop Burnet, who could not well be suspected of holding a brief for the Papists, writes thus in the History of His Own Times:— .
" At this time [in 1681] the encouragement given in England to good swearers [i.e., against the Dissenters] brought-over t-over some len d
Irish priests, and others of that nation, who thought themselves well qualified for that employment. Plunkett, the Popish Primate of Armagh, a wise and sober man, and who was for living quietly and in due submission to the Government, without engaging in the intrigues of State, had censured some of these priests for their viciousness, and they drew in others to swear that there was a plot in Ireland to bring over the French and massacre all the English, and that Plunkett had a great hank of money prepared, and an army listed to assist in the design. He had nothing to say in his. own defence but to deny all, so that he was condemned, and suffered very decently, expressing himself in many particulars as became a bishop, and denying everything that had been sworn against him with his last breath."
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