lias since been traduced by party writers, as a Papist and a bigot.[1]
Not long before the day fixed by the Act for the deprivation of the Bishops a plot against the government was discovered, in which Lord Preston, Mr. Ashton and some others were implicated. Lord Preston and Mr. Ashton were tried and executed; but the evidence on which the conviction was founded was of a very slender description. A quantity of letters was discovered in the possession of Lord Preston, among which were two, said to be written by Turner, Bishop of Ely. In one, the writer says, "I speak in the plural, because I write my elder brother's sentiments as well as my own, and the rest of the family, though lessened in number; yet if we are not mightily out in our accounts, we are growing in our interest, that is in yours." In the second letter, the writer, after expressing his determination not to swerve from his course, adds, "I say this in behalf of my elder brother, and the rest of my nearest relations, as well as for myself."[2] That these letters were written by the Bishop of Ely was never proved; but Burnet and others chose to assert, that the proof was conclusive. It is indeed doubtful whether the other parties were engaged in any plot. "In December 1690, says Wood, there was a pretended discovery of a pretended plot of the Jacobites or Nonjurors, whereupon some of them were imprisoned; and Dr. Turner being suspected to be in the same pretended plot, he withdrew and absconded."[3] A proclamation was issued for the apprehension of the Bishop of Ely, but not for some time after, not indeed until the 5th of February,
