Warning for Servants: and a Caution to Protestants. Or, the case of Margret Clark, lately Executed for Firing her Masters House in Southwark. Faithfully relating the manner (as she affirmed to the last Moment of her life) how she was drawn in to that wicked Act; set forth under her own Hand after Condemnation. Her penitent Behaviour in Prison. Her Christitan Advice to Visiters, Discourses with several Minsiters, and Last Words at Execution. Impartially published, with the Attestations of Persons of Worth, and many substantial Eye and Ear Witnesses, whose Names are inserted in this Narrative.

[Clark (Margret)]

Published by Printed for Tho. Pankhurst. and are to be Sold by Joseph Collier, 1680

FIRST EDITION of this pamphlet, title with double-ruled border; uniformly toned with some browning to margins and the odd smudge, but a very good copy; pp. [8], 32, 4to; untrimmed in modern green straight grained morocco, gilt lettered spine. Margret Clark was a domestic servant to wealthy dyer Mr. Delaney. While Delaney and his family were away at their second home, the family's main abode in Southwark, South London, was set on fire. Neighbours staunched the blaze, and Margaret was swiftly apprehended. She named soldier John Satterthwayt, alleging that he had promised to pay her handsomely for admittance to the house as part of a Catholic plot to set fire to London. They were both tried at Kingston assizes, but Satterthwayt was acquitted when he convinced the jury of his Protestantism, and when others of his regiment provided an alibi. Clark declined to ask for a pardon, blaming avarice and sabbath-breaking for her sins, and was put to death by hanging on 22 March 1680. She announced at the gallows that she had penned a pamphlet in her defence; the present work is one of two such pamphlets, both of which expanded on her defence that she had been bribed by Satterthwayt, himself as an agent of devilish popery. Indeed, the case became a flashpoint for anti-Catholic sentiment, at a moment when tensions were running high as a result of the fictitious Popish Plot fabricated by Titus Oates. (ESTC 13610). Seller Inventory # 73360

Bibliographic Details

Title: Warning for Servants: and a Caution to ...
Publisher: Printed for Tho. Pankhurst. and are to be Sold by Joseph Collier
Publication Date: 1680