H.15.38. Malice defeated, or, A brief relation of the accusation and deliverance of Elizabeth Cellier ... written by herself, for the satisfaction of all lovers of undisguised truth (1680)

Elizabeth Cellier, the “Popish Midwife”, stood trial accused of treason in 1680. She was arrested for harbouring and corresponding with ‘traytors’, and the published account includes her arraignment, petition and an abstract of her trial. She published this item after her acquittal, and it begins with a defence of her conversion to the Catholic religion, and how she was involved in aiding Catholic prisoners who were being tortured and abused, particularly in Newgate Gaol at the time. She gives accounts of the treatment in detail, and seems, somewhat naively if she were innocent, to have met with Catholics who were accused of being involved in a plot to kill James II.  After publication she was to appear before the courts again, this time charged with libel for authoring and printing this pamphlet.