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Title: The Popish Plot: A study in the history of the reign of Charles II
Author: Pollock, John
Language: English
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THE
POPISH PLOT
A STUDY IN THE HISTORY OF
THE REIGN OF CHARLES II
BY
JOHN POLLOCK
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
“Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies.”
_Absalom and Achitophel._
“Oh! it was a naughty Court. Yet have we dreamed of it as the period
when an English cavalier was grace incarnate; far from the boor now
hustling us in another sphere; beautifully mannered, every gesture
dulcet. And if the ladies were ... we will hope they have been
traduced. But if they were, if they were too tender, ah! gentlemen
were gentlemen then—worth perishing for!”—_The Egoist._
“Donner pour certain ce qui est certain, pour faux ce qui est faux,
pour douteux ce qui est douteux.”—_Mabillon._
LONDON:
DUCKWORTH AND CO.
MCMIII
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF
LORD ACTON
PREFACE
When I first undertook the study of the Popish Plot the late Lord
Acton wrote to me: “There are three quite unravelled mysteries;—what
was going on between Coleman and Père la Chaize; how Oates got hold
of the wrong story; and who killed Godfrey.” The following book is an
attempt to answer these questions and to elucidate points of obscurity
connected with them.
In the course of the work I have received much kind help from Dr.
Jackson and Mr. Stanley Leathes of this college, from the Rev. J. N.
Figgis of St. Catharine’s College, and from my father; and Mr. C. H.
Firth of All Souls’ College has been exceedingly generous in giving
the assistance of his invaluable learning and experience to a novice
attacking problems which have been left too long untouched by those
better fitted for the task.
It is only as a mark of the deep gratitude I bear him that I have
ventured to dedicate this book to the memory of the illustrious man
whose death has deprived it of its sternest critic. Few can know so
well as myself how far its attainment falls short of the standard which
he set up. With that standard before me I can justify myself only
by the thought that I have tried to follow strictly the injunction:
Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.
J. P.
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 1903.
CONTENTS
PAGE
TABLE OF SOME EVENTS OCCURRING IN THE HISTORY OF THE
POPISH PLOT xiii
I. DESIGNS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS
CHAPTER I
TITUS OATES 3
CHAPTER II
THE NATURE OF THE DESIGNS 15
CHAPTER III
OATES AGAIN 70
II. SIR EDMUND BERRY GODFREY
CHAPTER I
GODFREY 83
CHAPTER II
BEDLOE AND ATKINS 106
CHAPTER III
BEDLOE AND PRANCE 117
CHAPTER IV
PRANCE AND BEDLOE 132
CHAPTER V
THE SECRET 149
III. POLITICS OF THE PLOT
CHAPTER I
THE GOVERNMENT 169
CHAPTER II
THE CATHOLICS 196
CHAPTER III
SHAFTESBURY AND CHARLES 222
IV. TRIALS FOR TREASON
CHAPTER I
MAGISTRATES AND JUDGES 265
CHAPTER II
CRIMINAL PROCEDURE 288
CHAPTER III
TRIALS FOR THE PLOT 304
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A 375
APPENDIX B 382
APPENDIX C 390
APPENDIX D 394
APPENDIX E 400
MATERIALS FOR THE HISTORY OF THE POPISH PLOT 405
INDEX 415
TABLE OF SOME EVENTS OCCURRING IN
THE HISTORY OF THE POPISH PLOT
1677. Ash Wednesday Titus Oates converted to the Church of Rome.
April Enters the English Jesuit college at
Valladolid.
October 30 Expelled from the college at Valladolid.
December 10 Enters the English Jesuit college at St. Omers.
1678. April 24 Jesuit congregation held at St. James’ Palace.
June 23 Oates expelled from the college at St. Omers
June 27 and returns to London.
August 13 Christopher Kirkby informs the king of a plot
against his life.
August 14 Kirkby and Dr. Tonge examined by the Earl
of Danby.
The king goes to Windsor.
August 31 The forged letters sent to Bedingfield at
Windsor.
September 2 Tonge introduces Oates to Kirkby at his
lodgings at Vauxhall.
September 6 Oates swears to the truth of his information
before Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey.
September 27 Oates and Tonge summoned before the Privy
Council.
September 28 Oates swears again to the truth of his
information before Godfrey and leaves
a copy with him.
Oates examined at length by the council.
Search for Jesuits begun that night.
Edward Coleman pays a secret visit to Godfrey.
September 29 Sir George Wakeman before the council.
Oates again examined by the council and
continues the search for Jesuits at night.
Warrant issued for the arrest of Coleman
and seizure of his papers.
September 30 Coleman surrenders to the warrant against him
and is placed in charge of an officer. His
house searched and his papers seized.
Oates examined twice by the council and
again searches for Jesuits.
October 1 The king goes to Newmarket.
Coleman’s papers examined by a committee
of the council.
Coleman committed to Newgate.
October 12 Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey missing.
October 15 News of his disappearance published.
October 17 His body found in a field at the foot of
Primrose Hill.
October 18, 19 An inquest held.
October 20 Reward of £500 offered for the discovery of
Godfrey’s murderers.
October 21 Meeting of Parliament (seventeenth session
of Charles II’s second or Long Parliament).
October 23 Oates at the bar of the House of Commons.
October 24 Assurance of protection added to the reward
offered for the discovery of Godfrey’s
murderers.
October 25–31 The Earl of Powis, Viscount Stafford, Lord
Petre, Lord Bellasis, and Lord Arundel of
Wardour surrender to the warrants out
against them as being, on Oates’
information, concerned in the Plot.
October 28 Test Act passes the Commons.
October 30, 31 Oates at the bar of the House of Lords.
November 1 Resolution of both Houses of Parliament
with regard to the Plot.
Funeral of Godfrey.
Proclamation commanding Popish recusants
to depart ten miles from London.
Arrest of Samuel Atkins.
November 5 Bedloe surrenders himself at Bristol.
November 7 Bedloe comes to town and is examined by
the king and secretaries. Examination of
Coleman in Newgate.
November 10, 18 Bedloe at the bar of the House of Commons
November 12 and at the bar of the House of Lords.
November 20 Test Act passed, but with a proviso exempting
the Duke of York.
November 21 Trial and conviction of William Staley for
high treason.
November 24 Oates accuses the queen in examination by
Secretary Coventry.
November 26 Staley executed at Tyburn, denying his guilt.
November 27 Trial and conviction of Coleman for high
treason. Bedloe accuses the queen.
November 28 Oates accuses the queen at the bar of the
House of Commons. He is confined by
the king and his papers are seized.
November 30 The king refuses to pass the Militia bill,
even for half an hour.
December 3 Execution of Coleman.
December 5 The five Popish Lords impeached.
December 16 Supply granted for disbanding the army.
December 17 Trial and conviction of Ireland, Pickering,
and Grove for high treason.
December 19 Montagu’s papers seized. He produces
Danby’s letters to the Commons, revealing
the secret treaty with Louis XIV.
December 21 Miles Prance arrested and recognised by
Bedloe. Impeachment of Danby.
December 23 Prance confesses and accuses Green, Berry,
and Hill of being Godfrey’s murderers.
December 28 Dugdale comes forward as a witness.
December 29 Prance recants.
December 30 Parliament prorogued till February 4.
1679. January 11 Prance retracts his recantation.
January 24 Long Parliament dissolved.
Ireland and Grove executed; Pickering
respited till May 25.
February 5 Trial and conviction of Green, Berry, and
Hill for Godfrey’s murder.
February 8 Atkins is acquitted of the same murder.
February 21 Execution of Green and Hill.
February 28 Execution of Berry.
March 3 The king declares that he was never married
to any woman but Queen Catherine.
March 4 The Duke of York leaves for Brussels by
command of the king.
March 6 The king repeats his declaration.
The third Parliament meets. Edward
Seymour chosen Speaker, and is rejected
by the king.
March 13 Parliament prorogued for two days.
March 15 Serjeant Gregory chosen Speaker.
March 21 Parliament votes the Plot to be read.
Prance’s examination read to the Lords.
March 22 The Commons resolve to proceed with
Danby’s impeachment.
March 24 Danby takes refuge at Whitehall.
March 25 Speech on Scotland by Shaftesbury.
April 1 Bill of attainder voted against Danby.
April 15 Bill of attainder passed.
April 16 Danby surrenders himself and is committed
to the Tower.
A supply voted and appropriated for the
disbandment of the army.
April 21 The king declares a new privy council, devised
by Sir William Temple.
April 24 Trial and conviction of Reading.
April 27 Resolution of Parliament against the Duke
of York.
April 30 The king’s speech concerning the succession.
May 3 Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews, murdered.
May 11 The Exclusion bill voted by the Commons.
May 15 The Exclusion bill read for the first time.
May 23, 24 The Commons attack the system of secret
service money.
May 26 The Habeas Corpus Act passed. The
Parliament prorogued to August 14, and
afterwards dissolved against the advice of
the whole council.
May 29 Outbreak of the Bothwell Brigg rebellion.
The Covenant proclaimed in the west of
Scotland.
June 1 Claverhouse defeated at Drumclog.
June Publication of “An Appeal from the City to
the Country.”
June 13 Trial and conviction of Whitebread, Fenwick,
Harcourt, Gavan, and Turner (the five
Jesuits) for high treason.
June 14 Trial and conviction of Richard Langhorn
for high treason.
June 15 Monmouth starts to suppress the rebellion.
June 20 Execution of the Five Jesuits.
June 22 The Covenanters routed by Monmouth at
Bothwell Brigg.
July 9 Samuel Pepys and Sir Anthony Deane, in
prison on account of the Plot, admitted to
bail by Scroggs.
July 14 Execution of Langhorn.
July 17 Sir Thomas Gascoigne committed to the
Tower on a charge of high treason.
July 18 Sir George Wakeman, Marshall, Romney,
and Corker tried for high treason and
acquitted.
August Executions in the provinces of priests on
account of their orders.
August 22 The king ill at Windsor.
August 23 The Duke of York summoned from Brussels.
August 29 The Duke sets out from Brussels
September 2 and reaches Windsor.
September 12 The Duke of Monmouth removed from his
commission of Lord General.
September 24 Monmouth leaves for Holland.
September 27 James leaves for Brussels, thence to Scotland.
October 7 The new Parliament, meeting, is prorogued
by successive stages to October 1680.
October 15 Shaftesbury dismissed from his place at the
council board.
October 20 Dangerfield searches Col. Mansell’s lodgings
and is arrested.
October 27 Dangerfield committed to prison on charge
of high treason.
October 29 Papers found in Mrs. Cellier’s meal tub.
November 9 Dangerfield pardoned.
November 17 First great Pope Burning, organised by the
Green Ribbon Club.
November 19 Laurence Hyde appointed First Commissioner
of the Treasury.
November 25 Trial and conviction of Knox and Lane.
November 27 Monmouth returns to England without leave.
December 6 Archbishop Plunket committed to the castle
at Dublin.
December 9 Petition of seventeen Whig peers for the
sitting of Parliament marks the beginning
of the practice of petitioning.
December 11 Proclamation against petitioning.
1680. January 6 Mowbray and Bolron pardoned.
January 9 Mrs. Cellier accuses Sir Robert Peyton of
high treason.
January 21 Oates and Bedloe exhibit articles against
Lord Chief Justice Scroggs.
January 31 Lord Russell, Lord Cavendish, Sir Henry
Capel, and Mr. Powle resign their places
on the council.
February 5 Benjamin Harris tried and convicted for a
libel in publishing “An Appeal from the
City to the Country.”
February 11 Sir Thomas Gascoigne tried for high treason
and acquitted.
February 24 The Duke of York returns from Scotland.
February 26 Declaration of the Scottish Privy Council of
their abhorrence of tumultuous petitions
published in the _Gazette_ marks the
beginning of the “abhorrers’” addresses.
March 8 The king and the Duke of York entertained
at a banquet by the Lord Mayor.
March 30 Thomas Dare of Taunton fined for seditious
and dangerous words.
April 15 Assault on Arnold.
April 26 and June 7 Declarations published in the _Gazette_
denying all truth in the rumour of the
Black Box.
May 11 Indictment of high treason, on Dangerfield’s
evidence, against the Countess of Powis
ignored by the grand jury of Middlesex.
May 13 The king ill at Windsor.
May 15 “A Letter to a Person of Honour concerning
the Black Box” published.
May 24 Trial and conviction of Tasborough and Price.
June 10 Conclusion of a treaty between England and
Spain to maintain the peace of Nymeguen.
June 11 Mrs. Cellier tried for high treason and
acquitted.
June 23 The Earl of Castlemaine tried for high treason
and acquitted.
June 26 Shaftesbury, with Titus Oates and fourteen
peers and commoners, presents the Duke
of York as a popish recusant.
July 14 Trial and conviction of Giles for an attempt
to murder Arnold.
July 28, 29 Trials for high treason at York. Lady
Tempest, Sir Miles Stapleton, and Mary
Pressicks acquitted, but Thwing, a priest,
convicted.
August–October Western progress of the Duke of Monmouth.
August 20 Death of Bedloe at Bristol.
September 11 Trial and conviction of Mrs. Cellier for
writing and publishing a libel.
October 20 The Duke of York leaves London for
Edinburgh.
October 21 Meeting of Charles II’s fourth Parliament.
October 26 Dangerfield at the bar of the House of
Commons.
October 28 Bedloe’s deathbed deposition read to the
House of Commons. Two members of
the Commons expelled for discrediting the
Plot.
October 30 Archbishop Plunket brought to London and
committed to the Tower.
November 2 The Exclusion bill voted.
November 10 Lord Stafford’s trial resolved on by the
Commons.
November 11 Third reading of the Exclusion bill in the
House of Commons.
November 15 The Exclusion bill rejected by the House
of Lords owing to Lord Halifax.
November 16 Halifax proposes the banishment of the
Duke of York.
November 17 Second great Pope Burning.
The House of Commons proceed against
Halifax.
November 24 The Commons vote the impeachment of
Lord Chief Justice North.
November 30–December 7 Trial and conviction of Lord
Stafford for high treason.
December 15 Sir Robert Peyton expelled from the House
of Commons.
December 29 Execution of Stafford.
1681. January 5 The Commons vote the impeachment of
Lord Chief Justice Scroggs and other
judges.
January 7, 10 The Commons pass resolutions against the
Duke of York, against such as shall lend
money to the crown, against a prorogation.
January 10 Parliament prorogued
January 18 and suddenly dissolved.
January 25 Sixteen Whig peers present a petition against
a parliament being held at Oxford.
February 28 Edward Fitzharris arrested for writing a
treasonable libel.
March 14 The king concludes a secret verbal treaty
with Louis XIV and sets out for Oxford.
March 17 Shaftesbury and other Whig leaders set out
for Oxford with an armed escort.
March 21 Meeting of Charles II’s fifth and last
Parliament at Oxford.
March 25 The Commons impeach Fitzharris.
March 26 The Exclusion bill voted.
The Lords refuse to proceed on Fitzharris’
impeachment.
March 28 The Exclusion bill read the first time in the
House of Commons. Parliament suddenly
dissolved.
May The king’s declaration justifying the
dissolution answered by “A Just and
Modest Vindication of the Proceedings
of the two Last Parliaments.”
May 3 Trial and conviction of Archbishop Plunket
for high treason.
June 9 Trial and conviction of Fitzharris for high
treason.
July 1 Execution of Plunket and Fitzharris.
DESIGNS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS
CHAPTER I
TITUS OATES
Titus Oates has justly been considered one of the world’s great
impostors. By birth he was an Anabaptist, by prudence a clergyman, by
profession a perjurer. From an obscure and beggarly existence he raised
himself to opulence and an influence more than episcopal, and, when he
fell, it was with the fame of having survived the finest flogging ever
inflicted. De Quincey considered the murder of Godfrey to be the most
artistic performance of the seventeenth century. It was far surpassed
by the products of Oates’ roving imagination. To the connoisseur of
murder the mystery of Godfrey’s death may be more exhilarating, but in
the field of broad humour Oates bears the palm. There is, after all,
something laughable about the rascal. His gross personality had in it
a comic strain. He could not only invent but, when unexpected events
occurred, adapt them on the instant to his own end. His coarse tongue
was not without a kind of wit. Whenever he appears on the scene, as has
been said of Jeffreys, we may be sure of good sport. Yet to his victims
he was an emblem of tragic injustice. Very serious were his lies to the
fifteen men whom he brought to death. The world was greedy of horrors,
and Oates sounded the alarm at the crucial moment. In the game he went
on to play the masterstrokes were his. Those who would reduce him to
a subordinate of his associate Dr. Tonge, the hare-brained parson
whose quarterly denunciations of Rome failed to arouse the interest of
Protestant London, have strangely misunderstood his character. Tonge
was a necessary go-between, but Oates the supreme mover of diabolical
purpose.
In the year of the execution of King Charles the First Titus Oates was
born at Oakham in the county of Rutland. His father, Samuel Oates,
son of the rector of Marsham in Norfolk, had graduated from Corpus
College, Cambridge, and received orders from the hands of the Bishop of
Norwich. On the advent of the Puritan Revolution he turned Anabaptist,
and achieved fame in the eastern counties as a Dipper of energy and
sanctity. In 1650 he became chaplain to Colonel Pride’s regiment, and
four years later had the distinction of being arrested by Monk for
seditious practices in Scotland. The Restoration returned him to the
bosom of the established church, and in 1666 he was presented by Sir
Richard Barker to the rectory of All Saints’ at Hastings. Shortly
before, his son Titus went his ways to seek education and a livelihood
in the world as a scholar. Ejected in turn from Merchant Taylors’
School and Gonville and Caius, Cambridge, he found a refuge at St.
John’s College, and some three years later was instituted to the
vicarage of Bobbing in Kent. “By the same token,” it was remarked, “the
plague and he visited Cambridge at the same time.”
Oates was a bird of passage. He obtained a license not to reside in
his parish, and went to visit his father at Hastings. Long time did
not pass before he took wing again. He had already once been indicted
for perjury, though no further proceedings were taken in the case.[1]
Now he conspired with his father to bring an odious charge against
the schoolmaster of Hastings, who had incurred his enmity. The charge
fell to the ground, Oates’ abominable evidence was proved to be false,
and he was thrown into gaol pending an action for a thousand pounds
damages.[2] Escape from prison saved him from disaster, and he fled to
London. As far as is known, no attempt was made to prosecute him. The
men of Hastings were probably rejoiced at his disappearance. There was
no profit to be made out of such a culprit as Oates. If he were caught,
it would only bring expense and trouble to the authorities. It was
the business of no one else to pursue the matter. So Oates went free.
Without employment, he managed to obtain the post of chaplain on board
a vessel in the Royal Navy. The calling was rather more disreputable
than that of the Fleet parson of later times. Discipline on board the
king’s ships was chiefly manifest by its absence; under the captaincy
of favourites from court the efficiency of the service was maintained
only by the rude ability of men who had been bred in it; and the
standard expected from the chaplain was “damnably low.” Nevertheless
Oates failed to achieve the required measure of respectability. He was
expelled upon the same grounds as he had formerly urged against the
fortunate schoolmaster.[3]
The mischance marked the beginning of his rise. Again adrift in London,
the tide threw him upon William Smith, his former master at Merchant
Taylors’ School. It was Bartholomew-tide in the year 1676. With Smith
was Matthew Medburne, a player from the Duke of York’s theatre, and
by creed a Roman Catholic. The two made friends with Oates, and on
Medburne’s introduction he became a member of a club which met twice
a week at the Pheasant Inn in Fuller’s Rents. The club contained
both Catholics and Protestants, discussion of religion and politics
being prohibited under penalty of a fine.[4] Here Oates made his
first acquaintance with those of the religion which he was afterwards
to turn to a source of so great profit. The rule which forbade
controversy applied only to the meetings of the club, and beyond its
limits discussion between members seems to have been free. It was
perhaps by the agency of some of these that in the winter of the same
year Oates was admitted as chaplain into the service of the Duke of
Norfolk.[5] Testimony to character on the engagement of a servant in
the seventeenth century was probably not severely examined.
In the house of the great Catholic noble Oates found himself in the
company of priests of the forbidden church. Conversation turned on the
subject of religion, and Oates lent ear to the addresses of the other
side. Though he wore the gown of an English minister, his faith sat
light upon him, and he did not scruple to change it for advantage.
On Ash Wednesday 1677 he was formally reconciled to the Church of
Rome.[6] The instrument for the salvation of the strayed lamb was one
Berry, alias Hutchinson, a Jesuit whom Oates had afterwards the grace
to describe as “a saintlike man, one that was religious for religion’s
sake.” By others the instrument was thought to be somewhat weak-minded;
at a later date he seceded to the Protestant faith and became curate
in the city, later still to be welcomed back into the bosom of his
previous church; withal a very pious person, removed from politics,
and much given to making converts. Neither conversion nor piety alone
was an end to Oates. He soon made his way to Father Richard Strange,
provincial of the Society of Jesus, and notified him of a desire for
admission into the order. Consulting with his fellows, Strange gave
consent to the proposal, and before the end of April, Oates was shipped
on a Bilboa merchantman with letters to the English Jesuit seminary at
Valladolid.[7]
There was little that Oates could hope from a career as an English
parson. Almost any other calling, especially one that took him abroad,
offered better chances. He probably believed that Jesuit emissaries
led a merry life and a licentious. Perhaps it is true that, as he
said, vague talk in the Duke of Norfolk’s household of the glorious
future for Catholicism had come to his ears. At least the times must
make him credulous of Catholic machinations. To his sanguine mind
the future would present unbounded possibilities. On the other side,
stout recruits for the Catholic cause were not to be despised. Oates’
character was tough, and he was not the man to shrink from dirty work.
Had they known him well, his new patrons would hardly have welcomed
him as a convert. The plausible humility he aired was the outcome of a
discretion which rarely lasted longer than to save him from starvation.
By nature he was a bully, brutal, sensual, avaricious, and gifted with
a greed of adulation which, in a man of less impudence, would have
caused his speedy ruin. From earliest youth he was a liar. Yet he
was shrewd enough, and shrewdness and promptitude were qualities not
without a certain value. His vices had not yet grown to be notorious.
So he was taken to serve masters who generally succeeded in giving
their pupils at least the outward stamp of piety. In person Oates was
hideous. His body was short, his shoulders broad. He was bull-necked
and bow-legged. Under a low forehead his eyes were set small and deep.
His countenance was large and moon-like. So monstrous was his length of
chin that the wide slit mouth seemed almost to bisect his purple face.
His voice rasped inharmoniously, and he could tune it at will to the
true Puritan whine or to scold on terms with such a master of abuse as
Jeffreys. The pen of Dryden has drawn a matchless portrait of the man—
Sunk were his eyes, his voice was harsh and loud,
Sure signs he neither choleric was nor proud:
His long chin proved his wit, his saint-like grace
A church vermilion and a Moses’ face.[8]
This was the tender being whom the Colegio de los Ingleses took to
nurse into a Jesuit.
The project failed of its mark. Five short months completed Oates’ stay
amid the new surroundings. On October 30, 1677 he was expelled the
college and shipped home, reaching London in November.[9] The sojourn
was in after days utilised to elevate him to the dignity of doctor of
divinity. He had obtained the degree at Salamanca, he said. The truth
was more accurately expressed in the lines—
The spirit caught him up, the Lord knows where,
And gave him his Rabbinical degree
Unknown to foreign university;[10]
for none but priests were admitted by the Catholic Church to the
doctorate, Oates was never a priest, and was never at Salamanca in
his life.[11] Though Valladolid had proved no great success, Oates
was unabashed. He returned to Strange and the Jesuits in London.
Protestations were renewed, and the eagerness of the expelled novice
was not to be withstood. The Jesuits afterwards professed that they
simply desired to keep Oates out of the way. Whatever their motive, he
was given a new trial. The society furnished a new suit of clothes and
a periwig, put four pounds into his pocket, and sent him to complete
his education at St. Omers. On December 10 he was admitted into the
seminary.[12] For one ambitious of an ecclesiastical career the venture
was not fruitful. Long evidence was given at a later date descriptive
of Oates’ course in the college. In important points it lies under
strong suspicion,[13] but the picture of his daily doings may be taken
as faithful. Oates was not a congenial companion to his fellows. Though
a separate table was provided for him at meals, he went to school
with the rest and attempted to gain their intimacy. He was the source
of continual quarrels, spoiled sport, tried to play the bully, and
sometimes met with the retribution that falls on bullies. He was reader
in the sodality, and enlivened more serious works, such as Father
Worsley’s _Controversies_, with interludes from that most entertaining
book, _The Contempt of the Clergy_.[14] He had a pan broken over
his head for insisting at a play by the novices on sitting in the
place reserved for the musicians. On another occasion he excited the
amusement of the college by allowing himself to be beaten up and down
by a lad with a fox’s brush. Still nobler was an effort in the pulpit,
where he preached “a pleasant sermon,” expounding his belief that
“King Charles the Second halted between two opinions and a stream of
Popery went between his legs.”[15] Lurid tales of Oates’ conduct were
afterwards published by the Jesuit fathers.[16] What is more certainly
true is the fact that his presence in the seminary rapidly became
embarrassing. On June 23, 1678 he was turned out of doors, and shook
the dust of St. Omers from his feet. On the 27th he reached London.[17]
When Oates formed his alliance with Dr. Ezrael Tonge, rector of St.
Michael’s in Wood Street, is uncertain. The point is not without
importance. If Oates came first to Tonge in the summer of 1678, the
fact would be so far in his favour that he may have sought a good
market for wares which he believed to be in some degree sound. If he
took directions from Tonge before his visit to the Jesuit seminaries,
the chance of his sincerity would be much diminished. Simpson Tonge,
the rector’s son, afterwards composed a journal of these events.
Unhappily his statements are without value. Hoping for reward at one
time from Oates, at another from his enemies, Tonge contradicted
himself flatly, urging for the informer that Oates had sought his
father only after the return from St. Omers; against him, that the two
had, during an intimacy of two years, designed the Popish Plot before
ever Oates went abroad.[18] Judgment must therefore be suspended;
but it is notable that King Charles thought the evidence as to the
intrigue between Oates and Tonge unworthy of credence. Simpson Tonge
was taken to Windsor in the summer of 1680 to reveal his knowledge.
He left there papers in which evidence of the facts was contained.
Charles examined them, and told Sydney Godolphin that “he found them
very slight and immaterial,” and refused to see Tonge again.[19] At
whatever point co-operation began, acquaintance between the two men was
likely enough of long standing. Tonge had been presented to his living
by Sir Richard Barker, the ancient patron of Samuel Oates. A natural
tie thus existed, now to be developed by circumstances into strong
union. The doctor was an assiduous labourer in the Protestant vineyard.
His fear of Popery amounted to mania. Volumes poured from his pen in
denunciation of Catholic conspiracies. A catalogue was afterwards
made of Tonge’s library. Its character may be judged from the titles
of the following works:—_Massacres threatened to Prevent, Temple and
Tabernacle, Arguments to suppress Popery._[20] He had co-operated with
John Evelyn in translating _The Mystery of Jesuitism_, a work which
King Charles said he had carried for two days in his pocket and read;
“at which,” writes Evelyn, “I did not a little wonder.”[21] When fame
overtook him, Tonge raised the ghost of Habernfeld’s Plot and spent
some ingenuity in turning the name of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey to
_Dy’d by Rome’s reveng’d fury_, that of Edward Coleman to _Lo a damned
crew_. Now he passed a bashful and disappointed life. Needy and full of
silly notions, he divided his time between the detection of Jesuitry
and the study of obscure sciences. Here was beyond doubt the man to
interest himself in Oates. For Oates had brought back from beyond seas
a prodigious tale, calculated to set the most unpractical alarmist in
action.
The scope of the disclosure was vast. Written at length and with the
promise of more to come, Oates’ _True and Exact Narrative of the Horrid
Plot and Conspiracy of the Popish Party against the life of His Sacred
Majesty, the Government, and the Protestant Religion_ filled a folio
pamphlet of sixty-eight pages. The Pope, said Oates, had declared
himself lord of the kingdoms of England and Ireland. To the work of
their reduction and government the Jesuits were commissioned by papal
briefs and instructed by orders from the general of the society. Jesuit
agents were at work fomenting rebellion in Scotland and Ireland. Money
had been raised and arms collected. The hour had only to strike for an
Irish port to be opened to a French force in aid of the great scheme.
The Papists had burned down London once and tried to burn it again. A
third attempt would be no less successful than the first. Chief of all,
a “consult” of the English Jesuits had been held on April 24, 1678 at
the White Horse tavern in the Strand, to concert means for the king’s
assassination. Charles was a bastard and an excommunicated heretic.
He deserved death, and the deed was necessary for the Catholic cause.
Want of variety in the instruments chosen should not save him. He was
to be poisoned by the queen’s physician. He was to be shot with silver
bullets in St. James’ Park. Four Irish ruffians were hired to dispatch
him at Windsor. A Jesuit named Coniers had consecrated a knife a foot
in length to stab him. Great sums of money were promised by French
and Spanish Jesuits and by the Benedictine prior to whoever should do
the work. If the Duke of York did not consent to the king’s death,
the same fate lay in store for him. In all this Oates had been a
confidential messenger and an active agent. It was only due to the fact
that he had been appointed for the task of killing Dr. Tonge that the
scheme thus carefully prepared was not put to the test; for Tonge had
moved him to exchange the trade of murderer and incendiary for that of
informer. Thus the great plot was divulged, together with the names of
ninety-nine persons concerned, as well as those nominated for offices
under the prospective Jesuit government, of whom the most prominent
were the Lords Arundel of Wardour, Powis, Petre, Stafford, Bellasis,
Sir William Godolphin, Sir George Wakeman, and Mr. Edward Coleman. The
falsehood of all this has been conclusively demonstrated. Not only did
Oates bear all the marks of the liar and never produce the slightest
evidence for what he announced, but much of his story is contradicted
by the actual conditions of politics at the time. The fact of his
conviction for perjury is widely known and its justice unquestioned. To
rebut his accusations singly would be fruitless, because unnecessary.
Their general untruth has long been known. Much time was occupied
by Oates and Tonge in reducing their bulk to the shape, first of
forty-three, then of eighty-one articles. Oates took a lodging in
Vauxhall, near Sir Richard Barker’s house, where Tonge dwelt. Together
they drafted and copied until all was prepared. Nothing lacked but a
proper flourish for the introduction of so grand an event.
For this a pretty little comedy was arranged. Oates was to keep behind
the scenes while Tonge rang up the curtain. Nor did Tonge wish to
expose himself too soon to vulgar light. He procured an acquaintance,
Mr. Christopher Kirkby, to act as prologue. Kirkby was a poor gentleman
of good family, interested in chemistry, and holding some small
appointment in the royal laboratory. Their common taste for science
probably accounted for his relation with Tonge; and since he was known
to the king, he could now do the doctor good service. On August 11,
1678 Oates thrust a copy of the precious manuscript under the wainscot
of a gallery in Sir Richard Barker’s house. There Tonge found it, and
on the following day read it to Kirkby, who declared in horror at the
contents that the king should be informed. He would take this part upon
himself, he said. Accordingly on August 13, as Charles was starting for
his accustomed walk in St. James’ Park, Kirkby slipped a note into his
hand begging for a short audience on a matter of vital importance. The
king read it and called Kirkby to ask what he meant. “Sire,” returned
the other, “your enemies have a design against your life. Keep within
the company, for I know not but you may be in danger in this very
walk.” “How may that be?” asked the king. “By being shot at,” answered
Kirkby, and desired to give fuller information in some more private
spot. Charles bade him wait in his closet, and finished his stroll with
composure.[22]
CHAPTER II
THE NATURE OF THE DESIGNS
For contemporaries the Popish Plot provided a noble field of battle.
Between its supporters and its assailants controversy raged hotly.
Hosts of writers in England and abroad proved incontestably either
its truth or its falsehood.[23] With which of the two the victory lay
is hard to determine. Discredit presently fell on the Plot, but the
balance was restored by the Revolution, when Oates’ release, pardon,
and pension gave again the stamp of authority to his revelations. From
this high estate its reputation quickly fell. Hume pronounced belief in
it to be the touchstone for a hopelessly prejudiced Whig, Fox declared
the evidence offered “impossible to be true,” and before the end of the
eighteenth century Dalrymple accused Shaftesbury of having contrived
and managed the whole affair. Since that time little serious criticism,
with the notable exception of Ranke’s luminous account, has been
attempted. Historians have generally contented themselves with relying
on the informers’ certain mendacity to prove the entire falsehood of
the plot which they denounced. The argument is patently unsound. As
Charles II himself declared, the fact that Oates and his followers were
liars of the first order does not warrant the conclusion that all they
said was untrue and that the plot was wholly of the imagination.[24]
The grounds upon which judgment must be based deserve to be more
closely considered.
On November 8, 1675 a remarkable debate took place in the House of
Commons. Mr. Russell and Sir Henry Goodrick informed the House of an
outrage said to have been committed by a Jesuit upon a recent convert
from Roman Catholicism. Amid keen excitement they related that one
Luzancy, a Frenchman, who, having lately come over to the Church of
England, had in the French chapel at the Savoy preached a hot sermon
against the errors of Rome, had been compelled at peril of his life
to retract all he had said and sign a recantation of his faith. The
man guilty of this deed was Dr. Burnet, commonly known as Father
St. Germain, a Jesuit belonging to the household of the Duchess of
York.[25] The Commons were highly enraged. “This goes beyond all
precedents,” cried Sir Charles Harbord, “to persuade not only with
arguments but poignards!” He never heard the like way before. Assurance
was given by Mr. Secretary Williamson that strict inquiry was being
made. The king was busy with the matter. Luzancy had been examined
on oath before the council, and a special meeting was now summoned.
A warrant was out for St. Germain, but the Jesuit had fled. The
House expressed its feeling by moving that the Lord Chief Justice be
requested to issue a second warrant for St. Germain’s arrest, and yet
another in general terms “to search for and apprehend all priests and
Jesuits whatsoever.”[26] It was a strange story that Luzancy told. By
Protestants he was said to have been a learned Jesuit, by Catholics
a rascally bastard of a disreputable French actress.[27] The two
accounts are perhaps not irreconcilable. At least he was a convert and
had preached. Thereupon St. Germain, as he said, threatened him and
forced a recantation. Before resorting to this extreme the Jesuit had
tried persuasion. The Duke of York, he told Luzancy, was a confessed
Roman Catholic. At heart the king himself belonged to the same faith
and would approve of all he did. Schemes were afoot to procure an act
for liberty of conscience for the Catholics. That granted, within two
years most of the nation would acknowledge the Pope. It was sometimes
good to force people to heaven; and there were in London many priests
and Jesuits doing God very great service. Others besides Luzancy had
been threatened with tales of Protestant blood flowing in the London
streets; and these, being summoned to the council, attested that the
fact was so. Lord Halifax rose and told the king that, if his Majesty
would allow that course to Protestants for the conversion of Papists,
he did not question but in a very short time it should be effected.[28]
Two days later a proclamation was issued signifying that Luzancy was
taken into the royal protection, and St. Germain, with a price of £200
on his head, fled to France, there to become one of the most active of
Jesuit intriguers.[29] Though the brandished dagger was likely enough
an embellishment of Luzancy’s invention, it is probable that his story
was in substance true. In December St. Germain found himself in Paris
and in close correspondence with Edward Coleman, the Duchess of York’s
secretary. Such a man writing within a month from the catastrophe
would certainly, had he been falsely charged, be loud in vindication
of his innocence and denunciation of the villain who had worked his
ruin. St. Germain merely wrote that his leaving London in this fashion
troubled him much. He had done all that a man of honesty and honour
could; an ambiguous phrase. It was absolutely necessary, more for his
companions and the Catholics’ sake than for his own, that his conduct
should be justified.[30] Evidently St. Germain was less troubled at
the injustice of the charge against him than incensed at its results.
What he wanted was not that his character might be cleared from a false
accusation, but that the tables might be turned on his accuser.[31]
The conduct of St. Germain illustrates well the aims of the Roman
Catholic party in England about the year 1675. Their policy, already
undergoing modification, had root deep in the history of the times.
For the first thirteen years of his reign Catholics looked for
the advancement of their cause to the king. During the Civil War
none had shown a more steadfast loyalty than they, and none hailed
the Restoration with greater eagerness. Half a century earlier a
considerable number of the squires of England had been Catholic.
They were a class bound closely to the royal cause both by tradition
and by personal inclination, and though the operation of the penal
laws effectively prevented their ranks from swelling, they rendered
conspicuous service to the crown in the day of trouble. With their
strength further diminished by death and by confiscation of estates
under the Commonwealth government, their hopes rose higher at the
king’s return. There was much justification for their sanguine view.
The promise of religious liberty contained in the declaration of Breda
was known to be in accord with Charles’ own desires. He was the son
of a Catholic mother and of a father suspected, however unjustly, of
Catholic tendencies. He was himself not free from the same suspicion.
He was under the deepest obligations to his Catholic subjects. They had
risked their persons and squandered their fortunes for him. They had
fought and intrigued for him, and succoured him in distress. He owed
them life and liberty. They had done so much for him that it was not
unreasonable to hope that, as it was not averse to his wishes, he would
do something for them.
The disappointment of the Catholic expectations was not long delayed.
Whatever promises Charles had made, and whatever hopes he had fostered,
were dependent upon others, and not upon himself, for fulfilment.
The Restoration was a national work, and it was not in the power of
the king to act openly in opposition to the nation that had restored
him. Since he was not a Catholic, he was impelled to run no great
risk for the interest of those who were. And it became increasingly
clear that by far the greater part of the nation was in no mind to
tolerate any change which would make for freedom of life and opinion
for the maintainers of a religion which was feared and fiercely hated
by the governing classes and by the church which aspired to govern in
England. Fear of Roman Catholicism was a legacy of the dreadful days
of Queen Mary and of her sister’s Protestant triumph. That legacy was
a possession not of one sect or of one party alone. Cavaliers and
Roundheads, Puritans and high churchmen shared it alike. So long as the
Church of Rome was of a warring disposition, it was vain to expect that
the English people would see in it other than an enemy. The Protestant
religion was too insecurely established in the land and the memory
of sudden changes and violent assaults too recent for Englishmen to
harbour a spirit of liberal charity towards those who disagreed from
them in matters of faith. The Catholic, who cried for present relief
from an odious tyranny, appeared in their eyes as one who, were relief
granted, would seize any future chance to play the tyrant himself.
No less than twelve penal statutes, of tremendous force, existed to
prevent Roman Catholics from exercising influence in the state.[32]
Had they been strictly executed, the Catholic religion must have been
crushed out of England; but they were generally allowed to remain
dormant. Even so they were a constant menace and an occasional source
of more or less annoyance, varying infinitely according to time and
place and the will of the authorities from an insulting reminder of
Catholic inferiority to cruel and deliberate persecution. The tenor
of these laws was so stringent that among moderate Protestants there
were many who believed that the more obnoxious and unjust might be
removed without placing a weapon of serious strength in the hands of
their opponents. In the House of Lords a party was formed in favour
of the Catholic and Presbyterian claims and opposed to the arrogant
pretensions of the Earl of Clarendon and his followers. Clarendon’s
wish was for the supremacy of his own church, but there were already
not a few who had begun to view his position with jealousy. In
June 1661 a committee of prominent Catholics met at Arundel House
to consider their position. They presented a petition to the Lords
protesting against the penalties on the refusal of Catholics to take
the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, but after several debates and
the lapse of more than eighteen months it was resolved that “nothing
had been offered to move their lordships to alter anything in the
oaths.” Nevertheless Colonel Tuke of Cressing Temple was admitted to
the bar and heard against the “sanguinary laws,” and papers on the
subject were laid on the table of the House. The petitioners disclaimed
the Pope’s temporal authority and offered to swear “to oppose with
their lives and fortunes the pontiff himself, if he should ever
attempt to execute that pretended power, and to obey their sovereign
in opposition to all foreign and domestic power whatsoever, without
restriction.” A committee was appointed to deal with the matter,
and acting on its report the Lords resolved to abolish the writ _de
haeretico inquirendo_ and the statutes making it treason to take orders
in the Roman Church, as well as those making it felony to harbour
Catholic priests and præmunire to maintain the authority of the Bishop
of Rome.
At this point, when all seemed going well, misfortune intervened and
the hopes of success were dashed to the ground. It was suggested that
on account of its known activity and powers of intrigue the Society
of Jesus should be excepted from the scope of the proposed measure. A
heated controversy was instantly aroused. While Protestants and many
Catholics demanded that the Jesuits should accept the situation and
retire gracefully to win advantages for their brothers in religion,
members of the society retorted that a conspiracy was on foot to divide
the body Catholic against itself, and that it was not for the general
good to accept favours at the price of sacrificing the most able and
flourishing order of the church. It soon became evident that the
Jesuits were not to be moved. Their struggle in England had been hard.
Their position among English Catholics was one of great importance.
They would not now surrender it for the sake of a partial and
problematical success from the enjoyment of which they were themselves
to be excluded. The time when affairs were still unsettled was rather
one at which they should be spurred to greater efforts.
Without the compliance of the Jesuits the moderate Catholics could do
nothing. A feeling of disgust at the selfish policy of the society
found free expression. It seemed that its members would never consider
the interest of others before their own. Nevertheless there was no
remedy; the committee at Arundel House was dissolved; at the request of
the Catholic peers the progress of the bill of relief in the House of
Lords was suspended, and it was never resumed.[33]
No better fate attended the king’s efforts to make good the promises he
had given at Breda. With the assurance of support from the Independents
and Presbyterians he had issued late in the year 1662 a Declaration of
Indulgence, suspending all penal laws against dissenters, Catholic as
well as others, by virtue of the power which he considered inherent
in the crown.[34] The move called forth a storm of opposition, both
against the dispensing power and against the object for which it
was used. To appease the Commons, Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of
Shaftesbury, brought in a bill to define and legalise the royal
power to dispense with laws requiring oaths and subscription to the
doctrines of the established church. The answer of the Commons was an
address against the Declaration,[35] in the House of Lords Ashley’s
bill was defeated by Clarendon and the bishops, and on March 31, 1663
Parliament addressed the king for a proclamation ordering all Catholic
priests to leave the realm. Charles never forgave his minister, but
he was powerless to resist. On April 2 he recanted his declaration by
issuing the desired order. A bill to check the growth of popery and
nonconformity passed quickly through the House of Commons, but was
stopped by the influence of the Catholic peers, and an address for the
execution of all laws against dissenters was voted in its place.[36]
Thus the penal laws were retained in their full vigour. And if the
enactments against the Catholics were not removed from the statute
book, still less were the causes which had produced them removed from
men’s minds. Only the establishment of general confidence that the
Catholic religion lacked power to menace the cause of Protestantism in
England and to invade the rights which were dear to Englishmen could be
effective in this; and confidence, so far from becoming general, shrank
to limits that became ever narrower. In the years that followed, fear
of the advance of Catholicism only increased. Fresh laws were passed to
check it. The House of Commons voted address after address that the old
might be put in action, petition after petition for the banishment of
priests and Jesuits from court and capital. To their alarm and chagrin
it appeared that all efforts were in vain, and belief spread that
the failure was chiefly due to opposition emanating from the highest
quarters. Instead of aiding in the accomplishment of the desired
object, the influence of the crown seemed to be directed absolutely to
prevent it. For the king’s policy was one which could only inspire the
nation with a sense of growing distrust.[37]
Though Charles II had ascended the throne on a wave of popular
enthusiasm, his ideas were widely removed from those of his subjects.
By birth and education his mind was drawn towards the aims and methods
of French politics, and he leaned away from the Church of England.
With this bias he inherited for Puritanism and the Presbyterians a
dislike strengthened by personal experience. Coming into England
without knowledge of parliamentary government, his first trial of it
was far from encouraging. He found Parliament intolerant, suspicious,
unstatesman-like. The Commons fenced in the Anglican Church with severe
penal laws against dissent, and gave the king an income less than
the annual expenses of government and the services by half a million
pounds. Charles had been restored to a bankrupt inheritance, and
with every good intention the Commons failed completely to render it
solvent. Soon their good-will ceased. They were jealous of the royal
expenditure. They did not perceive the royal wants. They destroyed
the existing financial arrangements and did not replace them with
better.[38] They desired to carry the Protestant and Parliamentary
system to its logical end in controlling the King’s foreign policy
and directing it against the influence of the Roman Catholic Church.
To Charles this was intolerable. To be forced to act at the bidding
of Parliament was odious to him. He would be no crowned do-nothing.
And here the fortunes of England touched on those of France. The
schemes of Louis XIV for the expansion and consolidation of the
French kingdom made it imperative that he should obtain for their
prosecution the neutrality, if not the assistance, of England. He
could not devote his energy to the settlement of his north-east
frontier and the maintenance of his claims on the Spanish empire with a
Protestant country ever ready to strike at his back. He was therefore
always ready to pay for the concurrence of Charles and with him of
England.[39] The establishment of the Roman Catholic religion, could
it be effected, would be of material assistance to him. Especially
on the religious side of his policy it would be a powerful support.
Charles, on the other hand, desired to free himself from the financial
control of Parliament and to grant toleration to the Catholics. He was
therefore always ready to be bought. He was all the better pleased
since co-operation with France brought him into conflict with the
Dutch republic, which he disliked upon commercial and detested upon
dynastic grounds. Toleration Charles found to be impossible, and he
was subjected to constant annoyance by the attempts of the Commons
to control his dealings. Thus his aims crystallised into a policy of
making the crown supreme in the constitution and establishing the
Roman Catholic faith as the state religion upon the approved model in
France.[40]
The plan undertaken in concert with his great ally was not the first
effort of Charles to give his ideas effect. During his exile on the
continent various tenders had been made for papal support; Charles
promised in return conversion and favour to his Catholic subjects;
and within a few years of the Restoration a serious negotiation was
started with Pope Alexander VII. In 1663 Sir Richard Bellings was sent
on a mission to Rome to beg the bestowal of a cardinal’s hat on the
Abbé d’Aubigny, almoner to the newly-married queen, and cousin to the
king. Charles took the opportunity to propose through Bellings the
formation of an Anglican Roman Church in England. He was to announce
his conversion, the Archbishop of Canterbury was to be patriarch of the
three realms, and liberty of conscience should be assured to remaining
Protestants. Roman Catholicism would become the state religion and Rome
gain the whole strength of the English hierarchy.[41] An understanding
was impracticable and the scheme fell through; but the renewed
solicitations of the English court on Aubigny’s behalf were successful.
In November 1665 he was nominated Cardinal, and died almost immediately
after. To the hopes of the Catholics his death was a terrible blow.
“The clouds,” wrote the general of the Jesuits on hearing of it,
“which are gathering over Holland, Poland, and Constantinople are so
dense that every prudent man must see reason to apprehend enormous
catastrophes and storms that will not be ended without irreparable
disasters. But in my mind all these coming evils are overshadowed by
the death of the Abbé Aubigny, which deprives the Church, for a time at
least, of the joy of beholding an English cardinal of such illustrious
blood, created at the public instances of two queens, and at the secret
request of a king, a prodigy which would, without doubt have confounded
heresy and inaugurated bright fortunes to the unhappy Catholics.”
Three years later a still more remarkable embassy than Bellings’ took
place. It is not even in our own day commonly known that the Duke of
Monmouth, reputed the eldest of the sons of Charles II, had an elder
brother. So well was the secret kept, that during the long struggle to
save the Protestant succession and to exclude the Duke of York from the
throne, no man ever discovered that there was another whose claims were
better than those of the popular favourite, and who had of his free
will preferred the gown of an obscure clerk to the brilliant prospect
of favour at court and the chance of wearing the English crown. For
this son, born to the king in the Isle of Jersey at the age of sixteen
or seventeen years, the child of a lady of one of the noblest families
in his dominions, was named by his father James Stuart, and urged to
be at hand to maintain his rights should both the royal brothers die
without male heirs. He set the dazzling fortune aside and resolved
to live and die a Jesuit. In the year 1668, then being some four and
twenty years old, he entered the house of novices of the Jesuits at
Rome under the name of James de la Cloche. Towards the end of the same
year Charles wrote to Johannes Oliva, the general, desiring that his
son might be sent to England to discuss matters of religion. Assuming
the name of Henri de Rohan, La Cloche made for England. He was received
by the queen and the queen mother, and by them secretly taken to the
king. What passed between father and son has never transpired. La
Cloche was sent back to Rome by the king as his “secret ambassador
to the Father General,” charged with an oral commission and orders
to return to England as soon as it was fulfilled. The nature of that
mission is unknown, and whether or no the young man returned to
England. Trace of embassy and ambassador alike is lost, and the young
prince disappears from history. Yet it may be that his figure can be
descried again, flitting mysteriously across the life of his father. At
the height of the turmoil of the Popish Plot a certain gentleman was
employed to bring privately from beyond seas a Roman Catholic priest,
with whom the king had secret business to transact. The king and the
priest stayed long closeted together. At length the priest came out
with signs of horror and fear on his face. Charles had been seized with
a fit and, when the priest would have called for help, to preserve
their secret summoned strength to hold him till the attack had passed.
On Charles’ death two papers on religion were found in his cabinet
and published in a translation by his brother. The originals were in
French, in the form of an argument addressed by one person to another,
and it is suggested, not without reason, that their author was the same
man as the king’s questionable visitor, and none other than his own
son, who had forgotten his native tongue and had surrendered fame and
country for the good of his soul and of the Catholic Church.[42]
One more negotiation was undertaken directly with Rome. By command of
the pope the papal internuncio at Brussels came to England. He had
sent a confidant to prepare the way, and was assured of welcome at
court. The Venetian envoy offered the hospitality of his house to the
visitor, and arranged an interview with the king. The queen, the Duke
of York, and Lord Arlington were also present, and the nuncio received
promises of the king’s good intentions towards the Catholics.[43] The
fruits of this undertaking, had there been any, were spoiled before
the gathering by the intrigue into which Charles had already entered
with Louis XIV. Only under a Catholic constitution, said Charles,
might a King of England hope to be absolute. He was to live to see the
prophecy falsified, and by his own unaided effort to accomplish what he
believed impossible, but now he showed the courage of his convictions
by attempting to make England Catholic. The scheme was afoot in the
summer of 1669. Nearly a year passed in its completion, and on June 1,
1670 “le Traité de Madame” was signed at Dover. Arlington, Clifford,
Arundel, and Sir Richard Bellings signed for England, and Colbert for
France; and Henrietta of Orleans, to whose skilful management success
was due, returned to her husband’s home to die, leaving a potent
influence to carry on her work—Louise de Kéroualle. Louis’ object in
the treaty was to break the Triple Alliance and carry the war to
a successful conclusion; that of Charles to make himself master of
England once again under the Catholic banner. The two kings were to
aid each other in men and money. “It was in reality,” says Lord Acton,
“a plot under cover of Catholicism to introduce absolute monarchy and
to make England a dependency of France, not only by the acceptance of
French money, but by submission to a French army.”[44] Charles was
to declare himself a Catholic when he thought fit. In the event of
resistance from his subjects he was to receive from Louis the sum of
£150,000 and a force of 6000 men to bring his country under the yoke.
Lauderdale held an army 20,000 strong in Scotland, bound to serve
anywhere within British dominions. Ireland under Lord Berkeley was
steeped in Catholic and loyal sentiment. The garrisons and ports of
England were being placed in safe hands. If the scheme succeeded, the
Anglican Church would be overthrown, Parliamentary government would be
rendered futile, and Charles would be left at the head of a Catholic
state and master of his realm.
Success however was so far from attainment that no attempt was made
to put “la grande affaire” into effect. It was decided that Charles’
declaration of Catholicism should be preceded by his attack in concert
with Louis on the Dutch. War was declared on March 17, 1672. Two days
before, the Declaration of Indulgence, suspending all penal laws
against dissenters, was issued. It sprang from the desire to obtain the
support of dissent for the war and to pave the way for a successful
issue of the Catholic policy at its close. Arms alone could determine
victory or defeat. If Charles thereafter found himself in a position to
dictate to Parliament, the rest might not prove difficult. Otherwise
there would be little hope of success. But the war did not justify
Charles’ expectations. Dutch tenacity and the growing hostility in
England to the alliance with France made it certain that the chief
objects for which Charles had sealed the Dover treaty could not be
achieved. When on February 19, 1674 he concluded peace with the
Republic for 800,000 crowns, the honour of the flag northward from Cape
Finisterre, and the retention of all his conquests outside Europe, the
king seemed to have emerged successfully from the struggle. In fact he
had failed to reach the goal. Unless he gained a commanding position
at home by military success abroad, he could not hope to put into
practice the English part of the programme drawn up at Dover. It was
something that his nephew the Prince of Orange had ousted the odious
republican faction from power in Holland, and much that the Republic
had been for ever detached from its alliance with France; but even this
was hardly sufficient compensation to Charles for the abandonment of
his policy in England. He had planned to restore the monarchy to its
ancient estate by means of Roman Catholicism. He had failed, and now
he turned his back finally upon Catholicism as a political power. He
had already been compelled to cancel the Declaration of Indulgence,
and on March 29, 1673 clearly marked the change by giving the royal
assent to the Test Act. A return to the policy of Anglican Royalism,
which in some ways approached that of Clarendon, was shaped. The Cabal
had been dissipated, the plans of its Catholic members ruined, its
Protestant members driven into opposition. Charles, guiding foreign
policy himself, and Danby as Lord Treasurer managing affairs at home,
determined to draw all stable elements in the kingdom round the Church
and the Crown, and to offer a united opposition to the factions and
the dissenters. The famous Non-Resisting Test was the result.[45] Here
again Charles failed. The opposition of Shaftesbury rendered abortive
the second line of policy by which the king attempted to restore the
full majesty of the crown. There was nothing left him now but a policy
of resistance. The next move in the game must come from his opponents.
Thus the three following years were spent by Charles intriguing first
with Louis, then with William, seeming to be on the brink of war and a
Protestant policy and always drawing back. No decisive step could be
taken until the panic of the Popish Plot gave to the country party an
opportunity, which after a three years’ struggle the king turned to his
own account with signal triumph.
From the moment when he revoked the Declaration of Indulgence the
Catholics had nothing to hope from Charles. Up to that time Roman
Catholic policy in England looked to him; thereafter he stood apart
from it. Throughout his reign the king had been studying to rise to
absolute sovereignty on the ladder of Catholicism. By the treaty
of Dover he was actively concerned in a conspiracy to overturn the
established church and again to introduce the Roman Catholic religion
into England. He had undoubtedly been guilty of an act which in a
subject would have been high treason. Although he now dissociated
himself from his former policy, it was not abandoned by others. The
Catholics had been deceived by Charles. They now fixed their hopes upon
his brother, the Duke of York. Since the king would no longer join with
the Jesuit party, it was determined to go without him. From that time
James became the centre of their intrigues and negotiations. He was the
point round which their hopes revolved.
The foundation of the intrigue was laid in the summer of 1673. Some
eighteen months before the duke had made known to a small circle his
conversion to the Roman Catholic Church.[46] The step was taken in the
deepest secrecy, and even at Rome was not recognised as final until
some years afterwards, for although James laid down his office of
Lord High Admiral in consequence of the Test Act, he still continued
to attend service in the royal chapel.[47] But despite all caution,
enough suspicion was aroused by James’ marriage at the suggestion of
the French court with a Roman Catholic princess, Mary of Modena.
It was a definite sign of his attachment to the French and Catholic
interest, and paved the way for the correspondence which was afterwards
so nearly to procure his downfall. The duke had for secretary a young
man named Edward Coleman, whom mysterious doings and a tragic fate have
invested with not unmerited interest. Coleman was the son of an English
clergyman. At an early age he was converted to the Catholic faith
and educated by the Jesuits, and to the furtherance of their schemes
devoted the rest of his life. To the good cause he brought glowing
ardour and varied talents. He was noted as a keen controversialist and
a successful fisherman of souls. The confidence of three ambassadors
from the court of France argues versatile ability in the man. With
Ruvigny Coleman enjoyed some intimacy; Courtin found him of the
greatest assistance; he discussed with Barillon subjects of delicacy on
his master’s behalf. The ambassadors found him a man of spirit, adept
in intrigue, with fingers on the wires by which parties were pulled.
And they valued him accordingly. For Coleman undertook the difficult
task of agent between Louis XIV and the mercenary Whigs. More than
three thousand pounds can be traced passing through his hands. The
leaders of the opposition had their price at some five hundred guineas;
but these took their money direct from the ambassador. Coleman dealt
with the rank and file, and here the gold, which among the more exalted
would have soon been exhausted, probably went far. He kept a sumptuous
table for his friends and laid up for himself what he gained by way of
commission. Knowledge of foreign languages, a ready pen, and his Jesuit
connection marked Coleman as the man for the duke’s service. He had
all the talents for the post save one. James’ want of discretion was
reflected in his secretary. Twice Coleman was dismissed; the dismissal
was apparent only, and he continued work as busily as before. He had
occupied himself in writing seditious letters to rouse discontent in
the provinces against the government. Complaint was made. Coleman was
discharged from his place by the duke. He was immediately taken into
the service of the duchess in the same capacity. Some years later his
zeal brought him into collision with the Bishop of London. Compton went
to the king and obtained an order to the duke to dismiss his wife’s
secretary. The French ambassador was much perturbed and pressed James
to afford protection, Coleman received his dismissal and took ship to
Calais. His Jesuit friends sent the news sadly one to another. His very
talents, it was said, had destroyed him. He was too much in the duke’s
counsels. His enemies could not countenance the presence of a man of
such parts. The duchess chose a new secretary. Within a fortnight
Coleman returned, and in secret resumed his office. He was in the
duke’s confidence and necessary to him.[48] Altogether Coleman was not
quite the innocent lamb that he has often been painted.
At the outbreak of the second Dutch war an English cavalry regiment
was sent for the French service under the command of Lord Duras. Among
the officers was Sir William Throckmorton, an intimate of Coleman and
converted by him to the Catholic faith. Throckmorton left the regiment
and settled in Paris as his friend’s agent. The two corresponded at
length, and by Throckmorton’s means Coleman was put in communication
with Père Ferrier, Louis XIV’s Jesuit confessor. Ferrier was assured
by Coleman that parliament would force Charles II to break with France
and make peace with the Dutch. The accuracy of his prophecy gained
the confessor’s confidence. Letters were exchanged and the means to
advance the Duke of York and the Catholic cause in England debated.
Ferrier was the first of Louis’ confessors to play an important part
in politics, and his alliance was an achievement to be counted to
the duke.[49] Coleman proceeded to extend his connection in other
quarters. Under the assumed name of Rice the Earl of Berkshire was in
communication with him, urging with doleful foreboding the overthrow of
parliament and the Protestant party.[50] Berkshire was Coleman’s sole
correspondent known in England, but on the continent others took up the
thread. In France the Jesuit Sheldon was high in praise of Coleman and
his design. From Brussels the papal internuncio Albani discussed it
somewhat coolly. Meanwhile Coleman’s relations with Paris had undergone
a change. In May 1675 Sir William Throckmorton died disreputably of a
wound received in the course of his too eager courtship of a certain
Lady Brown, while his wife yet lived,[51] and in December St. Germain,
banished from England, took up his place. More important was the death
of Père Ferrier in September of the same year, for Louis XIV chose as
his confessor Père de la Chaize, the famous Jesuit whose dealings with
Coleman subsequently formed the heaviest part of the proof against
the unlucky intriguer.[52] Finally to the list of his political
correspondents whose names are known Coleman added that of Cardinal
Howard, better known as Cardinal Norfolk, at the Roman court.[53]
Of this correspondence nearly two hundred letters have been preserved.
The insight which they give into the minds and intentions of their
writers is invaluable. They throw a strong light upon the undercurrent
of political movement at a time when politics were perhaps more
complicated and their undercurrents more potent than at any time
before or after. From them might be detailed the tenor of the designs
undertaken by a great religious party during a period of fierce
struggle. Such reconstruction from a fragmentary correspondence must
always be difficult. In the case of the Coleman correspondence the
difficulty would be great. That the letters can be read at all is
due to the fact that the key to the cipher in which they are written
was found with them. Not only were they written in an arbitrary
cipher, not to be elucidated without the key, but in such guarded and
metaphorical language that the meaning can often be caught only by
chance or conjecture.[54] Parables can easily be understood after the
events to the arrangements for which they refer; but when no effect
follows, the drift is more obscure. When before the Spanish Armada an
English agent writes from Spain that bales of wool are being stored in
large quantities, muniments of war may be read between the lines. When
Jacobites give notice to their exiled king that Mr. Jackson need only
appear in Westminster Hall to recover his estate, or that a cargo of
the right sort, now in great demand, must be shipped at once, their
meaning is transparent. But to the obscure terms used by Coleman and
his friends after events afford a slighter clue. No notion discussed by
them was ever tested as a practicable scheme in action. Neither success
nor exposure sheds light whereby to read their letters. Whatever is
in them must be painfully read as intention alone, and as intention
abandoned. The general ideas however are plain, and an admirable
exposition by Coleman himself saves the necessity of piecing them
together from small fragments.
On September 29, 1675 he wrote a long letter to Père de la Chaize
relating in some detail the history of the intrigues of the previous
years.[55] Catholic ascendency in England and a general peace in
favour of France were the objects for which he had worked. For these
the dissolution of Parliament and money were necessary, money both to
dissolve Parliament and to supply the king’s wants. Next to Parliament
Lord Arlington was the Duke of York’s greatest enemy; for Arlington was
the supporter, if not the promoter of the Test Act.[56] In response
to this beginning Père Ferrier had sent a note to the duke through
Sir William Throckmorton. In agreement with James it was Louis XIV’s
opinion that Arlington and the Parliament formed a great obstacle to
their joint interest; and if the duke could succeed in dissolving the
present Parliament, he would lend the assistance of his power and purse
to procure another better suited to their purpose. The duke replied
to Ferrier in person, and Coleman answered too. Their letters were
to the same effect. The French king’s offer was most generous and
highly gratifying, but money was needed at the moment as urgently as
thereafter, for without money a dissolution could not be obtained, and
without a dissolution everything done so far would be nugatory. So
far as money went it was possible to consult Ruvigny, the ambassador
in England; further not, for Ruvigny was a Protestant. Eulogies of
Throckmorton and Coleman passed from Ferrier to James and back, each
expressing to the other his confidence in their agents.[57] At this
time, said Coleman, Charles II was undecided and felt the arguments
for and against dissolution equally strong. But if a large sum such
as £300,000 had been offered to him on condition that Parliament
should be dissolved, he would certainly have accepted both money and
condition. Peace would then be assured, with other advantages to
follow. Logic built upon money, wrote Coleman, had more charms at the
court of St. James than any other form of reasoning.[58] To obtain this
money Coleman and his associates had worked hard. Not only did Coleman
write to Ferrier about it and talk to Ruvigny about it in London, but
he made Throckmorton press for it in Paris, and press Pomponne, the
French secretary of state, as well as the confessor. Twice Throckmorton
persuaded Pomponne to speak particularly to Louis on the subject, and
once he sent a memoir for the king’s perusal. Louis returned it with
expressions of great interest in the duke’s cause and the message “that
he should always be ready to join and work with him.” Also Pomponne was
bidden to say that he had orders to direct Ruvigny “that he should take
measures and directions from the duke,” especially in what concerned
the dissolution of Parliament, Louis, he said, was most sensible of the
need for energy and caution and gave the greatest consideration to the
matter.[59] At the same time Sheldon was pressing the French king’s
confessor.[60] Still the money did not come. One excuse after another
was made. Pomponne declared that so great a sum as that demanded could
not possibly be spared by Louis; and Throckmorton believed that this
was so; but he was compelled to admit that another campaign would
cost perhaps ten times as much. The foreign secretary also complained
that the duke did not appear sufficiently in the movement himself.
He was answered by Coleman that James had ceased negotiating with the
ambassador as Ruvigny gave so little help, but he was in communication
with Ferrier. Coleman thought that Ruvigny’s backwardness was
deliberate. Sheldon and Throckmorton were of the same opinion, and
Throckmorton suggested as an alternative that a subscription should be
raised from the Catholics; £50,000 he thought might be promised from
France, and he hoped for twice that sum in England.[61]
While Coleman was begging from the French court and declaring his
exclusive devotion to the interests of France, he was at the same time
urging the papal nuncio to obtain money from the Pope and the Emperor
and renouncing all designs except that of forwarding the Catholic cause
in the Pope’s behalf. Albani was moderately enthusiastic. The Emperor
commanded him to assure the Duke of York of the passionate zeal he
entertained for his service and the Catholic cause. The Pope too would
assist in matters in which he might properly appear. But James must
himself point the direction of the assistance to be granted. Coleman
replied that he had already shewn the way. Money alone was needed to
procure the dissolution of Parliament. Dissolution would mean peace
abroad and Catholic ascendency in England to the great advantage of
the Pope, the Emperor, and the whole Church. It was incumbent on the
Emperor and more especially on the Pope to open wide the purse for so
fair a prospect.[62] The nuncio was not however to be carried away
by emotion. Money could not be expended by the Pope upon such vague
expectation. He had others to think of in greater straits than the
English Catholics. Before the matter could be submitted to Rome more
definite guarantees must be given that the Catholic cause would really
be served. In any case what the Pope could afford would be nothing in
comparison to what was needed.[63] Coleman continued to press, even to
the point of Albani’s annoyance.[64] Repetition of the same arguments
merely met the same reply; and when by command of the Duke of York
Coleman paid a secret visit to Brussels to interview the nuncio, the
result was no better.[65]
So the shuttlecock was beaten backwards and forwards between London,
Paris, and Brussels. Writing to La Chaize Coleman naturally made no
mention of his correspondence with the nuncio. Different arguments
had to be used in the two quarters. To Albani Coleman vowed his
undying affection for the Pope, to the Jesuit an extremity of
devotion for French interests. Neither the one nor the other had the
desired effect. Advice and encouragement were forthcoming, but not
pistoles. The bashfulness of Coleman’s correspondents is not hard to
understand. Albani gave his reasons brutally enough. Those at the court
of Versailles were probably of the same nature. And here they had
additional force, for if on general grounds the French were unlikely
to pay, they were still less likely to support the Duke of York with
doubtful advantages at a time when they could obtain their chief object
by subsidising his brother the king. No one of business habits would
pour his gold into English pockets without reasonable expectation of a
proportionate return. The English pocket had the appearance of being
constructed upon a principle contrary to that of Fortunatus’ purse.
The scheme for which support was thus begged from whoever seemed likely
to give was not promising to any but an enthusiast. Money was wanted
certainly to bring Charles to the dissolution of Parliament, an idea
which was constantly in the air at court. The Cavalier Parliament
was an uncompromising opponent of Popery, and the Catholics bore it
a heavy grudge. But dissolution in itself would hardly improve their
own position. The design reached considerably farther than that. It
was no less than to bribe the king to issue another declaration of
indulgence, appoint the Duke of York again to the office of Lord High
Admiral, and leave the whole management of affairs to his hands.[66]
In the course of the next year a new parliament should be assembled,
bribed to support the French and Catholic interest, and the Catholic
position in England would be assured. James was an able and popular
officer and enjoyed great authority in the navy. Supposing the stroke
could be effected, he would occupy a position not only of dignity but
of power to meet any attack that might be made upon his new state. The
scheme was so far advanced that Coleman drew up a declaration for the
king to issue setting forth his reasons for a dissolution, and solemnly
protesting his intention to stand by the Protestant religion and the
decisions of the next parliament. That was to be before the end of
February 1675.[67]
Although Coleman wrote to the nuncio that the Catholics had never
before had so favourable an opportunity, the design was shortly
modified and deferred.[68] In its present shape the possibility of
putting it to the test depended upon the good-will of the ministers.
After the dissolution of Parliament their assistance would be
necessary. Without it nothing could be done. If Parliament were
dissolved and the ministers stopped the execution of all that was
to follow, the last state would be worse than the first. And it now
became evident that matters were in just that case. Whatever the Cabal
might have done, it was certain that those who followed would have no
hand in exalting the Duke of York’s power. Danby, whose watchword was
Monarchy and No Toleration, was now firmly fixed in authority. Early
in February a proclamation was issued ordering the execution of the
penal laws, whetted against Roman Catholics by the promise of reward
to informers; young men were to be recalled from Catholic seminaries
abroad, subjects were forbidden to hear mass in the chapels of foreign
ambassadors, all English priests were banished from the kingdom.[69]
The effect of the proclamation was chiefly moral; but the worst
consequences might be expected from the Non-Resistance bill, now in
active preparation for the April session. Should this be passed,
Catholic, Presbyterian, and Whig alike would be excluded from all part
in the management of affairs, and the royal Church of England would
triumph. The Duke of York’s party veered round and adopted the cause
of parliament as a bulwark for themselves against the ministerial
attack. The moment was critical for all concerned. A golden age seemed
to have arrived for the Commons. Money was showered lavishly on them.
Fortune rained every coinage in Europe. Danby, the Bishops, the Dutch,
and the Spanish ambassador did battle with their rouleaux against the
Catholics, the Nonconformists, the French ambassador and theirs. The
scenes in Parliament were unprecedented, and have since scarcely been
surpassed. Swords were drawn and members spat across the floor of
the House. In the House of Lords the king appeared regularly at the
debates to exert a personal influence on his peers, and was likened
to the sun, scorching his opponents. Here Charles and Danby had the
advantage, and after seventeen days the bill was sent down to the
Commons; but Shaftesbury, who had fought with the utmost resolution,
seized his opportunity to foment the old dispute between the Houses as
to the right of appeal to the Lords, with such success that the session
had to be closed before the bill could be introduced, Parliament was
prorogued, and the Test vanished for ever.[70] Coleman and his friends
breathed again and proceeded to adapt their programme to the new
situation. Since dissolution would not help them, they would mould
Parliament to their design. At the moment the Duke of York’s position
was as precarious as before; but, wrote Coleman to La Chaize, “if he
could gain any considerable new addition of power, all would come over
to him as the only steady centre of our government, and nobody would
contend with him further. Then would Catholics be at rest and his most
Christian Majesty’s interest be secured with us in England beyond all
apprehensions whatsoever. In order to this we have two great designs
to attempt the next sessions. First, that which we were about before,
viz. to put Parliament upon making it their humble request to the king
that the fleet may be put in his royal highness’ care.[71] Secondly,
to get an act for general liberty of conscience.” Coleman had already
spoken to Ruvigny on the subject; the ambassador was not enthusiastic,
but he admitted the advantages that would ensue to France. Twenty
thousand pounds, thought Coleman, would ensure success; and success
would be “the greatest blow to the Protestant religion here that ever
it received since its birth.”[72] La Chaize answered briefly, promising
to give the matter consideration and desiring to hear more from his
correspondent.[73] Coleman rejoined in his last letter to the confessor
that has been preserved. He engaged to write whenever occasion arose,
and sent La Chaize a cipher for use between themselves; and for greater
security he would write between lines of trivial import in lemon
juice, legible when held to the fire. Only that part of the business
not relating to religion could be discussed with Ruvigny, continued
Coleman; and then, coming to the point, “We have here a mighty work
upon our hands, no less then the conversion of three kingdoms, and by
that perhaps the subduing of a pestilent heresy, which has domineered
over great part of this northern world a long time; there were never
such hopes of success since the death of Queen Mary as now in our days,
when God has given us a prince who is become (may I say, a miracle)
zealous of being the author and instrument of so glorious a work....
That which we rely upon most, next to God Almighty’s providence and the
favour of my master the duke, is the mighty mind of his most Christian
Majesty.”[74]
The significance of this is beyond doubt. It has been the custom of
historians, quoting the last passage alone, to belittle its importance
as the exaggerated outpouring of a zealot’s fancy. Taken with the
context it is seen to be something very different. The words only
express more clearly what was often hinted at and half outspoken in the
correspondence which led up to this point. Jesuit agents and the Duke
of York’s confidential secretary, for such in fact Coleman was, had
something more to do than to entertain themselves by writing at length
and in cipher to all parts of Europe with no other intention than to
express their hopes for the propagation of the Catholic faith in a
manner quite detached from politics, or to discuss political schemes
as matters of speculative interest; such things are not done for
amusement. Coleman’s phrases are pregnant with real meaning. They are
to be understood literally. The design which his letters sketch was in
substance the same as that afterwards put into practice when the Duke
of York ascended the throne as James II. Under the guise of a demand
for liberty of worship, it was a design to turn England into a Roman
Catholic state in the interest of France and the Jesuits, and by the
aid of French money. The remark of Halifax that dissenters only plead
for conscience to obtain power was eminently true of his own time. No
less true was it that those who separated themselves from the religion
of the state aimed at the subversion of it.[75]
High treason, be it remarked, is the only crime known to the law
in which the intention and not the act constitutes the offence.
The famous statute of Edward III had defined as the most important
treasons the compassing or imagining of the king’s death, the levying
of war against the king, and adherence to the king’s enemies within
the realm or without.[76] An act passed at the height of power of
one of the most powerful monarchs who have reigned in England was
insufficient for the needs of those whose position was less secure.
The severity of repeated enactments under Henry VIII to create new
treasons, and perhaps the difficulty of meeting attempts against the
crown by statutory definition, rendered this method of supplying the
want unpopular and unsatisfactory. So in the reign of Queen Elizabeth
the extension of the statute of Edward III by construction became
the settled mode of procedure. With the lapse of time the scope of
constructive treason was extended. Coke laid down that an overt act
witnessing the intention to depose or imprison the king or to place
him in the power of another was sufficient to prove the compassing and
imagining his death. Conspiracy with a foreign prince to invade the
realm by open hostility, declared by an overt act, is evidence of the
same.[77] Hale held conspiracy, the logical end of which must be the
death or deposition of the king, even though this were not the direct
intention, to be an act of high treason. To levy war against the king
is an overt act of treason; conspiracy to levy war is thus an overt
act of treason by compassing the king’s death. To restrain the king by
force, to compel him to yield certain demands, to extort legislation by
terror and a strong hand, in fact all movements tending to deprive him
of his kingly government, whether of the nature of personal pressure or
of riot and disturbance in the country, are acts of treason. To collect
arms, to gather company, to write letters are evidence of the intention
of the same.[78] Treason by adherence to the king’s enemies was equally
expansive. Thus it has been held, says Sir James Stephen, “that to
imagine the king’s death means to intend anything whatever which under
any circumstances may possibly have a tendency, however remote, to
expose the king to personal danger or to the forcible deprivation of
any part of the authority incidental to his office.”[79] In 1678 a
question was put to the judges by the Attorney-General: “Whether it be
not high treason to endeavour to extirpate the religion established
in this country, and to introduce the Pope’s authority by combination
and assistance of foreign power?” The judges were unanimous in their
opinion that it was treason.[80] And in the case of Lord Preston in
1691 it was held that taking a boat at Surrey Stairs in Middlesex in
order to board a ship off the coast of Kent, and convey to the French
king papers containing information on the naval and military state
of England, with the purpose of helping him to invade the realm, was
an overt act of treason by compassing and imagining the death of the
king.[81]
Doubt cannot exist as to the dangerous consequence of the
correspondence carried on by Coleman. Under the most favourable
interpretation it reveals a design to accomplish again by means of
bribery what the English nation had already rejected as illegal and
unconstitutional, a deed which was said to have broken forty acts of
Parliament,[82] to give the sanction of authority to a religion which
was banned and to priests who were under doom of high treason. And the
most favourable interpretation is certainly not the most just. Those
“great designs ... to the utter ruin of the Protestant party,” which
should “drive away the Parliament and the Protestants ... and settle
in their employments the Catholics,” refuse such a colouring.[83] At
Coleman’s subsequent trial the Lord Chief Justice told him, “Your
design was to bring in Popery into England and to promote the interest
of the French king in this place.... Our religion was to be subverted,
Popery established, and the three kingdoms to be converted”;[84] and
what the Chief Justice said was true. Coleman and the party to which
he belonged had designed “to extirpate the religion established in
this country” by the assistance of money given by a foreign power.
Such an endeavour could not be undertaken without the commission of
high treason. By the theory of the constitution the king can do no
wrong. Much less can he do wrong to himself. He cannot be persuaded
to perform an act directed against his own person. Great persuasion
or importunity addressed to the king, says Hale, cannot be held an
act of treason, since an intention must be manifested to restrain or
influence him by force.[85] But the king cannot be supposed of his
free will to undertake measures having their end, according to the
construction of the statute, in the compassing of his own death. Nor
can he be supposed to be persuaded to such measures, for both cases
involve a contradiction of himself. No king can be guilty of high
treason. Except by Act of Parliament none in England can divest his
office of any of the full authority pertaining thereto. Persuasion of
the king to do so is by the nature of the case impossible, whether
it be in the form of money or other. Any one who plans a fundamental
change of the constitution, to be effected by money or other means
except by the constitutional action of Parliament, falls under the
penalty for treason none the less because he may hope for assistance
from the man who is king, since the king cannot be considered to assist
an unconstitutional change. Any one planning such a change, though
he intends to obtain the king’s assistance, acts against the king’s
authority as much as if he did not so intend, and is therefore guilty
of high treason. Of such possible changes the overthrow of the Church
of England is one, for the king cannot otherwise than constitutionally
join in the subversion of the church of which he is head, and which he
has sworn to maintain. If he is successfully persuaded to take part in
such an act, the persuasion must be regarded as tantamount to force,
for persuasion of the king to commit treason against himself is absurd.
And the position of a man declaring his intention to accomplish this
change is exactly that of Coleman and the Jesuit party in England.
There can be no doubt that the subjects who took part with Charles
II in the treaty of Dover were guilty of high treason, none the less
because the man who was king acted in concert with them. And similarly,
none the less because they expressed the intention of bribing the
king to assist their design, no doubt can exist that Coleman and his
associates were brought by their schemes under the penalty of the same
crime.
Such was the state of the Roman Catholic designs—the real Popish
Plot—in England at the close of the year 1675. The direction in
which they turned during the next three years is now to seek. At the
outset the chief part of the evidence fails. Until his arrest in
September 1678 Coleman continued his foreign correspondence,[86] but in
comparison with the letters of earlier date the portion of it preserved
is meagre indeed. Above all, no such exposition of his schemes as
Coleman sent to La Chaize exists to afford a clue to the tangled and
mysterious allusions with which his letters abound. The only two of
Coleman’s later correspondents whose letters are extant were St.
Germain and Cardinal Howard. The last written by St. Germain from
Paris bears the date October 15, 1678, but with this exception all his
letters belong to the year 1676. They are partly occupied with business
of slight connection with politics. A scheme of the Duchess of York for
the increase of an English Carmelite convent at Antwerp was pressed
upon the French court. Rambling intrigues undertaken for the purpose
finally succeeded in breaking down Louis XIV’s reluctance, the convent
was allowed to plant colonies in the French Netherlands, and the
irritation caused to the duchess by the delay was allayed by a splendid
present of diamonds made her in secret by the King of France.[87] St.
Germain’s letters also show that intrigues were being ceaselessly
carried on in the French and Jesuit interest throughout the year 1676
by Coleman and his party. They do not show at all clearly of what
nature those intrigues were. After the failure in England caused by
his indiscretion Coleman probably did not accord him full confidence.
St. Germain’s complaints of his treatment were constant; and he was
always in want of money.[88] Nor does the Italian correspondence throw
much greater light. Cardinal Howard’s letters extend with somewhat
longer intervals from January 1676 to the end of the following year.
They tell still less of the political intrigues. The business passing
through Howard’s hands was considerable. He was concerned with the
difficult business of keeping the Duke of York on good terms with the
Pope. Coleman’s endeavours to keep up the pretence that James was not
engaged to French schemes were not uniformly successful, and on the
death of Clement X Howard received definite orders from home to vote
in the conclave with the French party. Yet the task was accomplished
with some adroitness. Howard was able to persuade the Pope that the
marriage of Mary of York to the Prince of Orange was not due to her
father’s fault, and on another occasion obtained a letter from James
to Innocent XI of such sweetness that “the good man in reading it
could not abstain from tears.” Sinister rumours were afloat at Rome of
the duke’s Jesuit connection, and repeated warnings were sent that,
if they proved true, his cause would be ruined. There were even grave
doubts as to the genuine character of his faith. For some time the
troublesome conduct of an English Protestant agent at Florence occupied
Howard’s attention. The Inquisition bestirred itself in the matter. A
triangular correspondence between Howard, Coleman, and Lord Arundel
resulted in the man’s recall and led them to debate the possibility of
a match between the Princess Anne and the son of the Duke of Florence.
Another source of continual trouble was Prince Rinaldo d’Este in his
quest for a cardinal’s hat. While his niece, the Duchess of York,
backed by a special envoy from the court of Modena, was worrying the
French ambassador in London for Louis XIV’s support, Coleman applied
directly to Howard at Rome. Promises of consideration for the matter
were all that could be obtained. The prince, who had no claims
other than those of family, afterwards gained his object by constant
importunity. Courtin had information that the Spanish ambassador had
offered the Duke of York the whole credit of Spain for the prosecution
of Rinaldo’s suit if he would quit the French interest, and therefore
could not risk the result of a definite refusal; but neither Paris nor
Rome manifested at this time the slightest intention to support the
Modenese pretensions.[89] Cardinal Howard was in fact the official
correspondent of the English Catholic party at Rome, and beyond the
general business of helping in the amelioration of Catholic conditions
and the improvement of the relations between different sections of the
party, had little to do with particular schemes that might be fostered
by one or another. Thus the literary evidence on the development of
Roman Catholic policy in England is of the slightest. Accessible
documents give little information. Nothing can be known exactly. The
course of events between the years 1675 and 1678 cannot be elucidated
by aid of the evidence of those who shaped it. The argument must be
from the known to the unknown.
To start with, it is known that Coleman’s correspondence did not cease,
as he stated, in the year 1675. On the contrary, it was maintained down
to the day of his arrest and even beyond.[90] Among others it is almost
certain that he continued his negotiation with Père de la Chaize.[91]
The subject of this later correspondence is debatable. It may have
been concerned with a design again to establish the Roman Catholic
religion in England. Or it may not; and in this case Coleman’s letters
may have been filled with matters of less importance, such as are to
be found in those of Cardinal Howard. This alternative however is
hardly tenable. Not only are there allusions in St. Germain’s letters
inexplicable except on the supposition that they refer to the hopes
of the Catholics for the re-establishment of their religion, but the
position of Coleman and the Jesuits rendered a continuance of their
schemes virtually necessary. Early in 1676 St. Germain wrote that he
had urged on La Chaize the absolute necessity of “vigorous counsels
... to produce success in the traffic of the Catholics”; in these, he
said, the Duke of York took the lead, and that by the inspiration of
Coleman. A month later he added that Coleman was incurring reproof
at Paris on account of the violent measures he was said to advocate.
The secretary of the English ambassador tried to ingratiate himself
with the Jesuit by professing great zeal for the duke; was he sincere,
asked St. Germain, and “has the duke all along trusted him with the
secret of his affair”? On Ruvigny’s return to Paris from his embassy
St. Germain had an interview with him. Ruvigny expressed the opinion
that the intrigues of Coleman and the Jesuits would prove fatal to
James. Their conduct was detestable not only to Protestants and the
government, but to a certain section of the Catholics also, “because,”
said the ambassador, “they would introduce an authority without limits
and push Mr. Coleman to make such strange steps which must precipitate
them into destruction.”[92] Had the policy of which St. Germain was
an agent been wholly without reproach, it would be hard to ascribe
an adequate meaning to expressions like these. Coleman’s anxiety to
deny his correspondence would be equally difficult of explanation.
Curious too would be the comment of Pomponne, the French minister for
foreign affairs; for he undertook to prove the absurdity of the charges
against Coleman by remarking in ridicule that he had even been accused
of intriguing with Père de la Chaize, a fact the truth of which was
perfectly known to him.[93] The situation of affairs argues with still
greater force. The Jesuits were beyond all others the most militant
order of the church. They formed the advance guard in the march against
heresy. They had already borne, and were again to bear, the brunt of
the battle. It was their particular business to carry war into the
enemy’s camp, for this was the reason as well as the excuse for their
existence. They must work, fight, intrigue against the heretic and the
heretic state, or leave their mission unfulfilled. And Coleman was in
the same position. He was a pupil of the Jesuits, and under the guise
of secretary to the Duchess of York maintained an active correspondence
with agents abroad in the interest of their chief hope, the duke.
Intrigue was his business, and his conduct of it was made more eager
by the keenness of a convert. No one in the least acquainted with the
history of the Jesuits and with the writings of their apologists can
believe that their method of procedure was by conversion of individuals
alone. The society has always been in its essence political, and in
the troubled times of the seventeenth century political action of the
exiled, the feared, the reputed traitor was seldom calculated to avoid
the retribution of the laws by which those against whom it was directed
were fenced. The penal laws were harsh, but harshness was of necessity;
and the very necessity of their harshness begot retaliation; while
retaliation completed the circle by driving into conflict with the law
many who would have been glad to obey in peace and nurse conscience in
quiet.
The class of Catholics whom Ruvigny found opposed to the Jesuit
policy was large. At the close of the seventeenth century it probably
comprised a majority of Roman Catholics in England. These were they
who would take the oath of allegiance to their sovereign, holding it
no bar to their faith, the followers of Blackloe, of Peter Walsh, of
John Sergeant, the men who thought it no shame to liberalise belief
by divorcing it from statecraft, the adherents of the church but not
of the court of Rome.[94] The Jesuits had already once in the reign
of Charles II interposed to prevent Roman Catholics in England from
bettering their position, and when persecution fell on these in the
evil days of Oates’ grandeur, they showed to the astonishment of the
society that it had earned small gratitude from them.[95] On the
question of the oath of allegiance the English Catholic body was
divided throughout the century. Catholics were willing to prove their
loyalty by taking the oath, but this proof they were not allowed
to give. The fruitless concessions offered by Charles I showed
conclusively that despite all protestations the papal party would not
abandon the deposing power. Whenever the movement in favour of the
oath seemed to be gaining strength, the whole weight of the papal
court and of the Society of Jesus was thrown into the scale against
it. It was probably the only point upon which the two were at this
time in agreement. The Earls of Bristol, Berkshire, Cardigan, Lord
Stafford, and Lord Petre actually took the oath, and of these, horrid
thought to the Jesuits, two had for their confessors Benedictines; Lord
Arundel, and for a time the Duke of York, stood firm in refusal.[96]
The division between the Catholics was purely political; it marked
those on whose loyalty reliance could be placed from those who must
be suspected of disloyalty; and the former class suffered for what
the latter alone undertook. The line lay between the Catholic and the
Jesuit parties, between those who would be satisfied with liberty of
conscience and those who would not. Undoubtedly the Catholic body in
England was much weakened thereby, and government owed not a little
to the moderate Catholics; but however much the execution of Catholic
policy was hampered, its direction was not diverted. Abstinence
from political action was the basis of the pure Catholic position.
The Jesuits held the wires of politics in their hands and directed
the policy. They too affirmed purity of faith to be their motive.
“Prosecution for matters of conscience,” remarks Halifax, “is very
unjust; but great care ought to be taken that private conscience is
not pleaded against the security of the public constitution. For when
private conscience comes to be a justifiable rule of action, a man may
be a traitor to the state and plead conscience for treason.”[97]
Thus it may be accepted that Coleman’s correspondence between the
years 1675 and 1678 was not of an entirely innocent character, but was
concerned with matters of perilous import for the prosperity of the
government and of the Church of England. Since it was not dropped, the
negotiation must have proceeded either in the same line as that in
which it lay at the end of 1675 or in another. Did the design drag on
a weary course in the feeble hope of finding a parliament congenial
to Roman Catholic ideas and of obtaining the king’s support in return
for a substantial sum of money: or did the Catholic politicians change
their tactics to discover a better opening? If the argument is thus
far sound, answer can be made without hesitation. Early in that year
Coleman and his party had found that in the event of a dissolution of
Parliament they could not hope for a third declaration of indulgence
and the reappointment of the Duke of York to the offices which he had
formerly held. The design was thereupon altered to a scheme for bribing
the existing parliament to petition for the recall to office of James,
and to pass an act for general liberty of conscience. Coleman’s ideas
were based on two miscalculations. He understood neither the temper of
the English people nor the character of Charles II. The king was to him
an amiable debauchee, caring only for his pleasures and his pocket.
A sufficient present of money would induce him to retire from the
management of affairs and console himself with his mistresses, leaving
the reins of power for his brother to handle. As most men of his own
and after times have thought the same, Coleman’s mistake is perhaps
excusable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not money, but
power was what Charles wanted, and in the use of power, not of money,
he was skilled. Any plan grounded upon this conception of his character
was foredoomed to failure. Equally grave was the other miscalculation,
and in this too Coleman was not peculiar. A man looking back on the
history of the seventeenth century, and guided by the story of the
Revolution, can say with assurance that any attempt in its latter half
to restore Catholicism in England must have been hopeless of success.
The nation which drove out James II would have driven out another
for the like cause. Charles himself had learnt this in the best of
schools. The fact may have been plain to clear-sighted statesmen, but
to the mass a restoration of the old religion was looked on as among
events that were more than possible. Here was the root of the deep
hatred of Catholicism cherished by the English nation. Not only was
the event hoped by the one side, but it was feared by the other. And
the hopeful party had more reason to hope than the fearful to fear.
Englishmen might with justice anticipate intrigues and even plots, but
never their success. But the Jesuit, whose education was continental
and whose ideas were traditional, was unaware of the change that had
passed over England. He was still inspired by the genius and followed
the example of the dead Robert Parsons. His mind was filled with the
great instances of past times. Henry VIII, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth
had drawn their subjects with them like sheep from one church into
another. Within the memory of man a wave of Puritanism had swept over
the country, tottered, and broken. There followed a loyal reaction and
a court in which strong elements were Catholic. The people who had so
willingly followed their leaders before might be expected to do so
again. The hope of rebuilding the ruins of Jerusalem was strong in the
belief of its possibility.[98] Such notions render the undertaking
of Coleman and his party intelligible. But they were not blinded by
prejudice to the obvious meaning of facts passing within range of their
own observation. One scheme had already been abandoned: the second was
to be abandoned now. For if the former had proved impracticable, much
more so was the latter. To ask the House of Commons in the year 1676
to pass an act of religious toleration and to petition in favour of
the Duke of York was to suggest that it should contradict its nature.
The strongest characteristic of the Cavalier Parliament was its hatred
of Roman Catholicism. It had already forced the retractation of two
declarations of indulgence, and had on several occasions instituted
proceedings against the Catholics. Coleman’s experience perhaps
led him to ascribe an undue importance to the influence of money.
Dishonest members of the country party might accept bribes from the
French king when the course which they were asked to take would be to
the embarrassment of government, but not all the gold of France would
induce them to put a weapon of such strength into the grasp of the
court as to petition for what they had repeatedly prevented it from
accomplishing. Popery and tyranny, it was said, went hand in hand. It
must soon have been seen by the Catholic managers that such a policy
was hopeless. If this was not evident at first, it must have become
more than plain when early in April 1676 the Duke of York took the
momentous step of ceasing to go to the royal chapel, and all England
knew that he was a Catholic. It was the first occasion for a long
time on which he had acted not in consonance with the ideas of France.
Rome was delighted and recognised him as a true son, but elsewhere the
news was not hailed with such joy. James had obtained his brother’s
consent only with difficulty. Pomponne marked the withdrawal of the
declaration of indulgence as the beginning of the troubles that crowded
on the royal authority in England. The duke’s declaration created a
notable addition. The effect of his move was instantaneous. Throughout
the country the feeling roused was intense, the penal laws were once
more put into execution, and Charles told the French ambassador that if
he were to die the duke would not be allowed to remain in the country
eight days.[99] It is perhaps to this time that the abandonment of the
second scheme sketched by Coleman to La Chaize should be referred.[100]
There can at all events be no doubt that its impracticable nature soon
became manifest. It was therefore along another line that the design
proceeded from the summer of 1676 onwards.
Since the year 1670 various ways of procuring success for the Catholic
religion have thus been considered, adopted, and abandoned. The policy
of the Dover treaty had been led by Charles. Had it been successful
he would have been left at the head of a Catholic state, controlled
and compact. That had been blown to the winds. The declaration of
indulgence, faint resemblance of the plan which was to have been
put into execution, was the direct result of royal authority. With
its failure the king’s leadership in the last movement of the
counter-reformation ceased. Then followed the two schemes which Coleman
related to La Chaize. In the one the motive power was to be the king,
backed by the ministers and Parliament; in the other Parliament,
working on the king and supported by him. When these were deserted,
practically every arrangement in which the king could figure as chief
had been tried. The game of the Dover treaty had been opened by the
king, backed by French force; that of the declaration by the king’s
move alone; Coleman had suggested action by the king and Parliament,
by Parliament and the king. Unless one of these moves was made again,
Charles would stand in the background of the game; none would be made
again, for each had been proved ineffective. Even by the last two the
object had been to raise the authority not of the king, but of the Duke
of York. The only remaining possibility was that the duke should be
not only the object, but the leader of the game. He was the piece with
which the move had to be made.
In what direction then could the move be made? So far from being an
assistance to the Catholic movement, Charles was now a direct hindrance
to it. He had abandoned the Catholic interest as a political weapon,
and had engaged in a policy of Anglican predominance. Undoubtedly
the design must be conducted behind his back, but it was impossible
not to take count of his position and influence in the state. Three
courses were left open to the managers of the movement. The king
might be forced to take action on their side, or he might be thrust
away from it, or he might be gradually elbowed into a position where
his personal action would be negligible. The last course had already
been considered. During the winter of 1674 and spring of the next
year Lord Berkshire and Sir William Throckmorton had submitted the
advisability of adopting a platform, the chief planks in which should
be the debauchery and political profligacy of the king and the sobriety
and ability of the Duke of York. By this means they hoped that all
the supporters of order and moderation would be drawn to the duke,
James would be surrounded by a compact and influential party composed
of Catholics and Protestants alike, the whole management of affairs
would eventually fall into his hands, and the king would be left beyond
the range of politics, ousted from their control, contented with the
otiose life of a peaceful rake.[101] This however had been discarded
for the plans submitted by Coleman to Père de la Chaize, in turn to
be relegated to the domain of untried political suggestion. The scope
for the design was therefore reduced to the alternatives: Charles must
either be thrust on one side or be compelled to take action in it
himself. As he had already been tried as a leader and had failed, the
latter course would mean that the plan should run without him, until at
the moment of success he should be forced by the necessity of events to
throw in his lot with the movement. In the former case the course of
events would be exactly similar, save that the king would not be taken
into the scheme at any point, and the movement would be carried to
completion without him. That both of these courses involved treasonable
schemes is hardly open to doubt. The logical end of the negotiations
in either case was a _coup d’état_, in whatever degree, a revolutionary
measure.
In March of the year 1679 the Earl of Berkshire lay dying in Paris.
A month later a man passing under the name of John Johnson landed at
Folkestone, and was arrested at Dover on his way to London. He was a
certain Colonel John Scott, for whose arrival the authorities had been
on the watch for some time past. Whether or no he was the same Colonel
Scott who acted as an English spy in Holland during the second Dutch
war it is impossible to say. Latterly he had been attached to the
household of the Prince de Condé, and had commanded a troop of horse
in the French service.[102] Subsequent events make it seem likely that
orders for the Colonel’s apprehension were issued by the secretary
of state, owing to the belief that he had information of value to
impart. To the officers at Dover he ascribed his return to England to a
desire to see his native country, but when he reached London he told a
different tale. As the Earl of Berkshire lay on his deathbed, he sent
for Colonel Scott, who had vainly called a famous physician to his
aid, and bade him take a message to the king. There had been a foolish
and an ill design carried on in England, he said. He was a good Roman
Catholic, and in the Catholic religion he was minded to die; but some
of his faith were swayed by a giddy madness, and this he blamed. He was
neither a contriver nor a great supporter of the business. He would
not have had a hand in it but that Lord Arundel, Coleman, and others
had told him that it could not miscarry, and that, if he did not stand
with them, evil would be thought of him. That he ought long before to
have disclosed what he knew he was well aware; personal duty and the
allegiance of every man to his sovereign should have constrained him
to speak; there were bad men in the matter, Lord Bellasis and others,
who spoke ill of the king and very irreverently. But to his knowledge
there was never talk of killing the king; if there had been, he would
have spoken out. Then Colonel Scott asked who those others were; but
Lord Berkshire begged for no questions, repeating, “If I had known of
approaching dangers to the king, I should have told him.” Presently the
sick man began to sigh and to weep. “Friend,” said he, “I see things
will go as you will. For God’s sake promise me you will find some way
to tell the king every word I say, and that though some passages in
letters of mine may look a little oddly, I would have run any hazard
rather than have suffered any injury to have been done to his Majesty’s
person. ’Tis true I would have been glad to see all England Catholic,
but not by the way of some ill men.” Let the king have nothing to do
with those he had named, nor with Stafford, nor Powis, nor Petre. Yet
he hoped and believed that matter would not be found against them to
take away their lives.[103] If Colonel Scott spoke truth, then the
foregoing argument is certainly not quite baseless. And reason may be
given for supposing this to be the case. At the time when Scott gave
his information the fact of Berkshire’s correspondence with Coleman
was not publicly known. Coleman had already been tried and executed,
and at the trial a number of his letters were read as evidence against
him, but among them none from Lord Berkshire. Until the publication of
the correspondence by order of the House of Commons this was the only
channel by which particular knowledge of it reached the world at large.
The other letters were not published until December 1680. It must
therefore be supposed that Scott obtained his knowledge of the earl’s
correspondence privately. The only persons who had private knowledge
on the subject were Lord Berkshire, the officials in whose custody
the letters lay, and Coleman. Coleman was dead before Colonel Scott
came into England, and the secretary of state by whom he was examined
would have been most unlikely to furnish him with materials. It must
therefore have been from Lord Berkshire himself that he obtained his
information. But, it may be suggested, Scott may have drawn his bow at
a venture, knowing merely that Berkshire was a prominent Catholic, and
using his name as likely to gain credence for his story. The weight
against this suggestion is heavy. If Scott had been for all he knew
inventing the letters of which he spoke, he would surely have said more
about them than he did. To mention them in so casual a manner would
have been useless. The simplicity and directness of his relation points
in this matter to its substantial truth. Another proof of genuineness
has still greater force, the extreme moderation of the whole narrative.
A scoundrel following in the track of Oates and Bedloe would never
have concocted such a story. So far from being to his advantage, what
Scott said might actually put him into a most unpleasant predicament.
The chief point of the plot which Oates had discovered was the king’s
assassination. The chief agents in it were said to be the Jesuits.
All the informers who came after spoke to the same effect and tried
to spice their tales still more highly. Scott said not a word about
the Jesuits. He stated on his sole authority, one of the men who might
be expected to know, that no harm was intended to the king. To some
extent what he said is borne out by Berkshire’s letters. Passages in
them must certainly have looked “a little oddly” to the government, and
perhaps contained matters technically treasonable, but in nothing do
they suggest any personal danger to the king. No one looking for the
rewards of a professional informer would have acted as Colonel Scott.
Nor did he ever seek these. He never came forward to give evidence
against those condemned for the Plot. His name does not appear in the
list of secret service money, doled out to the shameless witnesses for
the crown. Nothing more is known of him.[104] His information may be
accepted as genuine. Clearly then there was some truth in the discovery
of a Roman Catholic conspiracy in the year 1678. What Lord Berkshire
said sketches its essence. Oates was not after all aiming shafts
entirely at random. During his stay in the Jesuit seminaries in Spain
and Flanders he must have obtained an inkling of what was in the air,
and proceeded to act upon the information to his best advantage. That
the whole truth had little resemblance to his tale of fire and massacre
is certain, but the tale was not wholly devoid of truth. His vast
superstructure of lies was not without a slight basis of solid fact.
This conclusion can in some degree be supported from other sources.
Any attempt to reconstruct the part played by the Catholic reformation
in the years preceding the appearance of Oates must be chiefly
conjectural. Scarcely any evidence on the subject is known, but what
more comes to hand points in the same direction. In December 1680, as
he lay in the Tower under sentence for high treason, Lord Stafford
sent a message by Dr. Burnet and the Earl of Carlisle to the House of
Lords that he would confess all he knew of the Catholic intrigues. He
was admitted to speak from the bar of the House. Unfortunately his
statement does not refer at all to the later years of the movement,
for when he came to describe the project debated between Shaftesbury
and the Duke of York for a coalition between the Catholic and country
parties to obtain a dissolution of Parliament and general toleration,
Stafford was stopped hastily at the mention of the great Whig leader’s
name. To a few more questions put he simply answered no, and was
presently sent back to the Tower. Cut short as it was, his account
is of some value. He admitted that he had endeavoured to alter the
established faith, and gave some details of the meeting held early
in Charles II’s reign at the Earl of Bristol’s house to discuss the
oath of allegiance. He had always disapproved the policy of the
declarations of indulgence, and marked them as causes of the downfall
of his religion. At one time he almost decided to leave England and
live beyond sea. Others however were not of his opinion. The Papists
and Jesuits had been far too open in their conduct, he said, and
he had even seen a priest in the House of Lords standing below the
bar. All his fellow peers, excepting the Earl of Bristol, were in
favour of toleration for the Catholics. There was even talk of a
restitution of the church lands, but Stafford warned the Duke of York
that they were in so many hands as to render any attempt of the kind
impracticable.[105] All this does not amount to much; nevertheless
it shows a drift in one direction. Other straws are floated down the
same stream. In the summer of 1678, when it was doubtful whether or
no England would declare war on Louis XIV, Catholics in Ireland were
discussing the chances in that event of a rebellion in their country
aided by France. Calculations were made on the strength of the French
navy, and there was talk of a rising in Scotland as well.[106] There
were Jesuit missioners in Scotland, poor and hard worked, and it is
possible that Jesuit influence had been concerned in organising the
rebellion there in the year 1666;[107] while in 1679 there was serious
consideration of a movement in Ireland under Colonel Fitzpatrick, who
crossed to Brussels during the Duke of York’s exile there to consult
with him.[108] More definite information can be obtained from the
case of Père de la Colombière. The celebrated Jesuit preacher, famed
for his propagation of the cult of the Sacred Heart, was living in
England at the time of the Popish Plot panic, and acting as confessor
to the Duchess of York, Two Frenchmen, Olivier du Fiquet or Figuère and
Francois Verdier, accused him to the House of Lords of extraordinary
activity in spreading the Catholic religion. La Colombière had
concealed himself, but was discovered, arrested, and shipped out of
the country. Besides the general charge of caring for the growth of
his faith, he was accused of a close connection with Coleman and
Père de la Chaize. In attempting the conversion of Fiquet, who was
a Protestant, he had used as an argument that the Duke of York was
openly, and the king in secret, Catholic by faith. Parliament, he
said, should not always be master; in a short time all England would
be changed.[109] Supposing that these men had wished to make their
accusation a source of gain, they would have charged the confessor with
being a party to the king’s assassination, or at least to the plot in
general. Since they did not, their statements may be taken as true.
Nothing dishonourable was alleged against La Colombière, but he plainly
harboured the expectation of seeing England before long Catholic. His
hope was shared by others; for in advising on the establishment of a
nunnery by the Yorkshire baronet, Sir Thomas Gascoigne, the Jesuit John
Pracid wrote on June 9, 1678 to suggest the insertion of a clause in
the deed, depending on the condition: “If England be converted.”[110]
At most the evidence is slight, but it seems clear that the Jesuit
party was indulging in hopes considerably more active than they could
naturally have been if wholly unsupported by any plan of action.
While the schemes of which these traces are to be found were in
the air, Oates was studying and being expelled from Valladolid
and St. Omers. There were in Flanders twenty-seven English Roman
Catholic seminaries; five belonged to the Jesuits, and of these the
establishment at St. Omers was the largest. It contained some thirty
professed fathers and a hundred and twenty scholars.[111] Probably the
best education in Europe was provided for the boys, and life there
was comfortable; but to the unwilling the seminary became a prison.
Pressure was put upon them to become priests, and communication with
the outside world was carefully restricted. In a letter preserved
from this time a Welsh boy, placed in the college by a wicked uncle,
wrote secretly to his father begging piteously to redeem him from his
great captivity.[112] Here, unless he made a prodigious guess, the
most fortunate in history, Oates must have acquired hints dropped on
the subject of the movement in England. It is not very profitable to
speculate on the question exactly how much truth his vivid imagination
concealed. Possibly a demonstration of force was suggested, organised
by the great Catholic nobles and relying on support for the Duke of
York to be gained in the navy. The fleet was at the moment being
strengthened by the addition of several capital ships, and in the
spring of 1678 was at full strength in sea service, with complete
stores for six months.[113] If this were the case, if Arundel,
Bellasis, and Stafford were implicated in the affair, but nothing
definitely arranged so soon as the autumn of 1678, Oates’ diffident
denunciation of these peers and the evident falsehoods which he,
Bedloe, and Dugdale afterwards told in their statements regarding
the Popish army, would be sufficiently accounted for. Or again, it
is possible that the design included help from France in money, and
perhaps the use of the English regiments employed in the French
service. Many of their officers were Irishmen, and most Catholics.[114]
For this it would be necessary to wait until peace was definitely
concluded in order that both men and money might be liberated from the
calls on them. Such a supposition would go some way to explain the
“dark, suspicious letter” seized at Coleman’s house after his arrest,
and bearing the date September 18, 1678. The writer, posting from
Paris, informed Coleman that the peace had broken all their plans, for
the French pretended that since its conclusion they had no need of his
party. Yet there was hope from another quarter. Let an agent known to
him be sent over. “To put our traffic afoot,” continues the letter,
“it’s absolutely necessary that my friend come speedily over to you,
to converse with you and our other friends, because his measures are
so well taken in Italy, that we can’t miss to establish this commodity
better from those parts than from any here at present, tho’ hereafter
we may find means and helps from hence too. But it’s most certain,
now is the time or never to put things in order to establish it with
you.”[115] The letter seems to point to hopes of early aid from
France, since disappointed. In this case Père de la Chaize, or whoever
managed the affair in France, may have thought that the gold of French
Catholics could be put to better purpose than to assist their fellows
of the faith in England in a forlorn hope. The likelihood of such a
desertion is to some extent supported by the refusal of the French
government in November 1678 to take any steps to assist the Duke of
York or his party.[116] But from the scraps of evidence obtainable it
is plain that the design, supposing it to have been such as is here
sketched, had not advanced beyond the stage of negotiation, ready to be
construed into immediate action.
According to the information which Lord Berkshire gave to Colonel
Scott, no harm was intended to the king; at least he knew of none. This
may well have been; but at the same time it is necessary to remember
that Charles was at the moment the greatest impediment to the chance
of Catholic success. He was little older than his brother, and enjoyed
far better health. As far as could be judged, he was by no means likely
to be the first to die. He had definitely adopted a policy adverse to
the Catholics. If he were to die, the charge of revolutionary dealing
would lie at the door of those who should attempt to keep the Duke of
York from the throne. So long as he lived, any attempt to restore the
Roman Catholic religion in England, certainly any attempt made behind
his back, would be a matter of high treason and against the interests
of peace and established order. This much only can be said with safety,
that the brothers hated each other,[117] that the death of the king was
talked of in Jesuit seminaries on the continent,[118] and that James
was not above tolerating, if he did not direct, an attempt to murder
the husband of his daughter.[119]
CHAPTER III
OATES AGAIN
Thus the Popish Plot was introduced to the world, “a transaction which
had its root in hell and its branches among the clouds.”[120] While
Charles proceeded on his walk, Chiffinch, his confidential valet,
refused Kirkby admittance into the royal bedchamber, not knowing his
business. Kirkby therefore waited in the gallery till Charles returned
and summoned him to ask the grounds of such loyal fears. Kirkby
replied that two men, by name Pickering and Grove, were watching for
an opportunity to shoot him, and that should they fail, Sir George
Wakeman, the queen’s physician, was employed to use poison.[121] Oates
and Tonge had committed this piece of information to paper for him the
day before. Asked how he knew this, Kirkby answered that he had the
news from a friend, who was ready to appear with his papers whenever
the king should command. He had waited to give his warning the day
before, but had failed. Charles ordered him to return with his friend
in the evening. Accordingly between eight and nine o’clock Kirkby
escorted Dr. Tonge to Whitehall. The doctor brought with him a copy of
the forty-three articles and solemnly presented it to the king, with a
humble request for its safe keeping. He entreated that only the “most
private cabinet” should be acquainted with the contents; otherwise the
secret would leak out, full discovery of the plot would be prevented,
and the lives of the discoverers put in hazard. But if under the
guise of chemical students they might have access to his Majesty until
seizure of the conspirators’ letters showed beyond doubt the truth of
their story, all would be well. Tonge afterwards complained that full
discovery was rendered impossible because the king did not take his
advice. Charles was too busy or too apathetic to attend to the matter
himself. He was going to Windsor on the morrow, he said, and would
leave the inquiry to Lord Treasurer Danby, on whose ability and honour
he placed all reliance.[122] Whence did the papers come to Tonge? he
asked. The doctor returned he had found them under the wainscot in
Sir Richard Barker’s house; he did not know the author, but suspected
him to be a man who had once or twice been there in his absence and
had formerly discoursed with him on such matters as appeared in the
articles. Of his condition too Tonge was uncertain, but thought he had
been among the Jesuits; perhaps, he suggested, the man had been set
on by secular priests or the Jansenists.[123] Much the same story was
told next day to the Earl of Danby. Tonge and Kirkby called on him
in the afternoon, and Kirkby, introducing the doctor, was requested
to leave. The Lord Treasurer had read the information overnight and
proceeded to examine Tonge on the subject. Were the papers originals?
No, they were copies of the doctor’s writing, the originals being in
his custody. He did not know the author, but guessed who he was. Did
he know where to find this man? No, but he had lately seen him two or
three times in the street and thought it likely they might meet again
before long.[124] Many were Dr. Tonge’s falsehoods in order to raise
an air of sufficient mystery. Three or four days later he returned to
Danby with the information that his guess at the authorship of the
papers was correct; nevertheless for secrecy’s sake he was not to give
the name, since if the fact were to become known the informer would be
murdered by the Papists. Danby asked some more particulars. Did the
doctor know Pickering and honest William, as Oates had called Grove,
who were named as the king’s assassins? Certainly; he could point them
out waiting their murderous chance in St. James’ Park. He did not know
their lodging, but would find it out and inform the earl; for Danby
insisted that they should be arrested forthwith. Leaving a gentleman of
his household in London in communication with Tonge, Danby drove down
to Windsor and told the king all that had passed. He urged that one of
the secretaries of state should issue a warrant for the apprehension
of the dangerous persons and that the whole matter should be brought
before the council, but Charles would not hear of it. On the contrary,
he commanded Danby not even to mention the affair to the Duke of
York, only saying that he would take great care of himself till more
was known. The Treasurer left Windsor for his house at Wimbledon and
sent directions that Lloyd, the gentleman whom he had trusted, should
bring him whatever news occurred.[125] Meanwhile Oates was consorting
with his Jesuit acquaintances, and even obtained supplies from them;
somewhat to their discredit, seeing that he had twice been expelled
from Jesuit colleges.[126] In the intervals he concocted additional
information, which Tonge took to Kirkby to copy and Kirkby gave to
Lloyd for Danby’s perusal.
Despite Tonge’s assurance that Pickering and Grove might be captured
in St. James’ Park with their guns, the inquiry seemed as far from
reaching solid ground as ever. All that the doctor could do was to
point out Pickering to Lloyd in the chapel at Somerset House. It was
offered as an excuse for Grove’s absence that he had a cold. Something
better than this was obviously required. So one night Tonge went to
Wimbledon himself and informed Danby that the assassins were bound for
Windsor the next morning; he would arrange for Lloyd to travel in the
same coach with them and procure their arrest on arrival. The Treasurer
started at once and slept that night at Windsor, laying his plans for
the capture; but when the coach drove in, lo! Danby’s gentleman stepped
out alone. The others had been prevented from coming by an unforeseen
accident. Within two days at furthest however, as Lloyd brought word
from Tonge, they would be sure to come. Curiously enough the ruffians
failed a second time. On this occasion they were riding and one of the
horses had hurt his shoulder. The most that Tonge could manage was by
way of addition to the information already lodged. Although Pickering
and Grove had been stopped from attacking the king at Windsor, they
had all but made the attempt in London. Unfortunately the flint of
Pickering’s pistol was loose and he dared not fire: and for this he
suffered a penance of thirty lashes. The story was afterwards improved,
for Pickering had missed a rare chance not only once, but three times.
Now his flint was loose, on another occasion he had no powder in the
pan, on a third he had loaded with bullets only and no powder. It might
be suspected too that the discovery of the plot was no longer a secret;
for Oates, going one day to see Whitebread, the Jesuit provincial,
had been met with abuse as a traitor and even with blows. Clearly
the Duke of York, who had seen Kirkby come from his first interview
with the king, had mistaken him for Oates and told his confessor of
the accident.[127] The doctor’s efforts were vain. By no device could
Charles be moved to take interest in the matter. Danby was alarmed by
the idea that he was the only man beside his master to whom Tonge’s
disclosures were known, thinking perhaps that if ill came it might go
hard with himself, and urged that they might be communicated to others;
but the king had already come to the conclusion that the conspiracy
was fictitious, and after the ridiculous excuses offered by Tonge for
the absence of the supposed assassins was all the more positive in his
refusal to order a formal inquiry. He should alarm all England, he
said, and put thoughts of killing him into the minds of people who had
no such notions before.[128]
Oates and Tonge now planned a bolder stroke. On August 30 Danby
received news from Tonge, for Oates was at this time still unknown
to him, that letters telling of treasonable designs had been sent to
Father Bedingfield, the Duke of York’s Jesuit confessor, and might
be intercepted at the Windsor post-office. Danby instantly returned
to Windsor and showed Tonge’s letter to the king. He was met by the
announcement that Bedingfield had already been at the post-office.
The confessor had found a packet awaiting him. It contained four
letters, ostensibly from priests of his order known to him but not
in their hands, and a fifth in the same style. All were apparently
of dangerous concern, full of mysterious phrases which seemed of no
good meaning. Bedingfield took the letters to the duke, who showed
them to the king. Thus when Danby arrived at Windsor his news was
stale. Charles believed still less in the existence of a real plot.
The letters were transparent forgeries. Purporting to be written by
different persons, from different places, at different dates, they bore
a curious likeness one to another. The paper on which they were written
bore the same watermark and appeared to have been cut from one sheet.
In every case the name signed was misspelt. Throughout, the writing
was disfigured by the same blemishes of style and spelling. Only one
of the letters contained a single stop, and that seemed to have been
made accidentally. Oates professed afterwards that the handwriting was
disguised and that the writers made mistakes on purpose, should the
letters be intercepted, to lull the reader to false security. A Jesuit
in London, who scented the discovery of the plot, had sent warning to
Bedingfield, and the confessor had handed his letters to the duke with
the express intention of showing them to be counterfeit and himself
to be innocent. Thus, declared the informer with indignation, they
had been made to appear the work of forgery. So far as the last goes,
Oates spoke the truth. They were patently the composition of himself
and his confederate. A tribute to the unscrupulous energy of those who
adopted the plot for political purposes is paid by the fact that these
letters were suppressed and never brought forward as evidence, although
three of the men who were supposed to have written them were afterwards
tried for treasons of which, had they been genuine, the letters would
have afforded strong proof. Oates met the rebuff by going at Kirkby’s
instigation to swear to the truth of his story before a London
magistrate. But at court the intriguers were badly received. Kirkby
and Tonge called several times on the Treasurer, only to be refused
admittance, and when Charles met his old acquaintance he passed by him
without word or look.[129]
At this moment a sudden move of the Duke of York threw the game
into the hands of Oates. With his usual want of tact James demanded
an inquiry into the matter by the privy council. What difference
this actually made to the course of subsequent events it is hard to
calculate, for Oates was clever enough to place himself in a position
not wholly dependent on the action of government, but at least it
smoothed his way at the moment. The act of the duke was that of
applying the bellows to the seed of a mighty conflagration. At the
meeting of Parliament Danby was accused of having tried to stifle the
plot; unjustly, for he too had urged investigation. For some time
Charles withstood their instance. Danby alone he could have resisted,
but when James, whose occasions for importunity were better than those
of the Treasurer, added his demand, the king gave way and, against his
better judgment, consented. Oates was still occupied in enlarging and
copying his information when on the evening of September 27 Kirkby
brought word from Lloyd that Tonge was summoned to go with him to
the council. The council had already risen and their appearance was
postponed till the next morning. Tonge asserted that he would have
been better pleased had the inquiry been longer delayed that yet more
of the plot might have been discovered. His feelings must really
have been of some relief at the opportunity afforded, tempered with
suspicion of the council’s intention towards himself. Taking the
precaution to place his information beyond reach of danger by leaving
a sworn copy with the magistrate who had attested his oath, Oates
accompanied his friend to Whitehall. Some ten days earlier Charles
had been made acquainted with the informer’s name. The opinion of the
government was that Tonge had no other end in view than to obtain
a deanery. That notion must have been rudely dispelled by Oates’
appearance at the council board.[130]
Dr. Tonge was the first to enter and, kneeling, handed a petition for
pardon for himself and Oates, together with a list of the plotters and
their lodging. He was asked who Oates was. An acquaintance of short
standing, he answered. He had been a chaplain in the navy on board Sir
Richard Ruth’s ship, but having given information of some miscarriages
had received hard dealing from the privy council. In point of fact this
was the occasion when he had been summarily ejected from the service.
As Tonge begged excuse from reciting what he knew further of the plot,
an abstract he had made of Oates’ information was read. Oates was
called and examined on the contents of the papers. The council sat
long, and he was heard at length. His statements were of so general
a character that little criticism could be made, but the board was
sufficiently satisfied to authorise the informer to search for the men
he had named as conspirators. As night fell, he issued forth armed with
warrants and officers. Before morning Father Ireland, procurator of the
province of the Society of Jesus, Fenwick, agent for the college at St.
Omers, Pickering, and other Jesuits were in Newgate. Oates returned to
the council on the morning of Sunday, being Michaelmas day, to continue
his examination. This time the king was present. Oates was made to
repeat all he had said the day before. He had named in his narrative
Don John of Austria as not only cognizant of the plot, but active in
it. What was he like? asked Charles. Tall and graceful, with fair hair,
Oates replied promptly. Charles had seen Don John and knew him to be
short, fat, and dark. Oates said that he had seen Père de la Chaize pay
in Paris ten thousand pounds as the price for the king’s death. The
victim now asked in what part of Paris. In the Jesuits’ house close
to the Louvre, was the answer. Again Oates had committed himself,
for there was no such house in that position. The letters sent to
Bedingfield at Windsor were produced. Oates skated over the thin ice as
best he could, declaring that Jesuits used to make their letters appear
foolish to conceal their meaning. He pursued his tale with unbroken
confidence. Arundel and Bellasis were mentioned. Charles remarked that
those lords had served him faithfully, and that without clear proof he
would not credit anything against them. Oates protested to God that
he would accuse none falsely; he did not say that they were partners
in the plot, only that they were to have been acquainted with it. His
whole behaviour was of a piece with this. Loud in general accusations,
he refused to bring particular charges against persons who might appear
to contradict him successfully. Whenever he was pressed, he drew back
and hedged. The king ended the meeting by exclaiming that he was a most
lying knave.[131]
Oates’ credit was rudely shaken. Nevertheless the matter could not be
dropped without further investigation. The informer managed to cover
his mistakes by the suggestion that he had himself been deceived. He
had misspelt the name of Louis XIV’s confessor, calling him Le Shee;
but in an age of loose spelling, when Barillon wrote of Shaftesbury
as Schasberi, and Cardinal Howard’s name was spelt Huart by a papal
nuncio, this was not of great weight. Oates had evidently lied, but
perhaps he had spoken some truth. His assurance and readiness had
been such as to amaze the council. Charles himself was taken aback,
and though he gave no credence to the informer’s story, felt that
great care was necessary for the discovery of the truth. Falsehood
has not been unknown in the seventeenth and other centuries as a prop
to even a good cause. At all events persons, against whom serious
charges, not disproved, had been made, could not be allowed to remain
at large. So on the second night in succession Oates was sent his
rounds with a guard, sleepless and defying the stormy weather. Before
dawn most of the Jesuits of eminence in London lay in gaol. At one
point the party encountered a check. Oates led his men to arrest
Whitebread, the provincial, at the residence of the Spanish ambassador.
The ambassador’s servants resisted the intrusion, and the next day
Count Egmont and the Marquis Bourgemayne lodged a complaint with the
secretary of state. Material compensation was not to be had, but an
ample apology; and the soldiers with Oates were said to have been
drunk and were punished.[132] Of greater importance than persons was a
find of papers. A warrant had been signed at the council board for the
arrest of Coleman. When the meeting rose the Earl of Danby noticed that
direction for seizing his papers had been omitted. He hastily caused
another warrant for this purpose to be drawn, and obtained the five
requisite signatures just in time that a messenger might be dispatched
the same evening. Coleman’s house was searched, and, besides others, a
deal box containing the most important of his letters was found in a
secret recess behind a chimney. Danby could boast with justice, when
he was accused of having acted in the French and papist interest, that
but for his action the chief evidence of the schemes of both in England
might never have come to hand. The Duke of York, against whom they
told heavily, would never forgive him, he said. Coleman surrendered
himself on Monday morning, and was put under the charge of a messenger
with only Oates’ accusation against him. He managed to send word to
the French ambassador that nothing would be found in his papers to
embarrass him. A cruel awakening from the dream was not long delayed.
When his letters came to be read, the lords of the council looked grave
and signed a warrant for his commitment. Coleman disappeared into
Newgate.[133]
On Monday, September 30, Oates was again examined before the council,
and again coursed London for Jesuits. The town was by this time
thoroughly alarmed. Coleman’s papers were regarded by the council as
of high importance. They shewed at any rate that Oates had known of
his correspondence with La Chaize, and seemed evidence of a serious
state of affairs. In the streets they were taken as proof of his every
statement. Catholics who had sneered at the disclosure began to realise
that the charges against Coleman were heavy and that he was in danger
of his life.[134] The Protestant mob of London was convinced that the
charges against all accused were true. The Duchess of York started on
a visit to the Princess of Orange in Holland. It was said that she
was smuggling guilty priests out of the country. A fever seemed to be
in men’s minds. Freedom of speech vanished. To doubt the truth of the
discovery was dangerous. Opinions favourable to the Catholics were
not to be uttered without risk. The household of the Duke of York was
in consternation, and James himself gloomy and disquiet. Orders were
sent into the country to search the houses of Catholics for weapons.
Sir John Reresby hurried to town with his family to be on the scene
of a ferment the greatness whereof none but an eye-witness could
conceive. “In fine,” wrote Lord Peterborough, “hell was let loose;
malice, revenge, and ambition were supported by all that falsehood and
perjury could contrive; and lastly, it was the most deplorable time
that was ever seen in England.” Oates was hailed as the saviour of
the nation and was lodged with Dr. Tonge in Whitehall under a guard.
“One might,” exclaimed North, “have denied Christ with less contest
than the Plot.” To add to the general confusion the king left for the
races at Newmarket, scandalising all by his indecent levity. During his
absence Dr. Burnet paid Tonge a visit in his lodgings at Whitehall. He
found the poor man so much uplifted that he seemed to have lost the
little sense he ever had. Oates appeared and was introduced. He had
already received a visit from Evelyn. The courtier found him “furiously
indiscreet.” Burnet received the flattering intelligence that he had
been specially marked by the Jesuits for death; the same had been said
of Stillingfleet; but the divines thought the compliment cheap when
they found that it had been paid also to Ezrael Tonge. The informer
burst into a torrent of fury against the Jesuits and swore he would
have their blood. Disliking the strain, Burnet turned the conversation
to ask what arguments had prevailed upon him to join the Church of
Rome. Whereupon Oates stood up and, laying his hands on his breast,
declared: God and his holy angels knew that he had never changed, but
that he had gone over to the Roman Catholics to betray them.[135] The
perjurer might well triumph. The days of his glory were beginning. On
October 21 Parliament met. Before that time Godfrey, the magistrate
before whom Oates had sworn to the truth of his deposition, was dead
amid circumstances of horror and suspicion, and the future of the
informer with his hideous accusations was assured.
SIR EDMUND BERRY GODFREY
CHAPTER I
SIR EDMUND BERRY GODFREY
The death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey has passed for one of the most
remarkable mysteries in English history. The profound sensation which
it caused, the momentous consequences which it produced, the extreme
difficulty of discovering the truth, have rendered Godfrey’s figure
fascinating to historians. Opinion as to the nature of his end has been
widely different. To the minds of Kennet, Oldmixon, and Christie the
Catholics were responsible. North declared that he was murdered by the
patrons of Oates, to give currency to the belief in the Plot. Sir James
Fitzjames Stephen hazards that Oates himself was the murderer, and is
supported by Mr. Traill and Mr. Sidney Lee. L’Estrange was positive
that he committed suicide. Lingard and Sir George Sitwell have given
the same verdict. Ralph, Hallam, Macaulay, Ranke, and Klopp pronounce
the problem unsolved. Hume has pronounced it insoluble. All have
admitted the intricacy of the case and its importance. None has been
able without fear of contradiction to answer the question, “What was
the fate of Sir Edmund Godfrey?” On the answer to this question depends
to a great extent the nature of the final judgment to be passed upon
the Popish Plot. If Godfrey met his death at the hands of political
assassins, the weight of the fact is obvious. If he was murdered by
the Roman Catholics, much of the censure which has been poured on
the Protestant party misses the mark; if by Protestant agents, that
censure must be redoubled before the demands of justice are satisfied.
If he committed suicide, or was done to death in a private cause, the
criminal folly of many and the detestable crime of a few who in the
cause of religious intolerance fastened his death upon the innocent
were so black as to deserve almost the same penalty.
Scarcely ever has a fact so problematical been attended by such weighty
results. Sir Edmund Godfrey left his house on October 12, 1678. On
October 17 his corpse was found in the fields at the foot of Primrose
Hill. From that moment belief in the Popish Plot was rooted in the
mind of the nation. The excitement throughout the country rose to the
mark of frenzy. Godfrey’s death seemed clear evidence of the truth
of Oates’ sanguinary tales, and the prelude to a general massacre of
Protestants. It became an article of faith that he had been murdered
by the Catholics. To deny it was to incur the most awkward suspicion.
No man thought himself safe from the same fate. Every householder laid
in a stock of arms. Posts and chains barricaded the streets of the
city. Night after night the Trained Bands stood to arms and paraded
the town as if an insurrection were expected before morning. During
the winter which followed, wrote Shaftesbury, “the soberest and most
peaceable of the people have, either in town or country, hardly slept
for fear of fire or massacring by the Papists.” Alderman Sir Thomas
Player declared that when he went to bed “he did not know but the next
morning they might all rise with their throats cut.” And this state
of things continued, as sober Calamy remarked, “not for a few weeks
or months only, but for a great while together.” It was regarded as
most fortunate that the Protestants did not seek to avenge Godfrey and
anticipate their own doom by exterminating the Roman Catholics.[136]
Upon the death of a London magistrate was grounded the firm conviction
of the reality of the Popish Plot, under cover of which the Whig party
was all but successful in deranging the legitimate succession to the
throne, and even perhaps in overturning the monarchy itself. Of the
instruments by which Shaftesbury turned the Plot to this end, none was
more powerful than the belief in Godfrey’s murder. In one connection
or another that event appeared in almost all the state trials of the
two following years, in the debates in Parliament, in the pulpit, on
the stage.[137] The part which it played in the electioneering methods
of the Whigs was still more formidable, and Godfrey’s corpse was a
central figure in the grand annual ceremonies of Pope Burning, which
were arranged by the Green Ribbon Club.[138] Without the mystery of
Godfrey’s death it is possible that the agitation of the plot would
have burnt itself out in the course of a few months. As it was, the
fuel was fanned into a blaze of unexampled fierceness, which did not
die down until nearly three momentous years in English history had
passed.
No one undertaking the study of this problem is likely to underrate the
difficulty of the task. To find a solution is obviously a matter of
great importance; but it is also a matter in which small success may
reasonably be expected. The door of the secret has remained unopened
for so long. The door is not one which can be forced, and the key is
missing. It would be worse than sanguine to hope for its discovery
after a light search. Nevertheless there is some hope. “When a door-key
is missing,” says Dr. Gardiner, “the householder does not lose time in
deploring the intricacy of the lock; he tries every key at his disposal
to see whether it will fit the wards, and only sends for the locksmith
when he finds that his own keys are useless. So it is with historical
inquiry.... Try, if need be, one hypothesis after another.... Apply
them to the evidence, and when one fails to unlock the secret, try
another. Only when all imaginable keys have failed, have you a right
to call the public to witness your avowal of incompetence to solve
the riddle.”[139] In the case of the Gunpowder Plot Dr. Gardiner
tried the key afforded by the traditional story and found that it
fitted the lock. With the secret of Sir Edmund Godfrey’s death the
method must be different. There is no traditional story to test. What
seems more remarkable is that no determined attempt has been made to
construct a consistent theory to fill the empty place. Contemporaries
who approached the question answered it according to their prejudice,
and selected only such evidence as would support their preconceptions.
Later historians who have answered definitely have arrived at their
conclusions by considering the balance of general probability in the
matter, and have supported them from the contemporaries whose evidence
lies on the side to which the balance seems to them to fall. No one
has formed a hypothesis to explain the facts and tested it by all the
evidence, in whatever direction it seems to point. The following study
is an attempt to accomplish this. It would be impertinent to suppose
that it offers a perfect key to fit the lock. But it offers a key
with which trial may be made, and which may not be found altogether
of the wrong size and shape. There is at least a hypothesis to be
tested. If it jars with established fact, this will be detected. If
the test reveals assumptions which are beyond the scope of legitimate
imagination, it must be discarded. At least its abandonment will be
because it has been shown to be inconsistent with the facts of the
case. It will then leave the way clear for the same test to be applied
to another theory.
Sir Edmund Berry—and not Edmundbury—Godfrey was a justice of the peace
for the county of Middlesex and the city of Westminster. He came of a
Kentish family of some wealth and of good repute in the county. His
elder brother, father, and grandfather had all been justices of the
peace before him, and he was popularly said himself to be “the best
justice of the peace in England.” He had been educated at Westminster
and Christ Church, Oxford, had spent some time in travelling abroad,
was a member of Gray’s Inn, and owned a prosperous business as merchant
of wood and coal in Hartshorn Lane, near Charing Cross.[140] To the
public he had long been known. During the ghastly year when London
was in the grip of the plague and all who could fled to the pure
air of the country, Godfrey stayed at his post in town. London was
given up to the dying, the dead, and their plunderers. In the midst
of the chaos Godfrey went about his duties with redoubled energy and
conspicuous gallantry. Numerous thefts from corpses were traced to
a notorious ruffian. A warrant was issued for his apprehension. The
wretch took refuge in the pest-house, whither none would follow him.
Godfrey himself entered the forbidden spot and took the man alone. As
an appropriate punishment he sentenced him to be whipped round the
churchyard which he had robbed. It was of this time that his friend Dr.
Lloyd spoke: “He was the man (shall I say the only man of his place?)
that stayed to do good, and did the good he stayed for.... His house
was not only the seat of justice, but an hospital of charity.”[141]
The king was not slow to recognise good service, especially when
the recognition was not expensive. Charles gave Godfrey a knighthood
and a silver tankard, inscribed with an eulogy of the service which
he had done during the plague and the great fire.[142] Three years
later Godfrey roused sentiments of a less grateful character in his
sovereign. Sir Alexander Frazier, the king’s physician, owed the
justice £30 for firewood. Godfrey issued a writ against the debtor; but
Frazier took the matter before the king, the bailiffs were arrested,
and together with the magistrate were committed to the porter’s lodge
at Whitehall. Charles was so much angered at the interference with his
servant that he had the bailiffs flogged, and was scarcely restrained
from ordering the infliction of the same punishment on Godfrey himself.
“The justice,” writes Pepys, “do lie and justify his act, and says
he will suffer in the cause for the people, and do refuse to receive
almost any nutriment.” To the great wrath of the king, Godfrey was
supported by the Lord Chief Justice and several of the judges. After an
imprisonment of six days Charles was forced to set the magistrate at
liberty and to restore him to the commission of the peace from which
his name had been struck off.[143]
A portrait of Godfrey belongs to the parish of St. Martin in
the Fields.[144] It shows the bust of a spare man, dressed in a
close-fitting coat of dark material, a high lace collar, and a
full-bottomed wig. The head is large, the forehead wide and high, the
nose hooked, the chin strong and prominent. The frank eyes and pleasant
expression of the firm lips belie the idea of melancholy. Godfrey’s
height was exceptional, and his appearance made more striking by a
pronounced stoop. He commonly wore a broad-brimmed hat with a gold
band, and in walking fixed his eyes on the ground, as though in deep
thought. Now and again he wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. “He was
a man,” writes Roger North, “so remarkable in person and garb, that,
described at Wapping, he could not be mistaken at Westminster.”[145]
Godfrey moved in good society. He numbered the Earl of Danby among his
acquaintance, was on terms of friendship with Sir William Jones and the
Lord Chancellor, and counted Gilbert Burnet and Dr. Lloyd among his
intimates.
Early in 1678 he was ordered to the south of France for the benefit of
his health. He stayed for some months at Montpellier, and there admired
the construction of the great canal which Louis XIV was undertaking to
connect the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.[146] Late in the summer
Godfrey returned to England and resumed his magisterial duties in
London. It was scarcely beyond the ordinary scope of these when on
September 6 three men entered his office and desired him to swear one
of them to the truth of certain information which he had committed to
writing. The three were Titus Oates, Dr. Tonge, and Christopher Kirkby.
The paper contained Oates’ famous information drawn up in forty-three
articles. Oates made affidavit to the truth of the contents, and his
oath was witnessed by his two friends and attested by Godfrey. They
refused however to allow the magistrate to read the information in
detail, “telling him that his Majesty had already a true copy thereof,
and that it was not convenient that it should be yet communicated to
anybody else, only acquainting him in general that it contained matter
of treason and felony and other high crimes.” Godfrey was satisfied,
and the three men departed without more ado.[147] Oates professed
afterwards to have taken this course as a safeguard for himself and his
discovery from the vengeance of the Jesuits. His motive was far more
probably to form a connection apart from the court, where he had been
poorly received. At this point, so far as Godfrey was concerned, the
matter rested. He was relieved of responsibility by the fact that the
information had been forwarded to the king, and there were no steps
for him to take. But on the morning of Saturday, September 28, Oates
appeared before him again. Kirkby and Tonge had been summoned to the
council the previous evening, but before they could be fetched the
council had risen after giving orders that they should attend the next
day. During the last three weeks the informer and his allies had felt
their distrust of the council become more acute. While Oates had been
engaged in writing copies of his information, Tonge had on several
occasions been refused admittance to the Lord Treasurer. They believed
that the discovery was neglected, and probably suspected that the
summons to Whitehall was the prelude to discredit and imprisonment.
To guard against this they determined to remove the matter from the
discretion of the council. Two copies of the information, now in the
form of eighty-three articles, were laid before Godfrey, who attested
Oates’ oath to the truth of their contents. One Godfrey retained
in his possession, the other was taken by Oates to the council at
Whitehall.[148]
Godfrey was now in the centre of the intrigue. His eminence and
reputation for the fearless performance of his duty had no doubt
directed Oates to select him as the recipient of the discovery. The
fact that he was known to have resisted pressure from court with
success on a former occasion made it likely that he would not submit
to be bullied or cajoled into suppressing the information if, as Oates
feared, the court had determined on this. He would certainly insist
upon making the facts public and would force an inquiry into the
matter. As a matter of fact Oates and Tonge were mistaken, for the
council proposed to investigate the case thoroughly. Even so, it was
from their point of view a good move to lay the information before
Godfrey. It would appear to be evidence of Oates’ desire to act in
a straightforward manner and frankly according to the law. But in
doing so they introduced a complication of which they were probably
unaware. Godfrey was not only remarkable for his ability as justice
of the peace, but for the tolerance with which he dealt between the
parties and creeds with which the business of every magistrate lay.
He was credited with sound principles in church and state, but he did
not find it inconsistent with these to allow his vigilance to sleep on
occasion. The penal laws against dissenters were not to his mind, and
he refrained from their strict execution. He “was not apt to search
for priests or mass-houses: so that few men of his zeal lived upon
better terms with the papists than he did.” Dr. Lloyd put the matter in
his funeral sermon: “The compassion that he had for all men that did
amiss extended itself to all manner of dissenters, and amongst them he
had a kindness for the persons of many Roman Catholics.” Among these
was Edward Coleman, secretary of the Duchess of York, who was now
accused by Oates of high treason.[149] The intimacy between the two
men exercised a profound influence upon the course of after events,
which Oates could not have foreseen. After Godfrey’s disappearance
his connection with Coleman became known; but at the time it was only
apparent that Godfrey was an energetic magistrate who possessed the
somewhat rare quality of being impervious to court influence. That
he was upon friendly terms with the Roman Catholics was, for the
informer’s purpose, of little moment. Oates was in search of support
outside the council-chamber, and Godfrey offered exactly what he
wanted. In case the government wished to suppress the discovery of the
plot, Godfrey was not the man to acquiesce in such a design on account
of private considerations.
On Saturday, October 12, Sir Edmund Godfrey left his house in Hartshorn
Lane between nine and ten o’clock in the morning. That night he did
not return home. The next day Godfrey’s clerk sent to inquire at his
mother’s house in Hammersmith. Obtaining no news there, the clerk
communicated with his master’s two brothers, who lived in the city.
They sent word that they would come to Hartshorn Lane later in the day,
and enjoined the clerk meanwhile to keep Godfrey’s absence secret. In
the evening Mr. Michael and Mr. Benjamin Godfrey appeared at their
brother’s house, and set out in company with the clerk upon a round of
inquiry. That night and all Monday they continued the search, but could
nowhere obtain tidings of the missing man. On Tuesday the brothers
laid information of Godfrey’s absence before the Lord Chancellor, and
in the afternoon of the same day the clerk publicly announced his
disappearance at a crowded funeral.[150] Up to this time the fact
was unknown except to Godfrey’s household and near relatives. It was
afterwards asserted by those who wished to prove his suicide that the
secret had been kept in order to prevent discovery of the manner of his
death. The law directed that the estate of a person dying by his own
hand should be forfeited to the crown, and to prevent the forfeiture
Godfrey’s family concealed the fact. Sir Roger L’Estrange devoted some
effort to establish this.[151] He was however so unwise as immediately
to demolish his case by collecting evidence to show that the dead man’s
brothers had approached the Lord Chancellor, “to beg his lordship’s
assistance to secure their brother’s estate, in case he should be
found to have made himself away.”[152] Certainly, if the Godfreys
had known his suicide and had been moved to conceal it in order to
save his estate, the last person in the world to whom they would have
admitted their motive was the Lord Chancellor. L’Estrange’s sense of
the contradictory was small. Not only did he commit this blunder,
but he was at considerable pains to show that the fact of Godfrey’s
disappearance was never concealed at all; on the contrary, the news was
bruited about the town as early as the afternoon of the day on which
Sir Edmund left his house, in order to raise a cry that he had been
murdered by the Roman Catholics.[153] He did not consider that, as the
only persons who had first-hand news of Godfrey’s absence were members
of his family, the rumour must have emanated from themselves; whereas
he persisted at the same time that their one object was to keep the
fact secret. There was good reason why the family should be unwilling
to publish Sir Edmund’s disappearance until they had, if possible,
some clue to his whereabouts or his fate. A man of his prominence and
consideration could not vanish from the scene without giving rise to
reports of an unpleasant nature. When for expedience sake his brothers
announced that he was missing and brought the matter to the notice of
government, there sprang into being tales which any persons of repute
would have been glad to avoid, none the less because they perhaps
believed that some of them might be true. On the Wednesday and Thursday
following stories of Godfrey’s adventures were rife. He had chosen to
disappear to escape creditors, to whom he owed large sums of money.
As no creditors appeared this notion was exploded.[154] He had been
suddenly married in scandalous circumstances to a lady of fortune. He
had been traced to a house of ill repute, now in one part of the town,
now in another, and there found in the midst of a debauch. With one of
these last stories the Duke of Norfolk went armed to Whitehall, and was
so ill-advised as to announce it for a fact. But gradually, as none of
them gained support, the rumour spread that Godfrey had been murdered.
It was reported that he had been last seen at the Cock-pit, the Earl of
Danby’s house; then at the Duke of Norfolk’s residence, Arundel House;
then at St. James’, the Duke of York’s palace; even Whitehall, it was
said, was not spared.[155] The general belief was, “the Papists have
made away with him.” Everywhere the missing magistrate afforded the
main topic of conversation. The government was occupied with the case.
Michael and Benjamin Godfrey were summoned before the council, and
there was talk of a proclamation on the subject.[156]
Before further steps could be taken definite news came to hand. On
Thursday, October 17, a man, who could never afterwards be found,
came into the shop of a London bookseller in the afternoon with the
information that Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey had been found dead near St.
Pancras’ Church with a sword thrust through his body. A Scotch minister
and his friend were in the shop and carried the news to Burnet.[157]
The report was correct. At two o’clock in the afternoon two men were
walking across the fields at the foot of Primrose Hill, when they saw,
lying at the edge of a ditch, a stick, a scabbard, a belt, and a pair
of gloves. Pushing aside the brambles, they found a man’s corpse in
the ditch, head downwards. With this discovery they proceeded to the
Whitehouse Inn, which stood in a lane not far off. John Rawson, the
innkeeper, offered them a shilling to fetch the articles which they
had seen on the bank, but rain had begun to fall, and they decided to
wait till it should cease. By five o’clock the rain had stopped, and
Rawson, with a constable and several of his neighbours, set out, guided
by the men who had brought the news. They found the body at the bottom
of the ditch resting in a crooked position; “the left hand under the
head upon the bottom of the ditch; the right hand a little stretched
out, and touching the bank on the right side; the knees touching the
bottom of the ditch, and the feet not touching the ground, but resting
upon the brambles”: through the body, which hung transversely, a sword
had been driven with such force that its point had pierced the back
and protruded for the length of two hand-breadths. In the ditch lay
the dead man’s hat and periwig. The constable called the company to
notice particularly the details of the situation. They then hoisted
the corpse out of the ditch, and to facilitate the carriage withdrew
the sword; it was “somewhat hard in the drawing, and crashed upon the
bone in the plucking of it forth.” The body was set upon two watchmen’s
staves and carried to the Whitehouse Inn, where it was placed upon a
table. As they came into the light the men recognised, what they had
already guessed, that the dead man was Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. A note
of the articles found was taken. Besides those brought from the bank
and the ditch, a large sum of money was found in the pockets.[158] On
the fingers were three rings. Leaving two watchmen to guard the body,
the constable and half a dozen others rode off to Hartshorn Lane. There
they found Godfrey’s brothers and his brother-in-law, Mr. Plucknet.
Towards ten o’clock at night the constable returned to the inn with
Plucknet, who formally identified the body. Rawson and Brown, the
constable, then took him to view the place where it had been found, by
the light of a lantern. The same night the brothers Godfrey sent to
Whitehall to notify what had passed, and a warrant was issued for the
summons of a jury to take the inquest.[159]
On the following morning a jury of eighteen men and Mr. Cooper, coroner
of Middlesex, met at the Whitehouse. At the instance of some officious
tradesmen the coroner of Westminster offered his services also, but
they were properly refused.[160] The jury sat all day, and as the
evidence was unfinished, adjourned in the evening. On Saturday, October
19, the inquest was continued at the Rose and Crown in St. Giles’ in
the Fields, and late at night the verdict was returned: “That certain
persons to the jurors unknown, a certain piece of linen cloth of no
value, about the neck of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, then and there,
feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, did tie and
fasten; and therewith the said Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, feloniously,
wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, did suffocate and strangle,
of which suffocation and strangling he, the said Sir Edmundbury
Godfrey, then and there instantly died.”[161] Stripped of its cumbrous
verbiage the jury gave a verdict of murder by strangling against some
person or persons unknown. They were determined in this chiefly by
the medical evidence.[162] Testimony was given at great length on the
position and appearance of the corpse in the ditch. A number of people
had examined the body and the spot where it was found. Five surgeons
and two of the king’s apothecaries formed professional opinions on the
subject. At the inquest only two of the surgeons gave evidence, but
the testimony of the others, taken at a later date, entirely supported
their judgment. To points of fact there was no lack of witnesses.
Godfrey’s movements were traced to one o’clock on the afternoon of
Saturday, October 12. At nine o’clock in the morning one of the jurymen
had seen him talking to a milk-woman near Paddington; at eleven another
had seen him returning from Paddington to London; at one Radcliffe,
an oilman, had seen him pass his house in the Strand, near Charing
Cross.[163] It was proved that on Tuesday there had been nothing in
the ditch where Godfrey’s corpse was found two days later.[164] Further
evidence of this was given at the trial of Thompson, Pain, and Farwell
in 1682 for a libel “importing that Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey murdered
himself,” Mr. Robert Forset was then subpœnaed to appear as a witness,
but was not called. He deposed before the Lord Mayor that on Tuesday,
October 15, 1678 he had hunted a pack of harriers over the field where
the body was found, and that his friend Mr. Harwood, lately deceased,
had on the next day hunted the hounds over the same place and along
the ditch itself; on neither occasion was anything to be seen of cane,
gloves, or corpse.[165] An examination of the body revealed remarkable
peculiarities. From the neck to the top of the stomach the flesh was
much bruised, and seemed to have been stamped with a man’s feet or
beaten with some blunt weapon.[166] Below the left ear was a contused
swelling, as if a hard knot had been tied underneath. Round the neck
was a mark indented in the flesh, merging above and below into thick
purple creases. The mark was not visible until the collar had been
unbuttoned. The surgeons’ opinion was unanimous to the effect that it
had been caused by a cloth or handkerchief tightly tied, and that the
collar had been fastened over it.[167] The neck was dislocated.[168]
The body was lissom, and in spots on the face and the bruised part of
the chest showed signs of putrefaction. Two wounds had been inflicted
on the breast. One pierced as far as a rib, by which the sword had been
stopped. From the other, which was under the left breast, the sword
had been extracted by the constable; it had been driven through the
cavity of the heart and had transfixed the body.[169] These facts were
suggestive, but the point which deservedly attracted most attention
was the striking absence of blood from the clothes of the dead man and
the place where his corpse had been found. In spite of the rain the
ditch, which was thickly protected by brambles and bushes, was dry,
and would certainly have shewn marks of blood if any had been there.
The evidence is positive that there was none. Brown, the constable,
Rawson, and Mr. Plucknet examined the spot with lanterns on the night
of Thursday, October 17. Early the next morning the ditch was searched
by several other persons. At no time did it contain traces of any blood
whatever. A few yards to the side of the ditch the grass was stained
with blood and serum which had oozed from the wound in the back after
the withdrawal of the sword. Some stumps, over which the men carrying
the body to the inn had stumbled, were stained in the same way. As they
had entered the house the body had been jerked against the doorpost;
similar marks were found there; and when it was set on the table there
was a further effusion of blood and serum which dripped upon the
floor of the inn parlour. With the exception of the part of the shirt
which covered the wound at the back, the clothes of the dead man were
without any stain of blood.[170] The importance of this is obvious. A
sword driven through the living heart must produce a great discharge of
blood. The clothes of a man thus killed would be saturated with blood.
The ground on which he lay would be covered with it. Only in one case
would this not happen. If the sword plugged the orifice of the wound in
such a way as wholly to stop the flow of blood from it, the quantity
which escaped would be inconsiderable. In the case of Sir Edmund
Godfrey this could not have taken place. L’Estrange says: “The sword
stopped the fore part of the wound, as tight as a tap.”[171] But the
only manner in which he could suggest that Godfrey committed suicide
was by resting his sword on the edge of the bank beyond the ditch and
falling forward on it.[172] It is impossible to believe that if he had
killed himself in this manner the sword should not have been disturbed
or twisted by his fall. As he fell, it must have been violently
wrenched, the wound would have been torn, and the ensuing rush of
blood have flooded the ditch and his body lying in it.[173] Apart from
L’Estrange’s bare word, there is no reason to believe that the wound
was plugged by the blade of the sword. This would have been in itself
a remarkable circumstance; and the fact that there is no evidence to
the point, when every other detail was so carefully noted, raises a
presumption that the statement was untrue. Even if it had been the
case, the second wound would still afford matter for consideration. It
would be sufficiently strange that a man wishing to end his life should
bethink himself of falling on his sword only after bungling over the
easier way of suicide by stabbing himself. But it is hardly credible
that a considerable flesh wound should be made and the weapon withdrawn
from it without some flow of blood resulting; and there was no blood
at all on the front of Godfrey’s body or on the clothes covering the
two wounds. The surgeons and the jury who trusted them were perfectly
right in their conclusion. There can be no substantial doubt that the
wounds found on Godfrey’s body were not the cause of his death, but
were inflicted at some time after the event. As a dead man cannot be
supposed to thrust a sword through his own corpse, he had certainly
been murdered. When this point was reached, the nature of his end was
evident. The neck was dislocated and showed signs of strangulation.
Clearly the magistrate had been throttled in a violent struggle, during
which his neck was broken and his body hideously bruised. The clerk
proved that when his master went out on the morning of October 12 “he
had then a laced band about his neck.” When the body was found, this
had disappeared. Presumably it was with this that the act had been
accomplished.
That the murder was not for vulgar ends of robbery was proved by the
valuables found upon the body. Another fact of importance which came
to light at the inquest shewed as clearly that it was dictated by some
deeper motive. The lanes leading to the fields surrounding Primrose
Hill were deep and miry. If Godfrey had walked thither to commit
suicide, his shoes would have told a tale of the ground over which he
had come. When his body was found the shoes were clean.[174] Upon this
was based the conclusion that Godfrey had not walked to Primrose Hill
on that day at all. It was clear that he had been murdered in some
other place, that the murderers had then conveyed his body to Primrose
Hill, had transfixed it with his sword, and thrown it into the ditch,
that the dead man might seem to have taken his own life.
The result of the inquest was confirmed by what passed some years
later. In the course of the year 1681 a series of letters were
published in the _Loyal Protestant Intelligencer_, purporting to prove
that Sir Edmund Godfrey had committed suicide. Thompson, Pain, and
Farwell, the publisher and authors of the letters, were tried before
Chief Justice Pemberton on June 20, 1682 for libel and misdemeanour.
The accused attempted to justify their action, but the witnesses whom
they called gave evidence which only established still more firmly the
facts elicitated at the inquest. Belief in the Popish Plot was at this
time on the wane throughout the country, and at court was almost a
sign of disloyalty. The men were tried in the fairest manner possible,
and upon full evidence were convicted. Thompson and Farwell were
pilloried and fined £100 each, and Pain, whose share in the business
had been less than theirs, escaped with a fine.[175] None but those
who were willing to accept L’Estrange’s bad testimony, assertions, and
insinuations could refrain from believing that Godfrey’s death was a
cold-blooded murder. Even some who would have been glad to credit his
suicide were convinced. The king certainly could not be suspected of a
desire to establish belief in the murder. When news of the discovery
of the body first reached him, he thought that Godfrey had killed
himself.[176] But when Dr. Lloyd, who went with Burnet to view the body
at the Whitehouse Inn, brought word of what they had seen, Charles was,
to outward appearance at all events, convinced that this could not have
been the case. He was open enough in his raillery at the witnesses of
the plot, but he never used his witty tongue to turn Godfrey’s murder
into a suicide.[177]
The rumours which had before connected the magistrate’s disappearance
with the Roman Catholics were now redoubled in vigour.[178] Conviction
of their truth became general. The Whig party under the lead of
Shaftesbury boomed the case. Portrait medals of Godfrey were struck
representing the Pope as directing his murder. Ballads were composed
in Godfrey’s memory. Sermons were preached on the subject. Dr.
Stillingfleet’s effusion ran into two editions in as many days, and ten
thousand copies were sold in less than a month.[179] An enterprising
cutler made a special “Godfrey” dagger and sold three thousand in one
day. On one side of the blade was graven: Remember the murder of Edmond
Bury Godfrey; on the other: Remember religion. One, ornamented with
a gilt handle, was sent to the Duke of York. Ladies of high degree
carried these daggers about their persons and slept with them beneath
their pillows, to guard themselves from a similar doom. Others as
timid followed the lead of the Countess of Shaftesbury, who had a set
of pocket pistols made for her muff.[180] The corpse of the murdered
magistrate was brought to London in state, and lay exposed in the
street for two days. A continual procession of people who came to gaze
on the sight passed up and down. Few who came departed without rage,
terror, and revenge rooted in their hearts. On October 31 the body was
borne to burial at St. Martin’s in the Fields. Seventy-two clergymen
walked before; above a thousand persons of distinction followed after.
The church was crowded. Dr. Lloyd, afterwards Dean of Bangor and
Bishop of St. Asaph, himself a friend of Godfrey, preached a funeral
sermon from the text: “Died Abner as a fool dieth?” It consisted of an
elaborate eulogy of the dead man and an inflammatory attack upon the
Roman Catholics. To crown the theatrical pomp of this parade, there
mounted the pulpit beside the preacher two able-bodied divines, to
guard his life from the attack which it was confidently expected would
be made. “A most portentous spectacle, sure,” exclaims North. “Three
parsons in one pulpit! Enough of itself, on a less occasion, to excite
terror in the audience.”[181] There was one thing still lacking. As
yet no evidence had appeared to connect any one with the crime. On
October 21 a committee of secrecy was appointed by the House of Commons
to inquire into the Popish Plot and the murder of Sir Edmund Berry
Godfrey. On the 23rd a similar committee was established by the House
of Lords.[182]
The secretaries of state and the privy council were already
overwhelmed with work which the investigation of the plot had thrown
upon their shoulders. For ten days the committees laboured at the
inquiry, and examined some dozens of witnesses without drawing nearer
to the desired end. Nothing appeared to throw light upon the subject.
Every clue which was taken up vanished in a haze of rumour and
uncertainty. There seemed every probability that the murderers would
escape detection. But information was soon to be forthcoming to shed a
ray of light upon the scene.
CHAPTER II
BEDLOE AND ATKINS
On October 20 a proclamation was published offering a pardon and
the reward of £500 to any one whose evidence should lead to the
apprehension and conviction of the murderers. Four days later a second
proclamation was issued containing in addition to these a promise of
protection to the discoverer of the culprits. It is easy to point out
that this course offered temptations to perjury and to sneer at the
motives of the government, but it must be remembered that in the days
when the police were a force of the future it was only by obtaining
an accomplice in the crime to give evidence that criminals could in
many cases be brought to justice. The proclamations took effect. At
five o’clock in the afternoon of Friday, November 1, Samuel Atkins
was arrested at the offices of the Admiralty in Derby House for being
concerned in the murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey. Atkins was clerk to
Samuel Pepys, the secretary of the navy board. He was arrested on the
evidence of a certain Captain Charles Atkins. The two men were not
related by blood, but were acquaintances, and “for name-sake have been
called cousins.” Captain Atkins had laid information before Henry
Coventry on October 27.[183] Three days later he made the same relation
to the privy council, and on Friday, November 1, swore to his statement
before Sir Philip Howard, justice of the peace for the county of
Middlesex. He deposed: “That in Derby-house, being in discourse with
Samuel Atkins (clerk of Mr. Pepys, secretary of the Admiralty), the
said Samuel did say that Sir Edmundbury Godfrey had very much vilified
his master, and that if he lived long would be the ruin of him; upon
which the said Samuel did ask this examinant whether he did think Child
to be a man of courage and secrecy; to which this examinant did reply
that the said Child had been at sea, and had behaved himself very well,
as he had been informed; upon which the said Samuel bid this examinant
send the said Child to his master, Mr. Pepys, but not to him the said
Samuel, for that he would not be seen to know anything of it. This
examinant did endeavour to find out the said Child, but did not meet
with him till the day after the discourse had happened between him
and Samuel Atkins, at the Three Tobacco Pipes in Holborn, where this
examinant did tell Child that Secretary Pepys would speak with him;
and the next time that this examinant did see the said Child (after
he had given him that direction) he, the said Child, did endeavour to
engage the said examinant to join him in the murder of a man.”[184] The
quarrel between Pepys and Godfrey, he said further, was occasioned by
the discovery of the Popish Plot.[185]
Samuel Atkins was immediately carried before the committee of inquiry
of the House of Lords. The conduct of the committee reflected anything
but credit upon its members. An account of the proceedings in his case
was afterwards drawn up by Atkins for Mr. Pepys.[186] In the course
of them he had been subjected to great annoyance and ill-treatment;
he had been imprisoned for a considerable length of time, and had
been tried for his life. Every motive was present to induce him to be
unfair towards the instigators of his prosecution. Even if he were
perfectly honest in drawing up his account, it could hardly be an
accurate relation of what took place. The careful literary form in
which it is written shows that he arranged it elaborately and revised
it often. Since his papers were twice taken from him in prison, he
must have composed it afterwards from memory.[187] But after full
allowance is made for this, the statement probably represents with
considerable truth what took place. It was not written for publication
as a controversial pamphlet, but for Pepys’ private information.
Atkins was likely therefore to attempt as far as possible to tell the
truth. Moreover the conclusions to be drawn from it are supported by
a consideration of the evidence produced in the case and the trial in
which it ended.[188]
Atkins indignantly denied the whole story. He was several times called
before the committee, and received considerable attention from the Earl
of Shaftesbury himself, its most prominent member. Noble lords and
reverend bishops alternately coaxed him to confess and threatened him
with the awful consequences of a refusal. Plain hints were given to him
that both he and his master must certainly be papists, and that he had
only to admit their complicity in Godfrey’s murder to gain liberty,
pardon, and prosperity. In the intervals he was remanded to Newgate to
reflect upon the best means of getting out of it. Before he knew what
reception his revelations would find with the parties, Oates had taken
care to exonerate the Duke of York from all concern in the plot. It
would be a fine stroke for Shaftesbury, with whose schemes this did not
at all accord, if he could implicate the duke in the murder. If only
Atkins could be brought to accuse Pepys, the duke, under whom he had
worked for many years at the Admiralty, would offer an easy mark.
That this was Shaftesbury’s real object can hardly be doubted. Captain
Atkins was known to be a person of disreputable character, and gave
his evidence in the most suspicious manner.[189] When the man Child
was produced he did not know Samuel Atkins by sight, and was unable
to say anything about the matter.[190] The captain was treated by the
committee with consideration. Although some show was made of pressing
him in examination on his statements, the pressure was removed as soon
as it appeared that his embarrassment was likely to lead to awkward
consequences to his patrons.[191] He was sent to interview his namesake
in Newgate in the hope of extorting admissions in the course of
conversation, and seemed to have been posted with fresh charges against
Pepys and the Duke. He was evidently prepared to spice and expand his
evidence in this direction whenever it seemed desirable.[192] But
before the time arrived for this, a new witness appeared upon the scene.
On Wednesday, October 30, a man named William Bedloe wrote from
Bristol to Henry Coventry, secretary of state, signifying that he
had information to give concerning the murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey,
and desiring aid and protection in coming to London. The next day he
wrote in a similar strain to Secretary Sir Joseph Williamson. Both
the secretaries answered him. To make sure that he should not think
better of his project and escape, Williamson wrote to the mayor of
Bristol enclosing a communication for Bedloe, while Coventry addressed
his reply to Bedloe and enclosed a letter to the mayor with orders
to give whatever assistance might be necessary.[193] Bedloe gave
himself up forthwith to the mayor and was sent post-haste to town. On
November 7 he made a deposition before the council and was examined in
the presence of the king; on the 8th he was examined by the Lords’
committee and made a statement at the bar of the House.[194] It has
constantly been said that at his first examination Bedloe denied all
knowledge of the Popish Plot, and after professing to speak only to
Godfrey’s murder, the next day expanded his information to embrace more
general topics; and it is told that the king on hearing this exclaimed,
“Surely this man has received a new lesson during the last twenty-four
hours.[195]” The story is a mere fiction. In his first deposition he
“acquainted the Lords that he had several things to communicate to them
which related to the plot, and that he was able to confirm several
passages which Mr. Oates had discovered concerning the plot.”[196]
Examined on this, he gave a long account of the military operations to
be taken by the Roman Catholics; Chepstow Castle was to be surrendered
to Lord Powis, who was to command an army of twenty thousand “religious
men” shipped from Spain; a similar number were to sail from Flanders
to join Lord Bellasis at Bridlington Bay. He had known this for four
years, and had been employed by the Jesuits in London to carry letters
to Douay, Paris, and Madrid.[197] As far as Bedloe’s character is
concerned the matter is immaterial, for another lie from his mouth
would scarcely add weight to the scale of his perjury; but it is
important not to exaggerate the folly and credulity of the government,
and here at least it has been maligned. This was little more than
a support for Oates’ story in general. The more remarkable part of
Bedloe’s information dealt with the murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey. All
that need be extracted from it at this point is his evidence against
Atkins. Godfrey, he swore, had been murdered on Saturday, October
12, in Somerset House, the queen’s palace. He was himself to have
been one of the party to do the deed, but failed to come at the right
time. Soon after nine o’clock on Monday night he had been taken by
one of the murderers to see the dead body in the room where it had
been laid. There, in a small company, he saw by the light of a dark
lantern, standing near the corpse, two men “who owned themselves, the
one to be Lord Bellasis’ servant, and the other to be Mr. Atkins,
Pepys’ clerk.”[198] The account which was communicated to the Lords
concludes: “The same time Mr. Atkins being called in before Mr. Bedloe,
Mr. Bedloe saith that he is in all things very like the person he saw
in the room with Sir Edmundbury Godfrey’s dead body; and he doth verily
believe it was him that owned himself to be Pepys’ clerk; but because
he never saw him before that time, he cannot positively swear it, but
he doth verily believe him to be that man.”[199] According to Atkins’
own account Bedloe’s charge against him at this meeting was still more
vague. Bedloe was asked if he knew the accused. Turning to Atkins
he said, “I believe, Sir, I have seen you somewhere, I think, but I
cannot tell where; I don’t indeed remember your face.” “Is this the
man, Mr. Bedloe?” asked the Duke of Buckingham. “My Lord,” returned the
informer, “I can’t swear this is he; ’twas a young man, and he told me
his name was Atkins, a clerk, belonging to Derby House; but I cannot
swear this is the same person.”[200]
Bedloe was a man of evil character. He had been in the service of Lord
Bellasis, and had subsequently held a commission as lieutenant in a
foot company in Flanders.[201] He was of a type not uncommon in the
seventeenth century, one of the vast crowd who lived a roving life of
poverty and dishonesty, travelling from one country to another, in
many services and under many names, living upon their own wits and
other people’s money, men for whom no falsehood was too black, no crime
too gross to be turned to profit, men without truth, without shame,
without fear of God or man. Bedloe was afterwards known to be notorious
throughout Europe. He had been imprisoned in Spain for obtaining money
under false pretences. He had been imprisoned in the Marshalsea for
debt. He had been sentenced to death for robbery in Normandy, but had
escaped from prison. When the agitation of the Popish Plot broke out
he had only lately been released from Newgate. He had passed himself
off on the continent as a nobleman, and had swindled his way from
Dunkirk to Madrid. In Flanders his name was Lord Newport, in France
he called himself Lord Cornwallis, in Spain Lord Gerard.[202] When he
was examined before the House of Lords he denied without reservation
that he knew Titus Oates.[203] The government made inquiries behind
his back. His mother, his sister, and a friend were examined by the
Bishop of Llandaff on Bedloe’s behaviour between November 2 and 5, when
he had stayed at his mother’s house at Chepstow. It appeared that he
had discoursed to them about the plot, and had announced his intention
of discovering the murderers of Godfrey; but he also told them that
he had known Oates intimately when they were together in Spain.[204]
This might have led to unfortunate consequences. Bedloe attempted to
recover the slip by saying that he had known Oates personally, but
not by that name, since at Valladolid he had called himself Ambrose.
Oates supported him by the statement that he had been acquainted with
Bedloe in Spain under the name of Williams.[205] The recovery was not
sufficient, for Bedloe had told his family that he had known Oates
by the same name; but the unsystematic method of examination came to
the informer’s aid, and the fact passed at the time unnoticed. His
denial of Oates’ name and recognition of his person took place before
the House of Lords, while the facts which proved his perjury in this
only came to the notice of the privy council. When examinations of
the same persons on the same or different points might be conducted
by the secretaries of state, by the privy council, at the bar of the
House of Lords, at the bar of the House of Commons, or before the
secret committee of either one house or the other, and when it was the
business of nobody to dissect and digest the results of this mass of
raw evidence, it can hardly be a matter of surprise that contradictions
went undetected and lying statements unrebuked.
In spite of this false step Bedloe was a man of some ingenuity and
even moderation. In his evidence against Atkins he had left the way
open to advance, if possible, and charge Pepys’ clerk more fully with
being implicated in the murder, or to retreat, if necessary, and
protest with a profusion of sincerity that he had been hoaxed. He was
far too careful to run the risk of definitely accusing any one with
having been in a certain place at a certain time until he was sure
that his reputation would not be ruined by running upon an alibi. The
tactics which he employed were justified by their success. After the
examination of Friday, November 8, Atkins was sent back to Newgate
and heavily ironed. On the following Monday Captain Atkins was again
sent to him in prison and exhorted him to be cheerful and confess his
guilt. This interview was the prelude to a visit on the next day from
four members of the House of Commons, headed by Sacheverell and Birch.
They went over the whole case to the prisoner, pointed out the extreme
danger in which he was situated, urged him with every argument to
confess, and declared that his refusal would be held to aggravate the
crime of the murder. Atkins remained obdurate, and the four left him
with serious countenances, Sacheverell saying as he went away that the
prisoner was “one of the most ingenious men to say nothing” whom he
had ever met.[206] Since nothing was to be gained in this fashion it
was determined to bring Atkins to trial. The date seems to have been
fixed for Wednesday, November 20, the day before the conviction of
Staley. When the day came the case was postponed. Atkins remained in
Newgate, and was allowed pen, ink, and paper to compose his defence.
The fact was that the committee had received intelligence that Atkins
could produce good evidence of an alibi for the evening of October 14,
the only point at which the evidence of Bedloe touched him. He had in
the meantime by the help of his friends collected witnesses, and the
crown was unable to face the trial without knowing what statements they
would make. When Atkins had committed enough to writing, his papers
were seized, and gave to the prosecution detailed information on the
subject.[207] On December 13 his witnesses were summoned before the
committee of the House of Lords. They proved to be Captain Vittells
of the yacht _Catherine_ and five of his men. They were examined at
length. On Monday, October 14, Atkins had sent word to Captain Vittells
that he would bring two gentlewomen, his friends, to see the yacht. At
half-past four o’clock in the afternoon they appeared at Greenwich,
where the vessel lay, and came aboard. The captain took them to his
cabin, and they drank a glass of wine. The wine was good, the company
pleasant, and they stayed drinking till seven o’clock. Atkins then
sent away his boat and returned to supper. After supper they drank
again, and the gentlemen toasted the ladies, and the ladies toasted the
gentlemen, till night had fallen and the clock pointed to half-past
ten. By this time they were all, said the captain, pretty fresh, and
Mr. Atkins very much fuddled. Captain Vittells put his guests, with a
Dutch cheese and half a dozen bottles of wine as a parting gift, into a
boat belonging to the yacht and sent them to land. The tide flowed so
strongly that the men rowing the wherry could not make London Bridge,
but set Atkins and the two ladies ashore at Billingsgate at half-past
eleven o’clock, and assisted them into a coach. “Atkins,” said one of
the sailors, “was much in drink, and slept most of the way up.”[208] He
must have blessed the fate that led him to joviality and intoxication
on that evening. It was obvious that he could not have been soberly
watching Sir Edmund Godfrey’s corpse at Somerset House when he was at
the time named by Bedloe, and for two hours after, first hilarious and
then somnolent at Greenwich. The evidence was unimpeachable. The only
fact revealed by a somewhat sharp examination was that some of the
sailors had signed a paper for the information of Mr. Pepys stating
at what time they had left Atkins. One of them admitted that he could
not read, but added immediately that he was a Protestant. In the
seventeenth century sound religious principles covered a want of many
letters.
At this point the case rested. A true bill had already been found
against Atkins by the grand jury, but it was not until Tuesday,
February 11, 1679 that he could obtain a trial.[209] Important
developments had in the meantime taken place, and Atkins was no
longer the game at which the plot-hunters drove. On the day before he
was brought to the bar three men were convicted of the same murder
for which he was indicted on two counts, both as principal and as
accessory. The former of these was now dropped, and Atkins was tried
only as an accessory to the murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey. The centre
of interest in the case had moved away from him and Mr. Pepys and the
Duke of York, and the same evidence originally preferred against him
was produced in court without addition. The case for the prosecution
was lamentably weak. Captain Atkins swore to his previous story at
greater length, but without any new statement of importance.[210]
Bedloe followed with the story of the man who gave his name as Atkins
at the meeting over Godfrey’s corpse; but whereas he had formerly
seemed willing to recognise Atkins without much difficulty, he now
professed himself entirely unable to swear to his identity. “There
was a very little light,” he said, “and the man was one I was not
acquainted with.... So that it is hard for me to swear that this is
he. And now I am upon one gentleman’s life, I would not be guilty of
a falsehood to take away another’s. I do not remember that he was
such a person as the prisoner is; as far as I can remember he had a
more manly face than he hath, and a beard.”[211] The crown evidence
was so feeble that it was never even proposed to call the man Child.
An attempt was made to show that Atkins was a Roman Catholic, but
failed ignominiously.[212] The prisoner called Captain Vittells and
one of his men, who proved an alibi in the most decisive manner; the
Attorney-General threw up his case, and the jury without leaving the
bar returned a verdict of not guilty.[213] Sir William Jones was
anxious that no one should go away with the opinion that the king’s
evidence had been disproved. The Lord Chief Justice supported him. He
pointed out that Bedloe had not been contradicted, and that every one
who appeared at the trial might speak the truth and the prisoner yet
be perfectly innocent.[214] What he did not say, and what neither he
nor many others thought, was that Bedloe might equally be telling the
grossest falsehoods.
CHAPTER III
BEDLOE AND PRANCE
The change in the situation had been caused by the appearance of a
witness whose evidence about the murder was of the greatest weight,
and whose position in the intrigues of the Popish Plot has always been
of some obscurity. Bedloe’s information was already of a startling
character. It was as follows. Early in October he had been offered by
two Jesuits, Walsh and Le Fevre, the sum of £4000 to assist in killing
a man “that was a great obstacle to their designs.” He gave his word
that he would do so, but when on Friday, October 11, Le Fevre told
him to be ready at four o’clock the next day to do the business, he
became nervous and failed to be at the place of meeting. On Sunday he
met Le Fevre by accident in Fleet Street, and by appointment joined
him between 8 and 9 o’clock P.M. the next day in the court of Somerset
House. Le Fevre told Bedloe that the man whom he had been engaged to
kill was dead and his corpse lying in the building at that moment.
Bedloe was taken into a small room to see the body. Besides himself
and Le Fevre there were also present Walsh, the man who called himself
Atkins, a gentleman in the household of Lord Bellasis, and a person
whom he took to be one of the attendants in the queen’s chapel. A
cloth was thrown off the body, and by the light of a dark lantern he
recognised the features of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. It was agreed to
carry the corpse to Clarendon House, and to take it thence by coach
to the fields at the foot of Primrose Hill. Bedloe promised to return
at eleven o’clock to assist, but went away intending to meddle with
the business no more. The next day he happened to meet Le Fevre in
Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Le Fevre began to rebuke him for breaking his
word. Bedloe answered that he had been unwilling to come because he
had recognised the dead man. Le Fevre bound him to secrecy and then
proceeded to tell him how the murder had been committed. Under pretence
of making a further discovery of the plot, the two Jesuits and Lord
Bellasis’ gentleman had persuaded Godfrey to come into Somerset House
with him. They then set upon him and with two others dragged him into a
room in the corner of the court. A pistol was held to his head and he
was threatened with death unless he would surrender the examinations
which he had taken concerning the plot. If they could obtain these,
said Le Fevre, fresh examinations would have to be taken, the originals
could then be produced, and the contradictions which would certainly
appear between the two would exonerate the plotters and convict the
informers of falsehood in the eyes of the world. Godfrey refused,
saying that he had sent the papers to Whitehall. Upon this they seized
him, held a pillow over the face until he was nearly stifled, and
then strangled him with a long cravat. On Monday night, after Bedloe
had gone away, the murderers carried the body out into the fields and
placed it where it was found with the sword run through it.[215]
Bedloe’s evidence varied greatly on points of detail. The amount of the
reward which he was offered varied from two guineas to four thousand
pounds; the time at which Godfrey was killed from two o’clock to five;
the day on which his corpse was removed from Monday to Wednesday.
Sometimes he was stifled with one, at others with two pillows. Once
Bedloe said that the body was placed in the room where the Duke of
Albemarle lay in state, while according to another statement it was
hidden in the queen’s chapel. When his evidence was heard in court, a
multitude of further alterations was introduced. In all the different
versions of his story however there appeared with but little variation
the statement that Godfrey had been murdered in Somerset House in the
course of the afternoon on Saturday, October 12, by the means or at
the direction of three Jesuits, Walsh, Pritchard, and Le Fevre, and
that on the night of the following Monday he had seen the body lying
in Somerset House in the presence of these three, and of a man whom he
thought to be a waiter in the queen’s chapel.
Of all those mentioned only one fish had been netted, and it was
certain that even he could not be brought to land. At the trial of
Atkins the Attorney-General darkly hinted that had it not been for the
conviction on the previous day, the prisoner would have been indicted
as a principal in Godfrey’s murder, and would probably have been
condemned.[216] But it may be doubted that this was more than a piece
of bravado. The evidence of Captain Atkins was worth nothing; that of
Bedloe little more. If the informers had expanded and defined their
information to an extent unparalleled even in the history of the Popish
Plot, where such things were not rare, it would hardly have produced
much effect. The evidence produced for Atkins’ alibi was too strong to
be seriously shaken. By the middle of November the investigation into
the murder had thus come to a halt. Proclamations were out for the rest
of the men accused by Bedloe, but there seemed to be every probability
that they would escape. If Atkins were brought to trial and acquitted,
consequences which would be serious to the policy of the Whigs on the
committees of secrecy might ensue. Consequences almost as serious were
to be expected in the event of his being released without a trial. In
either one case or the other the failure to obtain a conviction for the
murder of Godfrey would be damaging to their cause. They had staked
much on the cards, and it seemed as if the game was going against them.
Unless fortune came to their aid, the murder of which there had been
so much talk would go unpunished, and the sensation which it created
would die down.
Meanwhile the public mind was occupied on other points. The trials
of Staley, Coleman, and Ireland for high treason filled the greater
part of one excited month.[217] Almost till Christmas the great murder
case made no progress. Just then, when it must have seemed less than
likely after the lapse of eight weeks and after the only hopeful trail
had disappeared that any substantial advance should be gained, an
extraordinary incident occurred. There was living in Covent Garden
a Roman Catholic silversmith, by name Miles Prance, who did a fair
business with those of his own religion and was occasionally employed
by the queen. He was a friend of the Jesuits who had been imprisoned
on account of the plot and, being in liquor one day at a tavern,
had declared loudly “that they were very honest men.” Suspicion was
aroused, and on inquiry it was found that he had slept away from his
house for three nights about the time of Godfrey’s disappearance. In
point of fact this had been before the date of the murder, and Prance’s
subsequent connection with the case was due to this initial mistake.
His landlord laid information, and on Saturday, December 21, Prance
was arrested for being concerned in Godfrey’s murder. He was taken
into the lobby of the House of Commons and was there waiting until
the committee was ready to examine him, when Bedloe happened to pass
through. His eye fell upon Prance and he cried out without hesitation,
“This is one of the rogues that I saw with a dark lantern about the
body of Sir Edmond Bury Godfrey, but he was then in a periwig.”[218]
Prance was taken before the committee of the House of Lords and
strictly examined. He denied knowing Walsh, Pritchard, or Le Fevre.
He denied that he was guilty of Sir Edmund Godfrey’s death and that
he had assisted in removing his body. When he spoke of Fenwick and
Ireland in the coffee-house he was drunk. He had not worn a periwig
once in the last ten years, but he owned one at home which had been
made twelve months since from his wife’s hair. He had not been to the
queen’s chapel at Somerset House once a month. After denying that he
had received money from Grove, he confessed that Grove had paid him for
some work. He first denied, but afterwards admitted that he had hired
a horse to ride out of town. He had intended to leave London to escape
the oaths administered to Roman Catholics, but had in the meantime been
arrested.[219] Prance was committed a close prisoner to Newgate, and
was lodged in the cell known as the condemned hole. There he remained
during the nights of December 21 and 22. On the morning of Monday,
December 23, he sent a message to the committee of inquiry offering on
the assurance of pardon to confess. By order of the House of Lords the
Duke of Buckingham and other noblemen were sent to Newgate with the
promise of pardon and to take his examination.[220] At the same time
the Commons ordered that the committee of secrecy or any three of them
should examine Prance in prison, and acquaint his fellow-prisoners in
Newgate with the king’s assurance of pardon consequent on discoveries
relating to the plot.[221] Prance confessed that he had been engaged
in the murder and had much information to give on the subject. He was
examined by the lords, and on the next day repeated his deposition
before the privy council. At the beginning of October one Gerald, or
Fitzgerald, an Irish priest belonging to the household of the Venetian
ambassador, had approached him on the subject of putting out of the
way a man whose name was not divulged. About a week later he learned
that this was Sir Edmund Godfrey. Two other men were also concerned in
the matter. Green, a cushion-layer in the chapel at Somerset House,
and Laurence Hill, servant to Dr. Gauden, the treasurer of the queen’s
chapel. They told him that Godfrey was to be killed, “for that he was
a great enemy to the queen or her servants, and that he had used some
Irishmen ill.” Lord Bellasis, said Gerald, had promised a reward.
Prance consented to their proposals, the more readily because he had
a private grudge against the magistrate. During the next week they
watched for an opportunity to waylay Godfrey, and on Saturday, October
12, “did dodge him from his house that morning to all the places he
went to until he came to his death.”[222] The same day the king ordered
the Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Ossory to accompany Prance to
Somerset House and examine him on the spot where he said that the
murder had taken place. There he entered into a detailed account of the
crime. At about nine o’clock at night[223] Godfrey was coming from St.
Clement Danes down the Strand, followed by Hill, Green, and Gerald.
Hill walked on ahead, and as Godfrey came opposite the water-gate of
Somerset House begged him to come into the court and put an end to
a quarrel between two men who were fighting. The magistrate turned
in through the wicket, with Hill, Green, and Gerald following them.
Prance, who was waiting inside, came to the gate to keep watch. The
others went down the court until they came to a bench in the right-hand
corner close to the stable-rails, where Berry, the porter of Somerset
House, and an Irishman, whose name Prance did not know, were sitting.
Green crept up close behind, and when they had reached the bench threw
a large twisted handkerchief round Godfrey’s neck and pulled it tight.
The three other men set upon him and dragged him down into the corner
behind the bench. Green knelt upon his chest and pounded it, and then
wrung his neck round until it was broken. This, said Prance, Green had
told him a quarter of an hour afterwards when he came down from the
gate to see what had happened. The body was carried across the court,
through a door in the left-hand corner, from which a flight of stairs
led to a long gallery. From the gallery a door opened on to a flight of
eight steps, leading into Hill’s lodgings. In a small room to the right
of the entrance the body was set on the floor, leaning against the bed.
There it remained for two days. On Monday night at nine or ten o’clock
the same men removed the corpse to another part of Somerset House,
“into some room towards the garden.” As it lay there Prance was taken
by Hill to see it. He could not say if he had seen Bedloe there, but
Gerald and Green were present. Thence twenty-four hours later the body
was taken back, first to a room near Hill’s lodging, and on Wednesday
evening to the same room in which it had been at first. At midnight
Hill procured a sedan chair, and Godfrey’s corpse was put inside.
Berry opened the gate of the court, and Prance, Gerald, Green, and the
Irishman carried the chair as far as the new Grecian Church in Soho.
There Hill met them with a horse, upon which the body was set. Sitting
behind the body. Hill rode off in company with Green and Gerald, and
deposited it where it was found, having first transfixed it with the
sword.
Having taken his examination, Monmouth and Ossory bade Prance guide
them to the places he had mentioned. Without hesitation he led the
way to the bench, and described with assurance the manner in which
the murder had been committed. Then he shewed the room in which the
body had first been laid, and conducted his examiners to every spot
of which he had spoken with unerring direction. To this process there
was one exception. Prance could not find the room in which he said the
corpse had been placed on the night of Monday 14. The three passed
up and down, into the corner of the piazza, down a flight of steps,
up again, across the great court which lay towards the river, into
and out of several rooms, but without success. The room could not be
found. Finally Prance desisted from the search, “saying that he had
never been there but that once, when Hill conveyed him thither with
a dark lantern, but that it was some chamber towards the garden.”
Monmouth and Ossory returned to the council-chamber with the report
of Prance’s examination, upon which the council made a note, “that
the said particulars were very consonant to what he had spoken at the
board in the morning, before his going.”[224] The council sat again in
the afternoon. Green, Hill, and Berry were summoned. All denied with
emphasis the charges which Prance had made against them, and denied
that they knew Sir Edmund Godfrey. Green and Hill admitted knowing
Father Gerald, and Green identified the Irishman mentioned by Prance as
a priest named Kelly. In one point Hill confirmed Prance’s evidence.
While they had been in his lodgings that morning, Monmouth and Ossory
had examined Mrs. Broadstreet, the housekeeper of his master, Dr.
Gauden. She affirmed that Hill left the lodgings at Michaelmas to move
into a house of his own in Stanhope Street. When Prance said she was
mistaken, since Hill had not left his rooms in Somerset House until a
fortnight after Michaelmas, Mrs. Broadstreet contradicted him angrily.
Hill now declared that in the middle of October he had been busy making
arrangements for the move; on the day of Godfrey’s disappearance he was
still occupied with his landlord in drawing up terms of agreement, and
the agreement was not concluded until the Wednesday following.[225]
In addition to his evidence about Godfrey’s murder, Prance made a
statement concerning the plot. Fenwick, Ireland, and Grove, he said,
had told him that “Lord Petre, Lord Bellasis, the Earl of Powis, and
Lord Arundell were to command the army.” As more decisive evidence had
already been given against all these, his information was of little
consequence. He also desired to be set at liberty, that he might be
able to discover some persons connected with the plot whose names were
unknown to him. The request was naturally refused, but Prance was
removed from the dungeon and Hill was confined there in his place.[226]
Within forty-eight hours from this time Prance had recanted his whole
story. On the evening of Sunday, December 29, Captain Richardson, the
keeper of Newgate, received an order of council to bring Prance before
the Lords’ committee for examination. Prance was in a state of great
agitation and begged to be taken to see the king. Charles received him
in the presence of Richardson and Chiffinch, his confidential valet.
Prance fell upon his knees and declared that the whole of his evidence
had been false, that he was innocent of the murder, and the men whom
he had accused as far as he knew were innocent too. The next day he
was taken before the council and persisted that he knew no more of
Godfrey’s murder than was known to the world. He was asked if any one
had been tampering with him and answered, No. Hardly had he been taken
back to Newgate when he begged Captain Richardson to return to the
king and say that all his evidence had been true, and his recantation
false.[227] From this he again departed and reaffirmed his recantation.
He was heavily ironed and a second time imprisoned in the condemned
hole. Here he remained until January 11, 1679, when to complete the
cycle of his contradictions he once more retracted his recantation and
declared that the whole of his original confession was true.
On February 10, 1679 Green, Berry, and Hill were brought to the bar
of the Court of King’s Bench to be tried upon an indictment for the
murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. The prosecution began by evidence
to shew that for some days before his disappearance Godfrey had been
in a state of alarm. Oates swore that Godfrey had complained to him
of the treatment he had received in consequence of having taken
his deposition; on the one hand those who wished to accelerate the
discovery of the plot had blamed him for not being sufficiently eager
in its prosecution; those, on the other, who were endangered by Oates’
revelations had threatened the magistrate for the action which he had
taken. Godfrey told Oates that “he went in fear of his life by the
popish party, and that he had been dogged several days.” The testimony
of Oates carries no greater weight on this than on any other occasion,
but he was supported by another and a more respectable witness. Mr.
Robinson, chief protonotary of the court of common pleas, gave evidence
of Godfrey’s disturbance of mind. The two had met on October 7, and
Robinson questioned the magistrate about the depositions which he
had taken. Godfrey replied that he wished that another had been in
his place, for he would have small thanks for his pains; the bottom
of the matter had not yet been reached, he said; and then, turning to
Robinson, exclaimed, “Upon my conscience I believe I shall be the first
martyr,”[228] This was the prelude by which the evidence of Prance
and Bedloe was introduced. Bedloe retold the story to which he had
treated the council, the committee, and the House of Lords. This time
it differed in almost every point of detail from the statements which
he had previously made. The Jesuits who tempted him into the murder had
sent him about a week before to effect an acquaintance with Godfrey.
There were several separate schemes on foot to dispatch the justice.
After seeing the body upon Monday night he had gone away and never
seen the murderers again. The Jesuits told him that Godfrey had been
strangled, but how he did not know. His account of his many interviews
with Le Fevre were hopelessly at variance with what he had said about
them before.[229] But as the rules of legal procedure did not admit
as evidence depositions and reports of testimony given elsewhere, it
was impossible to convict the witness of these alterations. Bedloe’s
evidence too shewed striking points of difference from that of Prance,
who preceded him, even after he had toned it into better accord. The
prisoners, excited and ignorant, unused to sifting evidence and wholly
unskilled in examining witnesses, failed altogether to detect and point
out the discrepancies.
The evidence given by Prance was, on the contrary, remarkably
consistent with the information which he had furnished on other
occasions. He went through all the incidents which he had detailed
first to the council and then on the spot to the Duke of Monmouth and
the Earl of Ossory. He described each point with perfect decision and
answered the questions put to him without hesitation. The only point
on which he showed uncertainty was when he was asked to describe the
room in which the body lay on the night of October 14. He said frankly,
“I am not certain of the room, and so cannot describe it.” In one
particular alone did a statement vary from his previous evidence. He
had told the council that on the morning of the fatal Saturday Green
had called at Godfrey’s house and inquired if he was at home.[230]
Now he said that he could not be certain whether it was Green or Hill
who went to Hartshorn Lane.[231] His motive in altering the distinct
statement is not far to seek. Elizabeth Curtis, who had been maid at
Godfrey’s house, was called as a witness. She testified that on the
morning of October 12 Hill came to see her master and had conversation
with him for several minutes. He wore the same clothes, she said,
in which he appeared in court; and Hill admitted that he had been
dressed in the same way on that day. Green had come to Hartshorn Lane
about a fortnight before to ask for Godfrey, but on the date of his
disappearance Hill was there alone.[232] The suspicion is difficult to
stifle that Prance had some knowledge of the evidence which the maid
would give, and altered his own in order not to contradict it. When
he afterwards published his _True Narrative and Discovery of several
Remarkable Passages relating to the Horrid Popish Plot_, he simply
stated in accordance with the evidence of Curtis that it was Hill who
spoke with Godfrey on that morning.[233] In some other points Prance’s
evidence was supported by independent witnesses. He had spoken of
meetings held by Gerald, Kelly, the prisoners, and himself at a tavern
with the sign of the Plow, where he was enticed to be a party to the
murder. The fact that they were frequenters of the Plow was proved by
the landlord of the inn and his servant.[234] About a fortnight after
the murder Prance had entertained a small party at the Queen’s Head
Inn at Bow. Gerald was there, and a priest named Leweson, and one
Mr. Vernatt, who was described as being in service to Lord Bellasis.
They were joined by a friend of Vernatt, named Dethick, and dined on
flounders and a barrel of oysters. According to Prance’s statement
Vernatt should have been present at the murder, but as he had been
prevented, Gerald furnished the company with an account of the manner
in which it had been accomplished. While the talk ran thus, Prance
heard a noise outside the door. Opening it suddenly, he caught the
drawer eavesdropping and sent him off with threats of a kicking.[235]
This was confirmed by the evidence of the drawer. He had listened at
the door and heard Godfrey’s name mentioned, and one of the party had
threatened to kick him downstairs.[236] Several important witnesses
were called for the defence. Mary Tilden, the niece of Dr. Gauden,
and his housekeeper, Mrs. Broadstreet, gave evidence that Hill was at
home on the evening of the murder and the following nights, when he
was accused of being busy with the body, and that the corpse was never
brought to their lodgings. The judges continually bullied and sneered
at the witnesses. The room in which Prance said the body was laid was
described by Sir Robert Southwell as “an extraordinary little place.”
Mrs. Broadstreet said that it was impossible for a corpse to be placed
there without their knowledge. On this Mr. Justice Wild told her that
it was very suspicious, and Dolben remarked, “It is well you are not
indicted.” The hostile attitude of the court was not mollified when
it appeared that there was some confusion in the evidence of both
witnesses. Mary Tilden stated that during the time when they were in
town she had never been out of the lodgings after eight o’clock in the
evening. “When were you out of town?” asked Mr. Justice Jones. “In
October,” the witness answered. The judge pointed out that October was
just the month in question. Mistress Tilden said that she had made a
mistake; she had meant to say that they were out of town in September.
She said too that there was only one key to the door of the lodgings;
but Prance declared, and was not contradicted, that in her examination
before the Duke of Monmouth, Mrs. Broadstreet had admitted that there
were several. The latter made the mistake of saying that Hill occupied
the rooms until a fortnight after Michaelmas, whereas she had before
sworn, as Sir Robert Southwell testified, that he left them in the
first week in October.[237] The workman who had been employed at
Hill’s new house in Stanhope Street proved that he had been in Hill’s
company from nine to two in the afternoon of Saturday, October 12, and
a neighbour that Hill had been at his house from five to seven o’clock
on the same evening.[238] Green called for his defence his maid, his
landlord, and the landlord’s wife. The maid testified that Green was
always at home before nine o’clock at night; James Warrier and his wife
that he was within doors in their company till after ten o’clock on the
night of October 12. Mrs. Warrier however made the mistake of saying
that this was a fortnight after Michaelmas day, which it was not, and
so raised a doubt that the evidence was directed to a time a week later
than the date in question.[239] The most weighty evidence for the
defence was produced by Berry in the persons of the sentries who had
kept guard at the gate of Somerset House on the night of Wednesday,
October 16. On that night Prance swore that Berry had opened the gate
to let the sedan chair containing Godfrey’s corpse pass out. From seven
to ten o’clock Nicholas Trollop had kept guard, Nicholas Wright from
ten to one, from one to four Gabriel Hasket. During the first watch
a chair had been carried into Somerset House, but all three men were
confident that none had been carried out. They were equally positive
that at no time had they left the beat to drink at Berry’s house or
with any one else. If the gate had been opened and a sedan taken
through, it would certainly have been seen by the soldier on duty.
Berry’s maid also testified that her master had come in that evening at
dusk and had remained at home until he went to bed at midnight.[240]
The only part of the evidence for the prisoners to which the Lord Chief
Justice devoted attention in his summing up was the testimony of the
sentries. He remarked to the jury that it was a dark night and that the
soldier might not have seen the gate opened, or, having seen, might
have forgotten, Scroggs went over the evidence of Bedloe briefly and of
Prance at length, and delivered a harangue on the horrors of the Plot,
of which Godfrey’s murder, he said, was “a monstrous evidence.” After
a short deliberation the jury returned a verdict of guilty against all
the prisoners. The Chief Justice declared if it were the last word he
had to speak in this world he should have pronounced the same verdict,
and the spectators in court met his announcement with a shout of
applause.[241]
On February 11 Green, Berry, and Hill came up to receive sentence, and
ten days later Green and Hill were hanged at Tyburn, denying their
guilt to the last. Berry, who was distinguished from them by being
a Protestant, was granted a week’s respite. To the indignation of
Protestant politicians he made no confession, and when he was executed
on February 28, declaring his innocence to the end, a rumour was spread
that the court party had gained him to a false conversion in order to
give the Roman Catholics the chance of saying that he at least could
not have lied in hope of salvation.[242] It was afterwards remembered
that by an extraordinary coincidence Primrose Hill, at the foot of
which Godfrey’s body was found, had in former days borne the name of
Greenberry Hill.[243]
CHAPTER IV
PRANCE AND BEDLOE
At this point the atmosphere begins somewhat to clear. Two trials have
been discussed, and the result is seen that the two chief witnesses
at them were guilty of wilful perjury. Bedloe contradicted himself
beyond belief. Although it was by no means clear at the time, the men
convicted upon the evidence of Prance were certainly innocent. This
has since been universally recognised. Yet the verdict against them
was not perverse, and small blame attaches to the judges and jury who
acted on the evidence of Prance. For all they knew he was speaking the
truth. The witnesses for the defence were uncertain in points of time
to which they spoke, and Prance was to a certain extent corroborated by
independent evidence. On the case which came into court the conviction
was certainly justifiable. It is now possible to see that the verdict
was wrong. The motive which Prance alleged for the crime was weak
in the extreme, and his subsequent conduct supports the fact of his
perjury. Although an absolute alibi was not proved for any of the
accused at the time of the murder, a considerable body of evidence came
near the point, and an alibi was proved both for Green and for Hill
at the time when Prance stated that each was engaged in dogging Sir
Edmund Godfrey to his death. The sentries proved that the body had not
been removed in the manner which Prance described. The evidence of the
inmates of Hill’s house proved that it had not been placed where Prance
affirmed. Green, Berry, and Hill were wrongfully put to death.
From this point it is necessary to start upon the pursuit of the
truth, and before starting it is well to take a view of the situation.
Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey disappeared on Saturday, October 12. Five
days later his body was found in a field near Primrose Hill. He had
been murdered, and the crime was committed for some motive which was
not that of robbery. He was murdered moreover not where his corpse
was found, but in some other place from which it had afterwards been
conveyed thither. Whoever was the criminal had placed the body in such
a way that those who found it might attribute the magistrate’s death
to suicide. Two witnesses appeared to give evidence to the fact of
the murder. These two were the only men who ever professed to have
direct knowledge on the subject. They both accused innocent men, told
elaborate falsehoods, and contradicted one another. Their stories
were so unlike, and yet had so much in common, that the fact must be
explained by supposing either that there was some truth in what they
said, or that one swore falsely to support the perjury of the other.
The relation between the two is the point to which attention must
be devoted in order to trace the interaction of their motives and
to determine whether both or neither or one and not the other knew
anything about the murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey.
Nearly eight years after these events, in the second year of the
reign of King James the Second, Miles Prance pleaded guilty to an
indictment of wilful perjury for having sworn falsely at the trial of
Green, Berry, and Hill.[244] Later, when L’Estrange was writing his
work on _The Mystery of Sir E. B. Godfrey Unfolded_, Prance sent to
him an account of the manner in which his evidence had been procured.
He was, he said, wholly innocent and wholly ignorant of the murder.
Before his arrest he knew no more of Godfrey, Bedloe, or any one else
concerned than was known to the world at large. His arrest took place
upon Saturday, December 21. During the nights of Saturday and Sunday he
lay in irons in the dungeon in Newgate. Early on the Sunday morning he
was disturbed by the entrance of a man, who, as Prance declared, laid
a sheet of paper beside him and went out. Soon after another entered,
set down a candle, and went out. By the light of the candle Prance read
the paper; “wherein,” says L’Estrange, “he found the substance of these
following minutes. So many Popish lords to be mentioned by name; fifty
thousand men to be raised; commissions given out; officers appointed.
Ireland was acquainted with the design; and Bedloe’s evidence against
Godfrey was summed up and abstracted in it too. There were suggestions
in it that Prance must undoubtedly be privy to the plot, with words to
this purpose, you had better confess than be hanged.” In the evening
of the same day he was taken to Shaftesbury’s house and examined by
the earl. The Whig leader threatened him with hanging if he would
not confess and acquiesce in what had been suggested to him in the
paper. He could resist no longer, he said, “and so framed a pretended
discovery in part, with a promise to speak out more at large if he
might have his pardon.” A paper containing this was given him to sign,
and he was sent back to Newgate, where he made a formal confession the
next day. Clearly, thought Prance, the men who came into his cell, and
left instructions for the evidence which he was to give and a light by
which to read them, had acted under orders from Shaftesbury.[245] This
is what Prance and L’Estrange had to say about this first confession.
Before examining it further it will be proper to consider Prance’s
condition between that time and the date when after numerous manœuvres
he finally returned to it. On December 30 he appeared before the
council and recanted his confession. For nine days there seems to have
been no development. Prance lay in the dungeon and adhered to his
last statement. But on January 8 Captain Richardson, the keeper of
Newgate, and his servant, Charles Cooper, appeared before a committee
of the privy council with information that Prance was feigning madness.
When he was fettered he behaved the more sensibly. It was ordered
accordingly that he should be kept in irons and that Dr. Lloyd, the
Dean of Bangor, should be asked to visit and converse with him.[246]
On January 10 a similar order was given for the admittance of William
Boyce, an old friend of Prance, to be with him in prison. Cooper passed
two nights with the prisoner. His sleep was irregular, and he spent
long periods raving and crying out that “it was not he murdered him,
but they killed him.” In spite of his wild talk Prance seemed to behave
rather as if he wished to be thought mad than as if he actually were
so; he ate heartily, used a bed and blankets which had been given him,
and adjusted his dress with care.[247] Boyce also visited him, and
found him sometimes reasonable, at others apparently out of his senses.
Once he found him lying at full length on the boards of his cell and
crying, “Guilty, guilty; not guilty, not guilty; no murder”; but when
he first went to the prison Prance met him quietly and said, “Here
am I in prison, and I am like to be hanged. I am falsely accused.”
Shaftesbury’s threats had terrified him for the safety of his life,
but he was anxious to learn that Green, Berry, and Hill had not been
set at liberty, and in a conversation of January 11 told Boyce “that
he would confess all if he were sure of his pardon.”[248] On Friday,
January 10, Dr. Lloyd visited Newgate and found Prance in a very
wretched condition. The weather was intensely cold, and the prisoner
suffered severely from it, despite the covering with which he had been
provided. He was very weak and denied his guilt sullenly, but after
a time begged Lloyd to come again the next day, when he would tell
everything that he knew.[249] Accordingly on the evening of January 11
the dean returned, and Prance was brought to him by the hall fire. For
some time he remained stupefied by the cold; he was without a pulse
and seemed almost dead; but after warming himself at the fire threw
off the lethargy and conversed with Lloyd briskly and with freedom.
The dean reported to the council: “He appeared very well composed and
in good humour, saying that he had confessed honestly before, and had
not wronged any of those he had accused.” He proceeded further to tell
of a plot to murder the Earl of Shaftesbury, and said that a servant
of Lord Arundel, one Messenger, had undertaken to kill the king. Lloyd
warned him to be careful of speaking the truth; Prance protested that
he would do nothing else. When he had finished his confession he asked
to be lodged in a warmer room and to have the irons knocked off.[250]
From that time onward he remained steadfast to his first confession.
Writing many years later, when everybody connected with the Plot had
fallen into discredit and Prance had pleaded guilty to the charge
of perjury, Lloyd assured L’Estrange that he had never believed the
informer’s evidence. In this he was deceived by his after opinions,
for at the time he told Burnet that it was impossible for him to doubt
Prance’s sincerity.[251] Lloyd did not escape the calumny which pursued
every one who refused to be an uncompromising supporter of all the
evidence offered in the investigation of the Plot. He expressed himself
doubtful as to the guilt of Berry and thought that Prance might have
made a mistake of identity. It was immediately said that Berry had made
horrible confessions to him, and that he had been pressed at court not
to divulge them.[252]
Prison life in the seventeenth century was hard. Prisoners were treated
in a way that would now be considered shameful, and Prance did not
escape his share of ill-treatment. He was kept in the cell reserved
for felons and murderers. According to the general practice he was
heavily ironed. Until his life was thought in danger he had nothing
but the boards on which to lie. The greatest hardship arose from the
cold, against which there was no real provision. But there is no
evidence that Prance more hardly used than his fellow gaol-birds.
A detestable attempt was afterwards made to prove that he had been
tortured in prison to extract confessions from him. In the course of
the year 1680 Mrs. Cellier, the Roman Catholic midwife of otherwise
dubious reputation, published a pamphlet entitled “Malice Defeated;
or a Brief Relation of the Accusation and Deliverance of Elizabeth
Cellier.” The work was an attack upon the prosecutors of the Popish
Plot, conducted with all the coarse weapons of seventeenth-century
controversy. Incidentally she called the crown witnesses “hangman’s
hounds for weekly pensions.” On September 11 she was indicted for a
malicious libel and tried before Baron Weston and the Lord Mayor. The
libel lay in her open declaration that Prance was put on the rack in
Newgate and that Francis Corral, who had been imprisoned on suspicion
of complicity in Godfrey’s murder, was subjected to intolerably ill
treatment and active torture in Newgate in order to make him confess
his guilt.[253] The charges which Mrs. Cellier made were not only
outrageous but ridiculous, and were so improbable as not to deserve
detailed discussion. Witnesses were called for the prosecution who
proved their complete falsity, and Mrs. Cellier’s counsel virtually
threw up his brief. Not only did the keeper of Newgate deny everything
in the publication relating to himself, but the parties who had been
mentioned in it were summoned as witnesses and gave decisive evidence.
Prance denied the whole story and, what was of greater value than his
word, made the pertinent remark that, had he been used in such a way
as Mrs. Cellier suggested, Dr. Lloyd must certainly have known about
it. The man Corral had been kept out of court by the defence, but he
had already denied all Mrs. Cellier’s allegations in a deposition
made before the Lord Mayor. His wife had made a similar deposition
and, being now called as a witness, wholly refused to support the
statements of the accused. Her husband had been treated hardly, as were
all prisoners, but Mrs. Cellier’s charges of torture and brutality
were false. She had been allowed to see her husband occasionally and
to send him food constantly, and he had been given a charcoal fire
in his cell to protect him from the cold weather. Mrs. Cellier had
offered to support them both, apparently on the understanding that they
should acquiesce in what she had said.[254] Another important witness
proved the falsehood of many statements made in the publication, and
after a lengthy summing up of the evidence by Baron Weston the jury
without difficulty returned a verdict of guilty against the prisoner.
Mrs. Cellier was sentenced to stand three times on the pillory, to
a fine of a thousand pounds, and to imprisonment until the fine was
paid.[255] Eight years later the same charges were repeated by Sir
Roger L’Estrange and were supported by Prance, to whose objects this
line of conduct was now better suited. The evidence which L’Estrange
collected was exactly similar to that which Mrs. Cellier had obtained,
and equally worthless. Not only the result of the trial, but the
essential improbability of the facts alleged makes it certain that
these allegations were absolutely devoid of truth.[256] Dr. Lloyd,
who was well acquainted with the hard treatment accorded to Prance,
saw no evidence that it exceeded the common practice of the prison,
and disbelieved the gruesome stories which were industriously spread
abroad.[257]
Whether or no Prance was subjected to illegitimate and illegal
pressure after his recantation in order to secure his adherence to
the earlier confession is a question of less importance than how that
confession was obtained. Prance’s subsequent account has already been
given. It remains to be considered whether that was true or false.
Apart from the rest of the evidence produced at the trials of the
Popish Plot, that of Prance exhibited one remarkable peculiarity. All
the other witnesses altered and rearranged their stories with constant
facility to suit the conditions in which they found themselves at any
moment. Among this rout of shifting informations the evidence of Prance
offers an exception to the rule of self-contradiction. In all but a few
particulars it remained constant. Other witnesses invariably put out
feelers to try in what direction they had best develop their tales. The
methods of Oates, Atkins, and Bedloe are notorious instances of this.
Prance produced the flower of his full-blown. Its bouquet was as strong
when it first met the air as at any later time. The evidence which
he gave to Godfrey’s murder in his first confession was as decisive
and consistent in form as after constant repetition, recantation, and
renewed asseverance. Almost all the other witnesses at their first
appearance told stories which were loose, haphazard, inconsequent.
Prance’s story was from the beginning minute and elaborate. He spoke
of places in great detail and afterwards pointed them out. He gave a
coherent account of what had happened at each spot. On these points he
did not contradict himself. The evidence which he proceeded to give
about the Plot in general throws his account of Godfrey’s death into
high relief. His later information was exactly similar in character to
that offered by all the other witnesses. It was vague and incoherent
and full of absurdities. The contrast to the elaboration and detail of
his previous evidence is striking.
Compared with Bedloe’s account of the murder the testimony of Prance
shows another noteworthy feature. The evidence of the two men hardly
covers the same ground at all. In almost every particular it offers
remarkable points of difference. Up to the date of October 12 the two
stories run in different lines altogether. According to Prance two
priests, named Gerald and Kelly, had, by means of menace and abstract
arguments, induced him to join with them and four others, Green,
Hill, Berry, and Vernatt, in the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey,
on the score that “he was a busy man and going about to ruin all the
Catholics in England.”[258] One Leweson, a priest, was also to have
a hand in the business. Bedloe’s tale on the contrary was that Le
Fevre, Pritchard, Keynes, and Walsh, four Jesuits, had employed him
to effect an introduction to Godfrey for them. Le Fevre afterwards
offered him £4000, to be paid by Lord Bellasis through Coleman, if he
would undertake to kill “a very material man” in order to obtain some
incriminating papers in his possession, without which “the business
would be so obstructed and go near to be discovered” that the great
Plot would come to grief.[259] At this point the stories begin to
converge, and at the same time retain strikingly different features.
Prance’s account ran that on October 12 Gerald, Green, and Hill decoyed
Godfrey as he came down the Strand from St. Clement’s into Somerset
House at about 9 o’clock in the evening under pretence of a quarrel.
Green, Gerald, Hill, and Kelly then attacked him. Green strangled him
with a twisted handkerchief, knelt with all his force upon his chest
and “wrung his neck round,” while Berry and Prance kept watch.[260] On
the nights of Saturday and Sunday the body was left in Hill’s lodgings
in Somerset House, and on Monday was removed to another room across
the court. There Hill shewed it to Prance by the light of a dark
lantern at past 10 o’clock at night: “Gerald and Hill and Kelly and
all were there.”[261] Prance had no knowledge of seeing Bedloe in the
room. At midnight on Wednesday, October 16, the corpse was placed in a
sedan chair and carried, as Prance said, by Gerald, Green, Kelly, and
himself as far as Soho Church. Hill met them there with a horse, on
which he put the body and rode with it to Primrose Hill.[262] Bedloe’s
finished account gave a picture very unlike this. He stated that on
Monday, October 14, between 9 and 10 o’clock P.M. Le Fevre took him to
a room in Somerset House and showed him the body of the murdered man
lying under a cloak. He recognised the body to be that of Sir Edmund
Godfrey. Besides Le Fevre he only saw in the room Walsh, a servant of
Lord Bellasis, the supposed Atkins, and another man whom he had often
seen in the chapel and afterwards recognised as Prance.[263] The next
day Le Fevre described the murder to him in detail. Before 5 o’clock
in the afternoon of October 12 Le Fevre, Walsh, and Lord Bellasis’
gentleman had brought Godfrey from the King’s Head Inn in the Strand
to Somerset House under the pretext of taking him to capture some
conspirators near St. Clement’s Church. They took him into a room and,
holding a pistol to his head, demanded the informations which he had
taken. On his refusal they stifled him with a pillow and then strangled
him with his cravat.[264] On Monday night the murderers agreed with
Bedloe “to carry the body in a chair to the corner of Clarendon House,
and there to put him in a coach to carry him to the place where he was
found.”[265] Two accounts of the same facts could hardly be imagined to
differ more from one another than the stories of Prance and Bedloe. To
state the matter briefly, Bedloe swore that Godfrey was murdered in one
place, at one time, in one manner, for one motive, by one set of men;
Prance swore that he was murdered in another place, at another time, in
another manner, for another motive, by another set of men. Both Prance
and Bedloe swore that they had seen the body of Sir Edmund Godfrey
at nearly the same time in a room in Somerset House on the night of
Monday, October 14, but Prance swore only to the presence of the men
whom he had named as the murderers, while Bedloe swore only to the
presence of the men whom he had named, with the addition of “the other
person he saw often in the chapel,” whom he afterwards recognised to be
Prance.
What then becomes of Prance’s statement that the only source of his
information was the paper introduced into his cell on the morning of
December 22, and containing the substance of Bedloe’s evidence? He
professed that it was solely from this that his elaborate confession
of December 23 and 24 was drawn, and that it was arranged not only
by the connivance, but absolutely at the direction of the Earl of
Shaftesbury. Nor was this all. He told L’Estrange further that after he
had been forced to retract his recantation his friend Boyce had acted
as agent of Bedloe and Shaftesbury in bringing his evidence into line
with that of Bedloe. On one point he refused to yield; he would not own
that he had worn the periwig of which Bedloe had spoken; but for the
rest, according to his own account, he made no difficulty.[266] The
story is glaringly inconsistent with the facts. So far from agreeing
first or last with Bedloe, Prance contradicted him in almost every
possible point. If it was true that, as he said, he was wholly ignorant
of the murder and concocted his confession from minutes of Bedloe’s
evidence which were given to him, the confession would have worn a
very different colour. His only object was to save his neck and get
out of Newgate. He would certainly have taken the material with which
he was provided, and have simply repeated Bedloe’s tale with so much
alteration as was necessary to make himself a partner in the murder.
He had no motive to do anything else. Even alone he could hardly have
missed the point, and by his own statement did not. Under the astute
guidance of Shaftesbury there could be no possible danger of bungling.
Instead of this being the case he acted in a fashion which, if he spoke
the truth, would have been inconceivable. Not only did he not tell the
same story as that which he professed was his only guide, but he told a
tale so entirely different that neither Bedloe’s name nor the name of
a single man given by Bedloe was mentioned in it at all. The idea of
collusion between the informers in this way must be discarded. It is
impossible that it should be true.
The story was adorned with another flourish which Prance did not
himself venture to adopt. On his arrest he was met by Bedloe in the
lobby of the House of Commons and there charged by him with complicity
in the murder. L’Estrange declared that Bedloe had first made inquiries
about him and had seized the opportunity to take a good view of him
under the guidance of Sir William Waller.[267] But it would be little
good to Bedloe to act in this way in accusing a man who might for
all he knew refuse to give evidence, or give evidence which would
not corroborate his own. The more definitely he accused Prance, the
more difficult would be his own position if Prance should not support
him. He must certainly have assured himself beforehand that Prance
would make a good witness. Assurance might have been gained either by
arranging that Prance should be informed of what was expected before
his arrest, or by the knowledge that Shaftesbury would see to the
matter afterwards. Both conjectures are in the same case. The latter
has been shewn to be wide of the mark. For the same reasons the former
must be thought equally inaccurate. Further than this the comparison
between the evidence of Prance and Bedloe shows conclusively that the
two did not arrange beforehand to give false evidence about the murder.
Perjurers may be as stupid as other men, and an awkward muddle might
have ensued; but two men arranging a profitable piece of perjury would
hardly be at the pains to contradict each other’s evidence in every
particular. Also, between the date of Bedloe’s first information and
Prance’s confession there intervened a period of seven long weeks. If
there had been previous collusion between the two. Prance would have
come forward far sooner than four days before Christmas.
Out of the total number of possible hypotheses which may be advanced
to account for the relation between Prance and Bedloe two are thus
disposed of. The witnesses did not arrange together to give evidence
of Godfrey’s murder. Nor was Prance furnished with the information
which he was wanted to give and then subjected to such pressure that
he was compelled to acquiesce in it. What then are the remaining
explanations which may be put forward? The notion that Bedloe, on
seeing Prance in custody on December 21, proceeded to denounce him at
a venture in the bare hope of getting some support from him may be
dismissed briefly. It would in any one have been a mad action to expose
himself to the risk that Prance could prove an alibi, but for Bedloe
to take such a course would have been more than improbable. When at
a former date he accused Atkins of complicity in the murder, he used
the greatest caution to obviate this risk. Until he knew whether or
no Atkins could prove an alibi he would make no positive charge at
all. The fact that his caution was justified would only make him more
careful to avoid being caught in a trap similar to that which he had
only just avoided. A more probable supposition is that Bedloe had
made sufficient inquiries to be sure that Prance could not prove an
alibi, and then denounced him, as if on the spur of the moment. This
is a theory which has likelihood in its favour and deserves to be well
weighed. Bedloe, it is supposed, had given entirely false information
about the murder. After his failure to secure the conviction of Atkins
he was compelled to turn in another direction. Looking round, his eye
fell upon Prance as a suitable tool. He made careful inquiries as to
his opportunity and ability to bear false witness, found that Prance
would be unable to make out an alibi, and denounced him dramatically
at Westminster. Prance was clapped into prison and, without having
any notes of Bedloe’s evidence given him, was so terrified by the two
nights which he spent in the dungeon in Newgate that he concocted
a false story and then made confession of it. There is certainly
something to be said in favour of this view. It was common talk that
Godfrey had been murdered in Somerset House, and Bedloe was well known
to have said as much. Prance was well acquainted with the place and the
people belonging to it. He had at least as fair a chance as another of
making a plausible account of the murder. He was in considerable danger
and in great discomfort. He had already lost his liberty and bade fair
to lose his life for speaking the truth. It was natural enough that he
should renounce his honesty and spin a tale to save his skin. He could
make use of knowledge which would render it unlikely that he should
be caught tripping. He had heard Bedloe say that he saw him on the
Monday night standing by the body with a dark lantern, so that he could
place this incident in his story without hesitation. The publicity of
the manner of Godfrey’s death would enable him to speak with equal
certainty as to the actual murder.
Here is a plausible enough theory of the relation between the witnesses
and the manner in which Prance’s evidence was procured. Unfortunately
there are considerable difficulties in the way of its acceptance. If
Prance was enabled by the words which he heard Bedloe speak to place
the incident of October 14 in his narrative, he was also enabled to
make a connection with Bedloe himself at that point. As according to
the hypothesis this was his only knowledge of the details of Bedloe’s
information, he would have been eager to make the most of it. It would
have been the first point for him to clutch. On the contrary, Prance
did nothing of the kind. He did not mention Bedloe’s name at all. The
question why he did not is, if this theory be true, unanswerable.
Bedloe too went to the trouble of spending four valuable weeks in his
search for a suitable instrument to bear out his story. If that was the
case it is surely strange that he should not have attempted to make
certain that the man whom he obtained at last should be more or less
acquainted with the tale which he was to corroborate. To do this after
the arrest would probably be very difficult, but as a previous step it
would be by no means so hard. Oates and Bedloe had many disreputable
friends, by profession Roman Catholics, who could have easily effected
an introduction to Prance and have held conversation the meaning of
which would after his arrest be plain. Instead of this Bedloe on
the hypothesis preferred to run the risk of having his whole story
contradicted. These are objections of weight; but a still greater lies
in the nature of the evidence which Prance gave on his confession. He
had been in a very cold dungeon for thirty-six hours at most, from
the evening of December 21 to the morning of December 23. If he was
unprepared for Bedloe’s charge, his mind must have been in a turmoil
of conflicting emotions. Yet within this time he evolved a story so
detailed, elaborate, connected, and consistent that he never afterwards
found the need to alter it materially. For such a task phenomenal
powers of memory, imagination, and coolness would be demanded. A man
of Prance’s station, suddenly thrown into a horrible prison on a false
charge, cannot be supposed to have been endowed with such a wealth
of mental equipment. If he had possessed a tithe of the powers which
in this case would have been necessary, he would have made sure of
cementing a firm connection in his narrative between himself and Bedloe.
This consideration then has reached the result that the relation
between the two men is not only inexplicable on the theory just
discussed, but that it is inexplicable except upon the ground that
there was more in Prance’s evidence than a work of mere fancy. Within
the space of thirty-six hours, and with every condition adverse to
clear and connected thought, he could not have produced the evidence
which he gave on December 23 and 24 unless it had been based upon some
reality in fact. On December 24 he was taken to all the places of which
he had spoken, and went to each, describing the transaction on the spot
in a manner perfectly consonant with what he had said under examination
elsewhere. The consistence of his story, its readiness, the minuteness
of its detail point to the certainty that he was speaking, not of
incidents manufactured to order, but of facts within his knowledge.
Prance was in fact a party to the murder.[268] From this it is a sure
deduction that when Bedloe denounced him in the lobby of the House of
Commons he was not, as L’Estrange asserted, making a move in a game
which had been arranged beforehand, but had on the contrary really
recognised the man and on the instant made an accusation not wholly
devoid of truth. Bedloe too must therefore have known something about
the murder. It would be an unbelievable coincidence that, if Bedloe
were wholly ignorant, he should chance to choose, out of all London,
one of the few who were not.
It now becomes evident what part of Prance’s evidence was true and
what false. The three men whose conviction for the murder he procured
were certainly innocent. Almost with equal certainty it can be said
that he was not speaking at random. The truth of what he affirmed
lay therefore in the facts and the manner of the transaction which
he described. The murder had taken place at Somerset House in the
way which he related, but he fastened the crime upon men who were
guiltless of Godfrey’s death. The extent of Bedloe’s information also
can be calculated. On every point of time and place he had prevaricated
and contradicted himself beyond measure. On none of these is his
testimony of the slightest value. Nevertheless he was possessed of
enough knowledge to accuse definitely a man who was actively concerned
in the crime and could relate the facts as they happened. Clearly he
had become acquainted with the persons who were guilty of the murder.
The probability then is that those whose names he first gave directly
were the culprits. Prance he did not know by name, but by sight alone.
From the beginning he had always spoken of “the waiter in the queen’s
chapel,” or of the man whom “he saw often in the chapel.” If this
had been a chance shot, he would afterwards have identified this man
with Green, who actually answered to the description. Instead of this
he recognised him in the person of Prance. As he only mentioned the
fact incidentally and did not insist upon it as a circumstance in
his favour, his word on the point is the more deserving of credit.
If Prance himself was a party to the murder he must have known
the real authors of it. He must have accused the innocent not from
necessity but from choice, and in order to conceal the guilty. As he
was expected and supposed to corroborate Bedloe’s evidence, his most
natural course was to introduce into his story all those whom Bedloe
had named. He carefully avoided mentioning any of them. No other reason
is conceivable except that he knew Bedloe to have exposed the real
murderers, and that he wished to shield them. What then was the motive
of the crime, and how did this extraordinary complication arise?
CHAPTER V
THE SECRET
Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was an intimate friend of Edward Coleman,
secretary to the Duchess of York. At the time of the murder Coleman
lay in Newgate under an accusation of treason, and had so lain for
a fortnight. He was therefore never examined on the subject of his
friend’s death. The omission was unfortunate, for Coleman could
probably have thrown some light upon the nature of the magistrate’s
end.[269] It was constantly said, and the statement has often been
repeated, that when Oates left a copy of his information with Godfrey
on September 27, Godfrey at once wrote to Coleman an account of the
charges contained in it to give the Duke of York warning of the coming
storm.[270] The story was extensively used by those who wished to prove
that Godfrey had been murdered by the supporters of the Plot, or that
he had committed suicide from fear of a parliamentary inquiry into his
conduct. He had not only this reason for fear, urged L’Estrange, but he
had concealed the fact of Oates’ discovery to him for nearly a whole
month; this was the meaning of Godfrey’s enigmatical expressions of
apprehension, and his fear, combined with constitutional melancholy,
drove him to take his own life.[271] Whether or no he suffered from
depression is not a question of importance, since it has been proved
that he did not commit suicide, but was murdered. The rest of the
argument is equally unsound. When Godfrey took Oates’ first deposition
on September 6, he had no copy of the information left with him and
knew that it had already been communicated to the government.[272] As
for the fact that Godfrey had sent an account of Oates’ revelations
to the Duke of York, it would be absurd to suppose that plans of
vengeance were harboured against him on this score, for the duke had
been acquainted with the matter since August 31, when the forged
letters were sent to Bedingfield at Windsor, so that the information
he received from Godfrey was unimportant.[273] As this was a fact of
which the Lord Treasurer was perfectly aware, the suggestions of North
and Warner, the Jesuit provincial, that Godfrey had been threatened and
finally dispatched by order of Danby, on account of his officiousness
in making a communication to the duke, fall to the ground at the same
time.[274] Taken in this sense the words in which Godfrey foreshadowed
his doom are meaningless. He had assured Mr. Robinson that he believed
he should be the first martyr. “I do not fear them,” he added, “if they
come fairly, and I shall not part with my life tamely.” He declared
to Burnet his belief that he would be knocked on the head. To his
sister-in-law he said, “If any danger be, I shall be the first shall
suffer.” He had told one Mr. Wynnel that he was master of a dangerous
secret, which would be fatal to him. “Oates,” he said, “is sworn and is
perjured.”[275] Clearly Godfrey was labouring under an apprehension of
quite definite character. He was in possession of secret information
concerning Oates’ discovery and believed that it would cost him his
life. What this secret was is now to seek. The nature of it must show
why danger was to be apprehended and from what quarter.
The statement that Godfrey wrote to Coleman to acquaint him with Oates’
accusations is not quite correct. Burnet notes: “It was generally
believed that Coleman and he were long in a private conversation,
between the time of his (Coleman’s) being put in the messenger’s hands
and his being made a close prisoner.”[276] Such a conversation in
fact took place, though it was earlier than Burnet thought. Coleman
surrendered to the warrant against him on Monday, September 30.[277]
Two days before he came to the house of Mr. George Welden, a common
friend of himself and the magistrate. Welden sent his servant to
Godfrey’s house with the message that one Clarke wanted to speak to
him. It was the form arranged between them for use when Godfrey was in
company and Coleman wished to see him. Godfrey went to Mr. Welden’s
and there had an interview with Coleman. “When Mr. Coleman and Sir
Edmondbury were together at my house,” said Welden, “they were reading
papers.”[278] It can hardly be doubted what these papers were. The date
was Saturday, September 28, the day on which Godfrey had taken Oates’
deposition. In that Oates had made charges of the most serious nature
against Coleman; and Coleman was Godfrey’s friend. The papers can
scarcely have been other than Godfrey’s copy of the deposition. Godfrey
had probably sent at once to Coleman to tell him what had passed. This
much may be gathered from the reports of letters which he was said to
have sent to Coleman and the Duke of York. Coleman then met him at
Welden’s house, and together they went through Oates’ information,
“Oates,” said Godfrey, “is sworn and is perjured.” This alone was
hardly a secret so dangerous as to make him fear for his life. Many
believed it. It was not an uncommon thing to say. The most grievous
consequence that could ensue would be to gain the reputation of a
“bloody papist,” and possibly to be threatened with implication in the
Plot. Such an opinion could not conceivably lead to fears of assaults
by night and secret assassination. But there was one particular in
which knowledge of Oates’ perjury might be very dangerous indeed.
No doubt Coleman pointed out Oates’ long tale of lies through many
articles of his deposition. There was one which he certainly would not
omit. The cardinal point in the Plot, according to Oates’ revelation,
was a Jesuit congregation held on April 24, 1678 at the White Horse
Tavern in the Strand, where means were concerted for the king’s
assassination. At all the trials of the Jesuits Oates came forward to
give evidence to this point. It was of the first importance. Oates’
statement was false. No congregation had met on that day at the White
Horse Tavern. His perjury is more easy to prove here than in most other
particulars, for it is certain that the Jesuit congregation was held
on April 24 in a different place. It was held at St. James’ Palace,
the residence of the Duke of York. More than five years afterwards
James II let out the secret to Sir John Reresby.[279] Up to that
time it had been well guarded. It was of the utmost consequence that
the fact should not be known. Had it been discovered, the discredit
into which Oates would have fallen would have been of little moment
compared to the extent of the gain to the Whig and Protestant party.
To Shaftesbury the knowledge would have meant everything. Witnesses of
the fact would certainly have been forthcoming, and James’ reception
of the Jesuits in his home was a formal act of high treason. The
Exclusion bill would have been unnecessary. James would have been
successfully impeached and would have been lucky to escape with his
head upon his shoulders. Charles would hardly have been able to
withstand the outcry for the recognition of the Protestant duke as
heir to the throne, the Revolution would never have come to pass, and
the English throne might to this day support a bastard Stuart line
instead of the legitimate Hanoverian dynasty. Besides the Duke of York
and the Jesuit party one man only was acquainted with this stupendous
fact. It is hardly credible that Godfrey met Coleman on September 28,
1678 with any other object than to discuss with him the charges made
by Oates. Still less is it credible that Coleman failed to point out
Oates’ perjury in this matter. It need not be supposed that a definite
statement passed from him. A hint would have sufficed. In some way,
it may be conjectured, Coleman disclosed to the magistrate that which
he should have concealed. Such understandings are abrupt in origin
but swift in growth. Beyond doubt the secret, the shadow of which
Godfrey saw stretching across the line of his life, was that the Jesuit
congregation of April 24 had been held in the house and under the
patronage of the Duke of York.[280]
And hence arose the perplexity and depression of mind from which he
is said to have suffered during the last days of his life. He was
possessed of information which, if published, would infallibly ruin
the cause of the Duke of York and of the Catholics, to whom he was
friendly. It had come to him in private from his friend, and to use
it might seem an act almost of treachery. Yet with these sentiments
Godfrey’s duty as a magistrate was in absolute conflict. It was
undoubtedly his business at once to communicate his knowledge to the
government. Not only was it illegal not to do so, and highly important
that such a weighty fact should not escape detection, but Godfrey
found himself at the centre of the investigation of Oates’ discovery,
and to reveal his news was probably the only way of exposing Oates’
perjury. Nor did Godfrey underestimate the danger into which this
knowledge brought him. He feared that he would be assassinated. The
Jesuits were confronted with the fact that a secret of unbounded value
to their enemies had come into the hands of just one of the men who
could not afford, however much he might wish, to retain it. Godfrey
was, by virtue of his position as justice of the peace, a government
official. He might take time to approach the point of revealing his
information, but sooner or later he would assuredly reveal it. All the
tremendous consequences which would ensue could not then be prevented
or palliated. The only possible remedy was to take from Godfrey the
power of divulging the secret. His silence must be secured, and it
could only be made certain by the grave. To the suggestion that the
motive to the crime was not sufficient, it need only be answered that
at least nine men preferred to die a horrible and ignominious death
rather than prove their innocence and purchase life by telling the
facts.[281] Godfrey’s death was no ludicrous act of stupid revenge, but
a clear-headed piece of business. It was a move in the game which was
played in England between parties and religions, and which dealt with
issues graver than those of life and death.
So far the matter is clear. Sir Edmund Godfrey was an intolerable
obstacle to the Jesuit party. He was in possession of a secret the
disclosure of which would utterly ruin them. He recognised himself that
his life was in danger and went in expectation of being assassinated.
His murder was, like Charles the First’s execution, a cruel necessity.
Two men gave evidence as to his death. The one, Bedloe, contradicted
himself beyond belief. Nevertheless he was able to recognise and accuse
the other, Prance, whose minute and consistent descriptions of time
and place mark him as a partner in the crime. The inference therefore
is sound that, as Bedloe accused correctly a man whom he knew by sight
and not by name, some of the men whose names he gave directly in his
account of the murder were probably the real criminals. These were
Le Fevre, the Jesuit confessor of the queen, Charles Walsh, a Jesuit
attached to the household of Lord Bellasis, and Charles Pritchard, a
third member of the Society of Jesus. With them were associated the
Roman Catholic silversmith, Miles Prance, whom Bedloe recognised as
the man whom he had taken for a waiter in the queen’s chapel, and
a servant of Lord Bellasis, whom he named as Mr. Robert Dent.[282]
Strictly, it is only a matter of conjecture that these men undertook
the deed, but it is supported by considerable probability. They were
singularly unfitted for the task. Godfrey had to be killed and his
corpse to be disposed in such a way that the crime might not be traced
to its true source. The men to do this were not professional criminals.
They did not know, what constant experience has demonstrated, that
the most apparently simple crimes are the hardest to bring home to
their authors. Their proper course was to waylay the magistrate in
the darkness of a narrow street, strip his body of every article of
value, and leave it to be supposed that the murder had been committed
for a vulgar robbery. Instead of this they determined to dispose the
corpse in such a way that Godfrey might be thought to have committed
suicide. The disposal would need time, and to gain the time necessary
it was needful that they should choose a spot to which they could have
free access, and where they would be undisturbed. As the most secret
spot known to them they chose exactly that which they should have most
avoided, the queen’s palace, Somerset House. To decoy Godfrey was not
difficult, for, contrary to the practice of the day, he went abroad
habitually without a servant.[283] The court of Somerset House was
not, as the Duke of York afterwards declared in his memoirs, crowded
with people; on the contrary, it was understood that the queen was
private, and orders were given that visitors were not to be admitted
in their coaches.[284] The queen’s confessor and his friends however
could doubtless secure an entrance. Here Godfrey was murdered, and in
Somerset House his body remained for four nights. In what place it
was kept cannot be decided. Hill’s lodgings were certainly not used.
Perhaps the spot chosen was the room in the same passage where Prance
said that the body had lain during one night.[285] The drops of white
wax which Burnet afterwards saw must have here been spilt upon the
dead man’s clothes. Godfrey himself never used wax candles.[286] On
Wednesday night the body was removed from Somerset House and carried
to the field in which it was found. That it was not taken through the
gate is made certain by the sentries’ evidence. It must therefore have
been carried through a private door. Thence it was taken in a carriage
to the foot of Primrose Hill; marks of coach wheels were seen in the
ground leading towards the spot in a place where coaches were not used
to be driven.[287] Godfrey’s sword was driven through his body, and the
corpse was left lying in the ditch, where it was found next day.
In lodgings near Wild House lived four men. Two of them were Le Fevre
and Walsh, parties to the murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey; the others were
Captain William Bedloe, “the discoverer of the Popish Plot,” and his
coadjutor, Charles Atkins. Atkins had declared before the secretary of
state that he lodged at Holborn, but Bedloe let the truth appear in his
examination. As it was a slip, which he immediately tried to cover,
and he was far from bringing it forward as a point in his favour,
his statement may be accepted.[288] Bedloe was thus in daily contact
with two of the criminals. He was on terms of intimacy with them.
They went about in his company and confided in him enough to allow
him to be present at secret celebration of the mass.[289] From this
quarter Bedloe’s information was derived. It is easy to conjecture
how he could have obtained it. Walsh and Le Fevre were absent from
their lodgings for a considerable part of the nights of Saturday and
Wednesday, October 12 and 16. Bedloe’s suspicions must have been
aroused, and either by threats or cajolery he wormed part of the secret
out of his friends. He obtained a general idea of the way in which the
murder had been committed and of the persons concerned in it. One of
these was a frequenter of the queen’s chapel whom he knew by sight. He
thought him to be a subordinate official there. If he went afterwards
to the chapel to discover him he must have been disappointed, for the
man occupied no office. He had failed to learn his name. It was only
by accident that nearly two months later he met Prance and recognised
him as the man he wanted. As he had no knowledge himself of the murder
and could not profess to have been present at it, he devised the story
that he had been shewn the body as it lay in a room in Somerset House
on the night of October 14. At this point he introduced the name of
Samuel Atkins. Le Fevre and Walsh had in the meantime disappeared, and
Bedloe was left without any fish in his net. Doubtless the fact that
Charles Atkins was his fellow-lodger suggested the idea of implicating
Pepys’ clerk. Samuel Atkins was well known to his namesake and had in
times past given him considerable assistance.[290] Charles Atkins now
shewed his gratitude by arranging with Bedloe to accuse his benefactor
of complicity in Godfrey’s murder.
Prance’s conduct is now easy to explain. He was denounced by a man
who, as he had good reason to know, was not a party to the crime and
could have no certain knowledge of it. If he could shew a bold front
and stoutly maintain his perfect innocence all might be well. But to do
this meant to expose himself to the danger of being hanged. Bedloe had
moreover named other of the real criminals. They might yet be taken and
the secret be dragged from them. This at any cost must be prevented.
So Prance determined to pose as the repentant convert and to shield
the real culprits by bringing to death men whom he knew to be innocent.
His knowledge of the crime enabled him to describe its details in
the most convincing manner, while his acquaintance with the circle
of Somerset House enabled him to fit the wrong persons to the facts.
No doubt, when he was once out of the condemned cell, he felt that
he would prefer to keep free of the business altogether. Perhaps too
he was not without shame and horror at the idea of accusing innocent
men. He recanted. A recantation moreover, if he could persevere in it,
might succeed in shattering Bedloe’s credit as well as his own and
in diverting the line of inquiry from Somerset House. Pressure was
immediately put upon him, he was forced to retract and to return to his
original course of action. In this he was perfectly successful. Not
only was the investigation removed from a quarter unpleasantly near
to the Duke of York, but Prance manipulated his evidence so cleverly
that even the keen inquisitors who sat on the parliamentary committees
never for a moment suspected that the germ of truth for which they were
seeking was not contained in his but in Bedloe’s information. After the
appearance of Prance that was relegated to a secondary position; but
as Bedloe gained the reward of £500 offered for the discovery of the
murder, was lodged in apartments at Whitehall, and received a weekly
pension of ten pounds from the secret service fund, he had no reason
to be dissatisfied with the result. Prance too received a bounty of
fifty pounds “in respect of his services about the plot.”[291] The fact
that the murder was sworn to have taken place in Somerset House was
not without danger to the queen herself. At Bedloe’s first information
she acted a prudent part. She sent a message to the House of Lords
expressing her grief at the thought that such a crime could have taken
place in her residence, and offered to do anything in her power that
might contribute to the discovery of the murderers. When an order was
given to search the palace, she threw open the rooms and in every way
facilitated the process. The course which she adopted was most wise.
The Lords were touched by her confidence and voted thanks for her
message.[292] Her confessor, who had been accused by Bedloe, was not
charged by Prance. In spite of the libels which assailed her she was
never again molested on the matter.[293]
Prance’s attitude as it has here been sketched accorded entirely with
the rest of his evidence. In his examination before the council he
began his story; “On a certain Monday.”[294] When he was taken by
Monmouth and Ossory to Somerset House he said “that it was either at
the latter end or the beginning of the week” that Godfrey had met
his death.[295] The significance of this is clear. No one wishing
to construct a false account of the murder could possibly have made
these statements. It was notorious that Godfrey had disappeared upon
Saturday, October 12. To postpone the date of the murder would be
to add a ludicrous difficulty to the story. This is exactly what
Prance wanted to do. If only he could be branded as a liar and thrust
ignominiously out of the circle of inquiry, his dearest object would
be accomplished. Other statements in his information make it certain
that this was the case. After naming Monday night as the time of
the murder, he went on to say to the council that the body lay in
Somerset House for four days, and was then carried away on the night
of Wednesday. Reckoning at the shortest, the fourth day from Monday
night was Friday, twenty-four hours after Godfrey’s body was found.
Reckoning backwards from Wednesday, the fourth day was Saturday, when
Godfrey was missed. Prance was therefore deliberately falsifying his
evidence in point of time when he named Monday. A similar result is
obtained from his examination by the Duke of Monmouth. In that he
said that the day of the murder was either at the latter end or the
beginning of the week. He further said “that the body lay in Somerset
House about six or seven days before it was carried out.” Counting the
week-end from Friday to Tuesday, six days from either of those or the
intermediate points brings the calculation at least to Thursday. At
the same time Prance declared that the body was removed at midnight on
Wednesday. It is evident that he was trying to throw dust in the eyes
of the investigators. These tactics were in vain, and he was forced to
tell the story in point of time truthfully. As for the fictitious view
of the body on the night of October 14, Prance simply told Bedloe’s
story with as little variation as possible, with the exception that he
did not mention Bedloe at all. Bedloe had landed himself in hopeless
confusion when he was taken to Somerset House to shew the room where it
had taken place.[296] Prance did not attempt to point it out.
Prance did not stop at his evidence on the subject of the murder,
but went on to give information as to the Plot. Unless he had done
so he could hardly have hoped to escape from prison, for it would
seem incredible to the authorities that he should know so much and
yet not know more. Perhaps too he was bitten with the excitement and
glory of an informer’s life. His evidence was not however calculated
to assist materially the party whose interest it was to prosecute
the plot. He had already aroused annoyance by contradicting Bedloe’s
evidence concerning the murder.[297] He now proceeded to spin out a
string of utterly ridiculous stories about the Jesuits and other
Roman Catholics. All that was important in his evidence was hearsay
or directed against men who had already to contend against weightier
accusations. He declared that Fenwick, Ireland, and Grove had told him
that four of the five Popish lords were “to command the army.”[298]
They had for some time past been in prison in the Tower on far more
direct charges. At the trial of Ireland and Grove Prance was not
produced as a witness at all. At the trial of Whitbread, Fenwick, and
Harcourt he made the same statement. Fenwick had told him also that
he need not fear to lose his trade in the case of civil war, for he
should have plenty of work to do in making church ornaments.[299] These
stories were again retailed at the trials of Langhorn and Wakeman.[300]
When he was summoned as a witness against Lord Stafford he could say
no more than that one Singleton, a priest, had told him “that he would
make no more to stab forty parliament men than to eat his dinner.”[301]
Much of his evidence about the Plot was so ludicrous that it could
never be brought into court at all. Four men were to kill the Earl of
Shaftesbury and went continually with pistols in their pockets. One
Bradshaw, an upholsterer, had said openly in a tavern that it was no
more sin to kill a Protestant than to kill a dog, and that “he was
resolved to kill some of the busy lords.” It was the commonest talk
among Roman Catholics that the king and Lord Shaftesbury were to be
murdered. It was equally an ordinary subject of conversation that a
great army was to be raised for the extirpation of heretics. A surgeon,
named Ridley, had often told him “that he hoped to be chirurgeon to
the Catholic army in England”; and when he complimented one Moore, a
servant of the Duke of Norfolk, upon “a very brave horse” which he was
riding, “Moore wished that he had ten thousand of them, and hoped in a
short time that they might have them for the Catholic cause.” In his
publication Prance added to this a disquisition on the immorality of
the secular priests, among whom he had at the time two brothers.[302]
So tangled and nonsensical a tale could be a source of strength to
no prosecution. Dr. Lloyd was alarmed at the extent and facility of
Prance’s new information.[303] Bishop Burnet thought, “It looked very
strange, and added no credit to his other evidence that the papists
should thus be talking of killing the king as if it had been a common
piece of news.[304] And Warner, the Jesuit provincial, characterised
Prance’s later evidence as of little scope and less weight.”[305]
To how many persons Prance’s real position in the tortuous intrigues
which circled round the murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey was known is a
question very difficult to answer. By the Jesuit writers on the Plot
his character is treated with a moderation foreign to their attacks on
the other informers. He is to them “a silversmith of no obscurity,”
and “by far less guilty than the rest in the crimes of their past
lives.”[306] It is hard to think that some of them were not acquainted
with the part which he had played. There are stronger indications
that within a select circle his true character was appreciated. When
James II came to the throne Prance was brought to trial for perjury,
and on June 15, 1686 pleaded guilty to the charge. The court treated
him to a lecture in which his conduct was compared favourably to that
of Oates, who had remained hardened to the end, and promised to have
compassion on a true penitent. He was sentenced to pay a fine of a
hundred pounds, to be three times pilloried for the space of an hour,
and to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. The last and heaviest
part of the punishment, the flogging, under which Oates’ iron frame
had nearly sunk, was remitted by the king’s command.[307] There is
considerable reason to believe that the trial was collusive and the
result prearranged. That Prance should confess himself perjured is
easy to understand: to understand why Prance’s sentence was lightened,
unless it was in reward for good service done, would be very difficult.
All the reasons which had worked before for the exculpation of the
Roman Catholics from the guilt of Godfrey’s murder were now redoubled
in force. Oates had already suffered for his crimes. The Popish Plot,
as Sir John Reresby told James, was not only dead, but buried. To
overthrow the Protestant story of Godfrey’s death would be to throw
the last sod upon its grave. This was much; but James was not the man
to forego without reason the sweetest part of his vengeance upon the
witness who had set up that story. The rancour with which he pursued
Oates and Dangerfield seemed to have completely vanished when the turn
came to Prance. Prance had certainly diverted the investigation from
James’ personal neighbourhood; but Oates had been saved nothing of his
terrible punishment by the fact that he had cleared the Duke of York
in his first revelation of the plot. The harm done by Dangerfield to
the Catholic cause was nothing compared to that accomplished by Prance,
if the surface of events told a true tale. Dangerfield was whipped, if
not to death, at least to a point near it. But Prance was let off the
lash. Without the flogging his sentence was trifling. James had no love
for light sentences in themselves. His action is only explicable on the
ground that he was acquainted with the truth, and knew how valuable an
instrument Prance had proved himself.
One man at least could have told him the facts: Father John Warner,
late provincial of the Jesuits in England and confessor of the king.
Less than three years later, when the storm of revolution burst over
the Catholic court and drove its supporters to seek a penurious
refuge on the continent, a shipload of these was setting out from
Gravesend in mid December. They were bound for Dunkirk with as many
valuables as they could carry with them. Before they could set sail,
information was laid and an active man, aided by the officers of the
harbour, boarded the vessel. The last passengers were being rowed out
from shore. They were arrested in the boat and carried back with the
others seized on the ship. They were Father Warner and Miles Prance.
While the officers were busy in caring for the captured property, their
prisoners escaped. Warner made his way to Maidstone and by means of a
forged passport crossed the Channel. Prance was soon after retaken in
the attempt to follow under a false name. The vessel on board which he
was found was seized, but those on her were discharged, and Prance was
probably successful in his third endeavour to reach the continent.[308]
Supposing that Prance had been the Protestant puppet which he has
been believed, this was queer company in which to find him. He had
attacked Warner’s religion, accused his friends, and brought to death
those of his faith by false oaths. His confession of perjury would
hardly weigh down the scale against this. At least he was not the man
whom Warner would choose as a travelling companion on a journey in
which detection might at any moment mean imprisonment and even death.
The risk that Prance would turn coat again and denounce him was not
inconsiderable. Prance’s conduct too was remarkable. Why should he fly
from the Revolution? True, he had confessed that his accusations of
the Catholics were false, and he could not expect great gratitude from
the party in power; but he had only to retract his words once more, on
the plea that his confession had been extorted against his will, to
live in safety, at any rate, if not with prosperity. Away from England,
surrounded by those whom he had wronged, the future before him was
hopeless.
The supposition cannot be supported. Prance’s position in the politics
of the plot is not easy to set in a clear light. The attempt made here
to do so at least offers a hypothesis by which some of the difficulties
are explained. The last phase of the informer’s career, at all events,
becomes intelligible. Prance had been throughout one of the most astute
and audacious of the Jesuit agents, and Warner must have been perfectly
aware of the fact.
The success of Godfrey’s murder as a political move is indubitable.
The Duke of York was the pivot of the Roman Catholic schemes in
England,[309] and Godfrey’s death saved both from utter ruin.
Nevertheless it was attended by gravely adverse consequences. If the
fact of the Jesuit congregation at St. James’ Palace had become known,
nothing could have saved the duke. But the crime which prevented this
gave an impetus to the pursuit of the Plot and a strength to the Whig
party, so great that it all but succeeded in barring him from the
throne and establishing a Protestant dynasty. Godfrey’s fame rose
almost to the height of legend. On a Sunday in the February after his
murder a great darkness overspread the face of the sky of London. The
atmosphere was so murky that in many churches service could not be
continued without the aid of candles. It was said that in the midst of
the gloom in the queen’s chapel at Somerset House, even while mass was
being said, the figure of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey appeared above the
altar. Thereafter the place went by the name of Godfrey Hall.[310]
POLITICS OF THE PLOT
CHAPTER I
THE GOVERNMENT
“The English nation are a sober people,” wrote Charles I to his abler
son, “however at present infatuated.” Charles II had greater right than
ever his father to believe that his subjects were mad. The appearance
of Oates and the death of Godfrey heralded an outburst of feeling as
monstrous as the obscure events which were its cause. From the sense
of proportion they had displayed in the Civil War the English people
seemed now divorced and, while they affected to judge those of “less
happier lands” fickle and tempest-tossed, let the tide of insobriety
mount to the point of complete abandonment. Public opinion was formed
without reason. The accumulated suspicion and hatred of years swelled
into an overpowering volume of tumultuous emotion. Scarcely the most
sane escaped the prevailing contagion of prejudice and terror. None
could tell where the spread would stop.
The times were in a ferment when Parliament met on October 21, 1678.
In his speech from the throne the king gave notice to the Houses that
information had been laid of a Jesuit conspiracy against his life,
and he and the Lord Chancellor following promised a strict inquiry.
The government wished to keep the investigation clear of Westminster,
recognising the danger of parliamentary interference;[311] but the
Commons were of another mind. They returned to their house, and
business was begun by members of the privy council. Motions were made
to take the king’s speech into consideration, for the keep of the
army, and the court party tried first to turn the attention of the
house to the need for money. The question was about to be put, while
country members sat in amazement. Suddenly one rose to his feet and in
a speech of fire brought to debate the subject that was in the mind of
every man present. He admired, he said, that none of those gentlemen
who had spoken nor any others of the house who held great places at
court should speak one word of the Plot, though his Majesty’s life and
government were exposed to manifest danger; the property, liberty,
lives, and, yet dearer, the religion of all were embarked in the same
bottom; that neither an army nor money, in however vast sums, could
protect a prince from the knife of a villain the murder of two Kings
of France testified; and was the prisoner Coleman, so inconsiderable a
person, to be thought the chief agent in a design of such importance,
of such deep intrigues and tortuous ways But a few days before Sir
Edmund Godfrey had been done to death. Were a spaniel lost, inquiry
was made in the _Gazette_: now a worthy gentleman had been barbarously
murdered in discharge of his duty, and no search was undertaken for
the criminals. The privy council, declared the speaker, was cold in
its pursuit; let the great council of the land proceed with greater
vigour.[312] Parliament threw itself into the case with immediate
determination. Committees were appointed to consider ways and means for
the preservation of the king’s person, to inquire into the Plot and
Godfrey’s murder, a bill was prepared to disable papists from sitting
in either house of Parliament, addresses were made for the removal of
all popish recusants from London and for a day of solemn fast, which
was accordingly appointed by proclamation for November 13. Oates and
Bedloe were heard with their expansive tales at the bars of both
houses, and on the 1st of November a joint resolution was voted that
“there hath been and still is a damnable and hellish Plot, contrived
and carried on by Popish Recusants, for the assassinating and murdering
the King and rooting out and destroying the Protestant religion.”[313]
Consternation was not expressed in debate alone. Gallant members were
in alarm as well for themselves as for their sovereign. Sir Edward Rich
informed the Lords’ committee of an apprehension he had for some time
felt that both houses of Parliament were to be blown up. A beggar at
the Great Door was arrested on suspicion that he was an Irish earl’s
son. Great knocking had been heard underground in the night hours.
Sir John Cotton, who owned a cellar beneath the Painted Chamber, was
requested to have his coals and faggots removed from so dangerous a
spot, and the Duke of Monmouth generously lent guards to stand watch
until a strict examination could be made. Accompanied by the Masters
of the Ordnance and an expert builder. Sir Christopher Wren and Sir
Jonas Moore conducted the inspection. They reported the lower structure
of the house to be in an extremely dangerous state. The walls were
mostly seven feet thick and contained many secret places. Vaults ran
all the way from the Thames under Westminster Hall. By the help of
neighbours who owned the cellars any one could introduce a store of
gunpowder within four and twenty hours. Without a guard their lordships
could have no security. Orders were given for the adjoining houses and
vaults to be cleared, for the cellars to be opened one into another,
and sentinels to patrol them night and day under command of a trusty
officer. It was even doubted whether Parliament had not better remove
to Northumberland House. Still as neither knocking nor the beggar
were seen to produce ill effects, nothing further was done, and Sir
Edward Rich found himself derided as a lunatic.[314] Beyond Westminster
the terror ran no less high. A report came to town that St. John’s
College, Cambridge, had been burnt down and three priests taken with
fireballs in their possession. The new prison at Clerkenwell was fired
and some priests immured there hailed as the obvious incendiaries.
Somerset House was searched by Lord Ossory, who was promptly said
to have found a hundred thousand fireballs and hand-grenades, A
poor Venetian soapmaker was thrown into prison on the charge of
manufacturing similar infernal machines; but on examination his wares
turned out to be merely balls of scent. Dread of fire seemed to have
touched the limit when Sir William Jones sent an express from Hampstead
with orders to move his store of firewood from the front to the back
cellar of his house in London that it might be less near the malign
hands of Jesuits. And from Flanders came the disquieting rumour that
if, as was expected, the Catholics in England were destroyed in the
turmoil, the burghers of Bruges had prepared the same fate for English
Protestants in their town.[315]
Into the midst of so fierce a storm Charles II and his government were
thus suddenly thrown. It had broken over their heads almost without
warning. September had passed with a clear sky; October was not out
before the elements had massed their forces against the king’s devoted
servants and were threatening to overwhelm the land with a gigantic
catastrophe. In August Charles had at his control a formidable army
and in his pocket the sum of £800,000, with the added satisfaction of
seeing removed by the general peace a fruitful opportunity for his
political opponents: before December the throne on which he sat seemed
tottering to its fall. The servants of the crown faced the situation
with admirable fortitude. English statecraft of the Restoration period
was a haphazard school. Since the fall of Clarendon integrity of
dealing had ceased to be an ideal for English politicians. Common
honesty, the saving grace of party principle, fled from a scene where
could be witnessed the sight of offices bought and sold with cheerful
frankness and votes bidden for as at an auction without shame. The
king’s chief minister lent himself to a policy of which he heartily
disapproved. The king’s mistresses were notable pieces in the game
played at court. A quarrel between them might be expected to influence
the fate of incalculable futures. General want of method reduced the
public services to chaos. The salaries of ambassadors fell into long
arrear; clerks in the offices of the secretaries of state petitioned
vehemently for their wages; the very gentlemen waiters were forced
to urge that either their diet or money in its stead should not be
denied them.[316] Nevertheless the nation throve on a habit of inspired
disorder. Lord Treasurer Danby increased the royal revenue wonderfully.
The Stop of the Exchequer, a breach of faith which convulsed the
city, scarcely sufficed to shock the national credit. The growth of
trade and commerce was completely changing the aspect of England,
and wealth increased rapidly. Able and painstaking men such as Sir
Joseph Williamson, Sir William Temple, Henry Coventry, Sir Leoline
Jenkins, and in a lesser degree Samuel Pepys and the Earl of Conway,
conducted the changeful administration of affairs with industry and
circumspection. Want of order did not disturb them, for they were used
to none; and secretaries of state were accustomed to pursue their royal
master with business in bed, at his after-dinner dose, and even to
still more remote places of retreat.[317] A continual shifting of the
horizon prepared them for unexpected events. Without brilliant parts
they learned to confront steadily situations of difficulty and danger.
That which now met them was not without precedent. It had become
almost a tradition of Charles’ government to expect the worst without
ceasing to hope for the best. From the Restoration onwards alarms had
been frequent and a spirit of revolt, even of revolution, in the air.
Venner’s insurrection and the trouble in Scotland served during the
earlier years to make plain that stability was not assured, and it
was not only events on the surface that denoted uneasiness. In 1673
and the following year attention was occupied by a mysterious affair,
never probed to the bottom, in which Edmund Everard, later perjured
as an informer at the time of the Popish Plot, was charged with a
design to poison the Duke of Monmouth and other persons of quality, and
himself confessed his ill intention, having apparently been tutored
by some of the experts in that art who flourished across the channel;
with the result that he was thrown into the Tower, and was able four
years after to boast of having been the first to discover the Plot and
to charge the authorities with stifling it in his person.[318] Other
problems trod upon the heels of this in quick succession. Throughout
the years 1675 and 1676 the government shewed anxiety lest a fresh
sectarian movement was on foot. A great riot made in the former year
by the London prentices drew watchful eyes upon reputed fanatics.
Considerable information was collected in the provinces, and judges
on circuit earned golden praise by proving their attachment in word
and deed to the established church. At Worcester a man of notorious
opinions stood his trial for treason, but the jury acquitted him on
the ground of madness, and despite plain speaking from the bench held
to their verdict. Dark hints reached the government that on the first
meeting of Parliament after the long prorogation an attempt would be
made to seize the king and his brother and “order all things securely.”
Somewhat later Compton, Bishop of London, furnished the Lord Treasurer
with particulars of conventicles held by Anabaptists and other
dangerous dissenters in the city and in Southwark, amounting to the
number of sixteen, and for the most part frequented by between one and
three hundred persons; while from another source Danby learned that the
total of a few of the London congregations rose to over four thousand
souls.[319]
At the same time other adversaries of the church were not neglected.
Already in the spring of 1676 report was rife of papists laying
in supplies of arms, and a gentleman of Hereford was charged by a
number of witnesses with having declared that, had a recent account
of the king’s sickness or death continued but one day longer, the
Duke of York would have been proclaimed, and rather than allow the
duke to want men he would have raised a troop of horse at his own
expense. Orders were sent to the deputy lieutenant of the county to
keep stricter watch over the Roman Catholics of whom such tales were
told.[320] Repeated proclamations against the bold and open repair to
the chapels of foreign ambassadors for the purpose of hearing mass
and of the maintenance by them of English priests were doubtless
caused by political need, but the same reason cannot account for
private directions given by the king to Secretary Coventry to obtain
information as to the extent and nature of the correspondence carried
on with foreign parts by Edward Coleman. Instructions were issued
for his letters to be intercepted, and some dozen were seized, but
among them, unfortunately for all concerned, none of high importance.
Although no find was made, the fact that search should have been
thought necessary denotes in the government a real sense of the
working underground.[321] Shortly before, Danby had caused the bishops
to make returns of the proportion of Roman Catholics and other
dissenters to conformists in their several dioceses, and that from the
Bishop of Winchester is preserved. Dr. Morley had been advised that the
motive was a fear of the result should the laws against conventicles
be fully executed, as it was suspected that the number of those to be
suppressed exceeded that of the suppressors. He was delighted to reply
that the fear was groundless. Out of nearly 160,000 inhabitants in the
diocese of Winchester 140,000 conformed to the Church of England, and
of the remainder only 968 were classed as popish recusants; while the
bishop’s pious belief that the odds in favour of his side would be
equally great elsewhere was confirmed by an abstract of the returns
for the whole province of Canterbury setting down the complete number
of papists at 11,870. Other accounts gave the number of Catholics in
London alone as 30,000, and their real strength in England remains
unknown; but Danby had to admit to the French ambassador, when he spoke
of the alarm caused by the Duke of York’s conduct, that they did not
muster in all more than twelve thousand.[322] Though he did not lose
sight of Catholic movements and provided himself with detailed accounts
of their less known leaders in London,[323] the Lord Treasurer clearly
entertained keener fears of danger from the other side.
So corrupt and able a statesman as the Earl of Danby could not fail
of being an object of attack when the panic of the Popish Plot swept
over the country. The one party accused him of having contrived the
whole affair to sustain his credit by a persecution of the Catholics
and an increase of the army, the other of stifling it to save the
Duke of York, his former patron.[324] In truth he had done neither
the one nor the other. When Tonge’s information first came to hand he
had regarded it carefully and wished to sift the matter with caution.
As likelihood grew stronger that the doctor was a liar, Danby became
cooler towards him; so cool indeed that Tonge and his associates fell
into a fright for the prosperity of their future and sought help
elsewhere. Yet he realised the necessity for watchfulness, and it was
due to his energy that Coleman’s papers were seized.[325] This attitude
was hardly changed by the meeting of Parliament. The Lord Treasurer was
a consistent opponent of the French and Roman Catholic interest. His
constant endeavour was to draw Charles into union with Parliament and
foreign Protestant powers against the pretensions of Louis XIV, and
he thought that unless the king obtained foreign aid and set himself
to a regular conquest of his country this was the only way to avoid
complete division and debility at home;[326] but though these were
his hopes, he was ready at the very moment of urging them to support
his master’s private policy abroad in a wholly contrary spirit, and
so caused his own fall; for when Charles wrote to Paris for money
from the French king, Danby executed his orders, thus leaving his
handwriting to be produced against him. The fate that forced the Lord
Treasurer to act on instructions he detested was bitter. Nevertheless
he was not prepared to sacrifice office for principle. He continued
to obey orders and to hold his place. Retribution fell on him. The
immoral character of his conduct reaped a full reward; but it must be
remembered that at a time when the king was master of his servants as
well in fact as in name, there was something in Danby’s plea that the
monarch’s command in matters of peace and war and foreign policy was
absolute to his minister, and not open to question. Immoral or not, the
danger of Danby’s course was obvious, for powerful enemies at home and
abroad were eagerly waiting the moment to hurl the forerunners of prime
ministers from his eminent seat.
The opportunity had at last arrived. Feared and hated by the opposition
for his policy of Anglican predominance at home, by the French
government as a chief supporter of Protestant resistance on the
continent, by both for the army which might be used against either,
Danby found himself assailed by a combination of the Whig leaders
and the French ambassador. He had refused the place of secretary of
state to Ralph Montagu, ambassador in Paris, and the latter was now
recalled from his post by Charles owing to a discreditable intrigue
he had formed with the Duchess of Cleveland, abandoned and living in
France. Nor did the disgrace end there, for Montagu’s name was struck
off the list of the privy council. With him he brought back to England
letters written by Danby to demand subsidies from Louis. His intentions
could not yet be foreseen, but the indications of public events were
enough to cause the Treasurer grave anxiety. An atmosphere of plot and
disturbance surrounded the court, and while information poured in,
little exact evidence could be extracted from it. Money either to pay
or to disband the army there was none; the fleet was equally without
provision, and Parliament was tender of voting supplies lest they
should be misused. The Commons had imprisoned Secretary Williamson for
issuing commissions to popish recusants, and were highly incensed when
on the next day Charles calmly released him: worst of all, they were
preparing a bill to raise the militia of the whole kingdom without
possibility of its disbandment for a period of six weeks. Danby
believed that under cover of the universal excitement sinister designs
against the Duke of York and himself were in the air. Many were of
opinion, he wrote to Sir William Temple, that those who called for
inquiry into the Plot had objects nearer their hearts that they were
pursuing under its cover. Yet he was so overwhelmed with business that
he hardly had time to review the situation in his mind and consider the
best course to pursue.[327]
Suddenly the bolt fell as if from the blue. Danby was warned by Sir
John Reresby of danger impending from Montagu’s side. He had in vain
attempted to manage the ambassador’s exclusion from Parliament; Montagu
was defeated at Grinstead by the Treasurer’s candidate, and narrowly
won a seat for Northampton on a contested election. Had he failed he
could scarcely have dared fortune, but privilege of Parliament secured
him from the enmity of the powers. Roused to immediate action, the
minister attempted a counterstroke. Montagu had held unauthorised
communication with the papal nuncio at Paris, and Danby charged him
before the council with his malpractice, swiftly sending a warrant
to seize his papers. But here the adroit statesman met more than
his match. In the midst of the disturbance caused to the Commons by
the king’s message on the subject, Montagu quietly remarked that he
believed the search a design by abstracting evidence to conceal the
misconduct of a great minister of which he had knowledge. He had in
fact removed the documents from his other papers and placed them in
safe keeping; and on the following day they were triumphantly produced
to the House as evidence of Danby’s popery, treachery, and subservience
to the interests of the King of France. For Montagu had been bought
by Barillon and Shaftesbury, and promised Louis XIV for a hundred
thousand crowns to procure the Treasurer’s ruin within six months. At
a moment when all Protestants in the realm were crying in horror at
the danger threatening their religion, the spectacle was exhibited of
the king’s chief minister hurled from power by the French ambassador
in conjunction with the leaders of the Protestant party for his too
powerful support of the Protestant cause and the Anglican constitution.
The man who had reorganised the royal finance, and had persistently
advocated a national policy in the cause of English commerce and
the English crown, vanished from the scene, accused of treachery to
all three and under the stigma of having robbed his master and left
twenty-two shillings and ten pence in an exchequer which, after payment
for a vast addition to the navy, was actually stocked with over a
hundred thousand pounds.[328] Charged with plotting, the Treasurer was
himself the victim of a plot as base and planned by men as unscrupulous
as are known to the annals of English politics. The rest of the story
is thrice-told; how Danby was impeached and defended himself, pardoned
and raised to a marquisate, how he lay hid in Whitehall while the bill
of attainder was being passed, how he saved his head by surrendering
four days before the attaint had force, and passed from the intrigues
of the Popish Plot to an imprisonment of five years in the Tower,
whence he was released in the day of his master’s triumph. Many years
after, when Danby published his letters, he took occasion to prove
himself no less unscrupulous than his enemies by judiciously altering
the words, “I approve of this letter,” which stood in the king’s
writing at the foot of the most incriminating sheet, to those which in
their yet more exonerating form have become famous; “This letter is
writ by my order—C. R.” Meanwhile his opponents triumphed, and Montagu
was even successful in obtaining from the French king as much as half
the reward promised for his perfidy.[329]
The fall of the Lord Treasurer swelled the difficulties of the
government without disconcerting its policy. Though the opposition
could score so great a success, there was no thought of giving up the
main issue. The scheme of the militia bill was struck to the ground,
for Charles declared that he would not comply with it for so much as
the space of half an hour; he had not forgotten that the home forces
might be used against other than foreign enemies. The Whig party was
inspired with rage. Ten days before it had met with a still more
serious rebuff. On November 20 the bill disabling Roman Catholics from
sitting in Parliament was passed by the Lords, but with a proviso
excepting the Duke of York by name from its action. James had won
his point only by tears and incredible exertion, and the opposition
expected confidently to throw the proviso out in the Commons. A furious
debate took place. Supporters of the duke were assailed with cries of
“Coleman’s letters! Coleman’s letters!” High words were bandied across
the floor of the House, and Sir Jonathan Trelawny, on the court side,
was committed to the Tower for boxing the ears of Mr. Ash, a country
member, and calling him a rascal. Yet to the bitter disappointment of
its opponents the government was successful, and the saving clause
passed by a majority of two votes. The French ambassador thought that
James could have hardly escaped from a greater danger.[330] Another
was already looming darkly against him out of the cloudy future. Early
in the session of Parliament Shaftesbury, supported by Halifax, Essex,
and Barlow, now Bishop of London, had demanded the Duke of York’s
dismissal from the king’s presence and counsels. Lord Russell moved an
address to the same effect in the Commons. In the debate which followed
Sacheverell, acting on the report of Coleman’s examination that he had
himself drawn up, gave the first direct hint of the memorable project
of the Exclusion bill. Might not the king and Parliament, he asked,
dispose of the succession to the crown of England?[331] The idea struck
immediate root. It was the obvious point to which all that had gone
before tended. The exclusion of James was to be the touchstone of
English politics for two years, and the lines on which parties were to
be divided by it showed themselves at once. King Charles did not delay
to make his view of the situation plain. He told Danby in private that
he would not object to pare the nails of a popish successor, but that
nothing should induce him to see his brother’s right suffer injury;
and with more dignified language and thanks for the care manifested
for his personal safety informed Parliament of his readiness to join
in all possible ways and means to establish the Protestant religion in
firm security. Subjects might be assured that he would assent to any
bills presented to safeguard them during the reign of his successor,
with this ominous condition only, that none should diminish the just
powers of the throne or tend to impeach the right of succession and the
descent of the crown in the true line.[332] On the other side the Whig
lords, with whom Halifax was still at this time allied, had adopted the
notion and persuaded Barillon that an attack upon the duke was the best
way to attain his end. The ambassador was not wholly convinced but,
since the resistance he could make to their plan would be useless, went
the way of his friends and lent them judicious assistance. At least the
Frenchman’s policy proved successful. His objects were to overthrow
Danby and force Charles to disband the army which might perhaps be
used against France. Danby fell; and on the very day when the warrant
was sent to seize Montagu’s papers, the Commons voted a supply for
the purpose of paying off all the troops raised in the course of the
preceding year. A month later, as a last attempt to save his minister,
Charles dissolved the Cavalier Parliament after an unbroken existence
of eighteen years.
The elections for the new parliament were fought amid intense
excitement and with peculiar energy. Both parties exerted their
utmost powers to gain the day. The contest was the sole subject of
conversation. Purse and pen and all other imaginable means of influence
were employed without stint to elevate the intelligence and debase the
morals of the electors of England. At this time began the ingenious
practice of splitting freeholds to multiply votes. Under the guidance
of Shaftesbury pamphlets urging the Exclusion as the only means of
safety for the nation flooded the country. Lord Russell, one of the
most honest of his party, was elected for two counties. Drunkenness and
bribery were everywhere notorious. At Norwich “a strange consumption of
beer” was noted by Sir Thomas Browne. Sir William Waller, a magistrate
famed for his success in priest-hunting, won a seat at Westminster at
no less a cost, as those on his own side reported, than of a thousand
pounds. At the Bedfordshire polls the same interest carried the day
for six times that sum. Everywhere the Whigs were victorious. When the
result came to be known, it was found that the government could rely
upon a mere handful of twenty or thirty votes in the new parliament as
against a hundred and fifty in the old.[333]
Notwithstanding the disastrous complexion of affairs Charles began
the session on March 6, 1679 with considerable success. Outside the
circle of politicians the chief cause of alarm to the nation was the
continued existence of the army. The king had decided to remove the
ground of fear by undertaking the actual disbandment of his troops. To
this end he demanded from the Commons the accomplishment of the offer
made by the last parliament. On April 16 a supply of over £206,000 was
voted and appropriated for the purpose, and the disbandment began at
once.[334] Before many months had passed a source of apparent strength
and real weakness to the government was thus removed. Accusations of
arbitrary rule lost much of their force; for those who now indulged in
the charge were not only open to the retort, which could be levelled at
them before, that their insistance was insincere, but found themselves
in a far less good position to reply. It was perhaps with more personal
pleasure that Charles defeated the Commons in an altercation that took
place at the opening of Parliament over their choice of a Speaker,
Edward Seymour, a wealthy and profligate Devonshire landowner, who had
served in the chair in the late House of Commons, was noted for an able
opponent of the court and in particular of Lord Danby. The government
determined to effect a change, and named for Speaker Sir Thomas Meres,
a member of the Whig party, as less likely to give offence than one
from the court side. The Commons however elected Seymour again, and he,
having wind of the king’s intention to grant the formal request made
by all Speakers to be relieved of their dignity, on his presentation
omitted the customary words; but the Lord Chancellor replied for
Charles that he could not allow such talent to be wasted on the post,
having other employment for him, and sent Seymour and the rest of the
Commons back to choose another. High was the indignation of the House,
which sat for a whole week headless, combative, and remonstrating.
One ardent member declared: “This is gagging the Commons of England
and, like an Italian revenge, damning the soul first, then killing
the body.” A representation was made to the king, protesting that his
action was without precedent and the Commons only within their rights,
and a second to justify the first, which Charles had told them was
mere waste of time. In answer the king prorogued Parliament for two
days. When it again assembled, the matter was allowed to drop. Neither
Seymour nor Meres was proposed, but Serjeant Gregory, of a more neutral
disposition, who was elected and approved without difficulty.[335]
Though the Commons professed to be satisfied, since they had
established their right to a free choice, the honours lay in reality
with Charles, who had successfully rejected a freely chosen candidate
objectionable to himself.
The beginning of the parliament was prophetic of what was to come. At
the time no cause could seem lower than that of the court. The Whigs
had swept the country at the elections. Everything at Whitehall, at
the exchequer, in the services, was in disorder and disrepair. The
royal household still clamoured for unpaid wages. The whole nation
was in a ferment. Men’s minds were painfully divided by the project
of exclusion. Innumerable cabals, intriguing one against another,
troubled the surface of politics and clouded the depths. No one could
tell what designs and what dangers any moment might bring forth. Above
all no one could gauge the king’s intentions. Uncertainty reigned
everywhere, and it seemed as if the opposing forces had but to make
one push and thrust aside the resistance of government, order England
as they would, and reign in peace.[336] A somewhat different light
is shed by after events on “the very melancholy aspect” which Sir
John Reresby noted in the kingdom. In spite of the clamour raised on
all sides against feebleness and irresolution, the government had
marshalled its strength with some adroitness. Danby was in the Tower.
The army was in the act of being disbanded. The treasury was put
into commission, and the Earl of Essex, whose austerity and popular
sympathies could not but inspire some measure of confidence, named as
first commissioner. Before Parliament assembled the Duke of York at
his brother’s command had left the kingdom, and was watching events
with wrath and foreboding, but with little influence, from across
the Channel. Nothing that could betoken a conciliatory spirit in the
court had been omitted. There followed a move still more important as
a check to the unbridled Commons. The committee of secrecy had just
been instructed to consider methods of impeachment of the five Popish
lords, when on April 21 the king announced to Parliament that he had
chosen a new privy council. The scheme he went on to outline, though
attributed at the time to divers other heads, had its origin in the
elegant fancy of Sir William Temple.[337] That excellent ambassador and
gardener, returning from a mission to the Hague, found the turbulence
of the state and the dangers surrounding the king such that he promptly
set to considering how he might devise some advantage to his master’s
service. Diplomatic experience and a natural bent to theoretical
statesmanship were more prominent in his mind than knowledge of the
practical expedients which must temper the keenness of political
ideas in action. He saw Parliament daily encroaching, as it seemed to
him, on the royal prerogative; he saw the king drawing apart from his
people; he feared an open rupture which might throw the state into
convulsion. On these considerations he evolved the notion of a third
authority, which, standing midway between the two, should act at the
same time as a cushion and as a link. The instrument he found in the
privy council. By reducing the number from fifty to thirty Temple hoped
that business would be discussed by the whole board, cabals and secret
understandings avoided. Members were no longer to be of one party
only, or allied in ambition; on the contrary, fifteen places should
go to officers of state, fifteen to popular leaders from both houses
of Parliament; and since he observed authority to follow land, Temple
arranged that the total income of the several members should amount
to £300,000, a sum to be compared not unfavourably with that of the
House of Commons, which was estimated at a third as much again. By such
a council the king’s policy would be ably regulated. Its composition
would give confidence even to the most hostile parliament. Neither by
Parliament nor by king could its authority be lightly disregarded.
In the event of a breach between the two the council would be rich
enough to assist the finances of the state. At the same time the king
could be certain, by means of the votes of his fifteen officers, that
he would not be forced to act against his own interests. The project
won instant approval. Essex considered that it pointed a return to
the happy days of the Restoration; Lord Sunderland, now secretary of
state in place of Sir Joseph Williamson, was favourably impressed;
the Lord Chancellor declared it was as a thing from heaven fallen
into his majesty’s breast. The Chancellor’s remark had an unwitting
point. Though the scheme was of Temple’s conception, Charles made it
his own by a characteristic touch. He consented to the inclusion of
Halifax in the new council only after some pressure, for he disliked
and perhaps feared the great Trimmer. It was therefore with amazement
that his advisers heard the king name Lord Shaftesbury. Still more
amazing, Charles positively insisted on the earl’s inclusion as an
extraordinary member of the council and its president. Temple was
compelled to submit, not without protest. It was an act which should
have given pause to optimists. None the less the news of the scheme
was hailed with general applause. Bonfires were lighted in the city,
the East India Company’s stock rose rapidly, Barillon did not conceal
his mortification, and the Dutch republic marked the occasion by the
appointment of one of its most able ministers as ambassador to St.
James’; only the House of Commons viewed the matter in an unexpected
light and with dissatisfaction. While the French feared a bond of union
between the hostile parties in England and old Cavaliers that the king
had delivered himself into the hands of his enemies, the Whigs held
sullenly aloof from rejoicing, or proclaimed that they were being led
into a trap. The Earl of Essex had already lost credit with his friends
by serving on the commission for the treasury, and those of the party
who took places on the council found that glances were cast askance at
them as betrayers of their trust.[338]
To most eyes the situation as affected by the change of council was
far from clear. The king himself held the key to it. Whether or no
Temple’s scheme was really practicable, Charles did not intend to try.
He had gained a point by dissolving his old council, which was filled
with friends of Danby.[339] Another and a greater advantage was that
signified by the choice of Shaftesbury as president of the new. His
friends thought the king guilty of a lamentable piece of feebleness.
Had the council been meant to consult it would perhaps have been so.
But this was far from Charles’ design. “God’s fish!” he said to
an intimate, “they have put a set of men about me, but they shall
know nothing, and this keep to yourself.” Evidently the diplomatic
constitution had no grand future before it. And so it proved. Within
a short time the author was actively disregarding his own principle
by forming one of a cabinet of four with Sunderland, Essex, and
Halifax, to arrange matters before they came before the council and
Parliament; while Charles, as good as his word, kept his own counsel
and acted without the advice either of them or of the board at large,
on one notable occasion against its will and to the great displeasure
of the popular members. In Parliament the Whig councillors continued
their opposition as fiercely as ever, but at the council board they
had little influence. The position rapidly became impossible. It can
hardly be doubted that this was Charles’ exact intention. He had
achieved a double success. He had seemed to give the Whig leaders a
chance of reforming the government, while in fact he had only driven
them to greater exasperation. In the eyes of the nation he had offered
a compromise, secure in the knowledge that it would not be accepted.
The trick which the Commons feared had been played to a nicety. For
this their chiefs had only to thank themselves. Had they acted on their
suspicion and refused places on the council, their conduct would in
this have been faultless. But the bait was too tempting to be rejected.
They accepted the offer of office, intending from this new post of
vantage to pursue their old plans. Their duplicity gained nothing.
The king had provided for the result, and their failure could only
seem due to the deceit and intolerance with which they had repulsed
his good intentions. On October 15, 1679 Shaftesbury was dismissed
from the council in consequence of his agitation against the Duke of
York, and three months later Russell, Cavendish, Capel, and Powle, his
four most prominent allies on the board, tendered their resignation
by his advice. Charles accepted it in the words, “With all my heart.”
The famous scheme was thus finally abandoned. Temple withdrew from
politics to his garden and his library. Essex quitted the treasury and
openly joined the opposition. Only Halifax, after retirement to the
country, remained in the king’s service.[340]
Meanwhile the tide in Parliament ran high against the government. The
new constitution had hardly begun its career before the Commons on
April 27 settled to consider how they might best preserve his Majesty’s
person from the attacks of papists. Impotent attempts made by members
in the court interest to divert the debate only increased its keenness,
and the House passed from stage to stage of fiery enthusiasm until
on Mr. Hampden’s motion it was unanimously declared that “the Duke
of York being a papist and the hopes of his coming such to the crown
have given the greatest countenance and encouragement to the present
conspiracies and designs of papists against the king and the Protestant
religion.” With the addition that James had been the unwilling cause
of the Plot, the House of Lords adopted the motion as it stood. This
was the prelude to the piece to come. On Sunday, May 11, when daylight
had gone out with talk, a resolution was carried, those against it
refusing to have their votes taken, “that a bill be brought in to
disable the Duke of York to inherit the Imperial Crown of this realm.”
It was followed by the ferocious declaration of the Commons that they
would stand by his Majesty with their lives and fortunes and, should
he come to any violent death (which God forbid!), revenge it to the
utmost upon the Roman Catholics. Four days later the Exclusion bill
was introduced and read for the first time. On May 21 it passed the
second reading and was committed. The threatening aspect of these
events could not be mistaken. The Commons were fierce and pertinacious.
Danby’s discomfiture was followed by an attack on Lauderdale and by
another, still more violent, on the system of secret service money.
“Extraordinary heats” broke out on the question whether bishops had
or having should retain their right to sit in judgment upon peers
arraigned on a capital charge, for the trial of the five Popish lords
was expected, and the strength of the spiritual peers was a matter of
grave consideration to those who hoped for an adverse verdict. Many
were the indecencies, records Burnet, that arose on this occasion both
in town and in country. Shaftesbury was expecting an easy triumph.
Suddenly all came to an end. The king had information that the common
council of the city was about to offer public assistance to the Commons
in their efforts for the preservation of the Protestant faith, and that
an inflammatory remonstrance on the subject of the Plot lay ready for
presentation in the House. His mind was made up. With the cheerfulness
characteristic of him he seemed to be thinking of nothing, when on May
26 he summoned the Commons to his presence and without warning declared
a prorogation of three months. Eight weeks later Charles dissolved
the Little Parliament of Westminster against the advice of almost the
whole of his council. The blow fell with crushing effect upon the Whig
party. Shaftesbury swore openly that he would have the heads of those
who had counselled it.[341] Yet this uproarious session produced one
good thing. Before proroguing Parliament the king gave his assent to
the Habeas Corpus Act, its solitary record on the statute book. How
near that sheet was to being blank may be told by the fact that this
measure, of weighty importance in the history of England, only passed
its third reading in the House of Lords because the Whig teller in joke
counted one very fat lord as ten.[342]
Neither Parliament nor the privy council as a whole can properly be
said at this time to have been the government of the country. Under
the old system the council was a large and chiefly honorary body, the
business of which was regularly transacted by a few of its members.
By Sir William Temple’s construction it became a miniature of the
House of Commons as in the days when the government could count upon
about half the votes with an occasional majority. Though those who
carried on affairs might be privy councillors, there were also many
councillors who made it their chief business to prevent them from
doing so. The parliament of 1679 was still less to be classed with the
government than its predecessor. Here the Commons hardly disguised an
overmastering wish to obstruct the administration by others until it
fell wholly into their own hands, and to force on the government a
policy framed in the country and strongly disapproved at court. The
humour of the Commons seemed to infect the Lords also. The alarm and
activity of the upper house throughout the panic of the Plot almost
equalled those of the Commons; and it was by great exertion alone that
the court could carry the day even when the gravest interests were at
stake. The English state presented at the moment a striking appearance.
Since the beginning of the modern world government in England has been
with scant exception by consent, not only in the sense that in every
case force is ultimately on the side of the governed, but by virtue of
the fact that the English government has had nothing on which to rely
but the consent of the nation. Two famous examples had already shown
how hard of execution other methods must be. Mutual agreement between
parts of the frame was necessary to its usefulness. But now it seemed
as if this was no more. Variance had sprung up and silently grown until
it became direct opposition. Government and governed were divided
by an openly contrary spirit. It was a question how far Charles’
government could allow the division to widen without being engulfed
in it. On the one side were ranged the forcible and callous statesmen
who had organised the country party in the old Cavalier Parliament
and transformed its soul to Whiggism; the country gentlemen, formerly
staunchest adherents of the government, the class from whom now its
keen opponents were drawn; religious dissenters; high-principled
republicans; malcontents of every kind; the squirearchy, the
magistracy, the Church of England.[343] On the other there met this
formidable array a mere handful of men, dependents of the court or
trained officials zealous to perform their duty and to uphold the
traditions of English politics. The government was formed of the king
and his servants, chief among them the secretaries of state. Apart from
these support for the king’s policy was meagre indeed.
The work which fell on the secretaries’ shoulders was immense.
Throughout the winter which followed Oates’ revelations a perpetual
stream of reports, warnings, informations poured into their offices.
From all quarters came disturbing news. Alarms of armed men exercising
in bands at night were constant. Spanish forces were said to have
landed in Ireland and the French in Scotland. Tynemouth Castle was
reported blown up by gunpowder. Five thousand Spaniards were in
Wales. A combined French and Spanish fleet was only prevented by a
storm from landing at Milford Haven. The king’s ships at Chatham and
elsewhere were to be burnt and thus facilitate the passage of troops
from Dunkirk, while Hull and other seaports were ready to receive the
invaders. Gentlemen rode up from Yorkshire with wild tales of “the
crack and noise” in those parts, and in the West Riding the militia
was called out against imaginary foes. Vast fears came from Cheshire
of strange persons and a private post, denoting no good intentions.
An English doctor wrote from Amsterdam telling how he had overheard
conspirators planning the king’s destruction for the month of April,
and had barely escaped being murdered for his indiscretion.[344]
All this and a vast mass of the same description demanded instant
attention, decision, and answer. Frivolous accusations against reputed
papists and plotters were innumerable. A well-wisher sent from Vienna
as a present to the king an antidote of astonishing excellence against
possible poisons. A still more ingenious correspondent forwarded a
scheme to turn the tables on the pope by “assaulting the city of
Rome on that side where the Vatican palace stands and bringing away
the library.”[345] In Ireland, where the Duke of Ormonde’s sober
government preserved admirable order, long reports were drawn up
for the instruction of the secretaries at Whitehall, and these too
had to be perused.[346] London alone, apart from the turmoil caused
by Godfrey’s death, provided heavy work. Order had to be taken for
safeguarding the palace; twenty doors leading into St. James’ Park
were blocked and a sewer grated. Protestants and Catholics posted
mutual accusations to Whitehall until the secretaries were at their
wits’ end how to deal with them. On the prorogation of Parliament in
May, bills were distributed urging the prentices to take arms and
demand the trial of the lords in the Tower. The guards at the palace
were doubled, strong watches posted, and every precaution taken. A few
weeks before it had been thought necessary to send two companies of
dragoons to Portsmouth,[347] The whole country seemed on the verge of
insurrection. In December Charles thought he saw signs of a rebellion
brewing. A few months later Danby drew up a memorandum in the Tower
which clearly shewed that he was of the same opinion. He suggested
that the king should take up his residence out of London and call
Parliament to meet him away from the capital, the stronghold of his
opponents’ power. Touch should be kept with the troops disbanded. All
who had served against the king in the Civil War could be forced to
register their names. The navy might be officered by men who would have
influence on the sailors. Lastly and most significant, the Tower should
be secured.[348]
Such and so multifarious were the doings of members of the government.
Yet they were members only. The head was the king’s, the policy his,
and to him its ultimate failure or success must be ascribed.
CHAPTER II
THE CATHOLICS
Of the five hundred Cavalier gentlemen who fell in the Civil War more
than one-third were Catholics,[349] The remnant of the class that
had once been the most dignified and the wealthiest in England was
thrown by the Popish Plot into the fiercest persecution known to its
history. For the first time a real attempt was made to put the penal
laws into full force. All over the country the prisons were filled,
houses of Roman Catholics searched for arms, their estates confiscated.
Fourteen men were executed for high treason in the Plot, three for
Godfrey’s murder. Eight Catholic priests suffered on account of their
orders under the statute of Queen Elizabeth which made it treason for
a subject to take orders from the Church of Rome and, returning to
England, to remain there upwards of forty days. Five died in prison.
Thirty more were condemned to death, but were reprieved, and of these
sixteen died in confinement.[350] The actual figures are enough, but
they do not complete the tale of suffering. Nothing is told by them
of the persecution less than to death, the harrying of men and women
for conscience’ sake, the cruel blight fallen on the lives of hundreds
because of the crimes and follies of intriguers who turned religion to
be an affair of politics. The odour of mystery and the fear of foreign
assault which Catholic designs had for years aggravated had worked in
the minds of Englishmen with so strong a ferment that, were there
much or little of truth in the Plot, it needed only an opportunity for
hardly concealed terror and hatred finally to burst restraint.[351]
On all sides the lot of Catholics was pitiable. Those in London who
were not imprisoned were banished from the capital. As many as thirty
thousand were said to have fled. In the country fresh persecution
awaited them. Justices of the peace had orders to execute strictly the
laws against recusants, the Lord Chancellor to weed the commission
of those who did not. Popish books and relics were diligently sought
out, seized, and burnt. The library, papers, and vestments of Father
Harcourt, rector of the Jesuit College in London, went to make a
public bonfire. Wild House, the residence of the Weld family near
the Strand, and a noted resort of Roman Catholics, was ransacked and
twenty-seven chests of goods haled from a grotto in the garden. Houses
of eminent Catholics all over the kingdom were searched and searched
again, and sometimes almost destroyed by the efforts of officers to
find hidden priests. Catholic merchants found themselves bankrupt.
Everywhere Catholics were driven from home and livelihood, reduced to
beggary. Only the Penderels, Huddlestone the priest, and others who
had helped the king in his flight from Worcester escaped the general
fate. Charles’ gratitude procured for them exemption from the action
of the laws.[352] For the rest only good fortune could mitigate the
horrors of that time. Those in prison had nothing on which to subsist
but the charity of friends. Seized at inns, in secret retreats, on
beds of sickness, they were hurried through rain or snow to dreadful
cells without money or a sufficient supply of clothes. The Duke and
Duchess of York, Lord Castlemaine, and other noble Catholics made
great efforts for their fellows in religion. Yet to relieve the vast
mass of suffering no private aid could suffice. Many were reduced to
the greatest distress. Some even died of want. Priests, hunted from
one to another more painful hiding-place, were put to every shift to
evade capture. For days they lay, cramped and hungry, in holes within
walls, behind chimneys, even fastened up beneath tables, while their
pursuers tore up the floors, broke down the walls, dug up the garden
walks within a few yards of them. When they ventured forth to escape,
it was in the depth of winter, through ice and mud, and in the teeth
of midnight storms. Nor were the pious alone objects of attack. The
most irreligious of their religion were not spared. Long-stored enmity
and an insatiable desire for novelty caught at victims of whatever
character. The Duchesse Mazarin, who lived only for play and her light
loves, was accused of being a party to the Plot. Where the end would
come no man could say. All the Catholics in the service of the royal
family who could took ship for the continent. The Duchess of York wrote
to her brother that she could not describe the hundredth part of the
trouble into which they were plunged. Many abjured their faith or at
least took the condemned oaths of allegiance and supremacy. Pilate and
Herod, wrote the Jesuit Warner to his general, were banded with the
heretic priests against his society and the Catholics. A few weeks
later he added: “Hope itself is scarce left us.”[353]
In no part of the country was persecution more bitter than in
Yorkshire. Even before the time of the Popish Plot Catholics in the
country had been subjected to considerable annoyance, and when “the
great crack and noise” of the event burst on the astonished ears
of the world they became at once the object of vehement attack.
Inquisition was made in all parts for priests and recusants. The
cells of York Castle, of which the condition was notorious in an age
of notorious prisons, were filled. To priests and their relatives
particular attention was paid. Soon two scoundrels, by name Mowbray
and Bolron, came forward to give evidence of the preparations of
papists to aid in the grand design discovered by Oates. Bolron had
been manager of coal-pits on the estate of Sir Thomas Gascoigne, an
aged baronet and representative of the ancient family of Barnbow Hall
in the West Riding, and, being suspected of fraud, was threatened with
a prosecution for felony by Lady Tempest, the baronet’s daughter.
Mowbray was a servant in the same family discharged on suspicion of
theft. Thus the two had every reason to plot revenge. Bolron swore that
Sir Thomas, together with his daughter, Sir Miles Stapleton, several
other gentlemen, and his nephew, a priest named Thwing, had signed
a resolution to kill the king and had offered a thousand pounds to
whoever should do the deed. Mowbray added that they had intended to
burn London and York to the ground. The Yorkshire magistrates refused
to act on the information of known criminals, but Bolron went to town
and found in Shaftesbury an inquisitor who would not consent to see the
matter dropped.[354] Sir Thomas was tried at Westminster, but acquitted
by a jury of Yorkshire gentlemen. Sir Miles Stapleton and Lady Tempest
stood their trial at York. They also were acquitted, but upon the
same discreditable evidence Thwing was convicted and on October 23,
1680 suffered the penalty for high treason. In spite of the fact that
three juries had disbelieved his word Bolron was able by permission of
the House of Commons to produce an ingenious forgery, entitled “The
Papists’ Bloody Oath of Secrecy and Litany of Intercession,” which
after repeated exposure and the lapse of more than two centuries is
still sometimes taken for true by his more gullible, if less malignant,
successors. For the moment the acquittal of Gascoigne and his friends
stayed the flow of blood, but the Yorkshire Protestants shewed
effectively by their conduct at the Revolution that their feelings
remained unchanged.[355]
While persecution fell indiscriminately on those who confessed the
creed of the Roman Church, it was not to be expected that all should
view their troubles alike. The lead given in the speech from the throne
was freely followed. It was a Jesuit plot, said the king. It was a
Jesuit plot, cried Catholics who were not under the influence of the
order. The society has seldom drawn the affection of many outside its
own ranks in any age, and in the seventeenth century incurred the
hatred of almost all parts of the English Catholic body. Constant
intrigues set the secular priests, members of the other orders, and, it
can hardly be doubted, a large number of laymen against its restless
and selfish policy. The result was plain. For the doings of the society
every one had now to suffer. In the midst of fierce trouble it was
not against the government but against the Jesuits that Catholic
resentment was shewn. Jesuits were everywhere scouted, railed at for
their pernicious principles, scarce treated civilly in the company they
sought. There was even rejoicing at their downfall. At last old scores
would be paid off; at last all the juggles and intrigues at court would
find their due reward in public shame. The Jesuit historian sighs
with meek grief at the additional burden the society was compelled to
bear.[356] It was perhaps not only political intrigues that roused
the displeasure of laymen. Though many of the priesthood were men of
saintly temper and bore affliction with constancy and admirable effort
on behalf of their brethren, there were also black sheep among them.
Scandal caused by priests who thronged the court was of long standing.
In the opinion of the more discreet their behaviour was such as to
cause harm rather than good to the Catholic religion in England.[357]
The case of St. Germain was notorious. Great disrepute was brought on
the Society of Jesus by the story of Godfrey’s murder: had the real
facts been known they would have been more damaging still. Yet more
unfortunate, since it brought laughter with it, was the case of Father
John Gavan, the famous martyr and Jesuit who was likened to “an angel
of God” and his voice in preaching to “a silver trumpet”; for, having
done battle in youth with the lust of the flesh, he was seized at the
height of his reputation in the stables of the Imperial ambassador,
where he was hiding with a woman who passed as his wife and their
son.[358]
It was the distressing fate of so prized a member of the society to be
a cause of dissension and scandal. Even his death at Tyburn did not
make an end. The no less famous Dr. John Sergeant, who had passed a
long career in controversy against Jesuit and Protestant divines, came
forward to blacken Gavan’s memory. Sergeant had already given trouble
to the Roman officials by his teaching on the oath of allegiance.[359]
With the prosecution of the Popish Plot the movement in favour of the
oath naturally grew in strength among moderate Catholics; the formula
had been many times condemned at Rome; and it was heard with dismay at
the curia that the Duke of Norfolk had flouted authority and taken the
oath, presumably to obtain more easily a pass to go beyond seas.[360]
With others of his order Gavan had written against the oath and, though
he pronounced in his speech from the gallows against the notion that
kings might be killed at the pope’s command, would not surrender the
theory of the deposing power.[361] Soon after his execution Sergeant
came to Henry Sidney, ambassador at the Hague. He knew nothing of the
Plot, but offered to prove that according to the teaching of a certain
Jesuit the queen might lawfully kill the king for his unfaithfulness.
Sidney brought the priest to London, where on October 31, 1679 he was
examined by the king in council. A few months later the council again
received his information and that of another priest, David Morris,
who had been educated at St. Omers and the English Jesuit College in
Rome. The Jesuit of whom they spoke was Gavan. It seemed that he had
expressed the opinion complained of to a lady living in Brussels.
By order of the House of Commons the depositions were printed and
obtained a wide circulation. The spectacle of two priests informing
against a brother in orders was calculated to afford grave scandal to
Catholics and equal satisfaction to Protestants. Considerable pains
were taken by the Jesuits to upset the credit of the story, and the
rector of the college at Liège wrote an account containing a denial
of the fact by the lady in question; but the compiler of the _Annual
Letters_ for the year 1680 was unfortunate in choosing to cast doubt
upon her credibility, thus leaving the matter as much open to question
as before.[362] The division in the Catholic body of which this was a
symptom was a source of undoubted weakness: all the efforts to crush
those in favour of the oath were unavailing, and lively agitation
was caused by the certain news that the Duke of York himself had
pledged his allegiance by it, seduced thereto by the example of so
many born Catholics who upheld its lawfulness.[363] However much it
might be denied in public controversy, the refusal to allow the oath
to Catholics was indissolubly bound up with the claim to the papal
power of deposition. About the same time a priest whose name is given
as Forstal maintained that the king might be deposed at the command
or at least with the participation of the pope. James questioned the
nuncio at Brussels on the subject, and received answer that the error
lay not in the opinion held, but in the choice of so inopportune a
moment to express it, since the worst consequences might be expected.
No doubt the matter was in debate, but the meaning to be drawn from
the prelate’s reply was obvious, for he did not think it worth while to
argue the point further. The priest guilty of such rashness was induced
to withdraw for a time to a monastery in Westphalia. Prudence was above
all things necessary in the cause of the church.[364]
The Catholic body was thus divided within itself when the odium into
which it had fallen was enhanced by the obscure intrigue known as
the Meal Tub Plot. It was a time when Catholics could afford to take
few risks in their conduct. Besides direct charges against them they
lay under the imputation of more than one attempt to confound their
accusers by means as base as those used against themselves; two
brothers of Prance, who was not distinguished by the world from other
informers, were secular priests; Jennison, a follower in the train
of Oates, had a brother in the Society of Jesus, who lay dying in
Newgate, and was thought to be a wealthy country gentleman appearing
for honesty’s sake to enlighten his fellow-countrymen; strong suspicion
attached to witnesses who came to speak for the Jesuits at their
trials.[365] It might therefore be expected that the more Catholics
loved their religion, the more carefully would they refrain from adding
to the frightful hostility already shewn against it. Nevertheless it
was at this moment that some of their leaders, not without influence or
repute, undertook to retaliate on their enemies by weapons of more than
questionable worth. Whether they were the first movers in the affair or
entered it on the invitation of others was the question.
In March 1679 a young man of infamous character who went by the name
sometimes of Willoughby, sometimes of Dangerfieid, lay in the debtor’s
side of Newgate. Having been in gaol for the best part of a year, he
began to turn his thoughts to means of getting out, and proceeded
to draw articles of complaint against Captain Richardson, the keeper
of Newgate, for his treatment of prisoners. This came to the ears of
another gaol-bird, Mrs. White, who, fancying Dangerfield’s ability,
on her discharge imparted the fact to a friend on the look-out for
an assistant of talent. Her friend was Mrs. Cellier, whose name and
character have become notorious in a swarm of pamphlets and reports of
trials of the time. She was the wife of a French merchant and pursued
the profession of midwife, and assuredly of something else, within a
circle of Roman Catholic notables. She was employed to collect alms
for the relief of those of her religion in prison for the Plot. She
had been concerned in the unsavoury case of Knox and Lane, who were
put up to defame Oates’ character.[366] When witnesses were sent over
from St. Omers to give evidence at the trials, it was at her house
that they were lodged and fed by Lord Castlemaine. The Duchess of York
had used her services to no small extent. She was in fact a regular
agent of the Catholic nobles in political intrigue, and in close
connection with the Countess of Powis, whose husband, together with
the Lords Petre, Arundel, Stafford, and Bellasis, was in the Tower
on a charge of high treason, a woman of bold and active spirit and
devoted to the Duke of York. The conduct of Mrs. Cellier was not such
as to inspire confidence in the purity of her intentions. Armed with
Mrs. White’s information she repaired to one Gadbury, an astrologer,
for Dangerfield’s horoscope, pretending that she wished for a man to
collect her husband’s debts. To suppose that any sane person could use
one of Dangerfield’s stamp for the purpose would be absurd: it was
certainly for other purposes that he was wanted. Their character soon
became apparent. For there was in Newgate a prisoner named Stroud,
a friend of Bedloe and thought capable of proving that the Earl of
Shaftesbury was suborning witnesses against the lords in the Tower.
Dangerfield was employed to make him drunk and learn what he could.
So well did he perform his task that Mrs. Cellier paid his debts,
whether to the amount of five pounds, as she, or of seven hundred, as
he said, and obtained his release. He was a handsome fellow enough, and
found favour in her eyes. It was now the month of June. Dangerfield was
maintained by his friend, and earned his wages by doing the work of
messenger for the witnesses sent from beyond seas for the defence of
the Five Jesuits, who stood their trial at this time.[367]
Clad in a decent suit, with money in his pocket, and the friend of Mrs.
Cellier’s bosom, Dangerfield began to go about the town. He was taken
to Powis House and introduced to the Countess. He took notes at the
trials of Wakeman and Langhorn and carried them to Lord Powis in the
Tower. Indeed his appearance was so pleasing and his recommendation
so high that he was allowed to take up his abode at Powis House, and
even to sit with Lady Powis at table.[368] And now the serious business
began. One Nevil, alias Payne, a writer of libellous pamphlets, was
retained by Mrs. Cellier with others of his trade for the service
of Lady Powis. Dangerfield’s talents were added to the band, which
carried on a lively production of ballads and pamphlets, such as “The
Transforming of Traitors into Martyrs,” “The Presbyterian Unmasked,”
“The Ballad of the Popish Plot,” “The Danby Reflections,” and an
edition of the Five Jesuits’ dying speeches, all launched against
the Presbyterians. Dangerfield was an attorney’s son and, having
been bred a clerk, could write with some smartness. At the same time
he was employed to go the round of coffee-houses frequented by old
Presbyterians and new Whigs, to pick up what scraps of information
against them he could.[369] The result was most satisfactory. Lists of
names were obtained from the drawers. By means of Gadbury, Dangerfield
was introduced to Sir Robert Peyton, the great Whig merchant whose
apostasy was the first blow to the Whig cause. He thought of joining
the King’s Head Club himself, but was dissuaded on learning that he
would be required to pay a subscription of one or two guineas. He
began to find out the habits of Shaftesbury’s partisans. Presently
there appeared between Dangerfield and Mrs. Cellier those papers, the
authorship of which each fastened upon the other, bearing witness to
the existence of a Presbyterian plot. According to Mrs. Cellier’s
account Dangerfield brought the notes to her; they were written at the
dictation of Lady Powis, was what he said. That point may be discussed
later. It is at any rate certain that Lady Powis was acquainted with
their contents and ready to act upon them. She took Dangerfield to her
son-in-law, the Earl of Peterborough, Lord Peterborough to the Duke of
York, the Duke of York to the king, and the papers, which contained an
account of an extensive movement planned by Shaftesbury and Monmouth,
were seen by all. The budget was headed “The State of the Three
Kingdoms.” The names of the leaders were noted down, commissions were
stated to have already been granted, and a scheme for a revolutionary
government was sketched. James gave the captain, as Dangerfield was
styled by himself and Lord Peterborough, twenty guineas in reward for
his zeal; the king added forty more and turned him over to Secretary
Coventry. As earnest of his good faith, Dangerfield produced two
letters addressed to Shaftesbury by Sir Richard Bulstrode, the minister
at Brussels. They were on indifferent subjects; but how came they in
Dangerfield’s possession? Coventry was dissatisfied with the affair,
and told the captain that if he were to be believed, something more
material must be forthcoming. Dangerfield pressed for a general warrant
to search, but on the advice of Chief-Justice North was refused.
Evidently other means must be tried.[370]
On October 22 Dangerfield, having given notice of a parcel of Flanders
lace smuggled into the country by one Colonel Mansell, obtained a
warrant to search his lodgings, which were in the same house as his
own. That is to say, Dangerfield had specially engaged rooms under
Mansell’s roof. The colonel was named in his list as quartermaster
of the prospective Presbyterian army. Under Dangerfield’s guidance
the customs’ officers went through the rooms, but could find nothing.
He begged them to look behind the bed and, when nothing came thence,
himself darted behind, pulled out a packet of papers, and began to cry
“Treason.” The officers took their find to a justice of the peace,
who, having regard to the suspicious circumstances, acted upon the
maxim, He who hides can find, and issued a warrant for Dangerfield’s
apprehension. An investigation was immediately ordered by the council.
On the next day, as Dangerfield was waiting to be examined, an officer
of the Mint happened to pass and, recognising in him an old offender,
had him arrested for coining false money. When Henry Coventry appeared
in the council-room he was met by the somewhat surprising intelligence
that his informer was in custody as a forger and coiner, and was known
for a noted criminal. A thorough examination made the truth of the
charges certain, besides bringing to light the fact, unfortunate for
the captain, that he had stood twice in the pillory, had only escaped
a third dose of the same punishment by breaking prison, and was in
fine a mischievous and notorious rascal. It was proved beyond doubt
that he had himself disposed the papers, containing a plain account of
the so-called Presbyterian Plot, in Mansell’s room and, since there
were no contraband goods there at all, had only brought the customs’
officials to perform what the refusal to grant a search warrant had
prevented him from doing otherwise. As the result on October 27
Dangerfield was committed to Newgate. He had in the meantime sent a
note to Mrs. Cellier, and by her assistance was let out for a couple of
days on bail. Thus the authorities were enabled to follow Dangerfield’s
committal by a search at Mrs. Cellier’s. Here on October 29 Sir
William Waller found two bundles of papers, one behind the kitchen
boiler, the other at the bottom of the meal tub, whence on this account
the name of the plot was derived. One contained a copy of Dangerfield’s
letter to the king, offering to make yet greater disclosures; the other
and larger proved to be a considerable amplification of the story he
had told on his first introduction at court. Fearing that the captain
would betray her, Mrs. Cellier had a message conveyed to him with the
encouraging words, which she boasted as her motto, “I never change,”
and was immediately after carried to the Gatehouse. The Lady Errant,
as she became known by her enemies, declared afterwards that her fear
was lest Dangerfield should falsely use their connection to his own
advantage. Whatever its nature, her fear was justified; for on October
31 he desired to be taken before Sir Robert Clayton, then Lord Mayor,
and made confession that the Presbyterian Plot was, in a word invented
by himself, a Sham destined to cover the intentions of the papists
and to ruin their adversaries. The papers found in the meal tub,
besides the treasonable letters he had put behind Colonel Mansell’s
bed, were dictated to him by the Countess of Powis, and approved by
Lord Peterborough and Mrs. Cellier. He had resisted the bribe of £2000
offered him by Lord Arundel to murder the king, but had undertaken to
the Earl of Powis to assassinate Lord Shaftesbury for a quarter of
that sum. Divers attempts had actually been made on the Whig leader;
twice he had been himself to the earl’s residence, Thanet House in
Aldersgate Street, and once Mrs. Cellier went in person, only to meet
with failure. All this had been with the knowledge and at the direction
of Roman Catholic priests. The next day Dangerfield was taken before
the council and affirmed the truth of his statement.[371]
In the tangle of accusations and informations which followed and were
laboriously examined at the council board, either side tried to throw
the blame of the intrigue on the other. Protestants were jubilant at
the detection of another Catholic plot, and swore by the whole truth
of Dangerfield’s confession. Catholics declared that the affair was
designed by Lord Shaftesbury to injure the Duke of York, and that their
leaders had been deceived by the captain, who had led them step by step
to catastrophe and hid the treasonable packet at Colonel Mansell’s with
the sole intention that his own sketch of the Presbyterian designs
might be discovered in Mrs. Cellier’s meal tub.[372] The intricacy
of these events will probably never be wholly developed. Every one
concerned was ready to lie in his own interest. Every one of the
principals did lie, it can hardly be doubted. Many committed perjury;
and some were probably suborned to perjure. The tale of complex untruth
and base endeavour is one that threatens to become dreary. Nevertheless
there are indications of the truth on which a general opinion may be
based. This is certain, that Dangerfield, perilous rogue as he was
known to be, was taken from prison by Mrs. Cellier, the confidante of
Lady Powis, supported in her house and at her cost. He was employed in
maintaining the cause of their religion, his employment was known to
Lord Peterborough, a friend of the Duke of York, and he was introduced
to the duke by him as an active agent against their common enemies. By
their account they took from him the tale of a Presbyterian plot; by
his own he invented it at their direction. Were the Catholic statements
accepted as true, they would convict the duke’s party of most gross
folly in trusting a man of character so depraved: more than that, for
the man had been paid to play the spy and, it was admitted by his
employers, had been given hints that it would be good to discover
plots of the nature of that which he retailed to them; and to accept
such a story without investigation, when it was known that the teller
had orders beforehand to collect materials, argues at least some
disingenuity. Nor is this all. There is reason to think that in some
essentials Dangerfield’s confession contained the truth. Supposing
that, as Lord Peterborough and his friends declared, the captain had
only hidden his parcel behind Mansell’s bed in order to be detected,
he would at least have taken the trouble to make discovery of evidence
against Mrs. Cellier certain. The papers concocted between them were
in his possession, and he had only to hide them without her knowledge
where they could be easily found by an officer. On the supposition
that he meant to turn informer against the Catholics their discovery
at Mrs. Cellier’s was necessary to his success. Without it there would
be no more than his bare word to shew that they had employed him at
all. As evidence the find of papers was invaluable to him. Yet he did
not even attempt to supply that evidence. So far from concealing the
incriminating notes himself, he gave them to Mrs. Cellier to dispose as
she thought best. The natural thing for her to do was to burn them and,
for all Dangerfield knew, she might have done so. For whatever reason
she preferred the other course. She gave the papers to her servant to
hide, and it was the servant who placed them in the regions of the
kitchen where they were found by Sir William Waller.[373] Dangerfield
could not possibly have known of their concealment or even of their
preservation. The fact that Mrs. Cellier chose to conceal the evidence
against her rather than deliver it to the council, which would have
been her best course had she been wholly innocent, or burn it to
destroy the traces of her guilt, if she were guilty, tells nothing; for
on Dangerfield’s arrest she hoped that he would still be faithful to
her, and was not in any case so clean of hand as to court an inquiry
into the nature of the services she had from him. She may well have
hoped that their connection would escape notice. But beyond this it is
plain that, even if she was not aware of Dangerfield’s intention to fix
the odium of a fictitious plot on the Protestant party, her relations
with him were of so intimate a kind that only wilful ignorance could
have saved her from knowledge of it. She knew of the treasonable papers
in Colonel Mansell’s room and, when a search warrant could not be
procured, it was she who advised Dangerfield to have recourse to the
customs house.[374] At least one who was closely acquainted with the
Catholic leaders and could not be suspected of prejudice declared the
whole affair to be a design of persons zealous for the Duke of York.
Lord Peterborough and Lady Powis, wrote the French ambassador, thought
to render a great service by bringing forward a man who would give
evidence against the Earl of Shaftesbury. They had merely tried to use
tools similar to those by which their enemies were thought to have
achieved success.[375]
Though it was admitted that Dangerfield had tried to fit the
Protestants with a forged plot and highly probable that the Catholics
had a hand in the forgery, there is yet something to be said on
the other side. The Presbyterian plot was a fiction; but there was
a basis of Dangerfield’s story that was not fictitious. An actual
movement, the lines of which are partly known, was at the moment being
concerted by the Whig leaders. The list of those concerned in the
plot drawn up by Dangerfield contains the names of many undoubtedly
implicated, and of many afterwards guilty of the treason of the Rye
House Plot, which grew out of the designs at this time.[376] Another
fact is of importance. To strengthen his story in the eyes of the
secretary of state, Dangerfield produced two letters belonging to Lord
Shaftesbury.[377] In his confession he declared he had stolen these on
one of the occasions when he went to kill the earl. There is no need
to linger over the tales of attempted assassination. Improbable as
they were in themselves, they are set beyond the bounds of credibility
by the informer’s halting narrative and the ridiculous excuses he
alleged for failure.[378] Nevertheless his production of the letters
makes it evident that he had been with the Whig leader. There can be
no doubt that he had some knowledge of the Whig designs. Most likely
he was intriguing with both parties at the same time in order to see
which he could with greater profit betray, and ended by betraying
both, though the Catholics, since they had trusted him the more, were
more severely affected by the results of his treachery. In the course
of the next year Mrs. Cellier and the Earl of Castlemaine were tried
for high treason. Lady Powis too had been committed to the Tower, but
the bill against her was ignored by the grand jury. Both cases rested
largely upon the evidence of Dangerfield, against whom records of crime
were produced by the defence. As his pardon did not cover a felony of
which he had been convicted, Mrs. Cellier was formally acquitted on the
ground that he was no good witness and that only one other appeared
against her; and when the pardon was afterwards corrected, the jury
before whom Castlemaine was tried refused to believe the word of a
man who bore the accumulated weight of sixteen convictions, guilty of
“six great enormous crimes,” and pronounced a verdict of not guilty
after an absence of only a few minutes from the box.[379] Few will be
found to quarrel with the judgment of the Lord Chancellor, who told
Dangerfield: “You are a fine fellow, first to come to his Majesty and
there tell him one story, then to my Lord Powis, and from thence to my
Lord Shaftesbury’s, discovering to one what discourse you held with the
other; and thus to bring one story to the council, another to the Earl
of Shaftesbury.”[380]
The Duke of York’s conduct in the Meal Tub Plot was characteristic
of him. He had brought Dangerfield to the king and by his imprudence
was the cause of much suspicion and distrust. No one felt certain how
the affair would turn out. People thought that James would “never
leave off tampering.”[381] He was a man with the smallest aptitude
for diplomacy. He was able neither to let events take their course
without interference nor by fingering ever to improve them. He was
always for action of a decided and generally a tactless kind. While
he persistently endeavoured to make others change their views, his
own were held with an obstinacy that nothing could uproot. His
continual desire for activity was one of the difficulties which most
hampered Charles II’s policy. Apart from his itch for management and
a preference shared with other politicians of the time for underhand
dealing his very presence at court was as a trumpet call to his
enemies. His severance from the Church of England was a severance from
the English people likewise. The Church of Rome was traditionally held
the enemy of the nation. It was responsible for many of the doubts and
difficulties of the restored monarchy. Its action was coupled in the
general mind with the aggression of foreign foes. For the heir to the
throne at such a time to go over to it was an act of great hardiness.
Nor could he do so without himself being proclaimed an enemy of the
people and disloyal to his duty. The horror expressed at the notion
that James should depart from the faith which his father had signed
with blood was increased by contemplation of the results attending
the step. The Roman Catholic religion, it was said, introduced an
_imperium in imperio_ and, were it settled in England, would at once
destroy the liberties and drain the wealth of the country.[382] It
seemed as if the duke must have some deep and sinister motive in
his mind to leave the religion that had been won by so much blood.
Many princes had changed their faith for reason of state, but the
instance of one who departed from the church of the people against the
clearest command of expedience and, as it seemed to them, the no less
clear showing of reason was unparalleled. And the subtle influence
of Jesuits who had wrought this in him was feared as well in the
present as for the future. So long as the duke remained at the king’s
right hand there was the added terror that he would shape the royal
policy in the direction whither he would direct it himself from the
throne. Nothing could be devised to cure the distrust aroused by his
attitude, except that he should return to the Protestant religion or
withdraw from the king’s presence. The latter was tried with success,
the former without. By the advice of Danby, when it was certain that
the elections for the parliament of 1679 were unfavourable to the
court, James was unwillingly sent out of England and ordered to take
up his abode in Brussels.[383] Episcopal powers of persuasion had
already been tried on him in vain. Before he set out another attempt
was made, with the like result. It is to the credit of his courage
that no prospect of advantage could bring him to surrender his faith.
The bishops brought forward every available argument, but were unable
to boast any satisfaction. Rome was hopeful that he would withstand
all similar proposals.[384] As the prosecution of the Popish Plot
drove the storm higher against the court and the Catholics, the
pressure put on James to recant his faith increased. A year later
when the duke was in London during the prorogation a strong attempt
was made by his friends. They knew that his conversion would mean the
greatest embarrassment to the host of enemies who built high upon his
opposition to the national temper. Should he consent they would be
compelled to change all their plans and perhaps fail to find another
weapon strong enough to serve the same purpose. At least he would be
able to remain at court. Charles spoke forcibly on the subject. A more
powerful advocate was found in the duchess, who despite James’ gross
and notorious profligacy exercised some influence on him and wished
at any price to escape a third exile. Months went by and the agitation
continued. James seemed to be weakening. As the day fixed for the
meeting of Parliament drew near, the gossip of Whitehall had it that he
would come over. Expectation was disappointed. On the day before the
session opened the duke and duchess set sail for Edinburgh, as Catholic
as ever.[385] There was nothing to be gained from him by argument. Nor
was he to be driven. Even Charles’ threat that unless he went to church
the Exclusion bill should be passed failed to move him. Conscience
and honour forbade him equally to deny and to dissemble his religion.
Besides, if he were to consent, Shaftesbury would only put about that
he had a dispensation from the pope and was still a Catholic at heart.
His mind was fixed. By God’s grace he was determined “never to do so
damnable a thing.”[386]
James’ mind was fixed on other points as well. He could not understand
that time had any value in the struggle between men or delay any merit.
The king’s policy of waiting was wholly unintelligible to him. Ultimate
success seemed to him to depend upon immediate triumph, and for
immediate triumph he was ready to stake everything. Each concession,
each dilatory advance, each deceptive retreat appeared as sure tokens
that he and the monarchy were on the verge of ruin, about to be hurled
together into the abyss. There was little enough of sympathy between
the brothers, who made a public show of friendship and in private kept
secrets to themselves. When he afterwards compiled the memoirs of his
life, James was able to exhibit some calmness in discussing their
relations; for, as he said, the king was sensible that their interest
was at bottom the same against common adversaries, since “his chief
security lay in having a successor they liked worse than himself.”
“He resolved therefore,” continued the writer, “to stick to the main
chance, and suffer no diminution in the prerogative during his time;
however, he thought it necessary to yield as far as he could to
convince the world of his sincerity, and to put his enemies so much in
the wrong (without parting with any essential thing) as that, if they
forced him to break, he might have friends enough to assist him.”[387]
At the time this series of penetrating afterthoughts did not cross the
duke’s mind. He had so little conception of Charles’ aim and point of
view as to be in constant terror that he would be abandoned to the
wrath of the opposing forces. He conceived himself, like his son-in-law
the Prince of Orange, to be dealing with a volatile being of pleasure,
and crying, as the captain of a ship to his helmsman in a storm:
Steady, steady, steady.[388] Only positive commands and elaborate
assurances, to which even then he attached little weight,[389] could
induce him to leave the court at moments of crisis when his presence
was likely to have the worst possible effects. He could never think
that his absence would not serve only to embolden his enemies. Present,
he was continually interfering and making unwise suggestions. Absent,
he did not cease pressing for his recall.[390] Nor did he cease from
Belgium and Scotland to press on the king counsels of desperation.
Anything tainted with moderation had to his nostrils the odour of
surrender. He had not been two months at Brussels before he was urging
Charles to steps which he knew must mean civil war. Ireland, Scotland,
the fleet, the guards, the garrisons, were still in the king’s hand.
The Prince of Orange had given assurance that he would be on the side
of royalty. Let Charles cease to countenance Monmouth and the party
with him, let him think on the fate of Edward II, Richard II, and
the king his father. “Now or never,” wrote the duke, “is the time to
save the monarchy.”[391] This was of a piece with all his advice. All
things, he thought, tended to a republic. Sir William Temple’s council
seemed to him to make the king little better than a Doge of Venice, and
to leave him so little support that the Exclusion bill could hardly be
resisted, a calamity by which the house of Stuart would be “absolutely
ruined and given up.” A short time after he expressed the opinion
that if Charles would not submit to be less than a Doge of Venice a
rebellion would be the necessary result. By June 1679 he was writing;
“Things have been let go to that pass that the best I can expect is
very great disorders, and unless something very vigorous is done within
a very few days, the monarchy is gone.”[392] Five months, six months,
a year later the same counsel was being reiterated.[393] While Charles
remained cool and undismayed in the midst of pressing danger, every
fresh event abashed the mind of James.[394] He could not appraise
facts at their true worth, since he was without insight; devoid of
imagination, he was unable to attribute to others powers he lacked
himself. His very friends spoke against his unenlightened zeal, and the
pope favoured him and his wife each with a brief on the subject.[395]
It was the beginning of that stream of protest which afterwards marked
with increasing volume the course of his downfall.
Advice to others to act boldly is not uncommon. But James was ready
on occasion to act on his own behalf. In May 1679 there appeared at
Brussels one Colonel Fitzpatrick, a man of brave counsel and of great
repute among his countrymen the Irish. He had come to arrange a rising
in Ireland. The Catholics were groaning under an intolerable yoke and
would follow him. By a small amount of assistance from foreign powers
the coasts could be seized, arms and munitions landed, and success
assured. Fitzpatrick was said to have for his project the consent of
the Irish Catholic clergy and to have carried letters of recommendation
into France before coming to Flanders. But French policy was opposed to
assisting James in the formation of a strong party and the money was
not to be obtained. Rather than run the risk of increasing hostility in
England by the Colonel’s presence near him, James dismissed him. With
much murmuring Fitzpatrick left Brussels.[396] Though this proposal
had to be refused, James kept the idea constantly before his mind.
The more certain that the king’s refusal to accept his violent advice
became, the more his thoughts turned to the possibility of violence
without the king’s participation. With the approach of Parliament in
the winter of 1680 the notion became further developed. James believed
that open force alone could re-establish the royal authority, on the
security of which he felt his own safety to rest. If he could compel
his brother to act, a final rupture might be precipitated. His enemies
would be forestalled, and out of the civil war that would ensue the
power of the throne might issue triumphant. It was his policy to push
matters to the point of extremity. When he was ordered from London to
avoid the session he took northwards with him the intention to see
to his own interest. Should the attack on him be pushed further, he
thought to unite parties in Scotland in the royal cause and by exciting
trouble there and in Ireland to bring the struggle to a head. Then he
believed that a larger party than many imagined would be on his side in
England.[397]
On the success of the Duke of York depended all the hopes of Roman
Catholics for the future of their religion in the English realm. He
was their secular head and the turning-point of their plans. His
movements were watched with the keenest interest by the authorities of
the church. Patience, prudence, and persistence was the policy they
advocated. Exhortations to obedience, expressions of attachment and
submission passed continually between him and his spiritual patrons.
The papal nuncio at Brussels informed him of the deep concern that
the Catholic religion had in his cause, and received the gratifying
assurance that he would make it his first care to propagate the true
faith by every means at his disposal.[398] How James fulfilled that
promise is well known. However much devotion he expressed to the wishes
of the Holy Father, his heart was more at one with the Society of Jesus
than with the court of Rome. He chose Jesuits for his confessors,
begged emoluments for them, took their policy for his guide. While
his course drew from the Jesuits inexhaustible and still unexhausted
praise, it was met by a series of remonstrances waxing in indignation
from the pontiff. In the year 1687 fifty candidates for orders in the
society were being prepared for work in the English province. King
James, it is said, informed Father John Keynes, the provincial, that
double or treble that number would be necessary to accomplish what he
destined for Jesuit hands.[399] The result declared his wisdom. The
mystery of the Revolution was that William of Orange, a Protestant
invading the realm of a Catholic monarch, had the support of the
Catholic emperor at the instigation of the pope. From the fierce battle
of the Popish Plot Charles II tore a prize to deliver to the man by
whose ill-judged efforts he had most nearly been robbed of it. At his
death he left a kingdom compact, loyal, prosperous, ready to carry on
the traditions that had been built up with labour and in the teeth
of disaster. When that day came James behaved in perfect accord with
his character. Within four years he had thrown away the fruits of a
struggle that had lasted for a quarter of a century, and paid the
penalty of folly and invincible obstinacy by the dragging existence of
a pretender, an exile, a dependent, and a criminal.
CHAPTER III
SHAFTESBURY AND CHARLES
Of all men whose reputation was made or raised by the Popish Plot, none
have since maintained their fame at so even a height as John Dryden.
His person but not his name suffered from the changes of fortune,
and at a distance of more than two centuries the sum of continuous
investigation has little to add to the judgments passed on his times
by the greatest of satirists. The flashes of Dryden’s insight illumine
more than the light shed by many records. In politics, no less than in
society, his genius had ample room. The Plot gave him a subject worthy
of a master:—
Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies
To please the fools and puzzle all the wise:
Succeeding times did equal folly call
Believing nothing or believing all.
This plot, which failed for want of common sense,
Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence;
For as, when raging fevers boil the blood.
The standing lake soon floats into a flood,
And every hostile humour which before
Slept quiet in its channels bubbles o’er;
So several factions from this first ferment
Work up to foam and threat the government.[400]
The lines are a witness against the two great parties whose intrigues
were woven to menace the security of the English state. Oates’ false
oaths ruined the hopes of the Roman Catholics: the designs of the
English Whigs were grounded on them.
Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, was the first statesman to
learn the art of organising support for policy from an entire nation.
His course in life was determined by the belief that it is the business
of a politician to succeed, and to that mass of mankind which is of the
same opinion he should be at once apostle and martyr. No means which
made for the end he had in view came amiss to his hand; by using good
and bad alike, he won the power of drawing round him men who could
make some show of virtuous conduct in company with scoundrels of the
choicest villainy; and he used them with infinite address. From the age
of twenty years he had lived in the glare of public life, ever rising
on the tide, true to his own principles and false to all whom in their
interest he could serviceably betray. In the Civil War he fought for
the king and served him well. As a member of Barebones’ Parliament he
was for Cromwell against the Saints. When the Protector threw the lot
for absolute rule, it was in him that parliamentary government found
its keenest supporter. To this course Shaftesbury remained faithful.
The throne on which “foolish Ishbosheth” sat became more rickety under
his attacks. When that shadow of his father vanished from the scene,
he strove with success against the despotism of the army. He was sent
by the Convention Parliament as one of the two commissioners to invite
Charles II to return to his kingdom. Under the restored monarchy
Shaftesbury found a fair and a wider field for the exercise of talents
which he devoted to the cause of religious and political freedom and
commercial enterprise. At his request John Locke drew for the state of
Carolina a constitution in which toleration was a prominent idea. In
the office of Lord Chancellor he earned an abiding reputation for speed
and purity of justice. He was an ardent foe of the Dutch republic, the
threatening rival of English prosperity. He opposed the Stop of the
Exchequer. As the last act in the service of government he counselled
the Declaration of Indulgence, for when that was withdrawn there was
nothing more to hope from the crown in the fight for liberty. At last
he knew the Catholic tendency of the king and, learning perhaps the
dupe that he had been made by the Treaty of Dover, flung himself into
the bitterest opposition.
The foundation of the Whig party may be referred to the year 1675,
when the French ambassador first contracted an alliance with a cabal
consisting of four lords, Buckingham, Wharton, Ogle and, chief among
them, Shaftesbury,[401] From that time onwards Shaftesbury enjoyed
a growing ascendency over his partners. The fight over the bill of
Non-Resistance brought them closely together; their victory, though it
was by an artifice, gave them strength. But while the new party gained
followers in Parliament and support in the country, it was some time
before further success was achieved. The Cavalier, otherwise known
by the nicknames of the Pensioned and the Pump, Parliament depended
too much on the court to allow the possibility of complete triumph
to the opposition.[402] Away from Westminster the terror of popery,
with a Catholic successor to the crown in view, dominated the country,
and on this basis the programme of the Whigs was constructed. Popery
and slavery, to quote Shaftesbury’s memorable phrase, went hand in
hand. The Whigs aimed at securing the liberties of the nation and
reducing the Catholic religion to impotence. The overthrow of Danby
with his policy of Anglican supremacy, the dissolution of the House
of Commons which lavish and ingenious corruption had bound to his
side, the destruction of the Catholic strength in the House of Lords,
the downfall of the Duke of York; these were the main ideas in their
system. Yet so long as the Lord Treasurer led the Commons by his
purse-strings they were unable to mark progress in the open, however
much they might gain behind the scenes. So the next two years brought
only failure. When Parliament met in February 1677 after a prorogation
of fifteen months, the Whigs, resting their case on an obsolete statute
of Edward III, elected to argue that after so long an interval it had
no legal existence. The move resulted in immediate victory to the
government, and Buckingham, Shaftesbury, Salisbury, and Wharton, the
chief movers in the Lords, being ordered to ask pardon of the House
for their offence, and refusing, were sent to the Tower. Thus, said
Marvell, a prorogation without precedent was to be warranted by an
imprisonment without example. Danby was strong enough to obtain an
unconditional vote of £600,000. When however he introduced a bill for
the better securing of the Protestant religion in case of a Catholic
heir to the throne, though its drastic provisions passed the Lords
easily enough, the mere fact that it seemed to legalise such a state
of things roused against it the fury of the Commons, who threw it out,
with the added indignity of noting in their journal, Because the body
of the bill was contrary to the title.[403] After a few weeks three
of the imprisoned peers made submission and were set at liberty; but
Shaftesbury still lay in the Tower when in November the government
reckoned another stroke to its credit in the marriage of William of
Orange and Mary of York. It was not until February 1678 that he was
released. To human reckoning it seemed as if the Whig cause was lost.
Danby was firmer in power than ever, the royal marriage bade fair
to conciliate the nation, the peace of Nymeguen was approaching its
tardy conclusion. Well-informed persons believed that the leaders of
the opposition were about to confess their defeat and bid farewell to
politics.[404] Eight months later an auspicious wind blew Titus Oates
on to the scene, and the aspect of affairs was completely changed.
There have not been wanting either among his contemporaries or in later
times some to assert that Oates was procured and his story directed
by the Earl of Shaftesbury. Once and again the case has broken down.
Neither is there the slightest evidence for the notion, nor has it the
least intrinsic probability. So clear a head as Shaftesbury’s could
never have been guilty of that monstrous stupidity. Clumsy forgery,
feeble promises, lame excuses, bald melodrama characterised the
informer’s entry into public life. The tale he told was full of gross
improbabilities. And with what truth it contained Shaftesbury could
not have been acquainted. But what makes certainty still more certain
is that on his first appearance Oates was so little sure of support
from any quarter that he not only exonerated the Duke of York from
complicity in the plot, but was so disobliging to the Whigs as to name
him for a possible victim. The king at first thought he saw traces of
Shaftesbury’s hand, but was soon convinced that he erred. Before they
had time to gauge the situation the Whigs laughed at the Plot as an
artifice for keeping the army on foot.[405] Yet though he had no claim
to be Oates’ tutor, Shaftesbury welcomed him with alacrity. Fortune as
if from heaven had fallen at his feet, and he prepared to make the most
of it, and at the same time to vindicate the penetration of Colbert
Croissy, who had called him “le plus fourbe, le plus injuste, le plus
malhonnête d’Angleterre.”
The wished occasion of the plot he takes,
Some circumstance he finds, but more he makes;
and, since the making of circumstance lies as well in the reception as
in the invention of facts, justice must be admitted to the second line
equally with the first. Circumstance was exactly what Shaftesbury could
provide. He created the atmosphere for Oates to work in.
The miscreant who a few weeks before had been begging from the Jesuit
fathers rose to an undreamed height of luxury and influence. Repeated
addresses from the Commons obtained for him lodgings which he shared
with Dr. Tonge in Whitehall.[406] The modest sum of £12 a week allotted
him “for dyett and expenses” was eked out by occasional gifts of £50
“as of free gift and royal bounty” and the payment of long bills
incurred for his witnesses at trials. Within twelve months the total
amount made out to him reached the figure of £945 : 8 : 10. Yet Oates
was but one of a host whom the popular fury enabled to batten on the
royal resources; and during the same period the accounts of the secret
service money, disbursed almost exclusively to informers, showed an
expenditure of nearly £5000.[407] The Salamanca doctor made the most of
his luck. Robed like a bishop and puffed with insolence he became the
darling of the Whig party. He set up as “a solemn housekeeper” and kept
a fine table. Each morning there waited at his lodgings to dress him
two or three gentlemen who vied for the honour of holding his basin.
He was received by the primate at Lambeth. The Bishop of Ely welcomed
him as a frequent guest at dinner and was unable to set bounds to the
brutality of his conversation, till Sir John Reresby administered a
merited rebuke. He received the public thanks of the House of Lords.
The House of Commons made the Duke of Monmouth responsible for his
safety, the Lord Chamberlain for his lodging, the Lord High Treasurer
for his nourishment. His sermons were public events, his person
followed by admiring crowds. Popular odes were composed in his honour,
popular dinners were given him in the city, designs represented him
knocking the tiara from the head of “that infallible fop, the pope,”
or more exalted still, as an angel looking down from heaven. Among
English merchants abroad his health was drunk next to that of the king.
Everywhere he was courted, fêted, acknowledged. “Whig peers,” writes
Sir George Sitwell, “supported him by their subscriptions. Whig peers
welcomed him to their houses in London and in the country. Whig peers
rolled him down in their coaches to aid by his unblushing presence the
election of Whig candidates, Whig peers defended him in council and
flocked to support him at his trials, while their political followers
were engaged in threatening and hustling the witnesses.”[408] Oates had
become for the moment the representative of the aspirations of the Whig
party.
In this the influence of Shaftesbury is clearly visible. Though he
did not procure Oates’ appearance, it cannot be supposed that the
informer’s subsequent steps were without his knowledge and approval. At
his first examination by the council Oates had declared that he knew
no more than he had said against any person of what quality soever.
Within two months he thought better of his memory in a way that points
to refreshment from another source. The wife of one of the gentlemen
of the bedchamber was entrusted with a message that, if the king would
give way to it, Oates had somewhat to swear against no less a person
than the queen. The royal leave was granted. On November 25 therefore
Oates declared to the king in full council that if all other attempts
upon his Majesty’s life had failed the queen was to have been employed
to murder her husband. Three days later he appeared at the bar of the
House of Commons and raised his strident voice with the words, “I do
accuse the queen for conspiring the death of the king and contriving
how to compass it.” It was a ludicrous invention of having heard the
queen in conversation with certain Jesuits approve the plan for
Charles’ assassination and promise to assist it. Bedloe had a similar
story, which the Lords also heard as well as that of Oates. When they
asked what the two had meant by keeping back their information, Oates
replied that by “no other person of quality” he had meant none other
of the peers. Bedloe said he had forgotten. The House of Commons,
stirred by their deep affection and care for the royal person, voted
an immediate address for the removal of the consort and her household
from Whitehall, and sent to beg the Lords’ concurrence; but the
Lords, dissatisfied with the depositions laid before them, refused,
under protest of Shaftesbury and two of his followers, to join in the
vote. Their consideration had been won by the queen’s behaviour on
the subject of Godfrey’s murder, and they refused to allow her to be
molested. In public she bore herself bravely, but her intimates knew
how greatly she had been distressed by the attack. By an order from the
king Oates was placed in strict confinement, his papers were seized,
his servants dismissed, and free access to his rooms restrained. A
strong remonstrance was prepared by the Commons, and Charles closed the
incident by restoring the villain to his former liberty.[409]
The attack on the queen affords a clue to the ideas of both adversaries
in the great battle that was being waged in the English state
between authority and revolution. Mrs. Elliot, wife of Elliot of the
bedchamber, had been the agent who took Oates’ message to the king. She
had also spoken to Tonge, and in a significant statement to the House
of Lords confessed she had been sent to him by Lady Gerard of Bromley.
The mention of this lady’s name throws a ray of light on the doubtful
intrigue, for she was in close connection with the Whig leaders; and
were it in any case permissible to suppose that Oates had acted without
assurance of support in bringing forward a charge of so delicate a
nature, her appearance in the background would make it certain that
this was not so. It may be taken that the move was directed from the
headquarters of the Whig party. What then was the object? Catherine
had never played any part whatever in politics. In obtaining favour
for those of her religion she had held strictly to the terms of her
marriage treaty. After the first shock at her husband’s faithless
impudence she had passed her time in gaiety, dancing, and frivolity.
Only one end could be served by attempting to prove her a party to the
Plot. It was to obtain her divorce and to marry the king to a wife
who should bear him Protestant children. The knowledge of Catherine’s
childlessness had given rise before to talk of a similar project.[410]
If it could actually be brought to completion and Charles beget a
Protestant heir to the throne, there seemed a fair chance that the
clouds which hung over the future of England would be dispelled. Desire
for power alone did not then actuate Shaftesbury, but a purer hope for
his country’s prosperity. For had the scheme of divorce borne fruit and
the Duke of York, with all the unrest and insecurity that his presence
denoted, been removed from the succession by the appearance of a child
who could hardly have been educated except as a Protestant, Shaftesbury
could not have hoped himself to exercise a decisive influence on the
king’s policy. The storm gave Shaftesbury his power; when calm returned
it would dissolve. This is his claim to real statesmanship. He was
willing, it must be believed, to sacrifice power to principle, and to
plan, though with odious implements, advantage to the nation, while he
contemplated for himself a relapse into insignificance. What followed
under Charles II’s successor justified his position. Swift changes
transformed his schemes and drove him to counsels of extremity, but the
Revolution suspends judgment against him. The principle he embodied was
that which William the deliverer came to England to save from utter
ruin, the reasoned liberty of thought and action. For that he worked
and made others work without sparing, bribed while his own hands were
clean of gold, joined while his private life was pure with profligates
of unrestrained license; for that he planned murder and brewed
rebellion; for that he “fretted the pigmy body to decay”;[411] for that
he died. This particular proposal was not without recommendation. It
was the simplest way out of the difficulty. It could cause no political
commotion in the country. No principle would be overset by it nor any
tradition overruled. It might be supposed to be not unpalatable to
Charles. The English Reformation had followed one divorce; another
might have rendered the English Revolution unnecessary. There was not
however the smallest chance of success, for the king was unalterably
opposed to anything of the sort. Badly as he had behaved to Catherine,
he was not without gratitude and affection for her and was constant
in his resolution not to add to his other faults the graver one of
desertion.[412] Further, Charles was determined to let the royal
power suffer injury in no respect. When the subject of the accusation
prepared against the queen was first broached, he said privately that
he was willing to give Oates line enough. It was the secret of the
king’s whole policy during the agitation of the Plot. He was playing
the Whig party as a skilful angler plays his fish. Each length of
line run out seemed to be the last of his reserve. Throughout his
reign Charles had been striving to restore the power of the monarchy
in England. Now it looked as if all his efforts had been in vain. His
opponents appeared about to gain the final victory. The king’s only
chance was to let them exhaust themselves by the violence of their
onslaught.
Having failed in one direction, Shaftesbury’s attention was promptly
turned to others. A difficulty confronting him in his hope of excluding
the Duke of York from the succession was the choice of a substitute.
The scheme of Charles’ divorce and second marriage would have overcome
this, but when that was dashed it became necessary to pursue the
question further. At the time when Clarendon was chief minister, his
opponents and among them the Duke of Buckingham proposed, in order to
remove his son-in-law James, whose influence was thought to support
him, that the Duke of Monmouth, the eldest of Charles’ sons living in
England, should be declared legitimate and heir to the crown.[413]
The idea had created agitation at other times as well; and now
Shaftesbury infused fresh life into it by adopting the bastard’s cause
and supporting him with a powerful following. It was this which rent
the Whig party and destroyed its chance of success. Up to a certain
point Shaftesbury could carry the other leaders. Halifax was at one
with him on the treatment of the Plot, for he said that it must be
handled as if it were true, whether it were so or no, and told Sir
William Temple that, unless he would concur in points so necessary for
the people’s satisfaction, he would brand him everywhere as a papist.
He demanded that Catholic priests should without receiving public
warning be submitted to the rigours of a law unenforced since the reign
of Elizabeth. He was willing to join with Shaftesbury in planning
such steps as the French ambassador thought would tend to the entire
annihilation of the royal authority and reduce England to a republic
under kingly forms. But when it became apparent that Shaftesbury had
adopted the cause of the graceful, popular, feather-headed Duke of
Monmouth, Halifax drew away to the king’s side and took with him “the
party volant,” which boasted with the proud title of Trimmers to hold
the balance in the constitution. With them for the moment were also the
more respectable of the old Presbyterian party under the lead of Lord
Holles.[414] If the nation was divided by the Exclusion bill, those in
favour of the project were divided among themselves by the problem in
whose favour exclusion should be. Of the two claimants to consideration
the Prince of Orange in virtue of his wife and his mother had
obviously the better title. On the other hand it was thought that his
father-in-law the Duke of York might have a dangerous influence over
him; and there were fears that the republican party in Holland would in
alarm cast itself into the hands of Louis XIV and thus ruin still more
irretrievably the interests it was desired to preserve. The reasons
against the Duke of Monmouth were evident. To alter the succession
for the son of a prostitute, for the duke’s mother was a woman of
low character, could not but cause offence to many. Still more would
resent the violation of the rights of an heir who had done nothing to
forfeit them but adhere to the dictates of his conscience. Henry VIII
had more than once altered the succession by act of Parliament, but
though he declared his children bastards, they had yet been got in
lawful wedlock. When it came to the point of a struggle, the Duke of
York would have a good rallying cry. Monmouth was nevertheless secure
of a strong party; all who were opposed to James for religion’s sake,
who were many, and all Scotland, which grew daily more exasperated
under the unpopular government of Lauderdale. It may be believed that
the weakness no less than the strength of Monmouth’s position appealed
to Shaftesbury. The Whig power lay not in support of the right, but
in the constituencies, above all in London, where the sentiments by
which Monmouth found favour had their strongest hold. Monmouth was
moreover a man open to influence. Were the Duke of York successfully
excluded, Shaftesbury was more likely to find room for the exercise
of his talents under the rule of James’ nephew than under that of his
son-in-law, William of Orange. Of the two Monmouth gave far better
promise to the earl that he would retain his power in the country and
regain it in the government. Shaftesbury took his measures accordingly.
Yet the Whig prospect looked by no means assured. Dissension in the
party was widespread. “I must confess,” wrote Algernon Sidney, summing
up the arguments on the one side and on the other, “I do not know three
men of a mind, and that a spirit of giddiness reigns amongst us, far
beyond any I have ever observed in my life.”[415]
The prorogation of Parliament in May 1679 filled the nation with ill
humours. Members rode down to their country seats in high discontent.
Alarm was general and, wrote Sidney significantly, “they begin to look
more than formerly unto the means of preserving themselves.”[416]
Scarcely were they clear of Westminster before news came that the
Scottish Covenanters were up in arms and in possession of Glasgow.
The outbreak was not unwelcome. Nor was it unexpected. As early as
the beginning of the month Sidney had information that a rising might
be expected at any moment. A few weeks before an inflammatory speech
was delivered by Shaftesbury in the House of Lords; he charged the
government with fomenting discord in Scotland by its evil rule, and
declared that in England popery was to have brought in slavery, but in
Scotland, while slavery went before, popery was to follow. By the next
post, it was said, forty copies of his speech were carried up north to
hearten the malcontents by the knowledge that they were favoured by
a party in England. The subject was freely discussed by the Whigs in
London. Even if they were not in direct communication with the rebels,
there can be no doubt that they had let it be known on which side their
sympathies lay,[417] The events of the ill-fated rebellion of Bothwell
Brigg do not belong to this story. It did not fail for want of effort
on the part of those who had encouraged its authors. Lauderdale had
been attacked by an address of the Commons, and a deputation under the
Duke of Hamilton now arrived to plead against him before the king.
Charles remarked that “they had objected many damned things he had done
against _them_, but there was nothing objected that was done against
_his_ service.” When the revolt came up for discussion at the council,
Lord Russell rose and expressed his wonder that war had not begun long
ago rather than that it should have come at last, “since his Majesty
thought fit to retain incendiaries near his person and in his very
council.” Lauderdale begged leave to retire, but the king turned to
Russell with the words, “No, no. Sit down, my Lord. This is no place
for addresses.”[418] Charles, who boasted with some justice that he
understood Scotch affairs better than any of his advisers, was for
the immediate suppression of the rising by force. He was opposed by
those who felt their interest advanced by its continuance. The Duke of
Hamilton and his friends gave assurance that peace might be restored
without bloodshed if only such men were employed as were acceptable
to the nation. Shaftesbury did not conceal his desire that the rebels
might at least be successful in obtaining a change of government. The
Presbyterians and other sectaries were united in their hopes for their
brethren in Scotland, and pamphlets were strewn about the town inciting
the people to prevent the court from making preparations of war. By
the suggestion of the Duke of Monmouth as commander-in-chief of the
forces, the king gained his point. Shaftesbury had argued that English
troops could not legally be sent to serve in Scotland. Glad to avail
himself of the prestige his puppet would win from the campaign, he now
consented to the arrangement, hoping that the duke would carry powers
not only to beat but to treat with the rebels; more might perhaps be
gained by negotiation than by arms. In this he was nearly successful.
While the commission giving to Monmouth full powers was signed,
Lauderdale sat silent. As the council rose he followed the king into
his bedchamber and begged him, unless he wished to follow his father,
to rescind that part of the commission which might be used to encourage
rebellion in Scotland and raise another in England. “Why did you not
argue this in council?” asked Charles. His gross but able administrator
answered with emphasis, “Sire, were not your enemies in the room?”
To the great disappointment of Monmouth and the Whigs as well as the
Covenanters, peremptory orders were sent after him that he should not
treat but fall on them at once. Shaftesbury’s party discovered that
they had been tricked. Lord Cavendish and Lord Gerard refused to serve
under their commissions; Mr. Thynne declined to receive one; Lord Grey
of Werke resigned his command of the horse. Even after Monmouth had
started an attempt was made to obtain his recall and, had time allowed,
a monster petition in favour of the rebels, to be signed by many
peers and gentlemen and all the principal householders of London, was
prepared for presentation to the king. Charles made use of the event,
by an order which had the additional advantage of creating a difference
between the Earls of Essex and Shaftesbury, to raise a troop of two
hundred guards to be about his person.[419]
The copies of Shaftesbury’s speech intended for such fatal use in
Scotland were said to have been made in the Green Ribbon Club.[420]
That famous society, founded in the year 1675, quickly acquired
ascendency over the Whig party. To-day it has been almost forgotten;
its influence was unknown to the classic historians of England, who
were in politics mostly Whig; but during seven tumultuous years of
English history it played a part that can only be compared to the work
of the more notorious Jacobin organisation of a century later across
the Channel. The club met at the King’s Head Tavern at the corner of
Chancery Lane and Fleet Street. Its character may be known at once
from the fact that its members organised and paid for the imposing
ceremonies of pope burning, by which the most fiendish lies of Oates
were yearly sustained and the worst passions of the London mob, a word,
it may be noted, itself derived from the club, systematically inflamed.
Oates himself was a member, and Aaron Smith, his legal adviser; and
under the leadership of Shaftesbury the club was filled with men of
the same kidney, who crowded on to the balcony with pipes in their
mouths and wigs laid aside to witness the papal holocaust with which
each great procession ended opposite their windows. Here was the
fountain of the inner counsels of the Whig party and the seat of its
executive. Within the walls of the club the decision had been taken to
agitate for the dissolution of Parliament after the long prorogation
of 1677; here a few years later the Rye House conspiracy was schemed;
here the actual assassination plot was hatched. Over the country the
Green Ribbon Club enjoyed a profound influence. It was the centre of
the party pamphleteers who devoted keen ability to incite the nation
and defame the government, and their productions were scattered far
and wide by means of a highly effective service of correspondents.
While policy was debated and action resolved by the chiefs of the club,
their agents at the coffee-houses in London and throughout the country
obeyed orders from headquarters. At the elections their activity was
unparalleled. Tracts poured into the constituencies. Industrious agents
attacked the character of the court candidates and firmly organised
the national opposition. It was the Green Ribbon Club which introduced
the “Protestant flail” to London and clothed the town in silk armour
as a defence against the expected daggers of papists. The club almost
usurped the functions of Parliament. Many members of that body belonged
to it, attended its consultations, took their cue from its decisions.
Agents thronged the lobby of the House of Commons, posting members with
arguments for debate, whipping in sluggards to a division, carrying the
latest news back to the club. Men of all classes and various character
belonged to the society, broken scoundrels and wealthy statesmen, pious
enthusiasts and tired profligates, the remains of the Cromwellian
party, the forerunners of the Revolution, poets, aldermen, country
gentlemen, assassins, bound together in a common league of animosity
against Charles II and his government, not a few traitors to that bond
itself. Scarcely a name of note on the Whig side is absent from the
list, which contained Shaftesbury and Monmouth, Buckingham, Ireton,
Slingsby Bethel, Sir William Waller, the Spekes, the Trenchards, Howard
of Escrick, Sir Robert Peyton, Russell, Holles, and Algernon Sidney.
With the lapse of time the counsels of the club became more violent;
and the most infamous of political tracts, “An Appeal from the Country
to the City,” which spread deliberate and abominable lies to incite
the nation to rebellion, and urged the Duke of Monmouth to strike with
force for the crown, not because he had a right to it, but because
he had none, was written by Robert Ferguson, nicknamed the Plotter,
himself a member, Shaftesbury’s _âme damneé_.[421] More than a third
of the whole number of members of the club were concerned in the Rye
House Plot. Sixteen or eighteen took an active part in Monmouth’s
invasion. After the Revolution they obtained their reward. Shadwell,
the poet of the club, was made laureate in place of Dryden. Aaron Smith
became Chancellor of the Exchequer to King William. Lord Grey of Werke,
basest of traitors, was given office and an earldom. Sir John Trenchard
was made secretary of state. Dukedoms were conferred upon the Earls
of Bedford and Devonshire and a marquisate upon Lord Mulgrave. Ireton
became lieutenant-colonel of dragoons and gentleman of the horse to
the king. Oates was pilloried and pensioned. Speake, Ayloffe, Rouse,
Nelthrop, and Bettiscomb were hanged.[422]
In August 1679 the chance of the Green Ribbon Club seemed to have
arrived. After a hard game of tennis the king took a chill in walking
by the river-side at Windsor. Fever ensued, and a horrible fear that
Charles lay on his death-bed struck at men’s hearts. The cry rose
everywhere that he had been poisoned. The Duchess of Portsmouth was
accused of having done the black deed. Amazement and horror were
universal. People looked upon any ill that should happen to the king,
said Sir William Temple, as though it were the end of the world. The
privy council was obliged to take action to prevent an overwhelming
rush of inquirers into the royal bedchamber. Algernon Sidney returning
to town found the general apprehension such that, had the king died,
there was no extremity of disorder that might not be expected. “Good
God!” wrote Henry Savile from Paris, “what a change such an accident
would make! the very thought of it frights me out of my wits. God
bless you and deliver us all from that damnable curse,”[423] There
were indeed good grounds for the fears so poignantly expressed. The
Duke of York, who had been sent from the country in February, was
still beyond seas. Monmouth had returned from Scotland, puffed with
success in having pacified the Covenanters. Shaftesbury divided the
court and seemed to have the nation at his back. If the king died, he
was prepared to make a bold push for fortune. The second declaration
of Monmouth, published in the following reign, made mention of a
consult held at this time “for extraordinary remedies.” No copy of the
declaration can now be traced, but it was seen and the fact noted by
David Hume. That consult decided upon notable measures. Early in the
course of the next year Sir Robert Peyton was accused by Mrs. Cellier
and Gadbury the astrologer of treasonable practices, and was examined
before the privy council. Though he denied his guilt, he let it be
understood that the charge was not baseless and confessed to the House
of Commons that he had been intriguing with the Duke of York. His old
associates turned against him, and Peyton was expelled the House;
but his object was accomplished and he went over to the court side,
to find a reward for his perfidy in the favour of James. No definite
accusation was made against the heads of the popular party, but the
extent of the Whig plans became vaguely known. On the news of the
king’s illness preparations had been quickly made for insurrection.
Money was collected and old Cromwellian officers engaged. A large
force would have been in the field at a few days’ notice. Had Charles
died at Windsor the leaders of the movement were ready to seize the
Tower, Dover Castle, and Portsmouth, and to arrest the Lord Mayor and
those privy councillors who should offer to proclaim the Duke of York
king.[424]
The government was not idle in face of the danger. With the consent of
the king Sunderland, Halifax, and Essex, most unstable of triumvirates,
summoned the duke from Brussels. Leaving his wife and children, James
set out in disguise and reached Windsor on September 2 without being
recognised by more than two persons on the way. Charles received
him with admirably feigned surprise. The danger was past; Jesuits’
powder, the modern quinine, had already restored the king to the point
of eating mutton and partridges, and within ten days he was again
discussing important business with the French ambassador. Another
issue of events had been expected. If the worst had taken place, the
Lord Mayor and aldermen had concerted means to declare the duke their
sovereign. Fortunately for the nation the Whigs were deprived of the
chance to decide whether they or the government held the stronger hand.
On the contrary the hopes raised by the king’s illness brought on them
a serious rebuff. Once in England James, who had continually pressed
for his recall and thought his brother’s behaviour was driving the
country to ruin, shewed no desire to depart again. It was represented
to him that his absence was for the king’s advantage, and he consented
to leave; but on conditions, for Sunderland suggested that Monmouth,
whom his father’s danger made yet more arrogant and his uncle’s
unexpected arrival sulky and furious, should quit the country too.
James after a brief visit to Brussels took coach for Scotland, but
Monmouth, to the delight of the court party deprived of his office of
captain-general of the forces and his command of the horse guards, for
Holland. There was some thought of his attempting to refuse, but milder
counsels prevailed and he was persuaded that a willing submission
would serve to invest him in the eyes of the people with the character
of a martyr. The generalship was abolished and the business of the
office handed over to Sunderland. Yet another slight was put upon the
Whig party. Sir Thomas Armstrong, the intimate agent of Monmouth and
a fierce opponent of the Duke of York, was banished from the king’s
presence and court for ever.[425]
As the year 1679 wore away the disturbance of the kingdom seemed to
increase. A rising had been expected as the result of James’ return to
England, and alarms of the same nature were raised when the king paid
a visit to London after his recovery. Guards were set in Covent Garden
and Lincoln’s Inn Fields; barges and an escort two hundred strong
were in readiness to carry the royal party to the Tower in case of a
tumult; but no stir was made and the day passed quietly. Fears of the
vaguest character were abroad. “I am very confident,” wrote Charles
Hatton, “you will suddenly hear very surprising news, but what I am
unable to inform you as yet.” At the back of men’s minds the feeling
was growing that the Whigs could not attain their object except by
plunging the country into civil war.[426] The agitation became greater
than ever when at the end of November the Duke of Monmouth returned
without leave to England. He entered London at midnight to the sound of
ringing bells and by the light of a thousand bonfires, crackling almost
at the palace doors. His popularity seemed unbounded. Crowds followed
him in the streets and stopped passers to drink his health. Nell Gwyn,
cheered by the crowd as “the Protestant whore,” entertained him at
supper. He struck from his arms the bar sinister, which denoted the
maimed descent: it was a fashion among the royal bastards, for the Duke
of Richmond, Charles’ son by Louise de Kéroualle, who was thought to
have intentions on the queen’s throne for herself, had done the same,
and displayed the lions of England without diminution.[427] The king
was incensed, refused to see the pretender, deprived him of all his
offices, ordered him to quit London. Monmouth at length obeyed, but it
was to make a royal progress through the west of England, captivating
the people and laying the foundations of the support for his hapless
attempt against his uncle’s crown.[428]
Meanwhile the question arose when Parliament should meet. The elections
had not much altered the complexion of the House of Commons, but it was
noted that while the Whigs held their own in the counties and great
corporations, the court began to gain in many small boroughs.[429] On
the appointed day in October Charles first prorogued and then adjourned
Parliament till the following January. Shaftesbury attempted to force
the king’s hand by appearing in company with sixteen other peers to
present a petition that set forth the danger in which the monarch,
the religion, and the government of England lay, and their prayer
that his Majesty would make effectual use of the great council of the
realm. Charles replied he would consider it, and heartily wished that
all others were as solicitous as himself for the good and peace of
the nation. Three days later he shewed the meaning of his answer by
proroguing Parliament, without the advice of the council, to November
1680. He followed the stroke by summoning the Lord Mayor and aldermen
to his presence to enforce on them their duty of preserving the peace
and preventing ill-disposed persons from pursuing the ends of discord
under cover of petitioning. The surprise of the Whigs was intense. Only
one thing was left for them to do. They went on petitioning. Petitions,
prepared in accordance with Shaftesbury’s instructions, bombarded the
king from all over the country. A proclamation issued to denounce
merely had the effect of redoubling them. Charles’ own answers were
far more effective. The men of Wiltshire presented a petition as from
their county, but lacking the sanction of the grand jury were rated
as a company of loose and disaffected persons. The petitioners from
London and Westminster were told by Charles that he was the head of
the government and would do as he thought best; while to the Berkshire
gentlemen he replied, “We will argue the matter over a cup of ale when
we meet at Windsor, though I wonder my neighbours should meddle with
my business.” In one case alone Charles had the worst of a passage of
arms. When a citizen of Taunton offered him a petition, the king asked
how he dared do so? To which the man replied, “Sir, my name is Dare.”
The government was not behindhand in dealing with the situation. To
shew that the petitioners did not represent the country, an immediate
flood of counter addresses poured in, expressing confidence in the
king’s wisdom and abhorrence of the petitioners. Petitioners and
abhorrers divided the nation, and it was by no other godfather than
Titus Oates that the latter party, by a name famous in English history,
was christened Tory.[430] In this clamorous contest the king gained an
undeniable success. But success did not bring repose. Watchfulness was
more severely needed than ever. To calm suspicion the penal laws were
once more sharpened against the Catholics. Additional garrisons were
thrown into the Tower and Tilbury Fort. Portsmouth and Sheerness were
strengthened. London remained quiet, but the Christmas festivities were
suspected of unfortunate possibilities. There was talk of threatening
Shaftesbury with a prosecution.[431]
Instead of a prosecution Shaftesbury was drawn into a negotiation with
the court. The French ambassador learned with agitation that the earl
went secretly by night to Whitehall to discuss terms of settlement
with the king. Shaftesbury offered to let drop the Exclusion bill
and assure Charles an ample revenue for the rest of his life if he
would consent to a divorce and to marry a Protestant. The king should
make a show of resistance, to be overborne by apparently irresistible
pressure, the country would be satisfied, and peace return to the
land. Charles made believe that he viewed the notion with favour. Only
Lord Holles and very few others were admitted to knowledge of what was
passing. Soon Lauderdale, whose character and career were particularly
displeasing to the Presbyterians, was added to their number. Holles
drew back, then fell ill, and the scheme languished. Nevertheless
Shaftesbury hoped for success. Suddenly his hopes were shattered. On
January 29, 1680 Charles brought the matter to an end by declaring to
the council that, since the Duke of York’s absence had not produced
the desired effect, he was about to recall him to England. A royal
yacht left immediately for Edinburgh to convey him thence. On February
24 James arrived in London. The recorder of the city presented him
with a complimentary address. A sumptuous banquet was given the royal
brothers by the Lord Mayor. To crown the display a grand illumination
was arranged to testify the extraordinary joy all good subjects were
supposed to feel.[432] Shaftesbury might well harbour resentment at the
artifice of which he had been a victim.
In the “Appeal from the Country to the City” the Duke of Monmouth was
recommended by name to be the saviour of the people, since he who had
the worst title was like to make the best king. Between that, the
project of the queen’s divorce, and the pretence that Monmouth was in
fact the legitimate heir to the throne the minds of Whig politicians
wavered. The last idea had already risen to such prominence that, when
the Duke of York left the kingdom in March, a solemn declaration was
drawn from Charles that he had never married or made any contract of
marriage with any other woman than his wife, Queen Catherine, then
living.[433] For greater security the king’s signature was attested by
his councillors and the deed enrolled in Chancery. Shaftesbury had no
sooner emerged from his defeat of the midnight meetings at Whitehall
than the fable sprang into renewed life. Mysterious tales were bruited
abroad of a certain black box, which, if found, should contain the
contract of marriage between the king and Lucy Walters, mother of
the Duke of Monmouth. The box was said to be in the possession of
Sir Gilbert Gerard. If it did not contain the actual contract, at
any rate there lay in it a certificate from the hand of Dr. Cosens,
late Bishop of Durham, who had solemnised the marriage. Others had it
that one Dr. Clare, an eminent royalist parson, had read the service.
At least the ceremony had been witnessed by a judge and three other
persons of quality. The story attained such proportions that an
extraordinary meeting of the council was held. Sir Gilbert Gerard was
called to state what he knew. It appeared that he knew nothing. He
had never seen either contract or box, and had no knowledge whatever
of anything of the sort. The rumour was traced to a maternal aunt of
the late Lucy Walters: who had set her on could only be conjectured.
It cannot be doubted that the tale emanated from the office of the
Whig party. The authors of it were men of versatility. Sir Gilbert
Gerard’s statement seemed to have dissolved the myth, but within a
few weeks the appearance of a pamphlet entitled “A Letter to a Person
of Honour concerning the Black Box” brought the facts again into
question.[434] The whole account of the black box, affirmed the letter,
was a mere romance, an ingenious device of the Duke of York to sham
and ridicule the marriage, which indeed had no relation to it, for
with the exposure of the box the true history would at the same time
fall into discredit. It was notorious that assurance of Monmouth’s
legitimacy had been given to the Countess of Wemyss before she disposed
her daughter in marriage to him. In a letter from the king to Mrs.
Walters, intercepted by Cromwell’s officers, he had addressed her as
wife. And it was beyond doubt that she had actually received homage
from many of the royalist party. Many copies of this pamphlet were
scattered in the Exchange and dispersed throughout the kingdom. It had
an instant effect. On June 7 another declaration was published by the
king, condemning the libel, denouncing its falsehood, and forbidding
all subjects on pain of the utmost rigour of the law to utter anything
contrary to the royal pronouncement. The result was a second “Letter
to a Person of Honour,” in which Charles’ word was contradicted and
his motives traduced. All the former statements were repeated, some
arguments added, and the pamphlet ended by the modest proposals, “That
Parliament, being admitted to sit, may examine this affair, whereof
they alone are competent judges; and that the Duke of York may be
legally tried for his manifold treasons and conspiracies against the
king and kingdom,” which treasons were set out at length in thirty-four
articles.[435] To carry the war still further into the enemies’ camp,
on June 26 Shaftesbury appeared in Westminster Hall in company with
the Earl of Huntingdon, Lord Grey, Lord Gerard, Lord Russell, Lord
Cavendish, and nine commoners to present the Duke of York to the grand
jury as a popish recusant and to indict the Duchess of Portsmouth for
a national nuisance. With them went Titus Oates, invested as it were
with a representative authority on behalf of the Whig party. That both
charges were true is certain; but the action of the Whigs was dictated
by a purely partisan spirit, and Chief Justice Scroggs, judging the
fact so, discharged the jury before they could find a bill. Four days
later the attack was repeated in another court, and with the same
result. The judges only followed their chief’s example. James appeared
downcast and knew well what danger he ran. His adversaries seemed to
be throwing off the mask, strong in the support of which they were
assumed to be conscious. When it was told to Shaftesbury that the king
had railed at him and his party as seditious rebels, he replied aloud
and in public, “The king has nothing to do but take the pains to punish
rebels and seditious persons. We will keep with the bounds of the law,
and we shall easily find means by the law to make him walk out of the
kingdom.” There were not many who could boast of having the last laugh
in a game with Charles. Not many months after, when the law by which he
held was put into operation against the Whig leader, Charles heard that
Shaftesbury had accused him of suborning perjurers, and thereupon very
pleasantly quoted a Scotch proverb. Veiled in the decency of a learned
language it ran: “In die extremi judicii videbimus cui podex nigerrimus
sit.”[436]
Violent distempers were now feared on all sides. Partisans of the
Prince of Orange were intriguing keenly on his behalf. In the spring of
the year Charles was ill again, and the several parties hastily met to
concert action. “God keep the nation,” wrote Dorothy Sidney, “from the
experiment what they could have done.” The danger may be gauged by the
fact that, had the king’s illness continued, three hundred members of
the Commons were determined to remain sitting despite the prorogation.
A considerable movement was detected among the London prentices. The
date of May 29 had been fixed for a large meeting to be held under
pretence of burning the Rump; four or five thousand men had pledged
themselves to attend, but information was laid, the leaders arrested,
and the outbreak apprehended by the court did not take place.[437]
Those of the opposite party were no less alarmed. Their chief enemy,
James, was holding a brilliant court and still maintained himself
against them. Shaftesbury left town for Easter, fearing a personal
attack. Mr. William Harbord looked abroad to spy some safe retreat.
Sir William Waller fled to Holland, thence to Italy, pursued by the
watchful eye of the government. On the pretext of Catholic intrigues,
the city guards were doubled.[438] A penetrating observer might have
perceived a change drawing over the spirit of the times. While the
Whig attack, far from having spent itself, grew only the more fierce,
and a final struggle with authority seemed imminent, the nation had
begun to reflect upon the turn of events. If passion was exasperated
by the last bold step against the Duke of York, it shewed too the
extremity to which his opponents were driving. Thereafter could be no
thought of reconciliation: they must either ruin him or themselves
end in ruin. It was not without some justice that Charles I called
the English sober. As the future was dimly shaped to men in shadows
of high misfortune, the fear of open strife and loss of all they had
given so much to gain in recalling Charles II to the throne of his
fathers weighed more heavily upon them. Innate reverence for authority,
standing to the letter of its rights, returned in some of its ancient
force. Though they were willing to see the royal prerogative curbed,
there was no sympathy for those who would strike against its existence.
And in the party which fostered terror and maddened the nation by the
Popish Plot were not a few to whom this was the object, Independents
and other sectaries, fierce republicans who had fought through the
Civil War and might not be sorry at the chance of fighting through
another. It was felt that the least accident might throw everything
into confusion. People began at length to test the stories circulated
for their consumption. Tales “that Holborn should be burnt down and the
streets run with blood” were no longer accepted on the mere statement.
The Irish Plot, loudly denounced about this time by Shaftesbury, found
small credence except from the London mob, and even in London the busy
merchants who feared disorder exercised an influence of restraint. At
the end of July Sir Leoline Jenkins was able to write: “Letters from
several parts beyond the seas do tell us that we are represented there
as if we were already in a flame. God be praised! ’tis no such matter.
All things are as still and peaceable as ever they were, only we are
pelted at with impudent, horrid libels.” Evidently the English nation
was in no humour for a second civil war.[439]
The king met Parliament on October 21, 1680. James was again on his
way to Edinburgh, induced to withdraw himself by a promise of full
support, but inwardly persuaded that he was lost. Seven of the council
had favoured the journey, eleven were against it. “Since he has so many
friends for him,” said Charles, “I see he must go.” In spite of gay
hearts the royal prospect was not bright. The king had tried a bout
with the Whigs over the city elections, and was forced to accept their
choice; and the Duchess of Portsmouth, fearful of an attack on herself
and with a heavy bribe in her purse, had gone over to the side of his
enemies.[440] The session opened with turbulence almost unexampled
even in the hot times that had passed. For discrediting the Plot in the
last parliament, a member had been expelled by the Commons. He was now
followed by two others. Petitioning was voted to be the right of the
subject. Abhorrers were violently attacked. Charles had long expressed
his willingness for any compromise that should leave his brother the
title of king when he came to the throne, and offered Expedients,
the effect of which would be to take all power from the hands of
the sovereign. Similar proposals were made by others also. Halifax
suggested that the duke should be banished for five years, Essex an
association in defence of the Protestant religion, Shaftesbury would
still be satisfied by a divorce. Otherwise he stood firm for Exclusion.
James viewed the Expedients alike with horror, and the Commons rejected
them with insult. Once let a popish king have the title, it was said,
and he would take the power too. “Expedients in politics are like
mountebanks’ tricks in physic,” cried Sir William Jones. The bill, the
bill, and nothing but the bill, was the cry. Colonel Titus summed the
matter up neatly. “You shall have the Protestant religion,” he said,
“you shall have what you will to protect you, but you must have a
popish king who shall command your armies and your navies, make your
bishops and judges. Suppose there were a lion in the lobby, one cries:
Shut the door and keep him out. No, says another, open the door and let
us chain him when he comes in.” The metaphor became popular in verse:—
I hear a lion in the lobby roar;
Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door
And keep him out?—or shall we let him in
To try if we can turn him out again?[441]
On November 4 the Exclusion bill was introduced, heralded by
denunciations of James. The violence of the debates beggars
description. If swords were not drawn, their use was not forgotten.
The prospect of civil war was freely mooted. “The case, in short, is
this,” exclaimed Mr. Henry Booth, “in plain English, whether we would
fight for or against the law.” Sir William Jones pursued, “The art of
man cannot find out any remedy as long as there is a popish successor
and the fears of a popish king.” He was answered by Colonel Legge, a
personal friend of the Duke of York: “There has been talk in the world
of another successor than the duke, in a Black Box; but if Pandora’s
box must be opened, I would have it in my time, not in my children’s,
that I may draw my sword to defend the right heir.” On November 11 the
bill was passed, and four days later with a mighty shout was carried
to the Lords by Russell, followed by a great body of the Commons.
To signify the attitude of the city, he was accompanied by the Lord
Mayor and aldermen. At the debate which followed Charles was present.
He heard the passionate attacks of Shaftesbury, the grave force of
Essex’s oratory. He witnessed the treachery of Sunderland, who joined
his enemies. He heard Monmouth urge Exclusion as the only safety for
the king’s life, and broke in with a loud whisper, “the kiss of Judas.”
He saw Halifax rise to champion the right, and heard him speak fifteen
or sixteen times and carry the day by his inexhaustible powers of
wit, sarcasm, and eloquence. At nine o’clock in the evening, after a
debate of six hours, the bill was thrown out by sixty-three votes to
thirty.[442] It was a memorable victory.
The fury of the Commons exceeded all bounds. Supplies were refused.
Votes and addresses were passed against Halifax, against Jeffreys,
Recorder of London, against Lord Chief Justice North, against placemen
and pensioners, against the judges, against James. “No sooner does a
man stand by the king but he is attacked,” wrote the duke to William
of Orange. To the attack against Halifax Charles answered suavely
that “he doth not find the grounds in the address of this House to
be sufficient to induce him to remove the Earl of Halifax.” He told
Reresby: “Let them do what they will, I will never part with any
officer at the request of either House. My father lost his head by such
compliance; but as for me, I intend to die another way.” And Halifax
took occasion to say to Sir John: “Well, if it comes to a war, you
and I must go together.” A bill for a Protestant association for the
government of the country with Monmouth at its head was being prepared,
when on January 10, 1681 the king suddenly prorogued and then dissolved
Parliament, leaving twenty-two bills depending and eight more already
ordered. The next parliament was summoned for March 21, and according
to the old advice of Danby not in the capital, but at Oxford.[443]
Charles’ wisdom in this course cannot be questioned. Before the
last session Ferguson the Plotter had returned from concealment in
Holland. An agent of Essex was busy in London concerning “the linen
manufacture,” for which he had enrolled three or four hundred men and
spent as much as a thousand pounds. Hugh Speke sent down to the country
to have his horse ready. “Get him in as good case as you can,” he
wrote, “for God knows what use I may have for him and how suddenly.”
There is reason to think that Shaftesbury had been planning to place
Parliament under control of the city.[444] London had always armed
the Whigs with the possibility of support other than parliamentary.
The removal of Parliament to Oxford made it certain that the coming
struggle would be fought on ground favourable to the king. No sooner
was Charles’ determination known than Shaftesbury, Monmouth, and Essex,
together with thirteen other peers, presented a petition shewing that
evil men, favourers of popery and enemies of the happiness of England,
had made choice of Oxford as a place where the Houses would be daily
menaced by the swords of papists who had crept into the ranks of the
king’s guards, and making their humble prayer and advice that the
parliament should sit at Westminster as usual. “That, my lord, may
be your opinion,” returned the king to Essex; “it is not mine.”[445]
The Whigs promptly set to making the elections their own. Nothing was
omitted to secure their success. Instructions from the Green Ribbon
Club directed events in all parts of the country. Members bound
themselves to prosecute the Plot, to demand restriction of the king’s
power to prorogue and dissolve Parliament, to support the Exclusion,
the right of petitioning, the Association.[446] When the means of man
were exhausted, supernatural powers were called to assist. On the one
side and on the other were raised ghosts, who foretold doom to their
opponents. The city of London elected its old representatives. They
were begged to refuse supplies and assured that in pursuit of their
ends they should have the support of the citizens’ lives and fortunes.
A host of scribblers, libellers, and caricaturists poured into Oxford.
A rumour was spread that the city would be the scene of a massacre. The
Whig chiefs rode down attended by bands of armed retainers. Guards of
townsmen accompanied members from the boroughs. The Londoners appeared
in a great company with bows of blue satin in their hats, on which were
woven the inscription: “No Popery! No Slavery!” Tory crowds met them
at the gates, red-ribboned, brandishing clubs and staves, and crying,
“Make ready! Stand to it! Knock ’em down! Knock ’em down!” In the midst
of his life-guards, among whom Essex had failed at Charles’ polite
request to point out the creeping papists, the king drove from Windsor.
Information had come to hand of a plot to kidnap him at Oxford.
Measures were taken accordingly. A regiment was moved up to the Mews in
case of an attack on Whitehall. The constable of the Tower was advised
to hold himself in readiness. Attention was given to Lambeth Palace and
the forts on the Thames. The cannon at Windsor were looked to, and Lord
Oxford’s regiment was posted along the Windsor road, should Charles be
compelled to retreat. “If the king would be advised,” said Halifax, “it
is in his power to make all his opponents tremble.”[447] It was what he
had come prepared to do.
Since the fall of Danby, Charles had lived in a state of poverty.
Scarcely any supplies were furnished by Parliament. None came from
France. His resources were at one moment so low that he even thought
of recalling his ministers from the courts of foreign princes.[448] At
the same time thousands of pounds were being absorbed by the informers
against popish plotters, tens of thousands by the royal mistresses.
The treasury was in the hands of Laurence Hyde, second son of Lord
Chancellor Clarendon. That he was able to pay the way is a source of
wonder and admiration. Such a state of affairs could not last for
ever, and Charles had recourse to the mine whence he had drawn so much
wealth before. Though Louis XIV had gained his immediate object by
turning against his cousin, he felt as time went on that the tools
he used might destroy his own work. His constant desire was to keep
England in such a position that, if she would, she could not thwart his
plans. For this he had joined the Whigs against Danby. From the same
motive his ambassador supported Shaftesbury in his advertisement of
Monmouth and bribed not only members of parliament, but city merchants
and Presbyterian preachers. But there was a point beyond which he
could not follow this line. It would be as little to his interest to
see Charles’ authority overthrown and English policy directed by a
Protestant parliament as to contend with Charles adopting and leading
the same policy. Therefore in the autumn of 1679 Barillon had tried to
come to an agreement with Charles. He offered the sum of £200,000 for
three years but, attempting to get more than the king was willing to
give, found the proposal fall to the ground. Charles threw himself on
to the side of the allies against France and in July of the following
year concluded a treaty with Spain to resist the pretensions of Louis.
Alarmed by the violence of the Commons and realising that their
hostility to France could not be cured by gold, Barillon again broached
the subject. The king hung back until just before the dissolution of
the last parliament at Westminster and by skilful play obtained what he
wanted. A verbal treaty was concluded in the queen’s bedroom, between
the bed and the wall. Charles agreed to disengage himself from the
Spanish alliance and to prevent the interference of Parliament. In
return he was to receive from Louis an amount equivalent to twelve and
a half million francs in the course of the next three years. So close
was the secret kept that besides the two kings only Barillon, Laurence
Hyde, and the Duke of York had knowledge of the treaty.[449] Though
he was tight bound by it for the matter of foreign policy, Charles
had attained his object. Except for the advancement of his power at
home and to quicken the growth of English commerce he did not care
for foreign politics. So long as he could turn Louis’ ambition to his
own advantage he was satisfied. This the new treaty accomplished, and
although Louis too gained handsomely by it, he was obliged to confess
the victory not altogether his by the complete reversal of his policy
of the last four years in England. Charles met Parliament strong in the
consciousness of his independence.
The session that now opened gave little hope of a peaceful end. Meeting
on March 21, the Houses listened to a speech of studious moderation
from the throne. Charles promised consent to any means whereby under
a Catholic successor the administration should remain in Protestant
hands, but what he had already said with regard to the succession, by
that he would abide—there should be no tampering with that. There could
be no mistake as to his attitude. “I, who will never use arbitrary
government myself,” he said with a proud lie, “am resolved never to
suffer it in others.” Charles could well offer a compromise, for he
knew it would never be accepted. The two parties, it was said, were
like hostile forces on opposite heights. The Commons refused the
Expedients. They adopted the cause of a wretch named Fitzharris,
whose obscure intrigue, by whomever directed, was certainly most base
and most criminal, and tried to turn him into an engine of political
aggression. It was evident that they meant to force the king to abandon
James and recognise the Duke of Monmouth. Shaftesbury once more tried
negotiation. In conversation with Charles in the House of Lords he
pressed him in the public interest and for the peace of the nation to
accept the position and give way. The king returned: “My Lord, let
there be no self-delusion, I will never yield and will not let myself
be intimidated. I have the law and reason on my side. Good men will be
with me. There is the church,” and he pointed to where the bishops sat,
“which will remain united with me. Believe me, my Lord, we shall not be
divided.” It was an open declaration of war. On March 26 the Exclusion
bill was voted. Monday, March 28, was fixed for the first reading. On
Sunday the king busied himself with preparing the Sheldonian theatre
for the Commons, who complained that Convocation House was too small;
he viewed the plans, strolled among the workmen, congratulated himself
on being able to arrange for the better comfort of his faithful
subjects, and made all show of expecting a long session. That night his
coach was privately sent a stage outside Oxford with a troop of horse.
Next morning he was carried as usual to the House of Lords in a sedan
chair, followed by another with drawn curtains, seeming to contain a
friend. When the king stepped out his friend was found to be a change
of clothes. He had come to make his enemies tremble. At the last
moment an accident nearly wrecked the scheme. The wrong robes had been
brought. Hastily the chair was sent back for the robes of state, while
Charles held an unwilling peer in conversation that he might not give
the alarm. Then, when all was ready, he swiftly took his seat on the
throne and, without giving the Lords time to robe, summoned the Commons
to attend. As Sir William Jones was in the act of appealing to Magna
Carta as the safeguard of the subject’s right, the Black Rod knocked at
the door. The Commons thronged eagerly through the narrow passages to
the king’s presence, the Speaker leading with Russell and Cavendish at
either hand. They thought they had come to receive Charles’ surrender.
When the tumult was calmed the king spoke; “My lords and gentlemen,
that all the world may see to what a point we are come, that we are
not like to have a good end, when the divisions at the beginning are
such, therefore, my Lord Chancellor, do as I have commanded you.” Finch
thereupon declared Parliament, which had lived for exactly one week, to
be dissolved, and Charles immediately left the throne. As he reached
his dressing-room he turned to a friend, his eyes gleaming, with the
remark that it was better to have one king than five hundred. He made a
short dinner and, leaving by the back stairs, drove off in Sir Edward
Seymour’s coach to where his own was waiting. That night he was in
Windsor.[450]
The dissolution scattered the opposition as a gust of wind the leaves
of a tree in autumn. Shaftesbury in vain attempted to hold the Houses
together. His followers in the Lords remained for an hour under
pretence of signing a protest, while messengers were dispatched urging
the Commons to fulfil their promises. But they were too much cowed
by the stroke. They feared “if they did not disperse, the king would
come and pull them out by the ears.” Presently they fled. In a quarter
of an hour the price of coaches in the town doubled. Oxford had the
appearance of a surrendered city disgorging its garrison.[451] And with
their flight the history of the Popish Plot comes to an end. On that
the Whigs had staked all, and they had lost. The country was alienated
by their violence and rapacity and fearful of the horrors of civil
war. Once deprived of their means of action in Parliament they could
do nothing but go whither the king drove them, to plot frank rebellion
without the shadow of legality. Up to this point Shaftesbury had led
a bold attack, not without good hope of success. Now he was left to
sustain the defence, stubborn and keen, but in the end incapable of
avoiding ruin. The tide had at last turned, and Charles, who since the
first appearance of Oates had borne with unexampled equanimity a series
of the most fierce assaults, found himself upon a pinnacle of triumph,
his enemies lying crushed beneath his throne until he should goad them
to complete disaster. Had he struck twelve months sooner the country
would in all likelihood have been on their side; but he had gauged the
temper of his people correctly and knew now that they would be with
him. The history of these years is in brief the history of Charles
II’s reign, the history of a long struggle for the power of the crown.
In the panic of the Popish Plot and the wild agitation of the Exclusion
bill that struggle, exasperated by the Dover treaty and the Catholic
intrigues, came to a head. Its consequence was the Rye House Plot,
the perfection of Whig failure. In that struggle too the conflicting
principles found their absolute exponents in the two wittiest and two
of the most able statesmen in English history, each gifted with a
supreme political genius, each exclusive of the other, each fighting
for personal ascendency no less than for an idea, for principle no
less than for power, Charles II and the Earl of Shaftesbury. Without
a grasp of this the history of the times cannot be understood, and
for this reason some historians have found in them, and more have
left, a mere tangle of helpless chaos. Of the two Charles had the
better fortune in his life, Shaftesbury after death. For Shaftesbury,
ruined, disappointed, embittered at the loss of all his hopes, was
yet the father of the Revolution: all that Charles had gained was
thrown away by his less worthy brother. But the personal triumph of
the king was unique. While to the world he seemed a genial debauchee,
whose varied talents would have fitted him equally to be a chemist,
shipwright, jockey, or dancing-master, the horseman, angler, walker,
musician, whose energy tired while his company delighted the most
brilliant of English courts, more admirable than Crichton had he not
been more indolent, he laboured in an inner life at a great endeavour
and, chiefly by letting himself be misunderstood, achieved it.[452]
He restored the crown to its ancient place in the state, whence his
father and his grandfather had let it fall. He gave Parliament just
enough rope to hang itself.
TRIALS FOR TREASON
CHAPTER I
MAGISTRATES AND JUDGES
The trials of the Popish Plot have remained the most celebrated in the
annals of our judicial history. Their reports occupy three volumes of
the State Trials and more than two thousand pages of crowded print.
They contain twenty-two trials for treason, three for murder or attempt
to murder, eleven for perjury, subornation of perjury, libel, and other
misdemeanours. They gave rise to proceedings in Parliament against two
Lord Chief Justices, and against two judges of the Court of King’s
Bench. They are a standing monument to the most astounding outburst
of successful perjury which has occurred in modern times. It is due
to their connection with these trials that posterity has branded the
names of three[453] judges with lasting infamy, and that fourteen men
executed as traitors have earned the reputation of martyrs. Not only
are they filled and brimming with the romance of life and death, but
there lies locked within them the kernel of that vast mass of treason,
intrigue, crime, and falsehood which surrounds and is known as the
Popish Plot. Strangely enough, therefore, they have been little studied
and never understood.
The consequence of this has been unfortunate. Instead of going to
the fountain-head for information, historians have for the most part
contented themselves with relying on accounts supplied by writers on
the one side or the other, sources which are always prejudiced and
usually contradictory. To extract truth from the mutual opposition
of two lies is an ingenious and useful task when evidence is not
forthcoming at first hand; but it is a method less accurate than the
examination of original authorities when these can be consulted. Nor is
there only an obligation to devote attention to the trials themselves;
they cannot be judged alone: and historians have not escaped error
when, although they have studied the trials immediately within view
from the actual reports, they have neglected to read them in the light
of the preceding practice of the English courts of law, and to ground
their opinions upon the whole judicial system which gave them their
peculiar character, and of which they were an inseparable part. To
appreciate properly the significance of the trials they must not be
taken apart from their setting, and it is necessary before passing
judgment upon the events recorded in them to review the past which lies
behind them and the causes which influenced their nature.
The judicial system of England in the latter half of the seventeenth
century was very different from its descendant in the twentieth. Its
nature had been determined by the course of political events which
moulded it into a form as unlike to that of two centuries after as the
later Stuart constitution was to the Victorian.
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the time
when Henry VIII broke the political power of Rome in England until
the day when the last revolution destroyed the influence of the
Jesuits in English politics, the English state lived and developed
in an atmosphere charged with the thunderstorm and resonant with the
note of war. War against foes within the land and without was the
characteristic condition of its existence. Besides conflict with
foreign powers, war and rebellion, constant in Scotland and almost
chronic in Ireland, may be counted in eight reigns three completed
revolutions, ten[454] armed rebellions, two great civil wars, and
plots innumerable, all emanating from within the English nation
alone. From beyond seas enemies schemed almost without ceasing to
overturn religion or government or both as they were established at
home. There is no need to wonder that the English government was a
fighting machine. In this light it was regarded by all men. Where
government is now looked on as a means of getting necessary business
done, of ameliorating conditions of life, and directing the energy of
the country to the highest pitch of efficiency, two centuries and a
half ago it was anxiously watched as an engine of attack or defence
of persons, property, and conscience. The first duty of government
is to govern; to guard the tranquillity of the society over which it
is set, to anticipate the efforts of malignants against the social
security, and to punish crime, the commission of which it has been
unable to prevent. This is at all times a heavy burden; but its weight
is redoubled when private gives way to public crime, and the criminal
turns his strength against the state itself. For acts directed against
society in its corporate being are fraught with far more danger than
those which touch it indirectly, however great their magnitude, not
only because the consequences of the successful act in the former
case are vital, but also because the restless class from which the
actors are drawn commands a higher ability than that containing men to
whom crime is a means to private gain, and is endowed with a reckless
hardihood which springs from the certainty of detection and retribution
in case of failure. In the seventeenth century this class was numerous,
and the difficulties of guarding against it great. The state was always
in danger, the government always battling for its own life and the
safety of society, the morrow always gloomy for the success of their
cause. To be for or against the government was the shibboleth which
marked the peaceable man from the revolutionary. To be “counted to be
a very pernicious man against the government”[455] was sufficient to
weigh against the credibility of a witness before the highest tribunal
of the kingdom. Therefore it was that far wider scope could then be
allowed to acts of administration than ought to be allowed in peaceful
times, and that the government might be sure of support for its bad as
well as its good measures when they appeared to be directed towards the
doing of rough justice on individuals whose presence was felt to be
a common danger. It could be assumed that the means adopted for this
purpose would not be too closely scrutinised.
Government was from necessity a fighting machine. But it was a machine
so ill adapted for fighting that its action, far from attaining to
mechanical precision and gravity, was coarse, spasmodic, questionable,
and was driven to atone for want of ease and regularity by displaying
an excess of often ill-directed energy. The means ready to the hand
of the administration were scanty. Without an army, without police,
without detectives, the order maintained in the country practically
depended upon the goodwill of the upper and middle classes. The police
of the kingdom consisted of watchmen in the cities and boroughs; in
the country, of parish constables. Both were notoriously inefficient.
The type of watchmen with which Londoners were familiar in the opening
years of the seventeenth century is sufficiently known from the
character of Dogberry. About the same time the parish constables were
distinguished for being “often absent from their houses, being for
the most part husbandmen, and so most of the day in the fields.”[456]
As late as 1796 the watchmen of London were recruited by the various
authorities from “such aged and often superannuated men living in
their respective districts as may offer their services,” and were
recognised to be feeble, half-starved, lacking the least hope of
reward or stimulus to activity.[457] Without an excessive strain on
the imagination it may be conjectured that in the intervening period
the police system did not rise to a high pitch of perfection. In the
capital the king’s guards and the city trained bands were available
forces, but in the provinces the only body on which reliance could
be placed for the execution of justice was formed by the sheriff’s
officers or in the last resort the cumbrous militia. Even the militia
could not be maintained under arms for more than twelve days in the
year, for although the force of any county might be kept on foot for
a longer period by the king’s special direction, the Lord Lieutenant
had no power to raise money with which to pay the men.[458] The only
practicable instrument of government for the defence of the state
was the judicial system of the country. As there was no method known
for the prevention of crime by an organised force of police, and no
deterrent exerted on would-be criminals by the existence of a standing
body of soldiery, the only possible weapon to be used against them was
to be found in the law courts. It followed that the judges and justices
of the peace not only fulfilled the judicial and magisterial functions
which are known to modern times, but constituted as well an active arm
of the administration.
The justices of the peace combined in their persons the characters,
which have since been distinguished, of prosecutor, magistrate,
detective, and often policeman. They raised the hue and cry, chased
malefactors, searched houses, took prisoners. A justice might issue
a warrant for the arrest, conduct the search himself, effect the
capture, examine the accused with and without witnesses, extract
a confession by alternately cajoling him as a friend and bullying
him as a magistrate, commit him, and finally give damning evidence
against him at his trial. Such was the conduct of Alderman Sir Thomas
Aleyn in the case of Colonel Turner, tried and convicted for burglary
in 1664.[459] The alderman examined Turner in the first place, and
charged him point-blank with the offence. He then searched his house.
In this he was unsuccessful, but the next day, owing to information
received, tracked the colonel to a shop in the Minories, where he
was found in possession of money suspected to be part of the stolen
property.[460] Aleyn carried him to the owner of the stolen goods, upon
whose engagement not to prosecute Turner confessed that he knew where
the plunder was concealed, and by a further series of artifices induced
him to surrender, through the agency of his wife, part of the missing
jewelry. On this he committed both Colonel and Mrs. Turner to Newgate,
and finally appeared at their trial to tell the whole story of his
manœuvres in considerable detail and with the greatest composure.[461]
Twenty years later, as Sir John Reresby was going to bed one night,
he was roused by the Duke of Monmouth’s page to play a similar part.
Mr. Thynne had been shot dead as he was driving in his coach along
Pall Mall,[462] and Sir John was summoned to raise the hue and cry. He
went at once to the house of the murdered man, issued warrants for the
arrest of suspected persons, and proceeded to investigate the case.
From a Swede who was brought before him he obtained the necessary
information, and set out to pursue the culprits. After giving chase all
night and searching several houses, he finally took the German officer
who had been a principal in the murder in the house of a Swedish doctor
in Leicester fields at six o’clock in the morning, and was able to
boast in his diary that he had performed the somewhat perilous task of
entering the room first and personally arresting the captain.[463] On
another occasion Reresby deserved well of the government by his action
in an episode connected with the Rye House Plot. Six Scotchmen had been
arrested and examined in the North, and were being sent in custody
to London by directions of one of the secretaries of state. Sir John
however was led to suspect that the examination had not been thoroughly
conducted and stopped the men at York. He examined them again and
extorted confessions of considerable importance, which he was then able
to forward to the secretary in company with the prisoners.[464]
Instances to illustrate the nature of these more than magisterial
duties might easily be multiplied. The agitation caused by the Popish
Plot was naturally a spur to the activity of justices throughout the
country. Especially was this the case in the west of England, where
the Roman Catholics had their greatest strength. In Staffordshire Mr.
Chetwyn, in Derbyshire Mr. Gilbert, in Monmouthshire Captain Arnold
were unflagging in their efforts to scent out conspiracy and popery. In
consequence of information laid before the committee of the House of
Lords Mr. Chetwyn, in company with the celebrated Justice Warcup,[465]
searched Lord Stafford’s house. Tart Hall, for a secret vault in which
some priests were said to be concealed. The search was unsuccessful,
but the vigorous manner in which it was conducted is testified by
Chetwyn’s furious exclamation “that if he were the king, he would
have the house set fire to, and make the old rogues come forth.”[466]
The same magistrate also would have assisted in the work of obtaining
Dugdale’s confession, had he not been absent in London at the time.[467]
To Henry Gilbert, justice of the peace for Derbyshire, belonged the
merit of tracking, arresting, and obtaining the conviction of George
Busby, Jesuit, for being a Romish priest, at the Derby Assizes of
1681.[468] The evidence which Gilbert gave is very instructive as to
the scope of a magistrate’s duty.[469] As early as January 1679 William
Waller had come to search Mr. Powtrel’s house at West Hallam, where
the Jesuit was said to be concealed, but was dissuaded on Gilbert’s
assurance that he had already been over the place several times in
vain and believed Busby to have escaped from England. Since then
however trustworthy information had come to hand that he was still
in hiding. Gilbert first reconnoitred the house under the pretext of
buying wood for his coal-pits. He then went away, returned with a
constable and five or six other men and, fortified by the news that
Busby had been seen in the garden only a few moments before, conducted
a thorough search, which resulted in the discovery of various priestly
vestments, an altar, “a box of wafers, mass-books, and divers other
popish things.”[470] This was on March 1, 1681. A fortnight later, in
spite of some opposition from Mr. Justice Charlton, who was on circuit
for the spring assizes, Gilbert sent the prize, which by law should
have been burnt, back to West Hallam, in the hope of lulling the priest
to a false security. On the same night he went to gather the fruits of
his manœuvre. Posting men round the house, he made a noise and then
waited to see “if they could spy any light, or hear any walking in the
lofts or false floors.”[471] A constable and further assistance was
summoned, and about midnight Gilbert tapped at a window and demanded
admittance. It was refused, and after a proper interval the constable
broke in the door and the whole party entered the house. The priest’s
chamber was found in disorder; the fire had been lately extinguished,
the bedclothes were lying about the room in heaps, and the mattress,
which had been turned, was cold on the top, but warm underneath. This
was the prelude to a thorough examination of the house. The spies in
the garden had heard the priest’s footsteps near a corner under the
roof as he retreated to his hiding-place. From one until ten in the
morning of March 16 the search was carried on, Gilbert tapping on the
plaster inside with his sword and the others meeting him by knocking
on the tiles and walls from the other side. Hope was nearly abandoned
when the searchers were spurred by the jeers of the people of the house
to one last effort. At length they were rewarded. Sounding the roof
inch by inch, they came upon a spot near some chimney stacks where the
knocks from the two sides did not tally; breaking open the tiles, they
discovered a priest’s hole, and in it Busby, whom Mr. Gilbert forthwith
bore off in triumph and committed to Derby gaol.
These exploits were no doubt typical of the range of activity common to
busy justices of the peace throughout the kingdom. Important business
passed through their hands, and they felt their position likewise
to be important. They were an energetic body of men and spared not
themselves, nor their neighbours, nor those against whom their action
was directed in the execution of their duty as government officials.
Each was sure to be in his way a local magnate, and thus the influence
which the government exerted on the justices was through them spread
widely over the country. Well known among provincial magistrates, and
still more active than the two above mentioned, was Captain Arnold,
whose name appeared in the commission of the peace for Monmouthshire.
It was this Arnold who in 1679 assisted Dr. Croft, Bishop of Hereford,
in his attack on the Jesuit college at Combe, near Monmouth. The
college was dispersed and ten horse loads of books, seized in it, were
removed to the library of Hereford Cathedral.[472] In December of the
previous year he had been instrumental in the arrest of Father Pugh,
formerly of the Society of Jesus, and in the seizure of papers and
valuables belonging to Hall, another member of the society.[473] But
Arnold exhibited something more than the zeal proper to an energetic
and business-like justice. He was a keen adherent to the Whig and
extreme Protestant party. In addition to the usual government reward
of £50 for the apprehension of a Jesuit, he offered £200 from his own
resources for each capture.[474] He made friends with the missioners
and then procured their own dependents to give evidence against them.
He armed bodies of servants to assist him in his expeditions, and
brought the unfortunate priest whom Oates had named as prospective
Bishop of Llandaff triumphantly into Monmouth at the head of a dozen
horsemen.[475] Chief among his performances was the capture of two
well-known Jesuits, David Henry Lewis and Philip Evans, popularly
dubbed Captain. Lewis was taken by Arnold in person, Evans through
his agency. Against both he produced the witnesses and managed the
evidence.[476] Both were convicted of high treason under the statute
of Elizabeth, for being priests in orders received from the see of
Rome. Evans was executed at Cardiff on July 22, Lewis at Usk on
August 27, 1679.[477] In the summer of 1680 Arnold’s name leaped into
notoriety in London, when on July 16 John Giles was brought to the
bar at the Old Bailey “for assaulting and intending to despatch and
murder John Arnold, one of his Majesty’s justices of the peace.”[478]
This incident however, which raised Arnold’s importance so high with
the Whig party that his popularity bade fair to rival even that of the
murdered Sir Edmund Godfrey,[479] affords strong grounds for doubting
the candour of motive in his official alertness; for there is reason
to believe that no attempt whatever was made upon his life, and that
the whole affair was trumped up in a most discreditable manner with
a view to establishing more firmly the reputation of the Protestant
party and the guilt of the Roman Catholics.[480] One more, and this
again a characteristic instance, may suffice to illustrate the
varied, almost intriguing, nature of a magistrate’s position and the
inquisitorial side which did not completely disappear from his duty
until far into the nineteenth century.[481] At Lord Stafford’s trial
the three justices who had examined Dugdale immediately after his
arrest in December 1678 were called by the prisoner to prove that the
witness had then absolutely denied all knowledge of the Plot.[482] To
rebut this evidence the managers of the prosecution called William
Southall, coroner of the county of Stafford. This man, who was not
even a magistrate and occupied the least judicial position known to
the law, had taken the opportunity of some legal business which was
to be transacted between a cousin of his and Dugdale to undertake a
little private examination of the latter on his own behalf in the hopes
of obtaining information about the Plot. According to his own account
Southall acquitted himself with some skill and, by assuming a knowing
air as if convinced of Dugdale’s guilt and playing upon his hopes of
pardon and reward, managed to extract from him a material confession.
With this he repaired, not to the justices of the peace by whom Dugdale
had originally been examined, but to three different magistrates, and
in their company was present the next day at a detailed examination of
Dugdale, who then swore to nearly the same evidence as he now gave at
the trial of Lord Stafford.[483] Whether this story was true, or, as
is suggested by the ease of Southall’s success where others naturally
better qualified had failed, the interview and its result was arranged
beforehand between the two men, is at this point immaterial; for honest
or fraudulent, the coroner’s behaviour was accepted as a matter of
course, and without the least hint that there was any irregularity
in the action of an inferior official going behind the backs of his
superiors, and finally transferring so delicate a matter out of their
cognisance altogether into the hands of a third party.
Such were the functions of the justices of the peace in the seventeenth
century, and so wide was the reach of the magisterial arm stretched
out as a weapon in the service of the administration of government.
And if the justices filled so important a position, still more
important was that assumed by the king’s judges. The justices were able
administrators, dealers of small mercy to the evildoer, guardians of
the peace in the name of which their commissions ran; but the judges
took a place in the foremost rank as great officers of state. The
character of their office had been determined by the famous conflict
between James I and Lord Chief Justice Coke which came to a head in
1616 and ended in Coke’s dismissal.[484] The Chief Justice’s endeavour
had been to erect the bench into an independent tribunal, founded on
the ruins of broken agreement between king and Commons, and occupying
the position of arbitrator and guardian of the constitution midway
between the two. To the king and to Bacon, who advised him, this seemed
intolerable; to James, because the ideal of absolutism which guided
his mind could not admit in the state a constitutional oracle other
than himself; to the Attorney-General, because his liberal instincts,
wide statesmanship, and knowledge of political requirements made
clear the impracticable nature of Coke’s ideas, the bonds of crabbed
technicality with which they sought to shackle the future, their
essential conservatism. Coke’s parchment knowledge, too good for James,
was not good enough for Bacon. If Bacon inclined towards administrative
absolutism, and Coke represented in the struggle the majesty of the
law, assuredly the law for which the Chief Justice fought, for ever
seeking guidance in the records of the past, was unfit to mould the
future of a great nation. So when Coke fell, characteristically
enough, over a sordid squabble into which a question of principle was
inappropriately dragged, his fall demands our sympathy perhaps, but
hardly our regret. Regret at a victory in the personal cause of the
monarch and the check given to the forward march of constitutional
progress is profitless. Between the ideas of Bacon and Coke there was
no middle course open at the moment when a choice became necessary.
It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that the judges must either
become an independent power in the state, an irresponsible tribunal
to which constitutional questions of the highest importance should
be referred for decision in strict accordance with the rules of the
Court of King’s Bench, or be content to remain in subservience to the
crown, supporters of the king’s prerogative, and administrators of
his policy. The expedient, which has since made the way plain, of the
constitutional supremacy of the Commons of England was then unborn, and
as yet in the light of practical affairs inconceivable. The Lord Chief
Justice, “toughest of men,” and too stubborn to yield, was broken; but
his brethren on the bench gave way and offered assurances of their
good conduct for the future and of their devotion to the royal will.
James took the opportunity of the lecture which he read to the judges
in the star chamber to compare their behaviour in meddling with the
prerogative of the crown to the atheism and blasphemy committed by good
Christians in disputing the word of God.
Thus the judges became, according to Bacon’s wish, “lions, but yet
lions under the throne,” and carried themselves very circumspectly
not to “check or oppose any points of sovereignty.”[485] Of their
regularity in this course there can be no doubt, for if any lapsed
into forbidden ways, a judge he speedily ceased to be. His appointment
was _durante beneplacito_[486] and revocable at the will of the king;
and the king took full advantage of his power. The example offered by
the case of Coke was not left long in isolation. The government was
engaged in the hopeless attempt to uphold the constitution of the Tudor
monarchy at a time when the nation had outgrown it, and had opened
a war to the death with the progressive tendency of Parliament. In
such a struggle the judges were the king’s strongest weapon, and as a
weapon that turns uselessly in the hand, the recalcitrant judge was
discarded without scruple. When the better class of judges questioned
the legality of acts of government they met with the same fate as
their rugged predecessor. Under Charles I two Lord Chief Justices were
dismissed and Chief Baron Walter was suspended from office. Judicial
offices of consequence were filled with “men of confidence,” men who
enjoyed the confidence of the king and quickly lost that of every one
else.[487]
In their support of the crown by technical legality and practical
injustice the courts lost all repute as temples of the law. Even that
high royalist, Lord Clarendon, recognised that reliance upon such
means was a cause of weakness, not of strength, and that men ceased to
respect judicial decisions when they were used to cloak the designs of
government. “When they saw,” he writes, “in a court of law (that law
that gave them a title to the possession of all they had) reason of
state urged as elements of law, judges as sharp-sighted as secretaries
of state, and in the mysteries of state, ... they had no reason to
hope that doctrine, or the promoter of it, would be contained within
any bounds. And here the damage and mischief cannot be expressed that
the crown and state sustained by the deserved reproach and infamy
that attended the judges; there being no possibility to preserve the
dignity, reverence, and estimation of the laws themselves but by the
integrity and innocency of the judges.”[488] To the thorough supporter
of the administration the matter appeared in a different light. When
the two dissenting judges gave way under pressure and adhered to the
report of the majority in favour of ship-money, they were told by Lord
Wentworth that it was the greatest service the legal profession had
rendered to the crown during this period.[489]
For good or evil the work of reducing the bench to an arm of the
administration had been done, and from this political degradation it
did not recover for nearly three-quarters of a century, until William
III was seated on the throne and the judges became independent of the
crown.
The stirring events of the great rebellion, the Protectorate, and the
Restoration, which so profoundly affected the life and institutions of
the nation in other ways, touched the bench but slightly. In the early
months of the Long Parliament a resolution was passed by both houses of
Parliament to the effect that the judges’ appointments should be for
the future _quamdiu se bene gesserint_, and on January 15, 1641, the
king gave effect to this by a declaration that they should no longer
hold office at the pleasure of the crown but during good behaviour. For
twenty-four years the improvement was maintained in theory; in practice
the old system kept its hold unshaken. During the short remainder of
Charles I’s reign the judges were concerned on only two occasions in
affairs of state. These were however enough to demonstrate that the
change in the manner of their appointments had by no means the result
of rehabilitating the character of the bench and restoring to it the
quality, which it had long lacked, of independence. One of the first
acts of the Long Parliament, after dealing with the vital question
of ship-money, was to turn upon the judges who had lent the weight
of their names to the decision which pronounced its legality. Finch
was violently attacked as a traitor in the House of Commons, and his
impeachment voted with scarcely a dissentient voice. The Lord Keeper
preferred the path of safety to that of dignity and fled to Holland
on board a royal vessel, leaving the impeachment to be formally
concluded in his absence. At the same time proceedings were commenced
against six other judges who had sat at Hampden’s trial.[490] The
effect of this was immediate. Only once again did the judges come into
prominence before the outbreak of the Civil War. Scarcely five months
after Finch’s impeachment the House of Lords demanded their opinion
whether or no the articles against Strafford amounted to making him
guilty of treason. Without hesitation they replied unanimously that
upon the articles which the Lords had voted to be proved it was their
opinion that the Earl of Strafford did deserve to undergo the pains
and penalties of high treason by law.[491] Not only was their conduct
in delivering this extra-judicial opinion decidedly irregular,[492]
but their decision was in flagrant opposition to the clearest dictates
of justice and rules of law, for the accusations against Strafford
cannot be regarded as tantamount, or even approaching, to a substantial
charge of treason.[493] The fault lay not in their intelligence, but
in the system which had made their honesty an asset in the treasury of
government, and had robbed them of their ability to judge facts in the
light of law and reason without reference to principles of statecraft
or the struggle of parties. It was not upon the merits of the case
that their decision was based now that it was unfavourable to the
administration, any more than their favourable decisions had been based
upon the merits of cases when the administration was in power: the
only difference was that formerly they had feared dismissal from the
service of an angry sovereign as the result of an independent opinion,
whereas now they feared impeachment at the hands of the angrier Commons.
Under the Commonwealth and the Protectorate the bench fared no better.
In October 1649 all judges and other officers of the law, down to the
very clerks of the courts, who had shown themselves hostile to the
Parliament and in sympathy with the monarchy, were summarily dismissed,
and their posts filled by men in whom trust could be reposed. Even
this was not sufficient. In affairs of state justice was at a still
greater discount under the Protectorate than under the monarchy.
The cause of right was pleaded in vain when it came into collision
with the power and plans of the Protector. “For not observing his
pleasure” judges were rebuked, suspended, dismissed. Special judicial
commissions were appointed to do his work; obnoxious attorneys and
critical counsel were imprisoned.[494] The jury which acquitted Lilburn
after “the furious hurley-burleys” of his second trial were sharply
examined on their conduct by the Council of State.[495] Moreover the
new appointments to the bench in spite of all care were not entirely
satisfactory to Cromwell’s government. The judges still exhibited a
bent which must have been far from pleasing to the republicans. Sir
Matthew Hale withdrew as far as possible from all political trials and
refused to sit on Penruddock’s trial after the collapse of the rising
at Salisbury.[496] Surely it is this rather than the respectability
of their characters that should explain how it came about that at the
Restoration nine out of the fifteen republican judges then in office
were found acceptable to the new government.
The character of the bench was no more altered by the Restoration
than by the rebellion. If the traditions of forty years had clung too
closely to be shaken off by those who might perhaps wish to be rid of
them, they were not likely to be removed ten years later by those whose
interest it was to retain them. The only practical difference was that
the judges, whose duty as partisans of the government had been sealed
by time and recognised by all who were concerned in the government,
could now return to their more natural sphere as servants of the crown
as well. Thenceforward until the end of the Stuart monarchy they were
indispensable as allies of the king, protectors of the administration,
shining examples of loyalty well applied and labour serviceably
directed. They possessed moreover the signal advantage of being able to
enforce the example which they inculcated. Those who did not obtained
an evil reputation at court; and Sir Matthew Hale was looked at askance
as one who was suspected of not lending a whole-hearted support to the
government.[497] Even the theoretical advantage which had been gained
by the Long Parliament now disappeared. Charles II took advantage of
the lengthy prorogation of 1665 quietly to reintroduce appointments “at
the good pleasure” of the crown.[498]
There was however some change for the better. A large majority of the
nation was for the first time for thirty years united in sympathy with
the government. The universal desire was for peace and stability.
The great constitutional questions which had rent the kingdom and
distracted the bench lay for the moment at rest. Government was no
longer divided against itself; what was now found in opposition was
not a combination of popular feeling with constitutional principle, to
crush which the law must be strained by a serviceable judiciary, but a
discredited party of fanatics and dissenters, the dregs of a defeated
rebellion, against whom the law could be directed legally and to the
satisfaction of the vast majority of the king’s subjects.
The demand therefore for that cast of mind which under Charles I had
been the peculiarity of a successful judge no longer existed for
Charles II. When definitions of law were no longer needed to support
the crown in opposition to the other legitimate elements of the
constitution, and when the government was in close accord with the
people, there was no temptation to subject the law to such strains
as it had formerly been made to bear in the effort to galvanise into
life a system which had already died a natural death. Perhaps it was
less that judges had become more scrupulous than that the objection to
their scruples had disappeared. To whatever cause they were due, it
is certain that the reign of Charles II was marked by the renewal of
decisions which must have been obnoxious to the government. No doubt
these are not to be found in particular cases which were regarded as
of high consequence, but the tendency is perfectly visible, and in
one instance at least proved to be of profound importance. This was
the trial of Penn and Meade in 1670, for by the proceedings which
arose from it was finally established the principle that a jury has
an absolute right to give such a verdict as it thinks proper without
being open to question therefore by any other person or authority
whatsoever.[499] The Quakers had been indicted for an unlawful
assembly, and the jury before whom they were tried, in spite of
repeated direction and shameful abuse from the Lord Mayor and the
Recorder, found a verdict of not guilty. For this the court sentenced
the jurymen to a fine of forty marks apiece and imprisonment until the
fine was paid. Bushell, the foreman, and his fellow-jurors obtained a
writ of habeas corpus, and the point was argued at length on the return
to the writ. Ten judges out of twelve affirmed the absolute discretion
of the jury to believe or disbelieve the evidence given according to
the dictates of conscience, and not only were the jurymen discharged
from custody without paying the fine, but no attempt has ever been made
since to contest the principle thus established.[500]
One further instance may be noted. In 1675 a consultation of all the
judges but two was held to decide a case which was submitted to them
by the Attorney-General. A great riot had been made a month before
by the weavers’ apprentices in various parts and suburbs of London
by way of protest against the increased introduction of looms into
their trade; the looms had been broken, a large amount of property
destroyed, and several persons injured. The Attorney-General now wished
to indict the rioters for high treason; but the judges were divided,
five for, five against the opinion that treason had been committed,
and in spite of the evident anxiety of the government to proceed
against the apprentices on the graver issue, the Attorney-General had
to be content with laying the indictments for a riot and obtaining
convictions for the lesser offence.[501] When it is remembered that the
London apprentices perpetually drew upon themselves the watchful eye of
the government by their obnoxious politics, and that a trade riot was
always suspected of being the forerunner of a sectarian revolt, it is
evident that the decision of the judges meant considerable annoyance,
if not an actual rebuff, to the government.[502]
The general usefulness of the bench was not however impaired by such
exceptions. The judges still formed one of the most important parts of
the administrative machinery. They were consulted by the government,
gave advice, and put into effect the results of their advice. They
supplied the king during the long prorogation of 1675 with the pretext
which he required for the suppression of the coffee-houses.[503] Before
the trial of the regicides they had held a conference with the king’s
counsel, Attorney, and Solicitor-General to resolve debatable points
which were likely to arise in the course of the trials.[504] When the
Licensing Act expired in 1679, the judges were ordered by the king to
make a report concerning the control of the press. Their unanimous
decision was “that his Majesty may, by law, prohibit the printing and
publishing of all newsbooks and pamphlets of news whatsoever, not
licensed by his Majesty’s authority, as manifestly tending to a breach
of the peace and disturbance of the kingdom”;[505] and their preaching
was put into practice before many months had elapsed at the trials of
Harris[506] and Carr,[507] the former of whom was sentenced to the
pillory and a fine of £500, and the latter to the suppression of the
newspaper which he owned.
Actions for libel had always afforded a wide field for the exercise of
administrative authority. Under the Clarendon _régime_ the sentence
pronounced by Chief-Justice Hyde upon Twyn, the printer, had fully
sustained the traditions of the trials of Prynne, Bastwick, and
Lilburn.[508] With the multiplication of political pamphlets after
1678 trials and convictions for libel became frequent. Within two
years six important prosecutions of authors, printers, or publishers
were instituted, and not only resulted almost always in the infliction
of heavy punishments, but offered at the same time opportunities for
many caustic and edifying remarks from the bench. Some time after, the
number of trials for political libels and seditious words held within
the space of seven months actually mounted to the total of sixteen.[509]
The advantage of lectures thus delivered in court on general politics
and the duties of a good subject was of considerable value to the
government. In this part of their duties the judges rivalled even the
courtly eloquence of divines whose chief occupation was the advocacy
of the doctrine of non-resistance. On his elevation to the bench in
October 1676 Sir William Scroggs “made so excellent a speech, that
my Lord Montague, then present, told the king he had since his happy
restoration caused many hundred sermons to be printed, all which
together taught not half so much loyalty; therefore as a sermon desired
his command to have it printed and published in all the market towns
in England.”[510] It was afterwards made a ground for proceedings in
Parliament against Scroggs that he had publicly spoken “very much
against petitioning, condemning it as resembling 41, as factious and
tending to rebellion, or to that effect”[511] and it was said that
Sir Robert Atkyns was dismissed from the bench for contradicting a
dictum of the Chief Justice while on circuit, “that the presentation
of a petition for the summoning of Parliament was high treason.”[512]
Similar behaviour was also made the subject of complaint against Mr.
Justice Jones.[513] Even the courteous Lord Chancellor Finch, in
delivering sentence upon Lord Stafford, undertook to prove by the way
that Godfrey had been murdered, and London burnt, by the papists.[514]
But most of all the influence and importance of the judges was shown
in trials for treason. In those days state trials were not merely
impartial inquiries into the question whether or no certain persons had
committed certain acts, the nature of which was under examination: they
were life-and-death struggles of the king and his government against
the attacks of those who wished to subvert them. It was the business
of those engaged in them to see that the king’s cause took no hurt.
In this light they were universally regarded, and to this end their
conduct was undertaken. Judges and jurors alike were engaged in the
recognised task of the defence of the state. To the hearers it was
no quaint piece of antiquated phraseology when the clerk of the crown
addressed the prisoner arraigned at the bar for high treason: “These
good men that are now called, and here appear, are those which are
to pass between you and our sovereign lord the king, upon your life
and death”; it was a sober expression of vivid truth. The jury stood
between the king’s life and the intrigues of a defeated malefactor.
Of his innocence they were indeed ready to be convinced, but it would
require strong evidence to convince them. In his guilt their belief
was already strong. They can scarcely have refrained from regarding
themselves less as agents employed in the cause of truth to examine
without prejudice the merits of the case before them than as executors
of an already predetermined justice.
And here the weight of the judge’s authority was preponderant. He
directed those heavy advantages which weighed on the side of the
king and against the prisoner. The stringent system of preliminary
procedure, which rendered extreme the difficulty of properly preparing
his case beforehand, his isolation when actually upon trial, and the
unsympathetic atmosphere by which he was surrounded, and of which the
counsel for the prosecution were ready to take advantage to press every
point home, combined to render the accused almost helpless against
the crown. Even when administered with mercy the system was severely
favourable to the prosecution; and the adverse rules which hemmed in
the prisoner were generally worked to the utmost. To understand these
clearly, it will be necessary to pass shortly in review the history of
criminal procedure in the English courts of law, and the developments
which led to its state at the time of the trials for the Popish
Plot.[515]
CHAPTER II
CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
The Reformation, as in almost all other branches of modern history,
constitutes the starting-point at which the study of public procedure
must be begun. Rather it would be true to say that in this as in other
subjects it should form the starting-point. Unfortunately the necessary
materials are here wanting. The State Trials, which afford not only the
greatest quantity but the finest quality of evidence on the judicial
history of England, are printed from reports which do not begin before
the reign of Queen Mary in 1554. From that date until our own day
they are continuous, and form the greatest collection of historical
documents in the English language. From that date too the history of
criminal procedure in modern England may be said to begin. Throughout
the seventeenth century the courts of law occupy for the student of
history a position of singular importance. They were the scenes not
only of profound constitutional struggles, but of brilliant and deadly
political contests.
The study of criminal procedure is therefore indispensable to an
understanding of the numerous historical problems which have been
worked out in the courts of law; especially to an understanding of
those, not few, which have been worked to a conclusion, but not to a
solution.
The difference between the procedure in criminal cases as it exists
to-day and as it existed two centuries and a half ago is but little
known. It is the more difficult to understand because it is witnessed
by few great landmarks in the history of the administration of
justice, and owes its existence to no promulgation of new codes or
rules to which a triumphant finger may be pointed. Rather the new
system has emerged from the old by a procession of unconsidered
changes, at different times, of varying importance, the results of
which have come to be so universally known and approved, that to the
backward glance they seem to be not the outcome of long experience, but
inextricable parts of a system which has existed from all time. The
essential change has been one of conduct less than of opinion, and is
to be found rather in an altered point of view than in any variation of
practical arrangements.
The evolution of the forms under which trials were conducted during
the later Stuart period was slow and unpronounced. The all-pervading
activity of the Tudor privy council in affairs of state had left a
deep imprint upon the course of English justice, and one from which
it did not soon free itself. It was then that the courts gained
the inquisitorial character which they did not lose until after
the restoration of the monarchy, and it was not until the Puritan
Revolution that the judicial authority of the council, which had
grown to such a height of severity in the preceding half century,
was swept away. During that time the privy council played a part of
high importance in political trials. When a suspected criminal was
to be brought to justice a stringent preliminary inquiry was held.
The accused was examined on oath and in secret by the council. His
examination was taken down in writing and might afterwards be produced
against him under the name of a “confession.” The investigation here
made had the greatest weight. “In point of fact,” says Dr. Gardiner,
“these preliminary investigations formed the real trial. If the accused
could satisfy the privy council of his innocence, he would at once
be set at liberty. If he failed in this, he would be brought before
a court from which there was scarcely a hope of escape.”[516] As a
rule he did fail. The privy councillors were not apt to waste their
time on persons who were not brought before them as suspect on good
grounds, or objectionable for reason of state. Innocence moreover
would be little protection to a prisoner in the latter case, for the
political grounds against him would be unaffected by any scrutiny of
evidence. If the accused was committed by the council, it was with no
bright prospect before his eyes. Until the day of his trial he was
kept close prisoner. He had no notice of the witnesses who were to be
called against him or of the evidence which they would give. Nor was
the evidence for the prosecution the only point in which the prisoner
was at a disadvantage, for he was not allowed to call witnesses to set
up a case for himself. This at least seems to have been the fact; but
even had theory permitted the appearance in court of witnesses for the
prisoner, in practice the difference made would have been trifling, for
he certainly had no means of procuring their attendance or, supposing
they came, of ascertaining what they would say. Even at the close of
the seventeenth century, when witnesses for the defence were recognised
and encouraged by the courts, great difficulty was experienced by
prisoners in procuring the attendance of the right persons, and, when
these came, they sometimes gave evidence on the wrong side.[517] The
accused was brought into court in absolute ignorance of what would be
produced against him, and was compelled to defend himself on the spur
of the moment against skilled lawyers, who had been preparing their
case for weeks or perhaps months beforehand. Neither before or at the
trial was he allowed the aid of counsel or solicitor. On being brought
to the bar, the prisoner was treated in such a way as to rob him almost
of the possibility of escape. During his confinement examinations had
been made of all other suspected persons, and their depositions had
been taken. Not only could these now be produced in court against him,
but the confessions of accomplices, when these could be found, were
regarded as specially cogent evidence. No one, it was said, could have
so great a knowledge of the crime as the accomplices of the criminal—a
remark, it must be admitted, which, at a time when there existed no
organised force of police, was not without some show of justice.
No doubt such men were of bad character, but then it was not to be
expected that one could raise the curtain on scenes of such ill-odour
without coming into questionable company. The prisoner was not allowed
to cross-examine the witnesses brought against him and had not even the
right to confront them in court face to face.[518]
In a trial of any intricacy the case for the crown was usually divided
between several counsel. Each worked out his part minutely before
giving place to the next, partly by making direct statements, partly
by a string of questions addressed to the prisoner. The trial was thus
resolved into a series of excited altercations between the accused
and the counsel for the crown. The success with which the defence was
conducted depended entirely upon the skill and readiness displayed by
the prisoner himself. At his trial for treason in 1554[519] Sir Nicolas
Throckmorton maintained for close upon six hours a wordy conflict with
Sergeant Stamford and the Attorney-General, and acquitted himself so
well that the jury after deliberating for two hours returned a verdict
of not guilty.[520] The Duke of Norfolk, convicted of high treason
in 1571, was set an even harder task, for he was compelled to deal
successively with no less than four eminent counsel who had undertaken
different parts of the case against him.[521]
Apart from the opening speeches of the crown lawyers and the summing
up of the evidence by the judge at the end of the trial, there was
little room for any display of fine oratory, and practically none
for the sentimental appeal to the jury which at a later date became
so prominent a feature in the courts. Every point was argued by the
opposing parties in a close and acrimonious conversation, which had at
least the merit of throwing light from every possible point of view
on the subject in hand. In this the judges presiding did not take
much part, nor was the summing up regarded as of special importance;
but explanatory remarks, and questions on points which seemed to the
judges to have been overlooked, were occasionally interposed from the
bench.[522]
But what weighed most heavily of all against the prisoner was the fact
that rules of evidence, as they are understood at the present time,
were practically unknown. The only distinction recognised was between
the evidence of an eye-witness to the actual crime and everything
else. If other than eye-witnesses were admitted, there seemed to be
no reason why the most insignificant evidence upon hearsay of facts,
however remotely connected with those alleged in the charge, should not
be produced against the prisoner. Even the production of the originals
of documents relied upon as evidence for the prosecution was not
required.[523]
This was a fault in criminal procedure which persisted until at least
the end of the seventeenth century and exercised a supreme influence
upon the course of justice. Grave attention and decisive weight was
given to evidence which in modern times would not be allowed to come
into court at all. The most irrelevant detail was freely admitted
against the prisoner. At Raleigh’s trial in 1603 one Dyer, a pilot,
swore that when he was at Lisbon he had accidentally met a man who said
that Cobham and Raleigh would cut King James’ throat before he could
be crowned.[524] Evidence of a still more remarkable character was
given at the trial of Benjamin Faulconer for perjury in 1653. After the
charge had been proved, witnesses were called to testify to a variety
of facts startlingly unconnected with the case. They swore that the
prisoner had been guilty of using bad language, that he had drunk the
devil’s health in the streets of Petersfield, and that he had “a common
name for a robber on the highway.”[525] All this was allowed as good
evidence to raise a presumption of his guilt. Instances of the lax
rules of evidence in force might be multiplied. At Hulet’s trial for
having been executioner of Charles I witnesses were admitted for the
defence to testify that they had heard Brandon, the hangman, say that
he had himself cut off the king’s head. On the other hand the evidence
for the prosecution chiefly consisted of the testimony of persons who
swore that they had heard Hulet admit the truth of the charge.[526]
The trial of Hawkins for theft before Sir Matthew Hale in 1669 is
still more notable. Not only was evidence allowed to prove for the
prosecution that Hawkins had committed, and for the defence that he
had not committed, two other thefts wholly unconnected with the case
before the court,[527] but the prisoner, who was a country parson,
was permitted to produce a certificate signed by over a hundred of
his parishioners, to the effect that the prosecutor was “a notorious
Anabaptist, an enemy to the Church of England, and a perfect hater
of all ministers of the same, but in particular most inveterate and
malicious against Robert Hawkins, clerk, late minister of the church
of Chilton,” and going on to express their belief in the innocence of
Hawkins and the dishonesty of the prosecutor.[528]
The trials of Colonel Turner for burglary and of the Suffolk witches,
who were condemned in the year 1665, afford perhaps the strongest
instances of the slight extent to which the principles of evidence
were understood. In the former the chief part of the evidence given
by Sir Thomas Aleyn, the principal witness, was concerned with what
other people had done and said, and would by modern methods have
certainly been ruled out; in the latter the smallest apprehension of
the value of testimony would have resulted in an abrupt termination of
the case, for nothing which by courtesy could be called evidence was
produced against the wretched old women who were being tried for their
lives, and their conviction was obtained partly on the strength of a
statement by Dr. Browne of Norwich, author of the _Religio Medici_,
as to the nature of witches and their relations with the devil, no
single word of which could have been spoken in a modern court of
justice.[529] It was a state of things, due to lack of experience and
of scientific vision, which prevailed until after the Revolution and
exerted a powerful influence against the accused. In other points
however criminal procedure in the English courts underwent changes
of considerable importance. From the reign of Queen Mary until the
Puritan Revolution it had remained almost unaltered, but during the
Commonwealth and Protectorate several modifications were introduced. An
apparently spontaneous change, inaugurated by no legislative enactment,
bore witness to the fact that the view in which criminal trials were
regarded was insensibly shifting from the ancient to the modern
standpoint. The inquisitorial nature of the old trial was gradually
disappearing. Chief among the differences which may be noted as having
arisen is the fact that the prisoner was no longer systematically
questioned in court. When he was questioned, it was now, if he were
innocent, in his favour. His examination was no longer what it had been
in the days of Elizabeth and James I, the very essence of the trial.
Questions were still put to him, but now they were directed by the
judges and not by the prosecution. The process was of no greater scope
than was demanded by the necessities of the defence of a prisoner who
has not the assistance of counsel. It was used as a natural means of
arriving at the truth of statements made on one side or the other,
and served to set in a clear light the strong and weak points of the
defence. At the trial of the Turners, who were guilty, a lengthy
examination of the prisoners by the court succeeded in shewing the
great improbability of statements in their story, and tended directly
to the conviction of the colonel.[530] On the other hand, in the case
of Sir George Wakeman, who was innocent, the triangular series of
questions between judge, witness, and prisoner had an effect which was
by no means unfavourable to the accused.[531] The prisoner moreover
could, if he wished, refuse to answer questions put to him.[532]
Two other results of the changing spirit of the times may be found in
the criminal courts. Witnesses for the prosecution were now always
brought face to face with the accused, unless reason such as would
be valid to-day was given to the contrary; and the prisoner was not
only allowed to cross-examine the witnesses against him, but to call
evidence in his own behalf.[533] The value of cross-examination to the
defence was doubtless an important advance in theory; practically it
was greatly impaired by the natural difficulties, which to an untrained
man are almost insuperable, of cross-examining witnesses without proper
instruction. But the power of calling witnesses for the defence was in
practice as well a gain of immense magnitude.
With these changes the procedure of Tudor times was handed on to the
restored monarchy, and was retained without alteration until the end
of the Stuart dynasty. The position of a person on trial, bettered
as it was, was pitiable. The bench received the prisoner’s witnesses
with the utmost suspicion and treated them as if they were proved to
be accomplices in his crime. It was pointed out to the jury that they
were not upon oath. At the trial of one of the regicides in 1660 it was
even hinted that their evidence might be disbelieved on this ground
alone.[534] Later practice demanded that the jury should be directed
to notice the fact and warned that witnesses not upon oath deserved
no less credit for this reason; but opportunity was generally taken
to slight their evidence in other ways. If the prisoner’s witnesses
were Roman Catholics, it was pointed out that their evidence might be
tutored.[535] If not, the counsel for the prosecution could easily
make an opening to call attention to the fact that mere words for the
prisoner ought not to weigh as heavily as sound oaths for the king,
and he would not be hastily checked by the court.[536] Theoretically,
the court was “of counsel for the prisoner” in matters of law;[537]
practically, as this conflicted with the judges’ duty to the king
and their watch over his life, the prisoner was allowed to shift for
himself. To justify the denial of counsel to the accused, the argument
was constantly used that, in order to convict him, the proof must
be so plain that no counsel could contend against it.[538] Honestly
enough, no doubt, this was the theory; but in practice the slightest
complication of facts or the most awkward piece of perjury could not
fail to render the prisoner in his eagerness and ignorance helpless to
unravel the skein which was being wound round him.
In particular matters of law counsel might be assigned to argue
such points as the court thought fit, but only when they had been
proposed to the court by the prisoner himself.[539] When Colledge at
his trial for high treason retorted that without the aid of counsel
he could not tell what points to submit for argument, he was told by
the Attorney-General that ignorance of the law was an excuse for no
man.[540]
In countless ways the system worked, in accordance with the tradition
of many years, in favour of the king and in glaring disfavour of the
prisoner. Peculiar cruelty on the part of the judges has continually
been assumed as an explanation of this. In reality recourse need be
had to no such hypothesis. The judges handled the means which had come
down to them as legitimate, without necessarily indulging the rare
vice of spontaneous inhumanity which has been attributed to them by
historians. They did their work and performed their duty as it came in
their way; and the work of a judge in state trials in the seventeenth
century was to modern eyes neither dignified nor pleasant. Nor,
although their names are linked to no distinction in the annals of the
law, were the judges, whose patents ran “during the good pleasure” of
King Charles II, men devoid of talent. Lawyers were raised to the
bench by influence at court, since all offices of state were to be
obtained by favouritism; but their appointments were seldom devoid
of some foundation of solid attainments. Some, like Scroggs, were by
nature brilliant; others, like North and Pemberton, had grounded their
fortunes on many years of laborious industry.[541] Such men, whose
minds were not bent to reverence of the law by severe learning in it,
were likely to be influenced by their position as lawyers less than by
that as officers of state, and to regard their oaths as constraining
them rather to the service of the crown than to an absolute pursuit
of justice. Sometimes the rules under which they worked themselves
prevented them from doing right to prisoners. They were unable, for
instance, to summon or to protect witnesses for the defence, for their
power ended with the confines of the court. When Colonel Turner on
his trial in 1664 told the bench that his witnesses had sent him word
that they did not dare to come without an order, the Chief Justice
replied, “When witnesses come against the king, we cannot put them
to their oaths, much less precept them to come.”[542] At the trial
of Langhorn, the Roman Catholic lawyer, for the Popish Plot, Lord
Castlemaine complained to the court that the prisoner’s witnesses
were being threatened and assaulted by the mob outside and dared not
“come to give their evidence for fear of being killed.” The judges
were indignant and declaimed loudly against the “very horrid thing,”
but they were powerless to do more than to threaten the offenders with
severe punishment, if the earl could produce or point to them. As this
was naturally impossible, nothing could be done.[543]
The inability of the court to allow real favour to the accused receives
constant illustration from the trial of Lord Stafford. It might have
been expected that a venerable peer, standing to be judged by his peers
and surrounded by his relatives and old acquaintances, would receive
an amount of respect and favour which was denied to meaner folk. But
this was far from being the case. In spite of the evident desire
of the Lord Chancellor, who presided in the capacity of Lord High
Steward, to allow to the accused every advantage that was consistent
with his duty, he found it impossible to contest against the managers
of the prosecution in their demand that the rules should be exerted
against him in all their usual harshness. Time after time the counsel
pressed home points of procedure which lay in their favour. It roused
the indignation of Jones and Maynard that the barristers retained by
Lord Stafford to be his counsel on matters of law stood so near him
that they might be suspected of wishing to prompt him in matters of
fact, and they were forced to move to a greater distance from the
prisoner.[544] When at the end of the second day of the trial Finch
urged that before further proceedings a day’s rest should be given to
the prisoner to recover from his great physical fatigue, the managers
withstood his proposal eagerly. The Lord High Steward asked what
inconvenience would ensue. They could suggest none of consequence, but
said that the delay would be highly unusual and that it was a most
unreasonable thing to demand. Jones’ zeal was such that he exposed
himself to a well-deserved snub from the court.[545] Without being
in the least abashed he pursued his speech and finally carried the
point triumphantly.[546] A similar violation of the maxim _De vitâ
hominis nulla est cunctatio longa_, which the Lord Chancellor quoted on
this occasion, occurred during the trial of Lord Russell, when Chief
Justice Pemberton would have granted a short respite to the prisoner
but for the opposition of the prosecuting counsel. “Mr. Attorney, why
may not this trial be respited till the afternoon?” To which the
Attorney-General rudely replied, “Pray call the jury”; and Pemberton
had nothing for it but to say to the prisoner, “My Lord, the king’s
counsel think it not reasonable to put off the trial longer, and we
cannot put it off without their consent.” On the last day of Lord
Stafford’s trial the court again displayed its weakness as a protector
of the accused. Owing to the prisoner’s excessive weakness and failure
to make his voice heard, the Lord High Steward ordered a clerk to read
the paper from which he was struggling to propose certain points of
law to be argued. The managers immediately objected. It was contrary
to custom and might be turned into a dangerous precedent. Finch
was compelled to give way to their harsh insistence, and Stafford,
tottering with fatigue, to make an effort which was almost beyond his
strength.[547]
The old criminal trial of the English courts had been conducted
strictly on the inquisitorial method of procedure, a system admirably
contrived for the conviction of the guilty, but by no means so
successful in ensuring the acquittal of the innocent. Of this
character it was robbed by the Puritan Revolution, which rendered the
administrative methods of continental nations odious to the English
mind. But in its place nothing so complete or logical remained. The
changes which were then introduced, beneficent as they were, did not
institute an order capable, in the interest of justice and of the
state, of guaranteeing the discovery of the truth or of safeguarding
the rights of the individual. The rigorous system of preliminary
procedure, the denial of counsel to assist the accused, the ignorance
of the art of cross-examination and of the science of sifting evidence,
combined to set judge, jury, and prisoner alike at the mercy of every
man of villainy sufficient to swear away a man’s life by a false oath,
and of impudence sufficient to brazen out his perjury.[548] Not until
greater knowledge of the principles of judicial administration was
gained by a long and harsh experience, and until a more stable state of
society produced the possibility of treating accused persons with the
generosity which is characteristic of modern criminal procedure, were
these evils remedied.
Society, as it was in the latter half of the seventeenth century, could
neither afford nor pretend to be generous to the prisoner at the bar.
In these latter days when a man comes to be tried, the jury are told
that it is their first duty to believe him innocent until he is proved
to be guilty. The burden of that proof lies heavily upon the shoulders
of those who conduct the prosecution. Whatever doubt may exist is
counted to the benefit of the accused. He is treated throughout with
studied consideration. But when the fourteen men who died for the
Popish Plot were brought to the bar, all this was unheard of. Then the
prisoner came into court already in the minds of all men half proved
an enemy to the king’s majesty, and one to whom no more advantage than
was his strict right could be allowed. To the satisfaction of one jury,
indeed, he had been actually proved guilty, for the grand jurors “for
our Lord the King” had presented upon their oaths that the prisoner
“wilfully, feloniously, and of his malice aforethought” had committed
the crime for which he was arraigned. Why should he be accounted
innocent, to whose guilt at least twelve good men and true had
positively sworn? The presumptive innocence of the accused is a modern
fiction which has tacitly grown up in a society conscious that its
strength is too firm to be shaken by the misdeeds of single offenders,
and therefore willing that any individual suspected of offence against
its laws shall retain all the advantages on his own side. Before this
stage was reached, men thought otherwise. In the seventeenth century
society and government were unstable and liable to sudden shocks. A
comparatively trifling event might set the balance against the reign
of law and order, and consequently the law meted out hard measure
to those who came into contact with it. As soon as the accused was
committed for trial he was sent to close confinement, from which he did
not emerge until he was brought to the bar. Unless by extraordinary
favour, he was allowed neither counsel nor solicitor to assist in the
preparation of his defence. He was not allowed to see his witnesses
before they came into court.[549] All the papers which he wrote in
prison were taken from him.[550] The utmost he might claim was that one
of his friends should visit him in order to summon the proper witnesses
for his defence. Even these interviews, in any case of importance,
could be held only in the presence of the jailor, that the prisoner
might be cut off from all means of illicit intercourse with the outer
world,[551] a precaution which was justified by the fact that, when all
possible care had been taken, prisoners still found means underhand to
receive communications which would have been prizes of considerable
value to the government if they had been intercepted.[552] The age
which knew the penal laws as active measures of administration, which
was divided from the tragedy at Fotheringay by less than a hundred
years and from the Gunpowder Plot by scarcely more than the span of
a man’s life, which had only recovered from the successive shocks
of revolution and restoration to wait expectantly for the day when
rebellion would have to be met once again, and on which within the ten
ensuing years did burst another rebellion and a second revolution,
could hardly be expected to rate the safety of society more lightly
than the life of one who, at the best, was surrounded by incriminating
circumstances. Even so late and well-ordered a man as Paley believed
that it was better for the innocent to die than for the guilty to go
free.[553]
CHAPTER III
TRIALS FOR THE PLOT
Such was the state of society and the procedure of the English courts
when Edward Coleman was brought to the bar of the Court of King’s Bench
on November 27, 1678 to be tried on the charge of high treason. The
trial was a test case. In point of importance it was chief among the
series of trials for treason which arose from the Plot, for all the
others which followed to some extent depended from this. If Coleman
had been acquitted, there could have been no more to come. His letters
formed, as they still form, the weightiest part of the evidence against
the Roman Catholic intriguers,[554] and had they not secured his
conviction, the Jesuits, Mr. Langhorn, Lord Stafford, and Archbishop
Plunket would have gone unconvicted also. By his condemnation the way
was opened by which they were sent to the scaffold, the innocent and
the guilty alike, without favour or discrimination.
In the words of Sir George Jeffreys, Recorder of London, the indictment
set forth “that the said Edward Coleman, endeavouring to subvert the
Protestant religion and to change and alter the same, and likewise to
stir up rebellion and sedition amongst the king’s liege people and
also to kill the king,” did hold certain correspondence with “M. la
Chaise, then servant and confessor to the French king.”[555] In point
of fact the indictment lays by far the greater stress on the former of
these counts. The murder of the king is mentioned, but not insisted
upon. The charges against Coleman are summed up in the accusation of
a plot “to bring and put our said sovereign lord the king to final
death and destruction, and to overthrow and change the government of
the kingdom of England, and to alter the sincere and true religion of
God in this kingdom as by law established; and wholly to subvert and
destroy the state of the whole kingdom, being in the universal parts
thereof well-established and ordained; and to levy war against our
said sovereign lord the king within his realm of England”; and the
letters in which he endeavoured to obtain aid and assistance for these
objects are mentioned in particular.[556] Sergeant Maynard and Sir
William Jones, Attorney-General, followed and opened the evidence for
the crown. They too touched on the charge of killing the king and the
evidence which Oates was prepared to give on the subject, but dwelt
most heavily on Coleman’s correspondence with Throckmorton, Cardinal
Howard, and Père de la Chaize. “The prisoner at the bar,” said Maynard,
“stands indicted for no less than an intention and endeavour to murder
the king; for an endeavour and attempt to change the government of
the nation, so well settled and instituted, ... and for an endeavour
to alter the Protestant religion and to introduce instead of it the
Romish superstition and popery.”[557] The matter could not be better
or more briefly stated. The substantial charge against Coleman lay,
not in the actual attempt of which he was accused to murder the king,
but in the designs which he had formed to alter the established
course of government and religion, as settled in the kingdom. By the
recognised construction of the statute of Edward III such an attempt
was held to include “imagining the king’s death,” and was as much high
treason as an assassination plot of the most flagrant character.[558]
All that was required was that the intention should be proved by an
overt act, and the portion of Coleman’s correspondence which had been
seized afforded the plainest proof of his designs. This was the real
offence which lay at his door, and for this he was legally and properly
condemned to suffer the penalties of high treason. “Mr. Coleman,” said
the Chief Justice after the verdict had been delivered, “your own
papers are enough to condemn you.”[559]
The case for the prosecution was opened by the evidence of Titus
Oates. After an admonition from the bench to speak nothing but the
truth, permission was given him to tell his story in his own way. In
the course of a long examination by the Chief Justice he reaffirmed
the startling evidence which he had given before the two Houses of
Parliament, and which had already become a powerful weapon in the
Whig armoury. He deposed that he had carried treasonable letters from
Coleman and various Jesuits in London to the Jesuit College at St.
Omers; that he had carried to Père de la Chaize a letter written by
Coleman in thanks for a promise from the confessor of £10,000 to be
employed in procuring Charles II’s death;[560] that Coleman had in
his hearing expressed approval when he was told that the Jesuits had
determined to kill the king;[561] and that Coleman had been engaged
in distributing throughout the kingdom copies of certain instructions
sent to the Jesuit Ashby concerning the assassination of the king, in
order to give heart to those of their party who were not on the scene
of affairs.[562] In the medley of wild accusations against the Jesuits
and other Roman Catholics, which Oates mingled with this evidence
against Coleman, the main point, as in his previous examinations, was
the Jesuit consult held, he swore, at the White Horse Tavern in the
Strand on April 24, 1678, to concert means for the death of the king.
After the consult had broken up into smaller committees, it was at that
which met at Wild House that Coleman had, according to Oates, given
his formal approval to the project. Later, in a letter which Oates
professed to have seen, he had expressed the desire “that the duke
might be trepanned into this plot to murder the king.”[563] Bedloe’s
evidence, which followed, was of the same nature, though not so wide
in scope or so decisive in character.[564] He swore to treasonable
correspondence between the Jesuits in London and Paris, to treasonable
words which he had heard Coleman speak, to treasonable consults in
Paris at which Coleman was not present, and on hearsay from Sir Henry
Tichbourn bore out Oates’ statement that Coleman had received a patent
to be secretary of state under the new Jesuit _régime_ in England.[565]
This closed the oral evidence for the crown, and it was against this
that Coleman directed the only part of his case which could be called
a defence. He objected to Oates that his testimony was entirely
untrustworthy. At the examination before the privy council, Oates had
neither known nor accused him personally; yet now he pretended to be
his intimate and conversant with all his plans.[566] Oates replied
quickly that, when he was confronted with Coleman at the council board,
the candles in the room gave so dim a light that he was unable to swear
positively to his identity. “I then said,” he declared, “I would not
swear I had seen him before in my life, because my sight was bad by
candle-light, and candle-light alters the sight much.... I cannot see
a great way by candle-light.” Here the monstrous ugliness of Oates’
features came to his aid in a strange fashion. His eyes were set so
deep in the sockets that they were universally noted as being out of
the common. Contemporary descriptions of him all mark this feature as
striking.[567] There must have been signs of something perhaps almost
unnatural about them, which would lend colour to the idea that he
needed a strong light to see clearly. His reply on the present occasion
has been universally treated by historians with ridicule, but it is
difficult to believe that it seemed so to spectators and even possible
that there was some truth in what he said. The answer at all events
was taken, and the court passed to what was in fact the more important
point, Coleman’s assertion that Oates had not charged him before the
privy council with what he had since brought forward. “The stress of
the objection,” said the Chief Justice, “lieth not upon seeing so much,
but how come you that you laid no more to Mr. Coleman’s charge at that
time?” To this the witness had no sufficient answer. His memory failed
him completely. He declared with many turns and qualifications that he
had not felt bound “to give in more than a general information against
Mr. Coleman,” and that he would have spoken in greater detail had he
been urged. But he had been so wearied by two sleepless nights spent
in tramping round the town to take prisoners that the king and council
were willing to let him go as soon as possible. Unfortunately he let
slip that he had accused Coleman in particular with writing treasonable
newsletters to inflame the country.[568] Upon this the court seized. If
he had been able to charge Coleman with this malodorous correspondence,
why had he not been able to accuse him of any of the far graver acts of
treason which he now laid to his charge Oates was thereupon subjected
to a severe examination by the bench. The questions were constantly
put to him: “Why did you not accuse Mr. Coleman by name? You were by
when the council were ready to let Mr. Coleman go almost at large? Why
did you not name Mr. Coleman at that time? How came you (Mr. Coleman
being so desperate a man as he was, endeavouring the killing of the
king) to omit your information of it to the council and to the king
at both times?”[569] Oates’ answers were the reverse of satisfactory.
He became loud in protestation, swore that he had been so tired that
he could scarcely stand, and appealed to the king to attest what had
passed at his examination; but the Chief Justice kept close to the
point and drove him from one position to another, until he seemed ready
to take refuge in silence. The saviour of the nation was within an
ace of a catastrophe which would have wrecked his whole future career
when the prisoner restored the balance by a false move. Turning from
the witness, Scroggs asked Coleman if he had any further question to
put. With maladroitness singular in a man of his experience, Coleman
reverted to the incident of the candles and Oates’ inability to
recognise him at the council. The question was threshed out minutely,
for Coleman thought that he had found in Sir Thomas Dolman, clerk to
the privy council, a witness who could prove that Oates had not only
failed to recognise him, but had denied acquaintance altogether with
the person of Mr. Coleman. This however Sir Thomas could not do, and
the matter was left exactly where it was before: the evidence only
shewed that Oates had not been able to identify as Coleman the man
with whom he was confronted.[570] This Oates had already admitted and
explained. But the examination of Dolman naturally led the court to
call upon Sir Robert Southwell, another of the council clerks, to state
his version of what had happened. From his evidence it appeared that at
the examination before the council Oates had charged Coleman by name
with having in person paid £5000 out of £15,000 to Sir George Wakeman
as a fee for poisoning the king.[571] This was a fact which Oates had
not mentioned in his evidence at the trial, when he only swore that
Coleman considered £10,000 too small a sum for such a great work,
and had advised that Sir George Wakeman should be paid half as much
again.[572] He had moreover forgotten altogether that he had given any
evidence of the sort before the council. On this no remark was made
either by the court or by the prisoner. The omission however to point
out his lapse of memory as of weight against the witness is patent of
a genuine explanation. Clearly no possible amount of fatigue would
have justified Oates in the eyes of the judges for having failed at
his examination by the council to charge Coleman with treason of which
he afterwards accused him; but it was a very different thing, and
perfectly reasonable, to consider that the great exertions which he had
undergone might fairly explain his forgetfulness of the charge which he
had then actually made.[573] The question had been reduced to the issue
whether or no Oates had then charged Coleman with the high crimes of
which he was now giving evidence. This was now indisputably determined
in favour of the witness and against the prisoner.
The first reflection upon this scene which occurs to the mind of one
who comes to study it in the twentieth century is that in a modern
court it could scarcely have taken place at all. It seems as if the
elaborate care taken to discuss particular omissions and contradictions
in Oates’ evidence was only so much waste of time, for to the modern
eye the whole bulk was of a character which would now be considered
wholly inadmissible as good testimony. Writing of the evidence of the
other informers as well as of Oates throughout the trials, Sir James
Fitzjames Stephen says: “No one accustomed to weighing evidence can
doubt that he and the subordinate witnesses were quite as bad and quite
as false as they are usually supposed to have been. Their evidence
has every mark of perjury about it. They never would tie themselves
down to anything if they could possibly avoid it. As soon as they were
challenged with a lie by being told that witnesses were coming to
contradict them, they shuffled and drew back and began to forget.”[574]
The evidence which Oates gave against the accused consisted largely in
his swearing that he had carried letters from one person to another,
which upon a mental comparison with yet more letters, he recognised
to be in the handwriting of a third person, being in this case that
of Coleman.[575] Or that he had been told by Coleman of treasonable
letters which he had written into the country to encourage the Catholic
party. Or again, that he had been told by other persons that at a
consult, from which he himself had been absent, various treasonable
designs were formed and approved; or that it was generally understood
among the conspirators that the accused had done this, that, or the
other. Even definite facts sworn by the witness, as for instance
when Oates swore that he had seen Coleman pay an extra guinea to the
messenger who carried £80 to four Irishmen as payment for the king’s
death, and when Bedloe swore that he had heard Coleman say that “if
there was an hundred heretical kings to be deposed, he would see them
all destroyed,”[576] were statements which did not receive and were
scarcely susceptible of corroboration. Nowadays it is an established
principle that the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice is not to
be acted upon, and the direct evidence of witnesses in the Popish Plot,
even when it was most definite and precise, would without exception
have fallen under this rule. But in the seventeenth century the rule
was unknown. Practically any statement made on oath in the witness
box was accepted unconditionally, unless the witness was either
contradicted by better evidence or else proved to be no “good witness.”
The competence of a witness was technically destroyed only by a record
of perjury proved against him, but the credibility of evidence was a
question for the judgment of the jury; and where the witness had been
convicted of other crimes the jury sometimes disbelieved his word.[577]
The evidence of accomplices was not only admitted but highly prized.
That it should be uncorroborated excited no wonder, for it was regarded
as a remarkable piece of fortune to obtain it at all. To our minds the
dead weight of an oath seems to be of far less account in determining
the trustworthiness of evidence than its intrinsic probability and the
degree to which it is corroborated by other circumstances, but in the
judgment of the seventeenth century an oath carried all before it.
A remarkable illustration of this is received from the trial of the
Five Jesuits in 1679. Fenwick objected that the evidence against him
was wholly uncorroborated. “All the evidence that is given,” he said,
“comes but to this, there is but saying and swearing. I defy them all
to give one probable reason to satisfy any reasonable uninterested
man’s judgment how this could be.” “You say there is nothing but
saying and swearing,” answered the Chief Justice, “but you do not
consider what you say in that matter. All the evidence and all the
testimony in all trials is by swearing. A man comes and swears that
he saw such a bond sealed, or heard such words spoken; this is saying
and swearing; but it is that proof that we go by, and by which all
men’s lives and fortunes are determined.... Mr. Fenwick,” he added in
summing up to the jury, “says to all this: there is nothing against
us but talking and swearing; but for that he hath been told (if it
were possible for him to learn) that all testimony is but talking and
swearing: for all things, all men’s lives and fortunes are determined
by an oath; and an oath is by talking, by kissing the book, and
calling God to witness to the truth of what is said.”[578] Fenwick’s
cosmopolitan education here gave him the advantage. By the light of
experience he is seen to have been in advance of the times in England,
but for the law and practice of the English courts his contention was
vain. He was asking that the court should in his case lay down a rule
which half a century later was new to the English mind.
The ignorance which was thus displayed of the proper nature of
testimony has constantly been considered as a mark of atrocious
ferocity and cowardly time-service in the judges of the period. Such a
view is entirely erroneous. The evidence accepted at political trials
did not differ in character from that acted upon at trials the causes
of which were remote from politics. Fortunately there are means by
which this can be proved exactly. It is fortunate, for it is improbable
that the same type of perjured evidence should appear in any other than
a political trial. Of perjured evidence there was no doubt plenty at
every assize, as is witnessed by the case of the Rev. Mr. Hawkins,[579]
where a considerable dose was nearly swallowed without being detected.
But in this style of lie there was not the same boldness, the same
play of fancy, the same overriding of the limits of likelihood which
has rendered the acceptance of Oates’ evidence unintelligible to
historians except on the supposition of monstrous immorality in the
judges and juries. “Witnesses,” writes Fox, “of such a character as not
to deserve credit in the most trifling cause, upon the most immaterial
facts, gave evidence so incredible, or, to speak more properly, so
impossible to be true, that it ought not to have been believed if it
had come from the mouth of Cato; and upon such evidence, from such
witnesses, were innocent men condemned to death and executed.”[580]
Such a state of things, thought Fox and many after him, is not to
be explained on any supposition other than that of wilfully wicked
blindness to the truth, and can hardly be paralleled in modern history.
There is however, if not a parallel, at least a very great similarity
between the evidence offered at the trials for the Popish Plot and that
taken at another series of trials of almost the same date, to find
which no one need go further than a different page in the same volume
of reports. The same tangled farrago of wild nonsense with which Oates
and his fellow-witnesses filled the courts is, on another plane, almost
exactly reproduced in the witch trials of the seventeenth century.
In the first half of the century the numbers of women who had been
condemned and hanged as witches may be counted almost by dozens,[581]
and in the reign of Charles II at least five wretched creatures were
put to death for practices in the black art. What is here noteworthy
about their trials is that they exhibit just the same characteristics
as the trials for the Popish Plot. The monstrous evidence offered by
the witnesses and the credulity displayed by the court at the trials of
the Suffolk witches in 1665 and of the Devon witches seventeen years
later at least equalled, if they did not surpass, anything which is
recorded of political cases of the same age. Two instances will suffice
to demonstrate the truth of this. At the trial at Bury St. Edmunds,
Margaret Arnold gave evidence as to the children who were said to have
been bewitched: “At another time the younger child, being out of her
fits, went out of doors to take a little fresh air, and presently a
little thing like a bee flew upon her face and would have gone into her
mouth, whereupon the child ran in all haste to the door to get into
the house again, screeching out in a most terrible manner; whereupon
this deponent made haste to come to her, but before she could get
to her, the child fell into her swooning fit, and at last with much
pain, straining herself, she vomited up a twopenny nail with a broad
head; and after that the child had raised up the nail, she came to her
understanding and, being demanded by this deponent how she came by
this nail, she answered ‘that the bee brought this nail and forced it
into her mouth.’”[582] The information of Elizabeth Eastchurch against
Temperance Lloyd, one of the three women condemned in 1682, is a fair
specimen of the evidence which was, in the words of Fox, “impossible
to be true,” and which was nevertheless accepted and acted upon by the
courts. “The said informant upon her oath saith. That upon the second
day of this instant July, the said Grace Thomas,[583] then lodging in
this informant’s said husband’s house, and hearing of her to complain
of great pricking pains in one of her knees, she the said informant
did see her said knee, and observed that she had nine places in her
knee which had been pricked, and that every one of the said pricks were
as though it had been the prick of a thorn. Whereupon this informant
afterwards, upon the same 2nd day of July, did demand of the said
Temperance Lloyd whether she had any wax or clay in the form of a
picture whereby she had pricked and tormented the said Grace Thomas?
Unto which the said Temperance made answer that she had no wax or
clay, but confessed that she had only a piece of leather which she had
pricked nine times.”[584]
When it is considered that the former of these trials was conducted by
Lord Chief Justice Hale, the most famous and according to all testimony
the most moderate judge of his time, it becomes brilliantly clear that
it was not only by incompetent judges, as the nature of the cases
makes it clear that it was not only in political trials, that unsound
evidence was accepted as genuine, but that the common knowledge of the
times did not discriminate in any appreciable manner between evidence
which is, and that which ought not to be, sufficient to procure the
conviction of prisoners. Without adornment the fact is that evidence
which to modern ears is bad, to those of judges and juries of the
seventeenth century seemed perfectly good.[585] One further point of
similarity between the evidence given at witch trials and at trials for
the Plot may be noted. Credence was given to flimsy tales of the devil
and his practices, if not solely, at least all the more readily because
such ideas were current in the popular mind, and scarcely more than a
hint was needed for their embodiment as concrete facts. The same may be
said of the revelations of the Popish Plot. For years men had expected
nothing more certainly and had feared nothing more keenly than a great
onslaught of Catholicism upon their own religion. What they now heard
seemed only a just realisation of their prophecies. “They had,” says
Bishop Parker, “so familiarly accustomed themselves to these monstrous
lies, that at the first opening of Oates’ Plot they with a ready and
easy credulity received all his fictions; for whatsoever he published,
they had long before expected.”[586]
It is necessary to lay stress upon this aspect of the evidence
given by the witnesses at Coleman’s trial, since at all those which
followed it reappeared with little variation; but to Coleman himself
it was not of the first importance. Sixteen letters selected from his
correspondence with Roman Catholics abroad were read at length,[587]
and formed the heaviest part of the case against him. From them the
nature of his schemes was plainly visible. It was of little moment to
him that they were taken as establishing the reality of the nightmare
which Oates had sketched. Without anything in common with the blood and
thunder tales which that miscreant poured forth, they contained more
than enough of treasonable matter to cost the prisoner his head. It was
impossible for him to deny the letters. All he could do was to say that
he had meant no harm, and to express the hope that they would not be
found to bear out the charge of high treason. “I deny the conclusion,
but the premises,” he admitted, “are too strong and artificial.”[588]
Chief among the correspondence read were three letters to and one
from Père de la Chaize and the declaration which Coleman had drawn
up to justify the prospective dissolution of Parliament.[589] On the
subject of these an important discussion took place between Scroggs
and the prisoner. Coleman insisted that there was nothing in his
letters to justify the accusation that he had planned the death of
the king; he might have used extravagant expressions; but if all the
letters were considered together, surely it would be evident that,
so far from designing any ill to the king and the Duke of York, his
sole aim had been to exalt their power as high as possible. The Chief
Justice pointed out that the letters openly declared, almost in so
many words, an intention to overthrow the religion and government of
the country by the help of foreign power; to say that he had attempted
this for the benefit of the king was merely to offer a feeble excuse
for his fault; with that the court had nothing to do. Coleman again
began to explain his point of view in a rather muddled fashion. People
said that he had made use of the duke’s name without leave in his
negotiations; was it likely that he had been so foolish as to imagine
that his friends abroad would expend their money without the certainty
that it was for the duke’s service; still more, was it likely that the
duke would use any sum thus obtained to the disservice of the king?
“I take it for granted,” he continued “(which sure none in the world
will deny), that the law was ever made immediately subject to the king
or duke; and consequently to the duke, I cannot think this will ever
be expounded by the law of England or the jury to be treason.” At
this point the Chief Justice interrupted him impatiently. “These vain
inconsequential discourses” served but to waste the time of the court.
The plain truth was that the prisoner had formed a design “to bring
popery into England, and to promote the interest of the French king in
this place”;[590] a fact which Coleman had not even attempted to deny.
What Scroggs meant, and what, had he been a better judge, he would
have made clear to the prisoner, was that such designs, according to
the law which it was his duty to administer as it had been handed down
to him, were technically evidence of high treason, whether or no they
included an actual plot to kill the king; but he was so much irritated
by Coleman’s feeble efforts to say that this was not or ought not to
have been so, that he neglected altogether to explain the matter, with
the result that when Coleman came up for judgment on the following day
he shewed that he was still in the dark about it.[591]
Concerning Coleman’s letters a curious point arose at the trial. In
opening the evidence for the crown Sergeant Maynard had remarked
that the correspondence found at the prisoner’s house extended only
“to some part of the year 1675; from 1675 unto 1678 all lies in
the dark; we have no certain proof of it, but we apprehend he had
intelligence until 1678.”[592] The Chief Justice took the subject up:
“Mr. Coleman, I will tell you when you will be apt to gain credit
in this matter.... Can mankind be persuaded that you, that had this
negotiation in 1674 and 1675, left off just then, at that time when
your letters were found according to their dates? Do you believe there
was no negotiation after 1675 because we have not found them?” The
prisoner replied, “After that time (as I said to the House of Commons)
I did give over corresponding. I did offer to take all the oaths
and tests in the world that I never had one letter for at least two
years; yea (that I may keep myself within compass), I think it was for
three or four.”[593] After he had delivered sentence on the next day,
Scroggs adjured the condemned man to confess that he had continued to
correspond with agents abroad during the last three years. “I am sorry,
Mr. Coleman,” he said, “I have not charity enough to believe the words
of a dying man; for I will tell you what sticks with me very much:
I cannot be persuaded, and nobody can, but that your correspondence
and negotiations did continue longer than the letters that we have
found, that is, after 1675.” “Upon the words of a dying man and the
expectation I have of salvation,” was Coleman’s answer, “I tell your
lordship that there is not a book or a paper in the world that I have
laid aside voluntarily.” Scroggs urged that he might have burnt them.
“Not by the living God,” returned the prisoner.[594] Coleman lied. The
correspondence which he carried on with Paris and Rome, even in the
fragmentary state in which it has been preserved, extended beyond the
end of the year 1675. Between December in that year and December 1676
he received fifty letters from St. Germain at Paris, and a letter from
the same quarter, dated October 5, 1678, was seized on delivery after
Coleman’s arrest. From January 1676 to January 1678 a correspondence
was steadily maintained between Coleman and Cardinal Howard at Rome
either personally or by his secretary Leybourn, and a letter from
Leybourn seized on its arrival bore the date October 1, 1678. Shortly
before, a “very dark, suspicious letter,” dated September 28, 1678, had
been seized on delivery. Coleman even received letters from Italy after
his arrest by the help of his wife. The last doubts on the subject
are resolved by the evidence of his secretary, Jerome Boatman, taken
before the committee of the House of Lords: “I was employed to write
home and foreign news. The correspondence was held on until my master
was taken. There came letters by post since my master was taken. I
delivered the letters to my mistress to carry to my master after he
was under the messenger’s hands.”[595] Belief in the dying vows of the
Jesuits and their friends is perhaps scarcely strengthened by Coleman’s
conduct in this matter. It is remarkable that the means taken for the
preparation of the case were so haphazard that the crown lawyers had
no knowledge of such valuable material as was in the hands of the
committee of the upper house; and it is small testimony to the capacity
of the noble lords who negotiated the business of the committee with
the Attorney-General[596] that the latter should have been entirely
ignorant of its existence.[597]
Throughout his trial Coleman was treated neither more nor less fairly
than any other prisoner in any crown case of the period. The practice
of the day weighed heavily against him. He did not receive nor could he
expect any favour from it. Neither was he met by any special disfavour
on political or any other grounds. One point of his defence however
should undoubtedly have received more consideration than it did. Oates
had charged him with paying a guinea as an extra fee for the king’s
murder, “about the 21st day of August.”[598] Almost at the end of the
trial, after the final speeches for the prosecution, Coleman announced
that if his diary were fetched from his lodgings he could prove that he
had been out of town from the 10th of August until the last day of the
month.[599] His servant was called, but was unable to do more than say
generally that he had been away from London during part of August. With
the book, said the prisoner, he would be able to prove his statement
exactly; but the Chief Justice would not allow it to be brought, on
the ground that even if what he said were true, little would be gained
to him.[600] This was no doubt true. Apart from the evidence of Oates,
the testimony of Bedloe and his own letters were enough to hang the
prisoner, and if Oates’ word had been shaken in this point it would
have been but little benefit to Coleman. But a great mistake was made
by the court. To have proved a perjury against Oates so early in
his career of witness would have inflicted a lasting injury on his
character and redoubled the force of the catastrophe which befell him
at the trial of Sir George Wakeman eight months later. This was not
however apparent at the time, and the Chief Justice’s determination,
due to the lateness of the hour and the small extent to which the
prisoner’s interest was actually involved, is easy to understand.
When he came up to receive judgment the next day Coleman produced the
diary,[601] but it was then too late and the chance was gone.
Scroggs proceeded at once to recapitulate the evidence to the jury.
What was important in his summing up was almost entirely concerned
with the meaning and weight of Coleman’s letters.[602] He pointed out
acutely that the construction which the prisoner put upon them and
the feeble explanation which he gave of his designs were repugnant
to common sense and could not be entertained. “For the other part of
the evidence,” he terminated abruptly, “which is by the testimony
of the present witnesses, you have heard them. I will not detain
you longer now, for the day is going out.”[603] The jury went from
the bar and returned immediately with the verdict of Guilty. On the
following day Coleman received sentence as usual in cases of high
treason, and five days after was executed at Tyburn. As the cart was
about to be drawn away he was heard to murmur, “There is no faith in
man.” A rumour spread throughout the town that until the end he had
expected to receive a pardon promised by the Duke of York, and that,
finding himself deceived, he had died cursing the master whom he had so
diligently served.[604]
Coleman was not the first man to suffer for the Popish Plot. On
November 26, the day Coleman was brought to trial, William Staley, a
Roman Catholic goldsmith, had undergone a traitor’s death at Tyburn.
Staley was accused by two scoundrels of having in a public tavern
uttered words which announced his intention of taking away the king’s
life. The chief witness was a wretch named Carstairs, who had eked out
a precarious livelihood by acting as a government spy on conventicles
in Scotland.[605] Two others of the same kidney corroborated his
evidence. They swore that Staley had entered a cookshop in Covent
Garden to dine with a French friend named Fromante, and had there
burst into a rage against the king; the old man, Fromante, his friend,
said “that the king of England was a tormentor of the people of God,
and he answered again in a great fury, ‘He is a great heretic and the
greatest rogue in the world; here is the heart and here is the hand
that will kill him.’... In French the words were spoken, he making a
demonstration stamping with his foot: ‘I would kill him myself.’”[606]
By an act passed early in Charles II’s reign, “malicious and advised
speaking” had been made an overt act of high treason, and on this
Staley was indicted. Over his sentence historians have gone into
ecstasies of horror, on the ground that it is impossible to believe
that “a great Roman Catholic banker” in the position of Staley should
have spoken such words.[607] Staley however was not the banker, but the
banker’s son, and was not therefore of the same highly responsible age
and position as has been supposed. “Young Staley,” as he is called in
a letter of the time,[608] is identified by Von Schwerin, ambassador
of the Great Elector to the court of Charles II. On November 19 he
writes: “Auch ist der Sohn eines sehr reichen Goldschmieds gefänglich
eingezogen worden, weil er bei einem Gelage—wiewohl in trunkenem
Zustande—Reden geführt hat: die Conspiration sei noch nicht ganz
entdeckt, so habe er noch Hände den König zu ermorden.”[609] But the
decisive evidence on the point is the fact that William Staley’s
father, the banker, was alive some three weeks after he should,
according to the received account, have been hanged and quartered. On
December 18 his clerk and cashier were examined before the committee
of the House of Lords on the subject of a reported connection between
their master and Sir George Wakeman. The cashier had been in his
service for seven years. The next day Mr. Staley, as ordered, himself
attended the committee, bringing with him “the books wherein he has
kept his accounts the last two years.”[610] Obviously this man had been
head of the firm for more than the previous month, and the account
given by the Brandenburg envoy is correct.[611]
To hold that the words attributed to Staley by the witnesses at the
trial were spoken “advisedly and maliciously” was undoubtedly to drive
the act as far as it would go against the prisoner; but that they were
spoken seems almost certain. He hardly denied that he had called the
king a rogue and a heretic.[612] His only explanation of the words to
which Carstairs swore was that instead of saying “I would kill him
myself,” he had said “I would kill myself.” The difference between
the words _Je le tuerais moi-même_ and _Je me tuerais moi-même_ is
small enough to account for an easy mistake made by a hearer, but it
was unfortunate for Staley that, as was pertinently remarked by the
Attorney-General, the latter would not make sense in the context. Still
more damning was the prisoner’s omission to call as a witness for his
defence Fromante, who had taken part in the conversation, and could,
if Staley had been innocent, have cleared the point in his favour;
but although every facility was given him for doing so, he refused
either to call his friend or to make use of the copy of his previous
examination, which the Attorney-General offered to lend him.[613]
The case was not terminated even by Staley’s sentence and death. In
consideration of his exemplary conduct in prison, where he “behaved
himself very penitently, from the time of his conviction until the time
of his execution, which was attested by the several ministers which
visited him during that time,” leave was given by the king that his
body should be delivered to his friends after execution for private
burial. With great want of tact, and “to the great indignity and
affront of his Majesty’s mercy and favour, the friends of the said
Staley caused several masses to be said over his quarters, ... and
appointed a time for his interment, viz. Friday, the 29th of November
1678, in the evening, from his father’s house in Covent Garden, at
which time there was made a pompous and great funeral, many people
following the corpse to the church of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, where
he was buried”: in consequence of which an order was given for the
disinterment of the body, and to vindicate the majesty of justice his
quarters were affixed to the city gates and his head set up to rot on
London Bridge.[614]
A fortnight after Coleman’s execution, Whitebread, Fenwick, Ireland,
Pickering, and Grove were brought to the bar of the Old Bailey. Thomas
White or Whitebread, alias Harcourt, was a man sixty years of age.
He had been educated at St. Omers, became a professed father in the
Society of Jesus in 1652, and was chosen provincial of the English
province at the beginning of the year 1678.[615] It was by his means
that Oates had entered the Jesuit College at St. Omers after expulsion
from Valladolid, and it was he who Oates swore had boxed his ears on
learning that the plot was betrayed.[616] Fenwick, less well known by
his real name Caldwell, was ten years his junior. He had joined the
English mission from Flanders in 1675, and was now the London agent
for the college at St. Omers. Both were noted in the society for their
success in the missionary field.[617] Ireland, alias Ironmonger, had
come into England in 1677 as procurator of the province.[618] All
five were accused by Oates of being principals in the plot and privy
to the king’s death. Pickering, a Benedictine, and Grove, a Jesuit
lay-brother, were named as the actual agents in one of the schemes
for his assassination. Oates’ evidence was long and highly coloured.
He had been sent over by the Jesuits to murder Doctor Tonge. He had
seen instructions for the murder of the Bishop of Hereford and Dr.
Stillingfleet. He had been in the thick of a scheme of Fenwick’s
contrivance to raise rebellion in Scotland and Ireland. Whitebread
had sealed commissions for the popish army under the seal of Johannes
Paulus de Oliva, general of his order. Fenwick had been present when
Coleman paid the famous guinea to quicken the message which was to be
fatal to the king. All the prisoners had been present at the consult
on April 24, 1678, when a resolution to kill the king was signed by
at least forty persons, Pickering was to have thirty thousand masses
and Grove £1500 for the deed. They had dogged the king in St. James’
Park, and had twisted the silver bullets of their carbines that the
wound made might be incurable. Charles would infallibly have been shot
had not the flint of Pickering’s pistol been loose, and Pickering had
undergone penance of thirty lashes for his carelessness. To use their
own words, “they did intend to dispose of the duke too, in case he did
not appear vigorous in promoting the Catholic religion.”[619] To all
this there was little to be said. The prisoners put some questions to
Oates, and were in turn slightly questioned by the court. All that
appeared was that Grove had known Oates more intimately than he wished
to represent, and that the witness had borrowed from both Grove and
Fenwick money which had naturally never been repaid.[620] Fenwick
however offered to bring a document from St. Omers, under the seal of
the college and attested by unimpeachable witnesses, that Oates had
been at the seminary at the time when he swore that he was present
in London at the consult at the White Horse Tavern. This was refused
by the court without hesitation. Fenwick exclaimed bitterly that the
judges seemed to think there was no justice out of England.[621]
But in supposing that a special piece of unfairness was directed
against himself and his friends he was mistaken. It was a regular and
unbroken rule of the court that no evidence could be brought, if such
an expression may be used, from outside the trial. Such evidence as
reports of other trials, the journals of the Houses of Parliament, the
minutes of the privy council was allowed to be used on neither side.
It was one of the points in which the practice of the day pressed
hardly on the accused, but the judges could not, as Scroggs truly
said, “depart from the law or the way of trial.” The theory of the law
was that the evidence at a trial might be disproved by the defence,
or its value might be destroyed if the witness were proved not to be
competent; but neither could it be shaken by such a document as Fenwick
proposed to produce,[622] nor could evidence afterwards be called
against it to shake the credit of a witness at a previous trial. To
effect this the witness must be indicted and convicted for perjury and
the record of his conviction proved. Every trial stood by itself, and
everything alleged at it had to be proved or disproved on the spot,
either by direct evidence or by judicial records sworn at the trial to
be correct.[623]
Bedloe was then called. He began by giving evidence of the Plot in
general, in pursuit of which he had been employed, he swore, for the
last five years to carry letters between Jesuits and monks in England,
Ireland, and France, and Sir William Godolphin and Lord Bellasis.[624]
But of the prisoners in particular he could only speak to Ireland,
Pickering, and Grove. Whitebread and Fenwick he knew by sight alone.
At the trial of Reading he confessed that this was a lie.[625] There
he explained that he would have borne witness before against the two
Jesuits had not Reading been intriguing with him at the time, and that
he kept back his evidence in order to lead the attorney deeper into the
business.[626] Not only was this admitted by the court as sufficient
justification of his conduct, but at their later trial, when Bedloe
gave decisive evidence against them, Whitebread and Fenwick hardly made
any objection to his credibility upon this ground.[627]
One witness having failed, the prosecution attempted to supply his
place by reading a letter written to summon a father of the society
to the Jesuit congregation which the provincial had fixed for April
24. But this the Chief Justice would not permit. The letter was from
Edward Petre, afterwards confessor to James II, to William Tunstall. It
had been found with Harcourt’s papers and did not mention Whitebread’s
name at all. The contents might substantiate Oates’ evidence as to the
date of the congregation, but they could not conceivably be construed,
as the crown lawyers suggested, into evidence touching the prisoners.
Scroggs’ opposition prevented the manœuvre, and after a strong warning
to the jury he allowed the letter to be read, “to fortify the testimony
of Mr. Oates, that there is a general plot: it is not applied to any
particular person.”[628]
It was now apparent that the crown had only one witness against the
two chief of the accused, which in a case of high treason was not
sufficient to procure a conviction. Thereupon Scroggs, with the
approval of the other judges, discharged the jury of Whitebread and
Fenwick and recommitted them to prison.[629] Six months later they
were again tried and executed for the same treason. Whitebread then
urged that he had been given in charge once, that on the insufficient
evidence he should have been acquitted, and that he ought not to be
tried again; but the whole court held without hesitation that the
objection was baseless.[630] Afterwards this decision was held up to
scorn, and has since often been condemned;[631] but it was grounded
upon good authority and supported by the general practice of the
courts.[632]
The three remaining prisoners proceeded to make their defence. Beyond
repeated assertions of their innocence this amounted, as far as
Pickering and Grove were concerned, to little. Ireland made a better
effort. Oates had sworn that he was in London in August of the year
1678 and present at a treasonable meeting in Harcourt’s rooms.[633] The
prisoner now called evidence to contradict this. His mother and his
sister testified that he had left town on August 3 and did not return
until the middle of September. Sir John Southcot’s coachman swore that
he had been at various places in Staffordshire and on the way thither,
in company with his master, from August 5 until the third week in that
month, and another witness gave evidence that he had seen Ireland at
Wolverhampton shortly after St. Bartholomew’s day, and again on the 7th
and the 9th of September.[634] To rebut this the prosecution called a
woman who belonged to the household of Lord Arlington. She had once
been in the service of Grove, the prisoner, and had at that time seen
Ireland constantly and waited upon him with letters from her master.
She now swore positively that she had seen him in London at the time
when the king went to Windsor in August. By the evidence of Sir Thomas
Dolman this was calculated to be the 13th of the month.[635] Oates
again took the opportunity to swear that Ireland was in town on the 1st
or 2nd of September. It was an unfortunate interruption, for it formed
the perjury assigned in the indictment upon which he was convicted at
his second trial six years afterwards.[636] Only one more witness was
produced. Sir Denny Ashburnham, member of Parliament for the borough of
Hastings, was called by Ireland to testify to Oates’ character. Instead
however of damaging the informer’s credit, he came forward to say that,
although he might have had little respect for Oates’ veracity in the
days of his youth, the manifold circumstances by which his testimony
was now supported had entirely convinced him of the truth of his
statements; “and,” said he, “I do think truly that nothing can be said
against Mr. Oates to take off his credibility”;[637] which was of small
value from the point of view of the defence.
The prisoners complained bitterly that they had been allowed neither
time nor facility to produce their witnesses. At Oates’ second trial
for perjury on May 9, 1685 there were called for the prosecution no
less than forty-five witnesses, who proved conclusively where Ireland
had been on every day but one between August 3 and September 14,
1678, the dates when he left and when he returned to London.[638] Five
months after Ireland’s execution, Whitebread, Fenwick, and Harcourt
called at their trial, to prove the same points, ten witnesses, whose
evidence covered a considerable part of the time in debate,[639] Had he
been able himself to call even those ten, not to say the whole number
afterwards collected, it can scarcely be doubted that their evidence
must have procured his acquittal and have given birth to the reaction
against Oates which every additional conviction postponed. As it was,
there were for the defence only four witnesses, two of whom were
intensely interested in the prisoner’s acquittal, against the hitherto
unshaken credit of Oates himself and the testimony of a disinterested
person called to support him. Scroggs put the point quite fairly to the
jury,[640] and the jury chose to disbelieve the prisoner’s witnesses.
The real hardship lay, not in the prejudice of the court or the violent
speech which the Chief Justice appended to his summing up of the
evidence,[641] but in the fact that the accused were kept wholly in
the dark as to the evidence which was to be produced against them. The
practice of the law, as it is still the theory,[642] made it impossible
for the accused to defend himself with certainty against the evidence
which might be brought against him. The preparation of his defence had
to be undertaken in the dark and conducted at random.
On the same day Ireland, Pickering, and Grove received sentence of
death from Jeffreys, as Recorder of London, in a speech which wavered
between pure abuse and a sermon which would have done credit to the
most strenuous divine.[643] More than a month later Ireland and Grove
were executed at Tyburn. Had Ireland’s execution been postponed, an
insurrection was feared. Pickering was respited by the king for so
long that the indignant Commons on April 27, 1679 petitioned urgently
that the law might take its course on the man who “did remain as yet
unexecuted, to the great emboldening of such offenders, in case they
should escape without due punishment;” and on May 25 Charles sent a
message to the House by Lord Russell to say that the sentence should
have effect.[644] All three died protesting their innocence to the last.
Round the dying vows of the fourteen men who were executed for the Plot
controversy raged hotly. To Roman Catholics their solemn denials seemed
so conclusive that they fancied the effect must be the same on others
too.[645] When it became apparent that such earnest assertion was met
with frank unbelief, they attributed the fact to the black malice
and the wicked prejudice of heretical hearts. To Protestants, on the
other hand, the protestations of the Jesuits were clearly the logical
result of their immoral doctrines. If anything, they afforded a further
confirmation of guilt. Able pamphleteers undertook to prove that
according to the principles of their order “they not only might, but
also ought to die after that manner, with solemn protestations of their
innocency.”[646] Protestant pulpits reverberated with demonstrations
that the Jesuits would not “stick at any sort of falsehood in order to
their own defence.” Good Bishop Burnet was shocked at the violence of
his brother divines and “looked always on this as an opening of their
graves, and the putting them to a second death.”[647] Few however were
of his mind, and Algernon Sidney expressed the common opinion when he
wrote to his cousin: “Those who use to extol all that relates to Rome
admire the constancy of the five priests executed the last week; but
we simple people find no more in it than that the papists, by arts
formerly unknown to mankind, have found ways of reconciling falsehood
in the utmost degree with the hopes of salvation, and at the best have
no more to brag of than that they have made men die with lies in their
mouths.”[648] Party spirit could not fail to be aroused in its most
virulent form by the speeches of the condemned men, and to seize upon
them as evidence on either side. They were, in point of fact, evidence
for neither one party nor the other. Oaths sworn in such a manner were
wholly worthless.
As Bedloe lay on his death-bed in the autumn of 1680 he reaffirmed with
every protestation of truth, and as he hoped for salvation, the ghastly
mass of perjured evidence by which he had sworn away the lives of men.
His conscience was clear, he said, and “he should appear cheerfully
before the Lord of Hosts, which he did verily believe he must do in a
short time.”[649] Three years later the man who has been held up to
posterity as the most truthful of his age died, calling God to witness
his innocence of the treason for which he was condemned.[650] Yet Lord
Russell was a member of the Council of Six and had engaged actively in
the preparation of an extensive rebellion. He was an intimate friend of
the men who hatched the actual Rye House Plot. If he was unaware that
the king’s life was aimed at directly and indirectly, it was because
he had deliberately shut his eyes to the tendency of his own schemes
and those of his associates.[651] This must be the test of the value of
such declarations. The unbounded immorality with which the politics of
the reign of Charles II were stamped so clouded the minds of men that
truth became for them almost indistinguishable from falsehood. They had
only not reached the point of view of the native of Madras, who said
of the value of death-bed confessions: “Such evidence ought never to
be admitted in any case. What motive for telling the truth can a man
possibly have when he is at the point of death?”[652]
Mention has already been made of the trial of Reading.[653] This
was the first of a series of important cases which were conducted
in the course of the ensuing year. Briefly, they were trials of
Roman Catholics for fraudulent endeavours, in the words of the time,
to stifle the Plot. Not to speak of the notorious Meal Tub Plot,
the most determined and unscrupulous effort of the Roman Catholic
party to remove the accusation of treason from themselves to their
opponents,[654] there may be noticed four distinct attempts to impair
by fraudulent and criminal means the evidence offered for the crown.
As early as February 1679 information was laid before a committee of
the privy council that an Englishman named Russell, who belonged to the
household of the French ambassador, had endeavoured to suborn witnesses
to invalidate the credit of Oates and Bedloe, and had offered the sum
of £500 for the purpose. The council addressed to the ambassador a
request for the delivery of the accused to stand his trial; but the
case did not come into court, probably because Russell had either
absconded or been shipped abroad.[655] The incident was kept secret
and produced no consequences. But within twelve months three other
attempts of the same nature were proved against Roman Catholic agents
and exercised a considerable influence against their party. The trials
of Reading for a trespass and misdemeanour, of Knox and Lane for a
misdemeanour, and of Tasborough and Price for subornation of perjury
must not be overlooked in forming a judgment on the events of which the
courts of justice were the chief scene.
Nathaniel Reading was a Protestant attorney of some standing in his
profession. Thirty years before he had been secretary to Massaniello
in the insurrection at Naples, and was now living in London and
enjoying a fair practice. He had been the friend and legal adviser
of Lord Stafford for several years, numbered other gentlemen of title
and repute among his acquaintance, and was of a position to receive
an invitation to dinner from the Lieutenant of the Tower when he went
to visit his client in prison.[656] During the Hilary term of 1679
he had been engaged in procuring the discharge on bail of several
prisoners for the Plot, and had gone by leave of the secret committee
of the House of Lords to advise the lords imprisoned in the Tower on
the like subjects. In the course of his negotiations for them he had
become acquainted with Oates and Bedloe, and acted as counsel for the
latter in obtaining his pardon from the king. Bedloe was constantly
in his company, and the two talked frequently of the nature of the
Plot and the witness’ charges against the prisoners.[657] In public
Reading exhorted Bedloe to reveal all his knowledge and bring the
guilty to justice, but in private conversation suggested that it
might be profitable to reduce his evidence against certain of those
incriminated. The plot was blown to the winds, the king’s life out
of danger, Bedloe would be able to feather his own nest, and no harm
would be done. Bedloe promised to consider the matter and, as earnest
of his good intentions, withdrew his evidence against Whitebread and
Fenwick.[658] At the same time he carried the news of the intrigue
to the committee of secrecy. Prince Rupert, the Earl of Essex, and
Mr. Speke[659] were informed of the business, and Bedloe was advised
to continue his negotiation in the hope of extracting something of
importance. Reading had in the meantime gone to the lords in the Tower
and brought from them promises of ample reward if Bedloe would consent
to save them. A meeting was appointed for March 29, to make the final
arrangements.[660] Before Reading appeared, Speke and another witness
were hidden in the room in such a position that they could overhear
every word which passed between the two men. They heard Bedloe ask,
“What say my lords in the Tower now?” Reading replied that Lord
Stafford had promised to settle an estate in Gloucestershire on the
informer, and that he had orders to draw up a deed to that effect and
sign it ten days after Lord Stafford’s discharge from prison. The Earl
of Powis, Lord Petre, and Sir Henry Tichbourne also promised rewards if
Bedloe would procure their acquittal. Bedloe then drew up an abstract
of his evidence against the lords, and Speke saw Reading take the
paper to deliver to them in the Tower. Two days later the attorney met
Bedloe by appointment in the Painted Chamber at Westminster and gave
him in answer to this a corrected version of the evidence which the
accused had drawn up for his actual use at their trials. Bedloe without
looking at the paper handed it at once to Mr. Speke, who carried it to
a committee room in the House of Lords for examination.[661] This paper
was read in court, and proved to contain an amended version of Bedloe’s
testimony so vague and slight that it could not have possibly been of
any use to the prosecution.[662]
Reading’s defence was sufficiently feeble. He was treated by the
bench with the greatest indulgence and allowed to make a lengthy and
unsupported discourse on Bedloe’s character. It is noteworthy that he
objected to the witness not on the ground that he had perjured himself
in holding back evidence at the trial of Whitebread, Fenwick, and
Ireland, but on account of treasonable practices, which were covered
by his pardon. He protested that the first proposal of the intrigue
came from Bedloe, and that he only joined in it to prevent the shedding
of innocent blood. The estate in Gloucestershire spoken of had been
promised by Lord Stafford to himself, if he obtained his acquittal,
and not to Bedloe, though hardly it seemed without the understanding
that the informer was to have some share in it. He would have thought
it a crime not to engage in the business; it was a duty which he owed
to God and his country. By saying this he practically confessed to the
whole indictment, and after a concise summing up the jury immediately
returned a verdict of guilty. Reading was sentenced to be pilloried, to
pay a fine of £1000, and to imprisonment for one year.[663]
The case of Knox and Lane was a still more disreputable affair. Thomas
Knox was in the service of Lord Dumblane, the Earl of Danby’s son. John
Lane and one William Osborne were servants to Titus Oates. These two
were discharged by Oates in April 1679, Lane, who had some acquaintance
with Dangerfield, was lodged by him and Mrs. Cellier under an assumed
name at the house of the Countess of Powis.[664] At Dangerfield’s
suggestion they approached Knox on the subject of the charges which
Oates had made against the Lord Treasurer.[665] Knox agreed to their
suggestion, and together they arranged the details of the scheme.
Osborne and Knox lodged information that Oates had conspired with
Bedloe to bring false accusations against Lord Danby, while Lane
charged his master with using obscene language concerning the king and
with the commission of an unnatural crime. But under examination Knox
and Lane broke down, and all three were driven to confess that there
was not a word of truth in the story which they had concocted. Osborne
fled the country, and his two accomplices were clapped into gaol. News
however was brought to Lane as he lay in prison that Knox was prepared
to stand by his original story. He forthwith retracted his confession,
and on November 19, 1679 indictment was brought against Oates “for an
attempt to commit upon him the horrid and abominable sin of sodomy.”
The grand jury ignored the bill, and a week later the two miscreants
were brought to the king’s bench bar on the charge of “a conspiracy to
defame and scandalise Dr. Oates and Mr. Bedloe; thereby to discredit
their evidence about the horrid Popish Plot.” After a long trial, in
which the defendants were treated with all fairness and in which each
attempted to throw the blame on the other, the jury returned a verdict
of guilty without leaving the bar. The prisoners were sentenced to
fine and imprisonment, and Lane in addition to stand for an hour in
the pillory. The verdict was received with a shout of applause, “many
noblemen, gentlemen, and eminent citizens,” adds the account which was
drawn up under Oates’ direction, “coming with great expectations of the
issue of this trial, which was managed with that justice, impartiality,
and indifference between the king and the defendants, that some have
been heard to say they could never believe a plot before, but now they
were abundantly satisfied.”[666]
The labyrinthine nature of the intrigues connected with the Popish Plot
is amply illustrated by these two trials. The third case presents less
intricacy, but no less dishonesty. In January 1680 John Tasborough and
Anne Price were tried for subornation of perjury in having offered a
bribe to the informer Dugdale to retract the evidence which he had
given at the trial of Whitebread, Harcourt, and Fenwick. Mrs. Price
had been a fellow-servant with Dugdale in the household of the Roman
Catholic peer, Lord Aston. On the night before the trial of the five
Jesuits[667] she came to him and begged him not to give evidence
against Father Harcourt, who was her confessor. When the trial was over
she renewed her solicitations, offering him the reward of £1000 and the
Duke of York’s protection if he would recant what he had then sworn.
Dugdale was introduced to Tasborough, a gentleman belonging to the
duke’s household.[668] Meetings were held at the Green Lettice Tavern
in Brownlow Street and at the Pheasant Inn in Fullers-rents. Tasborough
confirmed the promises made by Mrs. Price. The informer was to sign
a declaration that all his evidence had been false, to receive £1000
in cash, and to be maintained abroad by the Duke of York. The name
of the Spanish ambassador was also mentioned. But Dugdale, as Bedloe
before him, had secreted witnesses at these interviews. The intriguers
were arrested, and the whole story was proved beyond the possibility
of doubt at their trial.[669] Tasborough was sentenced to the fine of
£100, Price to the fine of twice that sum. All parties at the trial
were at considerable pains to exonerate the Duke of York. There was
in fact no direct evidence against him; but it is improbable that the
culprits had been using his name entirely without authority. They must
have known that Dugdale would not put his name to the recantation
without substantial guarantee for the reward, and certainly neither was
in a position to pay any sufficient part of the sum mentioned from his
own resources.
The evidence which Dugdale should have retracted was considerable. His
reputation was still undamaged. He had been steward of Lord Aston’s
estate at Tixhall, in Staffordshire, was thought to have enjoyed a
fair reputation in the county, and to have been imprisoned in the
first instance for refusing to take the oaths of allegiance and
supremacy.[670] Although he had laid information before the privy
council as early as December 1678, it was not until the trial of the
Five Jesuits[671] on June 13 of the year following that he appeared
in court. The case for the prosecution was opened, as usual, with the
evidence of Oates, He reaffirmed the story which he had told at the
trial of Whitebread, Fenwick, and Ireland, and gave similar evidence
against Harcourt, Gavan, and Turner. Dugdale was then called. He
swore to treasonable consults held at Tixhall in September 1678,
where Gavan and Turner were present, to treasonable letters between
Whitebread, Harcourt, and others, and to a letter dispatched from
London by Harcourt on October 20, 1678, addressed to Evers, another
Jesuit, and containing the words “This night Sir Edmond Bury Godfrey
is dispatched.”[672] The death of the king was to be laid at the door
of the Presbyterian party. A general massacre of Protestants was to
follow, “and if any did escape that they could not be sure of were
papists, they were to have an army to cut them off.”[673] Bedloe
followed with the evidence which he had before suppressed against
Whitebread and Fenwick, and swore similarly to the treason of Harcourt.
Some trifling evidence from Prance closed the first part of the case
for the crown.[674] But almost more important than the oral testimony
were two letters which were read in court. The one was a note from
Edward Petre, containing a summons to the congregation fixed for April
24, 1678; the other a letter from Christopher Anderton, dated from
Rome, February 5, 1679, in which occurred the following sentences: “We
are all here very glad of the promotion of Mr. Thomas Harcourt; when I
writ that the patents were sent, although I guess for whom they were,
yet I know not for certain, because our patrons do not use to discover
things or resolutions till they know they have effect. And therefore
in these kind of matters I dare not be too hasty, lest some might say,
a fool’s bolt is soon shot.” Both had been found among Harcourt’s
papers several days after Oates was examined by the privy council.[675]
They seemed to confirm his evidence in a remarkable manner. He had
constantly spoken of the Jesuit design; the former of the letters
contained the same word and enjoined secrecy on the subject. The
latter seemed to refer to the patents which Oates had declared were
sent to the commanders of the popish army. The prisoners explained
that the “design” of the congregation was but to settle the business
of their order and to choose a procurator to undertake its management
at Rome. As for the patents, Anderton had meant to say _Literae
Patentes_, and referred only to Harcourt’s patent as new provincial.
_Literae Patentes_, contended the court, when used in reference to one
person, meant a patent; but when the phrase was translated patents, it
necessarily pointed at more than one. Oates, said the Chief Justice,
interpreted the matter more plainly than the accused.[676]
The Jesuits proceeded to make their defence. Sixteen witnesses were
called to prove that Oates had been at St. Omers from December 1677
to June 1678, and had not left the college at the time when he
swore that he was present at the consult in London. This was the
perjury upon which he was convicted at his first trial in 1685. Five
witnesses were called to testify that Gavan had not been in town in
April 1678; ten, that Ireland had been in the country in August and
September of the same year. Very similar evidence to that now given
was accepted six years later by the court to substantiate the charge
against Oates, but at the trial of Whitebread, Harcourt, and Fenwick
it was disbelieved. The witnesses were examined in detail and gave an
elaborate account of the life at the seminary. But the story which they
told was not altogether satisfactory. Under examination they shuffled
and prevaricated. Sometimes they contradicted one another on points of
time. They came prepared to speak to the date of the consult and the
time immediately before and after it. When questions were put about
dates less closely concerned, they seemed unwilling to answer. One,
who declared that he had left Oates at St. Omers on taking leave for
England to go to the congregation, was confounded when Oates reminded
him that he had lost his money at Calais and had been compelled to
borrow from a friend. Another confused the old and new styles. A
third stated that whenever a scholar left the college the fact could
not but be known to all his fellows. He was immediately contradicted
by Gavan, who said that care was taken that the comings and goings
of the seminarists should be unnoticed.[677] A rumour was spread
abroad that witnesses had been tutored, and was repeated by Algernon
Sidney in a letter to Paris.[678] For once rumour was not at variance
with truth. Sidney’s information was perfectly correct. Three of the
lads from St. Omers were arrested on their arrival in London by Sir
William Waller, and their examinations were forwarded by him to the
secret committee of the House of Commons. One of these was Christopher
Townley, alias Madgworth, alias Sands, who had been a student in the
seminary for six years. He admitted that “his instructions from the
superior was to come over and swear that Mr. Oates was but once from
the college at St. Omers, from December 1677 to June following.” Of
his own knowledge he could say no more than that he had been in the
seminary all the time during which Oates was there; “the said Mr. Oates
might be absent from St. Omers in that time for several days and at
several times, but not absent above one week at a time, this examinant
being lodged in the college where Mr. Oates was, but did not see him
daily.”[679] At the trial he did not scruple to say that he had seen
and talked with Oates on every day throughout April and May and that,
if Oates had ever been absent, he must certainly have known it.[680]
Nor was this all. At his examination he deposed that Parry, Palmer,
and Gifford were all absent from St. Omers while Oates was an inmate
of the college. At the trial Gifford, Palmer, and Parry were produced
to give evidence of their personal knowledge that Oates had been there
the whole of the time.[681] No credence whatever can be given to such
witnesses. It is worthy of remark that they were housed and entertained
by no other than Mrs. Cellier, who was afterwards deeply concerned
both in the Meal Tub Plot and in the case of Knox and Lane, and was
pilloried for an atrocious libel in connection with the murder of Sir
Edmund Berry Godfrey.[682] No doubt can exist on the subject of Oates’
repeated and astounding perjuries. It is as little open to doubt
that the witnesses who were opposed to him at this trial were almost
equally untrustworthy. They were in fact very cleverly parroted. If his
infamy remains undisturbed, the unctuous indignation with which it was
denounced by the Jesuits, at the very moment when they were employing
means as unhallowed as his own to controvert his statements, at least
entitles them to a place by his side in the pillory of history.
Even at this point the false evidence given at this terrible trial
was not ended. The crown produced seven witnesses to prove that Oates
had been in London at the end of April and the beginning of May 1678.
Of these the only two who gave evidence of any weight were Smith,
who had been Oates’ master at Merchant Tailors’ School, and Clay, a
disreputable Dominican friar, whom Oates had taken out of prison. Both
were afterwards proved to have been suborned by Oates and to have
perjured themselves.[683]
The Jesuits concluded their defence with speeches of real eloquence.
Scroggs summed up the evidence in an elaborate speech and strongly
in favour of the crown; and after a quarter of an hour’s absence
the jury returned to court with a verdict of guilty against all the
prisoners.[684]
On the next day Richard Langhorn was indicted at the Old Bailey for
practically the same treason as that for which the Five Jesuits were
convicted. Langhorn was a Roman Catholic barrister of considerable
eminence.[685] He was the legal adviser of the Jesuits, and
conducted for them much business which would now more naturally
pass through the hands of a solicitor. Oates consequently named him
as an active agent in the Plot and prospective advocate-general
under the new government.[686] His trial was a continuation of the
trial of Whitebread, Harcourt, and Fenwick, and exhibited all the
same characteristics, of perjury on the one side, on the other of
prevarication and falsehood. The same evidence was developed at
length, and with the same result. Two fresh points of importance alone
occurred. To Oates’ great alarm the hostess of the White Horse Tavern
in the Strand was called by the defence. Oates had sworn that as many
as eighteen or twenty Jesuits had met together there in one room at the
congregation of April 24. The woman now declared that no room in her
house would hold more than a dozen persons at the same time, and that
when a parish jury had once met there the jurors had been compelled
for want of space to separate into three rooms. This would undoubtedly
have produced an effect, had not three of the spectators in court
immediately risen to swear that there were two rooms in the inn which
were large enough to hold from twenty to thirty people without crowding
them unduly. An unfavourable impression concerning the evidence for
the defence was created, and the king’s counsel was able to score an
effective point.[687]
Of greater weight than this was a portion of Bedloe’s evidence. He
swore that he went one day with Coleman to Langhorn’s chambers in the
Temple, and from the outer room saw the lawyer transcribing various
treasonable letters brought by Coleman into a register at a desk in his
study within.[688] The nature of cross-examination was so imperfectly
understood at the time that Langhorn did not attempt to question the
witness on the shape of his rooms or to shake his credit by calling
evidence to the point. In his memoirs, which were published in the
course of the same year, he wrote the following comment on Bedloe’s
statement: “Every person who knows my said chamber and the situation
of my study cannot but know that it is impossible to look out of my
chamber into my study so as to see any one writing there, and that I
never had at any time any desk in my study.”[689] This was supported
by other evidence. When Oates and Bedloe exhibited in 1680 “articles
of high misdemeanours” against Scroggs before the privy council, they
charged him in one that at the previous Monmouth assizes he “did say to
Mr. William Bedloe that he did believe in his conscience that Richard
Langhorn, whom he condemned, died wrongfully.” To which the Chief
Justice answered “that at Monmouth assizes he did tell Mr. Bedloe that
he was more unsatisfied about Mr. Langhorn’s trial than all the rest;
and the rather, that he was credibly informed, since the trial, that
Mr. Langhorn’s study was so situated that he that walked in his chamber
could not see Mr. Langhorn write in his study; which was Mr. Bedloe’s
evidence.”[690]
This was not the first incident which shook the credit of the witnesses
in the Chief Justice’s mind. He had in the meantime received a still
more striking proof of their worthlessness. On July 18, four days
after the execution of Langhorn and nearly a month after that of the
Five Jesuits, Sir George Wakeman, in company with three Benedictines,
was brought to trial at the Old Bailey. Wakeman was accused of having
bargained with the Jesuits for £15,000 to poison the king. The other
three were charged with being concerned in the Plot in various degrees.
Feeling had run so high after the last two trials that the case was
postponed from the end of June for nearly three weeks, that it might
have time to cool.[691] Interests were at stake which had not been
present in the previous trials. In November of the year before, Oates
and Bedloe had accused the queen of high treason, and Oates had sworn
that Sir George Wakeman, who was her physician, had received from
her a letter consenting to the king’s death.[692] The queen was now
implicated with Wakeman, and the trial was regarded as the prelude to
an attack on herself.[693]
Before the crown lawyers opened the direct attack, witnesses were,
as usual, produced to testify to the reality of the plot. Prance and
Dugdale reaffirmed their previous evidence, and Jennison, himself the
brother of a Jesuit, swore that he had met Ireland in London on August
19, 1678, thus proving to the satisfaction of the court that Ireland
had died with a lie in his mouth.[694] The prosecution then came to the
prisoners. Oates told again the story how he had heard the queen at a
meeting at Somerset House consent formally to the plot for murdering
the king, and swore that he had seen a letter from Wakeman to the
Jesuit Ashby, which was occupied chiefly with a prescription for the
latter during his stay at Bath, but mentioned incidentally that the
queen had given her approval to the scheme. He had also seen an entry
in Langhorn’s register of the payment of £5000 made by Coleman as a
third part of Wakeman’s fee and a receipt for it signed by Wakeman
himself.[695] Bedloe gave evidence which would prove equally the guilt
of the queen and her physician, and both swore to the treasonable
practices of the other prisoners.[696] To rebut this, Wakeman produced
evidence to prove that he had not written the letter for Ashby himself,
but had dictated it to his servant Hunt. The letter was addressed to
Chapman, an apothecary at Bath, who read it and then tore off and kept
the part containing the prescription. Hunt proved that the letter was
in his handwriting and was corroborated by another servant in Wakeman’s
household. Chapman proved that the body of the letter was in the same
handwriting as the prescription, that it contained nothing about the
queen or any plan for the king’s murder, and that Oates had given an
entirely inaccurate account of the prescription, which was so far from
ordering a milk diet, as Oates had sworn that milk would have been
not far removed from poison for a patient who was drinking the waters
at Bath. Scroggs was afterwards accused of having grossly favoured the
prisoner in order to curry favour at court; but the manner in which
this evidence was received is an absolute proof to the contrary. The
bench held, in a way that now excites surprise, but at the time did
not, that Oates had meant that the milk diet was prescribed for Ashby
before he went to Bath, and was therefore not at all inconsistent
with drinking the waters while he was there; and that Wakeman might
easily have written two letters on the same subject. No doubt, said
the judges, the witnesses for the defence spoke the truth. What had
happened was that Sir George had dictated one letter, which consisted
of nothing but medical directions, and of which the apothecary and the
other witnesses spoke; but he must certainly have written another,
containing the treasonable words to which Oates swore. The court
treated the matter as if this were beyond a doubt. To the prisoner’s
objection that he was unlikely to have written two letters to convey
the same instructions, Mr. Justice Pemberton replied, “This might be
writ to serve a turn very well”; and Scroggs closed the discussion by
remarking, “This your witnesses say, and you urge, is true, but not
pertinent.”[697] Shortly before Wakeman turned to his fellow-prisoners
and said, “There is my business done.” He knew that in all human
probability he would be condemned. Suddenly, without any warning,
there occurred the most unexpected event, which, in a dramatic moment
unsurpassed by the most famous in history, shattered the credit of
Oates and produced the first acquittal in the trials for the Popish
Plot.[698] Sir Philip Lloyd, clerk to the privy council, was asked to
state with what Oates had charged the prisoner at his examination
before the council. The evidence deserves to be given in Sir Philip’s
own words: “It was upon the 31st of September,” he stated; “Mr. Oates
did then say he had seen a letter, to the best of his remembrance, from
Mr. White to Mr. Fenwick at St. Omers, in which letter he writ word
that Sir George Wakeman had undertaken the poisoning of the king, and
was to have £15,000 for it; of which £5000 had been paid him by the
hands of Coleman. Sir George Wakeman, upon this, was called in and told
of this accusation; he utterly denied all, and did indeed carry himself
as if he were not concerned at the accusation, but did tell the king
and council he hoped he should have reparation and satisfaction for
the injury done to his honour. His carriage was not well liked of by
the king and council, and being a matter of such consequence as this
was, they were willing to know further of it; and because they thought
this evidence was not proof enough to give them occasion to commit him,
being only out of a letter of a third person, thereupon they called in
Mr. Oates again, and my Lord Chancellor desired Mr. Oates to tell him
if he knew nothing personally of Sir George Wakeman, because they were
in a matter of moment, and desired sufficient proof whereupon to ground
an indictment; Mr. Oates, when he did come in again and was asked the
question, did lift up his hands (for I must tell the truth, let it be
what it will) and said, ‘No, God forbid that I should say anything
against Sir George Wakeman, for I know nothing more against him.’ And I
refer myself to the whole council whether it is not so.”
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill, marching against Macbeth, or
the duke uncloaking to Angelo could not create a greater sensation. “My
lord,” cried Sir George Wakeman, “this is a Protestant witness too.”
Oates began to bluster. He remembered nothing of all this. He did not
believe that any such question was asked him at the council board.
If there had been, he was in such a state of exhaustion after being
deprived of his rest for two nights in succession that he was not in a
condition to answer anything. “What,” returned Scroggs, “must we be
amused with I know not what for being up but two nights?... What, was
Mr. Oates just so spent that he could not say, I have seen a letter
under Sir George Wakeman’s own hand?” The informer swore that to his
best belief he had spoken of the letter; or if he had not, he believed
Sir Philip Lloyd was mistaken; or if not that, he was so weak that
he was unable to say or do anything. Then he completely lost control
of himself and broke out recklessly: “To speak the truth, they were
such a council as would commit nobody.” “That was not well said,” put
in Jeffreys quickly. “He reflects on the king and all the council,”
cried Wakeman. At this the wrath of the Chief Justice burst out on the
perjured miscreant. “You have taken a great confidence,” he thundered,
“I know not by what authority, to say anything of anybody”; and
becoming more grave, pointed out the decisive importance of what had
been proved against him, Oates did not open his mouth again during the
rest of the trial.[699]
The case still dragged on its weary length. Numerous other witnesses
were called to prove and disprove points of varying importance and
connection with the matter at issue. All the prisoners against whom
Oates and Bedloe had sworn made long speeches and discoursed on a
hundred irrelevant topics. Marshal, the Benedictine, lectured the court
and delivered an impassioned harangue on the injustice of the English
nation and on the future state. He was stopped and, beginning again,
drew down on himself from Scroggs a violent rebuke in which he declared
his belief that it was possible for an atheist to be a papist, but
hardly for a knowing Christian to be a Christian and a papist. When the
heated wrangle which followed was ended, the Chief Justice summed up,
setting the evidence on both sides in a clear light and pointing out
where its strength lay against the prisoners, but plainly intimating
his opinion that the revelation made by Sir Philip Lloyd went far to
invalidate Oates’ testimony. As the jury were leaving the box Bedloe
broke in: “My lord, my evidence is not right summed up.” “I know not
by what authority this man speaks,” said Scroggs sternly. After the
absence of about an hour the jury returned. Might they, they asked,
find the prisoners guilty of misprision of treason? “No,” replied
Jeffreys, the Recorder, “you must either convict them of high treason
or acquit them.” “Then take a verdict,” said the foreman; and returned
a verdict of not guilty for all the prisoners.
Scarcely was the trial over when a storm broke upon the head of the
Lord Chief Justice. He had already earned the hatred of the ferocious
London mob by accepting bail for Mr. Pepys and Sir Anthony Deane, who
were in prison on account of the Plot.[700] Now the feeling against
him amounted to positive fury. Sir George Wakeman, after visiting
the queen at Windsor, fled the country to escape the effects of the
popular rage.[701] Scroggs stood his ground. The London presses
teemed with pamphlets against him. _Some observations upon the late
trials of Sir George Wakeman_, etc., by Tom Ticklefoot; _The Tickler
Tickled_; _A New Year’s Gift for the Lord Chief in Justice_ are among
those which deserve to be remembered for their especial virulence.
The Portuguese ambassador had the egregious folly to call publicly
upon Scroggs the day after the trial and to thank him for his conduct
of the case.[702] It was immediately said that the Chief Justice had
been bribed. A barrel packed with gold had been sent to him. “Great
store of money” had been scattered about. The jury had been bribed.
A good jury had been impanelled, but was never summoned, and a set
of rascals was chosen in its place.[703] When Scroggs went on circuit
for the autumn assizes he was met in the provinces with cries of—A
Wakeman, a Wakeman; and at one place a half-dead dog was thrown into
his coach.[704] Early in the year following Oates and Bedloe exhibited
thirteen articles against the Chief Justice before the privy council,
and Oates declared that “he believed he should be able to prove that
my Lord Chief Justice danced naked.” On January 21 Scroggs justified
himself in a set reply of great skill and wit, and the informers met
with a severe rebuff.[705] His other traducers were treated with no
greater courtesy. At the opening of the courts for the Michaelmas term
of 1679 Scroggs made an able speech of eloquence, distinction, and
almost sobriety, in which he grounded his belief in the Plot on the
correspondence of Coleman and Harcourt and vindicated the integrity of
the judicial honour; and on May 20, 1680 one Richard Radley was fined
£200 for saying that the Chief Justice had “received money enough from
Dr. Wakeman for his acquittal.”[706] In September 1679 he was received
with great favour at the court at Windsor and in December caused horrid
embarrassment to Lord Shaftesbury and several other Whig noblemen,
whom he met at dinner with the Lord Mayor, by proposing the health of
the Duke of York and justifying his own conduct on the bench.[707] In
January 1681 he was impeached by the Commons. When the articles of his
impeachment were brought up to the House of Lords he was treated, to
the indignation of the Whig party, with great consideration and favour;
but although the lords refused even to put the question “whether there
shall now be an address to the king to suspend Sir William Scroggs from
the execution of his place until his trial be over?” he was absent
from court at the beginning of the Hilary term, and did not take his
place upon the bench during the rest of the term.[708] Three days after
the opening of the Oxford parliament Scroggs put in his answer to the
impeachment. He denied the truth of the articles exhibited against
him severally, and insisted that the nature of the facts alleged in
them was not such as could legally be made the ground for a charge
of high treason. He prayed the king for a speedy trial.[709] Copies
of his answer and petition were sent to the House of Commons, but
before further proceedings could be taken Parliament was dissolved on
March 28, and the impeachment was blown to the winds in company with
other Whig measures of greater importance and still less good repute.
The Chief Justice was not left long in the enjoyment of his triumph.
In April 1681 Charles removed him from the bench and appointed Sir
Francis Pemberton to be Chief Justice in his place. The move was no
doubt directed by the approaching trial of Fitzharris. For this was
undertaken in the teeth of the bitter opposition of the Whig party, and
it was expedient that a man who was already odious to Shaftesbury’s
adherents should not endanger the success of the crown by his presence
on the bench on so important an occasion. The late Chief Justice was
compensated by an annual pension of £1500 and the appointment of his
son to be one of “his Majesty’s counsel learned in the law.”[710]
Sir William Scroggs, Chief Justice of the court of king’s bench, was a
man of a type not uncommon in the seventeenth century. He was vulgar
and profligate, a great winebibber, stained by coarse habits and the
ignorant prejudices common to all of his day but the most temperate
and learned, but a man of wit, shrewdness, strong character, and
master of the talents which were necessary to secure success in the
legal profession as it then was.[711] The prominent position into
which he was brought by the trials for the Popish Plot has earned for
him a reputation for evil second in the history of the English law
courts only to that of Jeffreys. He has been accused of cowardice,
cruelty, time-service, of allowing his actions on the bench to be
swayed by party spirit, and of using his position with gross injustice
to secure the conviction of men who were obnoxious to the popular
sentiment. These charges cannot be substantiated. When the evidence
of interested partisans by whom he was lauded or abused is stripped
away, they rest on two grounds: the fact that he presided at trials
where men were condemned for the Popish Plot, and at one where men were
acquitted of similar charges; and the nature of his speeches in court
at those trials. It was said that he obtained the acquittal of Sir
George Wakeman because he realised that the king “had an ill opinion”
of the Plot, and because he had been told that the popular leaders
had no support at court; and that he had taken an opposite course at
the previous trials because he believed the contrary to be true.[712]
These statements have passed for truth ever since they were made, and
have been repeated by one writer after another. They were in fact
feeble attempts to explain what their authors did not understand. They
are contradicted not only by the statements of other contemporaries,
which are of small weight, but by the whole course of the Lord Chief
Justice’s action and the circumstances by which he was surrounded.
From the very outbreak of the Popish Plot it was notorious in official
circles that the king discredited the evidence offered by the
informers.[713] It is absurd to suppose that Scroggs was ignorant of
the fact. If anything, Charles was rather more inclined to believe in
the Plot in the spring of 1679 than on Oates’ first revelations.[714]
No judge could possibly have expected to gain favour at court by an
exhibition on the bench of zeal which was directed against the court.
Still more absurd is it to suppose that a man in the position of the
Lord Chief Justice should have imagined that the Earl of Shaftesbury
exercised a favoured influence over the king’s mind. Nor does Scroggs’
conduct on the bench afford good ground for these accusations. His
behaviour in the test case, the trial of Sir George Wakeman, was
exactly the same as it had been in all the previous trials, and exactly
the same as it was at the later trials over which he presided, whether
they were of priests charged with treason on account of their orders,
of persons charged with treason in the Plot, or for offences of a less
high character.[715] It is scarcely surprising to hear that after the
attack made on him by Oates and Bedloe, “whensoever either of them have
appeared before him, he has frowned upon them, spoke very frowardly
to them and reflected much upon them.”[716] Nevertheless he treated
their evidence quite fairly. The rule was that only a conviction of
perjury could disqualify a witness, and Scroggs enforced it without
prejudice.[717] Throughout he had the entire support of the other
judges, and not least that of Chief Justice North.[718] His mind was
filled, equally with theirs, with the fear and horror of popery, and as
the chief part of the speaking fell to his lot he expressed this more
often and more emphatically than his brethren. But he made up his mind
on the merits of each case in accordance with the evidence which was
then given and with the stringent and unjust rules of procedure which
had been handed down to him. Scroggs was neither a judge of remarkable
merit nor a lawyer of learning, but on the evidence which was brought
before him, and which was not then, as it would be now, rendered
incredible by its own character, he did in a rough manner sound justice.
For the violence and brutality of his speeches there can be no more
excuse than for the coarseness and violence of all speech and action
in the age in which he lived. But his words must not be judged alone,
nor must his manner of speech be considered peculiar. Language in the
latter half of the seventeenth century was harsh and exaggerated to a
degree hardly comprehended to-day. Scroggs constantly launched forth
into tirades against the Roman Catholic religion, full of heated abuse.
Sometimes he attributed to the Jesuits, at others to all papists,
the bloody, inhuman, abominable doctrine that murder, regicide, and
massacre were lawful in the cause of religion. “Such courses as these,”
he declared, “we have not known in England till it was brought out
of their Catholic countries; what belongs to secret stranglings and
poisonings are strange to us, though common in Italy.”[719] He told
Coleman, “No man of understanding, but for by-ends, would have left
his religion to be a papist.... Such are the wicked solecisms in
their religion, that they seem to have left them neither natural sense
nor natural conscience: not natural sense, by their absurdity in so
unreasonable a belief as of the wine turned into blood; not conscience,
by their cruelty, who make the Protestants’ blood as wine, and these
priests thirst after it; Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum?”[720]
The onslaught on Ireland, Pickering, and Grove was still more virulent:
“I would not asperse a profession of men, as priests are, with hard
words, if they were not very true, and if at this time it were not very
necessary. If they had not murdered kings, I would not say they would
have done ours. But when it hath been their practice so to do; when
they have debauched men’s understandings, overturned all morals, and
destroyed all divinity, what shall I say of them? When their humility
is such that they tread upon the necks of emperors; their charity such
as to kill princes, and their vow of poverty such as to covet kingdoms,
what shall I say to them?... This is a religion that quite unhinges
all piety, all morality, and all conversation, and to be abominated
by all mankind.”[721] Yet Scroggs’ language was no stronger than
that of his brothers on the bench. Jeffreys in sentencing Ireland,
Wild in sentencing Green, Jones in sentencing Tasborough attained an
exactly similar style. At the trial of Penn and Mead in 1670 the court
was at least equally ill-mouthed, and nothing ever heard in a court
of justice surpassed the torrents of venomous abuse which Coke, as
Attorney-General, poured upon the head of Raleigh at his trial in 1603.
One fact in judicial procedure exercised an immense influence on the
nature of speeches from the bench. The judges took no notes.[722] In
summing up the evidence they relied solely upon memories developed for
this purpose to an extent which seems almost marvellous. But another
result besides this remarkable mental training was that in his summing
up the judge had no set form by which to direct himself. There was not
the constraint which comes from the necessity of following a definite
guide on prosaic slips of paper. It followed that the whole of this
part of his work was far more loose and undefined than it has come to
be since the additional burden of taking notes has been imposed. Not
only could he, but it was natural that he should, break off from the
course of the evidence to interpose comments more or less connected
with it; and in the days of little learning and violent religious
prejudice, the judge’s comment was likely to take the form of abuse of
the creed which he did not profess.
Men of the seventeenth century habitually expressed their thoughts with
a coarseness which is disgusting to the modern mind. A man named Keach,
who had taught that infants ought not to be baptized, was indicted for
“maliciously writing and publishing a seditious and venomous book,
wherein are contained damnable positions contrary to the book of common
prayer.”[723] At his speech at the opening of Parliament in 1679 Lord
Chancellor Finch likened the Roman Catholic priests and their pupils to
“the Sons of Darkness,” and declared that “the very shame and reproach
which attends such abominable practices hath covered so many faces with
new and strange confusions, that it hath proved a powerful argument
for their conversion; nor is it to be wondered at that they could no
longer believe all that to be Gospel which their priests taught them,
when they saw the way and means of introducing it was so far from being
Evangelical.”[724] Other parties were equally violent; and on two
separate occasions Shaftesbury swore that he would have the lives of
the men who had advised the king to measures obnoxious to his party.
The most notorious of all Scroggs’ utterances, an acrid sneer at the
doctrine of transubstantiation: “They eat their God, they kill their
king, and saint the murderer,” is paralleled almost exactly by Dryden’s
couplet:
Such savoury deities must needs be good.
As served at once for worship and for food;[725]
and Dryden, who at this time belonged to the court and high church
party, became within five years himself a Roman Catholic. The whole
literature of the time bears witness to the fact that such language
was scarcely beyond the ordinary. It was a convention of the age and
must be accepted as such. There would be no greater mistake than to
attribute to words of the sort too great an influence on action. The
results which attended them were unimportant. Of all Chief Justice
Scroggs’ harangues the most consistently brutal and offensive was that
directed at Marshal, at the trial of Sir George Wakeman.[726] Yet it
was followed immediately by a fair summing up and the acquittal of the
prisoners.
Only one other case demands attention in this review of the trials
for the Popish Plot. The trial of Elizabeth Cellier for high treason
belongs rather to the history of the Meal Tub Plot; those of Sir Thomas
Gascoigne, Sir Miles Stapleton, Thwing, and Pressicks to the provincial
history of the Plot; that of Archbishop Plunket to its history in
Ireland. The acquittal of Lord Castlemaine is chiefly important as
an episode in the infamous career of Dangerfield, the informer. The
proceedings against Fitzharris belong rather to the history of Whig
conspiracy against the crown, the transition to which they mark.[727]
But the trial of Lord Stafford calls for more lengthy notice. It was
the last of the treason trials for the main Popish Plot, and ranks in
importance with the weightiest of those which went before. More than
two years had now elapsed since the beginning of the ferment caused
by the Plot. During that time it had exercised a magic over men’s
minds. This influence was now suffering a decline. The acquittals of
Wakeman, Lord Castlemaine, and Sir Thomas Gascoigne had wrought the mob
to fury against the court and the Roman Catholics, but they had also
sown doubts in the judgment of intelligent persons as to the credit of
the informers and the truth of the facts to which they swore. At the
end of the year 1680 it was doubtful, said Sir John Reresby, “whether
there were more who believed there was any plot by the papists against
the king’s life than not.”[728] The situation of the Whig party was
critical. Their violent espousal of the Plot and the concentration of
all their efforts upon the propagation of ultra-Protestant designs had
brought about the result that, should the Plot be discredited before
they had gained their object in excluding the Duke of York from the
succession to the throne, their power would vanish into thin air. To
stave off a day of such evil and to re-establish on its former firm
footing the general belief in “the bloody designs of papists,” the
trial of Giles for the bogus attempt on Captain Arnold’s life had
been undertaken.[729] With the same object Lord Stafford was brought
to trial. His imprisonment had already lasted for two years and two
months.[730] He was now brought to the bar in preference to any of
the other four noblemen who had been imprisoned with him because, as
was believed at court, his advanced age and bodily infirmity rendered
him a more easy prey to the rancour of the House of Commons.[731] On
all sides the case was regarded as of the utmost importance. If the
prisoner were condemned the Whigs would gain a great advantage. If
he were acquitted, the prosecution of the Plot, which was their sole
weapon, would suffer a disastrous check.[732]
Stafford’s trial was conducted upon a scale befitting its consequence.
Seven days were occupied in its process, a length which was at the time
unprecedented. As many as sixty-one witnesses were called on the one
side and on the other. For those who appeared for the prosecution the
cost of summons and entertainment amounted to a hundred pounds.[733]
The court of the Lord High Steward was held in Westminster Hall. Round
the hall were arranged galleries, from which privileged persons watched
the proceedings with the keenest interest. From her seat in a private
box the Duchess of Portsmouth exerted her charms upon the members of
the House of Commons stationed near her, distributing “sweetmeats
and gracious looks.” Another box was reserved for the queen. In a
third sat the king, a constant attendant during every day of the
trial.[734] Opposite the bar was the seat of the Lord High Steward,
and near by were placed the managers of the prosecution, Sir William
Jones, Sergeant Maynard, Winnington, Treby, Trevor, Powle, the most
distinguished lawyers of the House of Commons.
On November 30, 1680, his sixty-ninth birthday, Thomas Howard, Lord
Viscount Stafford, was brought to the bar. That nothing might be
omitted against the prisoner, the managers called witnesses to prove
the reality and general designs of the Popish Plot. The whole story
was gone into at immense length. Oates, Dugdale, Jennison, a secular
priest named John Smith, and Bernard Dennis, a Dominican friar, gave
a volume of evidence to the point. The records of the conviction of
nineteen persons for treason and other charges connected with the
Plot, beginning with Coleman and ending with Giles, were proved and
the record of Coleman’s attainder was read. Thus the whole of one day
was occupied.[735] On the following morning the managers proceeded to
call witnesses to the treason of Lord Stafford. The mass of evidence
which they gave may be reduced to three points. Dugdale swore that
at a certain meeting held at Tixhall, in Staffordshire, about the
end of August or the beginning of September 1678, the accused had
given his full assent to the plot for taking away the king’s life,
and in September had offered him the sum of £500 to be the actual
murderer.[736] Oates swore that he had seen letters to various Jesuits,
signed Stafford, containing assurances of his zeal and fidelity to the
design; that the prisoner had in his presence received from Fenwick
a commission constituting him paymaster-general of the forces; and
that, in conversation with Fenwick, Lord Stafford had said he did
not doubt that “Grove should do the business,” adding with reference
to the king, “he hath deceived us a great while, and we can bear no
longer.”[737] Lastly Turbervile, a new witness, swore that after a
fortnight’s acquaintance with the prisoner in Paris, in the year 1675,
he had directly proposed to him to kill the king of England, who was
a heretic and a rebel against Almighty God.[738] Round these charges
the contest was waged hotly. Lord Stafford and his witnesses doing
battle against the managers and theirs. On the third day the attack was
directed on Dugdale. A servant of Lord Aston proved that the informer
had lived in bad repute at Tixhall, that he was discharged from his
post of steward, that he ran away to escape his creditors, was caught
and imprisoned for debt, and that he had sworn by God that he knew
nothing of any plot.[739] The last was confirmed by the magistrates
who had arrested Dugdale for debt. He had then been examined about
the Plot and denied all knowledge of it. Only two days later he made
a full confession.[740] Two servants of the accused were called to
prove the nature of the interview in which Dugdale swore that Lord
Stafford offered him £500 to kill the king. Every circumstance of it
was fully explained. The witnesses had been in the room the whole
time, and deposed that the conversation had turned upon nothing more
serious than the chances of a horse-race in the neighbourhood.[741]
Other Staffordshire men testified to Dugdale’s evil reputation, and two
artisans of Tixhall stated that Dugdale had offered them separately
money to swear against Lord Stafford.[742]
Of Oates’ evidence little could be made for the defence, but Stafford
was able to point out that after having solemnly declared to the House
of Lords that he could accuse no other persons “of whatsoever quality
they be,” he had proceeded to charge the queen herself with high
treason.[743]
Again Dugdale was called and cross-examined on his deposition of
December 24, 1678, which was read from the journal of the House of
Lords. In that he had said “that presently after one Howard, almoner
to the queen, went beyond seas, he was told by George Hobson (servant
to the said Lord Aston) that there was a design then intended for the
reformation of the government of the Romish religion.” He now swore
that he did not know Hobson before the latter came into Lord Aston’s
service in 1678. Stafford seized upon this as evidence either that
Dugdale was lying, or that his information, sworn two years before,
was false. Dugdale contended that the meaning of the clause “was that
Hobson told me that presently after almoner Howard went over, there was
such a design carrying on.” It is a testimony to the obscurity of the
style of ordinary English prose at the end of the seventeenth century
that the court held, in apparent opposition to common sense and common
justice, that the construction which Dugdale gave to the sentence was
not only possible, but the more probable.[744]
Turbervile, the third of the informers, was met in his evidence by
numerous contradictions. It was proved that in his original deposition
he had altered two dates the day after having sworn to their accuracy.
Both in his deposition of November 9, 1680 and at the trial in the
course of examination he had sworn that he had constantly seen Lord
Stafford in Paris during a fortnight in 1675 when Stafford was ill with
gout, and that the prisoner then pressed him to undertake the murder
of the king. Two of Lord Stafford’s servants who had been with him in
Paris now proved that they had never once seen Turbervile during that
time, and that their master had not been ill or lame with gout for
at least seven years.[745] Material evidence was brought against the
witness on other points. He had sworn that at the end of 1675 Lord
Stafford had returned to England by Calais, sending him by Dieppe. The
contrary was now proved by an independent witness. It was also proved
by a French servant belonging to the household of Lord Powis that
Turbervile had lodged with him in Lord Powis’ house in Paris at a time
when he professed to be in fear for his life of the earl himself, and
by his brother, John Turbervile, that whereas he had sworn that Lord
Powis threatened to have him disinherited, he had not at any time had
even a remote chance of any inheritance whatsoever.[746]
On the fourth day of this ponderous trial Lord Stafford closed his main
defence. He pointed to the turpitude of Oates’ character, and spoke
with emotion of his abhorrence that a man guilty of such immorality as
to profess a change of religion which he did not experience should be
allowed to give evidence against a peer among his peers. “I appeal to
your lordships,” he cried, “whether such ... is not a perjured fellow,
and no competent witness? No Christian, but a devil, and a witness for
the devil.” Even Oates himself was flustered and had to be restrained
by the managers from breaking into excesses.[747]
The prosecuting Commons however were undismayed. They called a swarm of
witnesses to set up the character of the informers and to destroy that
of witnesses for the defence. It was proved by word of mouth and the
production of letters that servants of Lord Aston, Lord Bellasis, and
Mr. Heveningham had attempted to suborn persons to give false evidence
against Dugdale.[748] The new witnesses were in turn contradicted by
the defence, and this wonderful series of contradictions was carried
still one step further when fresh evidence was called to corroborate
them.[749]
On the fifth day Lord Stafford summed up his defence. He laid special
stress on the infamous character of his accusers and his own clean
record, the points in which the witnesses had been contradicted,
and the general improbability of the charge. His speech was badly
received. The opportunity of a slight pause was seized by Lord Lovelace
to spring to his feet and denounce with indignation the presence in
court of a well-known Roman Catholic.[750] Moreover the prisoner
made a grave tactical mistake in proposing for argument a number of
points of law, of which some were frivolous and others had already
been authoritatively determined. Of these the only one which could be
considered material was the question whether or no in a case of high
treason two witnesses were necessary to prove each overt act alleged,
since the witnesses against Lord Stafford had sworn separately, and
never together, to the commission of several acts. This had in fact
been determined in the case of Sir Harry Vane,[751] but now with
remarkable consideration for the prisoner the opinion of the assembled
judges was taken: it was unanimous to the effect that the evidence of
two separate witnesses to two distinct acts constituted a proof of
high treason. The other points were easily disposed of by Jones and
Winnington.[752]
In a speech of great ability Sir William Jones answered the accused.
Here especially the professional training of the managers had weight.
With the ease and decision of a practised lawyer the leader ran over
the trial, setting the strong points of the prosecution in a clear
light and minimising the value of the defence. His zeal was evident,
but hardly unfair. If here and there a statement overshot the mark of
strict accuracy, the effect of his speech was only enhanced by the
patience with which he submitted to correction from the prisoner.
Concluding with a short but powerful address, he demanded that the
court should do “that justice to your king and country as to give
judgment against these offenders, which will not only be a security
to us against them, but a terror to all others against committing the
like offences.”[753] On the night of Saturday, December 4, Stafford
petitioned to be heard again in his defence. His request was granted,
but the rambling speech to which the court listened on the Monday
following was calculated to produce any effect rather than that of
advancing his cause. The managers only found it necessary to reply very
briefly before the court adjourned to consider its verdict.[754]
At eleven o’clock on the next morning the votes were taken. Thirty-one
peers pronounced Lord Stafford innocent, fifty-five guilty. The verdict
was not unexpected. Stafford had conducted his defence so feebly as
to make his acquittal improbable.[755] Physical weakness accounted
largely for this; but he had made the mistake of speaking as much as
possible, and his remarks were halting, nebulous, indecisive. On the
night before the verdict was delivered Barillon wrote that there was
every appearance that it would be adverse to the accused.[756] Sir
John Reresby was staggered by the evidence for the prosecution, and
only maintained his belief in Stafford’s innocence by fixing his mind
firmly on the depravity of the witnesses.[757] Anglesey, Lord Privy
Seal, afterwards pressed hard for Lord Stafford’s pardon, but at the
trial he felt constrained to vote against him, “secundum allegata et
probata.”[758] Even Charles, although he knew that Oates and his crew
were liars and publicly called them rascals, thought that the evidence
against the accused was strong, and that he might well be guilty;[759]
and the Countess of Manchester, who was present at the whole trial,
wrote to Lady Hatton before the verdict was known, that the charge “was
so well proved that I believe not many was unsatisfied, except those
that were out of favour with the party might wish it other ways.”[760]
Charles was present in Westminster Hall while the peers delivered
their verdict, and took notes of the sides on which they voted. When
it became evident that the majority were for condemnation, his face
to those who were near him shewed profound disappointment.[761]
Whether or no he believed in Stafford’s innocence, the conviction
was a blow to the king’s cause. But the votes were not directed by
political considerations alone. These would probably have ensured an
acquittal. If Charles had exerted his personal influence on the court,
an acquittal would have been certain.[762] The peers gave judgment on
what seemed to them the merits of the case. Three eminent members of
Lord Stafford’s family voted for the death.[763] The same verdict was
delivered by the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Privy Seal, the Earl of
Oxford, Lord Maynard, and the Duke of Lauderdale. Among the thirty-one
who found for the accused were such staunch Whigs as Lord Holles,
Lord Lucas, and the Earl of Clarendon. All these, had party spirit
directed the votes, must have determined to the contrary. The fact
must be faced that so late as December of the year 1680, more than
two years after Oates’ first revelations, and after the disclosure at
Wakeman’s trial had rendered certain the fact of his perjury, many
of the most honourable and intelligent men in the kingdom sincerely
accepted as credible the evidence offered against Lord Stafford, and as
earnest of their belief sent to the scaffold one of their own number,
a man bowed down with years and infirmity, the victim of miscreants
supported by the enemies of the king, for the false plot against whose
life he was now to die. It was a memorial to all time of the ignorance
of the principles of evidence and the nature of true justice which
characterised their age.
Sentence as usual in cases of high treason was pronounced on the
condemned man, but at the request of the peers the king commuted the
penalty to beheading alone. Efforts were made to obtain a pardon, but
without avail. Charles was determined to let the law take its course
that he might not be said to balk the ends of justice.[764]
The sheriffs disputed the validity of the warrant for Stafford’s
decapitation and requested the advice of the House of Commons on the
following questions: “Can the king, being neither party nor judge,
order the execution? Can the lords award the execution? Can the king
dispense with any part of the execution? If he can dispense with a
part, why not with all?” To the ingenuity of Sir William Jones was
due the studied insult offered to Charles in the answer of the House:
“The house is content that the sheriffs should execute William,
late Viscount Stafford, by severing his head from his body.”[765]
The excitement which prevailed in London was intense. Throughout
the trial Stafford had been hooted in the streets on his way to and
from the Tower. Angry brawls arose between the witnesses and the
crowd at the doors of Westminster Hall. When Dugdale swore that the
prisoner had offered him £500 to kill the king, a savage hum arose in
the precincts of the court itself and drew a severe rebuke from the
Lord High Steward.[766] On December 29, 1680 Stafford was led to the
scaffold. From the place of execution he read a lengthy speech, which
was published in print on the same afternoon, asserting his innocence
and vindicating his religion.[767] His words fell on deaf ears. A vast
crowd was assembled to witness his death. Almost all historians have
repeated the assertion that the spectators were touched and answered
with cries of, “We believe you, my Lord; God bless you, my Lord.”[768]
The story is a mere fable. Lord Stafford died with howls of execration
of the bigoted London mob ringing in his ears. The cries with which
he was met testify relentlessly that the belief in his guilt was
firmly fixed in the mind of the nation.[769] The Popish Plot was not
yet a thing of the past. But the result of Lord Stafford’s trial was
not altogether what was expected. Shaftesbury and his party indeed
gained a temporary victory, but the ultimate triumph was to the king.
His steadiness, restraint, and readiness for compromise contrasted
favourably with the intolerance and unconciliating attitude of the
Whigs. Their game was played for the crown and, when their rejection of
all offers short of that made their motive plain to the nation, Charles
had the nation at his back. The violence with which they attempted to
force the king’s hand alienated public feeling. He was able to dissolve
the Oxford Parliament in safety, and the Whigs were driven to plan open
rebellion and the treason of the Rye House Plot.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
LONGLEAT MSS. COVENTRY PAPERS xi. 393
April 29, 1679. Dover. Francis Bastwick to Henry Coventry.
This day I received advice of one Col. Scott coming from Folkestone to
take horse here for London, and on his arrival I seized him and sent
for the Comm. of the passage. His examination I send you enclosed, upon
which we found cause to commit him (which was accordingly done by the
deputy mayor) into safe custody until we had further orders from one
of his Majesty’s principal secretaries what to do with him. He owns
himself to be the same person we have had orders for several months
past to seize at his landing. Col. Strode, deputy formerly, had an
order to seize Col. Scott as I remember from Mr. Secretary Coventry,
but I am not certain but Col. Strode or his deputy are at present in
the place.
I am your most humble servant Fran. Bastwick. I desire your speedy
answer when you have acquainted my L^d. Sunderland. Col. Scott has been
found in many contrary tales, and went at his landing by the name of
John Johnson.
COVENTRY PAPERS xi. 396
From the examination of Colonel Scott at Dover, April 29, 1679. That
he is a pensioner to the prince of Condi, and hath formerly commanded
the prince of Condi’s regiment of horse in the French service. And that
the said prince of Condi sent him over in September last in order for
the surveying of several parcels of lands and woods in Burgandie and
Picardie was the occasion of his going over.
That the occasion of his return is to see his native country, and his
profession is a soldier. The said Colonel offered to take the oaths of
allegiance and supremacy and the test.
COVENTRY PAPERS xi. 397
Undated. Paper headed: An account of what the Earl of Barkeshire
desired Colonel John Scot to communicate to His Ma^{ty}. with
what passed before the discourse. (Endorsed by Coventry in the
same words.)
The Earl of Barkeshire, that had lain long of a languishing sickness
in Paris, was pleased to let me know he desired to advise with me
about a physician. This was in March last. I told his lordship I was
acquainted with an able man of our own nation, and one of the college
of physicians in London, but I was of opinion his Lordship’s Roman
Catholic friends would not approve of him because he was not only a
strict protestant, but one that did publicly defend the doctrine of the
church of England, and as publicly declare the English Roman Catholics
were prosecuted on just grounds. His Lordship said that mattered not,
he should not dispute that point with him, nor did he value any man
the worse for differing from him in judgment, and that he was not so
strait-laced as others of his opinion, and did commit himself to the
charge of the said Doctor Budgeon; but it did prove too late, for this
gentleman soon told his Lordship what condition he was in, and he came
to my lodgings and signified to me his Lordship’s great desire to speak
with me, telling me his Lordship in all human probability could not
live long; and I waited upon his Lordship the morning following, and he
having commanded his servants out of the chamber, and to suffer nobody
to come in till he called, spake to me as I remember these very words:—
Colonel Scot, you are my friend; I must commit a secret to you; there
has been a foolish and an ill design carried on in England: I don’t
tell you the Roman Catholic religion is a foolish business, for it
is the faith I will die in, but ’tis the giddy madness of some of
that religion I blame. I knew nothing on’t till my Lord Arundel, Mr.
Coleman, and others told me the business could not miscarry, and that I
should be looked upon as an ill man if I came not in in time, and truly
I believed them. I was none of the contrivers, I was not consulted with
till towards the latter end of the day, nor did I ever hear anything
mentioned about killing the king; if I had, I would have discovered it,
and so indeed I ought to have done what I did know, as well for the
personal obligations I had to his Majesty as that which my allegiance
obliges me to, and every man too; for my Lord Bellasis is an ill man;
he and others were accustomed to speak ill of the king, indeed very
irreverently.
Then I asked his Lordship who those others were; but he answered,
prithee, good Colonel, ask me no questions; if I had known of
approaching dangers to the king, I should have told him. He then
fetched a great sigh and wept, but presently said, Friend, I see things
will go as you will; for God’s sake promise me you will find some way
to tell the king every word I say, and that though some passages in
letters of mine may look a little oddly, I would have run any hazard
rather than have suffered any injury to have been done to his Majesty’s
person: ’tis true I would have been glad to have seen all England
Catholic, but not by the way of some ill men. My Lord Stafford was all
along a moving agent, and was here in France about the business; the
man of himself is not very malicious. My Lord Powis his covetousness
drew him in further than he would have gone. I believe and hope there
will hardly be found matter against them to take away their lives, but
pray the king from a poor dying man not to have to do with any of those
four Lords I have named, for they love not his person.
My Lord Peeter has always had a great love and reverence for the
king’s person; ’tis true this last wife of his is foolishly governed
by priests and influences him; but he was ever averse to all things of
intrigue in this matter. I need not desire you to be secret, your own
safety will oblige you. My Lord Cardigan and others being at the door
and calling to this Lord, the servants were ordered to let them in,
and before them he said, pray don’t forget the hundredth we spake of,
nor the business at Rohan. I was there once more with the Doctor, but
he grew exceeding deaf; he said only then to me: Colonel, don’t forget
what I said to you for God’s sake. This is the very manner he spake it.
JOHN SCOT.
COVENTRY PAPERS xi. 171
December 23, 1676. Hague. A letter, unsigned. Note by Coventry at
head—To one Johnson: at foot—shewed his Maj. 23rd of Dec. 76.
In my last I made some observations to you of the working of the old
spirit in the Popish party: at this time will now only add that the
same seemeth not to be restrained to England.... The popish humour
beginneth to spread itself over the English regiments, especially the
regiment lately Col. Tanwicke. One Wisely is made Col., being Lieut.
Col. before. Archer the major is made Lieut. Col., both Irish Papists,
and the rest of the officers are generally papists and mad Irish, and
for aught we know for the most part recommended by the Duke of York.
Now albeit this be true that this congregating of Papists together in
a body be in the dominion of another state, yet it is true they are
subjects of England and in regard to the ... circumstances of England
in my poor opinion worthy the public notice.
COVENTRY PAPERS xi. 506
Undated. Letter without address or signature; deciphered from numbers
written in very light ink in place of all important words, so
that all those in the decipher stand between the lines.
Col. Scot doth send his letters by way of Mons. Gourville, in whose
chamber he writes them, so that I see little hopes of doing what you
know, though the undertaker doth still insist for the contrary. I am
ready for the journey, hoping Mr. Secretary will be so just as to spare
naming me till that service is done, for I should be sorry to trust any
other who I do know to have contrived my being disliked in this court.
A lady of quality, my good friend, returned yesterday from Bretagne and
assures a great arming upon those coasts and an army of forty thousand
men ready to ship at Nantes, Brest, etc., whenever commanded to sea, to
save (as they report) the K. of England from destruction. The lady, if
there were no disguise in the outward state of things in England (which
many do think there is), might I think be brought to use her knowledge
for his Majesty’s service, but my hands are tied, and you know how
things stand with you.
COVENTRY PAPERS xi. 313
May 21 1678. St. Malo. Thomas Kelly to Mr. William Talbot in Corn
Market, Dublin.
I pray you to pay to Mr. John Plunket the sum of 89 pounds sterling by
the review of this letter; in doing so you will satisfy your creditor.
Made the 21st of May at St. Malo, 1678.
THOMAS KELLY.
[The above is in plain dark ink. What follows is light and indistinct;
the characters were evidently written in milk or lemon-juice, and made
visible by being held to the fire.]
When I came from Paris to St. Germaine where I stayed some time and
among other speeches I heard in dophin [_sic_] Chamber from some which
were there that if the English should make war against them they should
easily excite a rebellion both in Scotland and Ireland, and sending
by some Marshal of France 10 men of war with all things necessary for
to make up 2000 soldiers in Ireland and that, by the help of some
skillful Irishmen, and under their conduct all the Irish should be,
they may easily overcome all Ireland. This was the discourse of those
gentlemen in Dorphin [_sic_] Chamber, but whether it comes to effect or
not I cannot tell.... [Goes on to give particulars of the numbers and
strength of the French navy on the north coast.]
COVENTRY PAPERS xi, 310
July 6, 1678. Kimper. David Neal to John Plunket at sign of the Ship
in the Corn Market in Dublin.
[Of the same character as the last. The letter, in black ink, is
frivolous. Interlined in light writing as follows.]
I have been over all places where I was bound, but the fairest places
is Brest, and afterwards Havre and St. Malos for merchants. The names
of them that are capable to serve I did send long since. All other
places are nothing after these places neither is there any man of war
in them other places unless they should stay for a day or two expecting
to convoy others.... [Gives other particulars of ships and a list of
names of captains of French men of war. Concludes—]
If you please I intend to go home since the time is past whenever I was
engaged, neither will my friends have me to apply myself to it. Your
resolution hereupon I will willingly see as soon as possible, for I
have not much money to stay long in ... country as dear as this is.
COVENTRY PAPERS xi. 317
June 17, 1678. Rochford. Walter B—— à Monsieur Patric Roch à la place
au blé à Dublin. (Endorsed in Coventry’s hand): Mr. Burke.
[Of the same nature as the last two, and in the same handwriting.]
There is nothing here worthy of relation only that all the people of
this country is very desirous to have war against you, and specially
all the seamen desire no other thing but it.... [Further particulars
of French ships, mostly merchant vessels. One passage in the black ink
deserves to be noted.] This is the fourth letter which I did write to
your honour without receiving any answer.
COVENTRY PAPERS xi. 204
April 14, 1678. St. Omers. Sam Morgan to his father. (Copy of same
205.)
(Endorsed in Coventry’s hand.) Send to Doc^t. Lloyd to learn where
Morgan the father liveth, and how I may write to him.—Mr. Morgan the
father lives at Kilkin in Flintshire near the Bp. of Bangor.
Honoured Father! These are next to my humble duty unto yourself and my
mother to acquaint you with my present condition. I am here entered
in a College called Flamstead amongst good gentlemen, and am well
beloved of them all. The place is very good for meat and drink and
other necessaries, but my fear is and am in good measure satisfied
that my uncle intends me for a priest. He spoke nothing unto me as
yet, but I partly understand that he is of that opinion, which when I
considered on is clean against my conscience. I daily see and know what
they are, and am utterly dissatisfied with and condemn the principles
and practices of their diabolical opinions, for I dare not call it
religion. If you would be pleased to call for me home I think I should
be very well; for now (I thank God) I got more learning here since I
came than I should have gotten anywhere in Wales in 7 or 8 years. I
have competent skill in Greek and Latin, and can write a little of
both: if you would be pleased to take me home, I should thank my uncle
for my learning, and let him take whom he thinks fit for his priest.
I must stay here 18 years yet, and God knows who would be alive then;
and for all that, if I were like to be a comfort to my friends, I
would stay with all my heart, though I utterly abhor their ways. If
you intend to take me home it must be done within this two years
at furthest; otherwise it will be too late; and if you be of that
resolution put two strokes in the bottom of your letter; be sure you
mention it not publicly in my letter, for then the Reader, which is the
master of the house, will come to know it; for there is not a letter
that comes in or goes out of the house but he has the perusal of it,
but now I write this and deliver it privately to an honest man that set
out this day hence; so that the master knows nothing of it. No more but
that you would use some means to redeem me from this great captivity,
who am in extraordinary haste.
Your dutiful son,
SAM MORGAN.
JOSEPH LANE.
P.R.O. ROMAN TRANSCRIPTS. VAT. ARCH. NUNT. DI FRANCIA 332
December 2, 1678. L’Abb^e G. B. Lauri à S. EM^{za}.
Ancor che lo stato presente d’Inghilterra, e la risposta datami la
settimania passata dal Sig^r di Pomponne non mi facessero sperare cos’
alcuna di buono intorno all’ assistenza richiesta a favore del Sig^r
Duca di Yorch; nondimeno a proporzione della premura di N.S. e dell’
importanza dell’ affare, ne rimovai le instanze al suddetto ministro
Martedì passato, nel qual giorno per questi e per altri negozii
pendenti mi portai à Varsaglia; egli soggiunsi che il credito talvolta
e l’assistenza del Re di Francia avrebbe potuto ristabilire il partito
del Sig^r Duca di Yorch e de’ Catholici di quel regno, quando S. M^{ta}
si fosse dichiarata per loro. Rispose tuttevia il Sig^r di Pomponne
che tutti i Catholici d’Inghilterra ò erano imprigionati ò erano stati
discacciati di Londra. Il med^{mo} Sig^r Duca di Yorch restava escluso
dall’ essercizio delle sue cariche, e tutti indifferemente venivano
osservati in maniera che il dichiararsi nello stato presente per loro
altre non sarebbe stato che un accrescergli le persecuzioni, e finir di
ruinare il partito Catholico di quel regno; per queste ragioni avere
stimato S. M^{ta} che non sia tempo di prestar l’assistenza richiesta,
mentre il cambiamento delle cose faceva ogni conoscere che tal
consiglio non era pin utile, come ragionevolmente avra per altro potuto
stimarsi prima che succedessero le mutazioni accennati. Io dunque
essendo cosi cambiate di faccia le cose d’Inghilterra, ed incontrando
que le scritte difficoltà, tralascierò di fare altre istanza per quest’
affare finche da V.S., informata che sia delle cose che passano, mi
vengano nuovi comandamenti.
APPENDIX B
LONGLEAT MSS. COVENTRY PAPERS xi. 237
October 28, 1678. Copy of the letter sent to Mr. Sec. Coventry
subscribed T. G. Concerning the murder of Sir Edmond Bury Godfrey.
This is to certify you that upon his Majesty’s Declaration I have been
both at Whitehall and at your own house these three days together, and
never can be admitted to come to the speech of your worship. Whereupon
I thought fit to give you an account what it is I can declare, which
is as follows:—Being on Tuesday the 15th, of this instant October, in
a victualling house in White Friars I chanced to hear two persons a
discoursing, the one saying to the other that if he would go down to
Billingsgate he would treat him there with wine and oysters, whereupon
the other replied and said: “What you are uppish then are you?” Upon
which words he swore, God dampe him (_sic_), he had money enough,
and draws a bag out of his pocket and says. There were fifty pounds.
Whereupon the other party was very inquisitive to know how he came by
it, and did importune him very much, and at the last he told him that
if he would swear to be true to him and never discover, he would tell
him. Whereupon he did make all the imprecations and vows that could
possibly be that he would never discover, whereupon he told him that
the last night he with three men did murder Sir Edward Bury Godfrey and
he had that £50 for his pains, and said that he believed he could help
him to some money if he would go along with him on the morrow night
following. Upon these words the other asked him where it was done and
who the other three was that was with him, and he told him that he
murdered him at Wild House, and the other three that was concerned with
him was gentlemen. Two belonged to my Lord Bellasis, and the other to
my Lord Petres, but of the Monday before, there was a court held at
Wildhouse and there they tried him, and there was a man like a priest
who passed sentence of death upon him; and likewise he asked him how
he came to be concerned in it, and he told him that there was a broker
that lodged in Eagle Court in the Strand that spoke to him of it: so
this is all I can testify of, but only that I can give some account in
what a barbarous manner they murdered him. This man’s name is Hogshead,
he liveth (?) at the Temple and Whitefriars very much. So, Sir, if you
please to give orders to your servant, and let me come to the speech of
you, I will come and make oath of it, and with this proviso that I may
have the liberty to make a fuller discovery of it, I not being anything
out of pocket myself; I desire your answer to-morrow morning to be left
at the place mentioned in my former letter, and withal desire it may be
more private than the last.
Your humble servant to command,
T. G.
From the Temple this
28th instant 1678.
COVENTRY PAPERS xi. p. 235. Coventry’s answer to this.
October 28, 1678. To his very loving friend T. G. these.
(Note added by Coventry below the address): This letter was sent to the
Rainbow Coffee House, but never called for, and was brought back by
Col. Vernon.
I have yours, and am abundantly satisfied with it, but know not how to
answer it at large. Will you tell me by what name I shall subscribe
it to you; whether your own or another it matters not so you are sure
to receive it. If you enquire for one Mr. Evans at my house to-morrow
or any morning he shall bring you to me, when I will give you my best
advice and assistance in what you desire.
I am,
Your humble servant,
HENRY COVENTRY.
BRIT. MUS. ADD. MSS. 11058: 244
Nov. 7, 1678. Mr. Bedloe’s confession before his Majesty of the
murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey.
He saith that the Saturday Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was missing, about
two in the afternoon as he (Godfrey) was going home, two or three
gentlemen met him and said they could discover some persons near the
Strand Bridge that were agitators in the Plot, upon which Sir E.
Godfrey showed great readiness, but they desired him to walk into
a houseyard till a constable was got ready; but Sir E. Godfrey had
scarce made two or three turns but several people rushed out upon him
and stopped his mouth; two friars and some of Lord Bellasis’ servants
executing the same, and having carried him into an inner chamber
demanded of him Mr. Oates his deposition, promising they would save his
life if he would render it to them; yet their design was to have taken
away his life though he had given them that satisfaction. Sir Edmund
Berry told them that the king and council had them, and therefore he
could not possibly do what they desired. Upon which expression they
began to use him inhumanly and barbarously, kneeling upon his breast
till they thought he was dead; but they opened his bosom and found his
heart panted; then they took a cravat and tied it hard about his neck,
and so ended his life. He says further that he came too late to be
assistant in the murder, for he found him strangled and lying dead on
the floor, but presently received an account from the actors in what
manner it was performed. His corpse was laid at the high altar of the
Queen’s chapel, and continued there till they had consulted a way for
removing the same secretly from thence.
He further saith that two guineas were the reward promised among the
undertakers, and on Wednesday following the corpse was conveyed in a
sedan to Lord Bellasis’ house, and from thence carried in a coach to
the place where it was found. He also acquainted the Lords that he
had several things to communicate to them which related to the Plot,
and that he was able to confirm several passages which Mr. Oates had
discovered concerning the plot, but he desired leave to give his
testimony in writing, that so he might make no other discovery than
what he could be able to testify.
Actors: Mr. Eveley, Mr. Leferry, Jesuits; Penchard and Atkins, laymen;
the keeper of the Queen’s chapel and a vally de chambre to the Lord
Bellasis.
P.R.O. S.P. DOM. CHARLES II 407: ii. 29. LONGLEAT
MSS. COVENTRY PAPERS xi. 272–274.
7th Nov. 1678. Before his Majesty.
Mr. Bedloe informs,
A contrivance between Charles Wintour and the governour of Chepstow
Castle, and Mr. Charles Milbourn and Mr. Vaughan of Cont ... and his
son, to be in arms when my Lord Powis would in Cardiganshire, to give
up the castle to Mr. Charles Wintour and army of 20^m men.
Mr. Thimbleby in Lincoln: under Lord Bellasis was to have 20^m men.
20^m religious men were to meet at S^{t.} Jago to come over into Wales
from the Groin, and meet Lord Powis and the aforesaid gentlemen in arms.
20^m out of Flanders to meet Lord Bellasis and Mr. Thimbleby: to land
at Burlington Bay. Has known this by being four years among them.
Qu. What proofs.
Resp. Has lived among the Jesuits four years, and had all he had from
them, etc.
Has been in Spain. Employed from five Jesuits to Sir W. Godolphin,
Stapleton, Latham, Le Fere, Cave and Sheldon.
Cave and Le Fere sent him to Doway last summer 12 months. 20 months
since, and thence by Paris, etc., to Madrid.
Le Fere told him of this design.
Lodges where Captain Atkins lodges, where Walsh the priest lodges, near
Wild House.
Mr. Selvyns at the back door of the Palgrave’s Head will show where
Captain Atkins lodges, and consequently where Le Fere.
Le Fere is an Englishman, calls himself a Frenchman. The passage of the
20^m men from Flanders was to be from Newport.
As to Sir Edmond Godfrey; was promised 2000 guineas to be in it by Le
Fere, my Lord Bellasis’ gentleman, and the youngest of the waiters in
the Queene’s chapel, in a purple gown and to make the people orderly.
They did not tell him at first who was to be killed nor till he was
killed.
They murdered him in Somerset House in the corner room, the left hand
as you come in, near Madame Macdonnel’s lodgings, and near the room
where the duke of Albemarle lay in state.
Stifled him with a pillow, then he struggling they tied a cravat about
his neck and so strangled him.
Le Fere told him so, having sent for him by a footman in a blue livery
to Somerset House in the walk under the dial. ’Twas done in hopes the
examinations he had taken would never come to light.
Obj. The King. The parties were still alive to give the informations.
Resp. In hopes the second informations taken from the parties would not
have agreed with the first, and so the thing would have been disproved
and made it not be believed. For this reason the Lord Bellasis advised
it. Coleman and my Lord Bellasis advised to destroy him.
The informant was born at Chepstow, bred up an indifferent scholar. His
friends all protestant since the world began. Went into the Prince of
Orange’s army, where finding the religious houses kind and obliging,
he hearkened to their arguments, etc., and so was persuaded.
Was never an officer in the Prince of Orange’s army. Was designed to be
lieutenant to Vaudepert, a captain. Employed some time to make levies
in England from Holland, etc.
My Lord Bellasis’ gentleman is he that waits on him in his chamber, and
none other dresses him but he. Middle stature. Little whiskers like a
Frenchman.
The Trappan. They persuaded Godfrey that if he would go a little way
into the Strand they would make out a great discovery to him. He called
a constable and appointed him to meet him at Strand bridge with power,
in the interim of which they persuaded him, Godfrey, to walk into
Somerset House, where walking with two of them, the Lord Bellasis’
gentleman and a certain Jesuit whom he knows not, others came and with
gloves stopped his mouth and hurried him into the room.
The Informant escaped yesterday fortnight by the coach from the Talbot
in the Strand to Bristol. Coming to Bristol sent for his mother, and
upon her blessing she charged him to discover whatever he knew. Will
take his oath and the Sacrament of all this. Has had racks of all
this for a year in his conscience. Would have gotten from them three
months ago when the king was at Windsor, they about the time whispering
something, but not so as to let him know it.
Conyers is a Jesuit, and Pridgeot, and Lewis. Sir John Warner was in
the Plot. Le Fere, Keimes, Welsh, Lewis, Pridgeot.
Keimes is in the north of Scotland or beyond the sea. Went two months
ago into the north; was with Le Fere the night before. He went to
Ernham to Mr. Thimbleby and so northwards.
Mr. Welsh, the chapel-keeper, Le Fere, my Lord Bellasis’ servant,
strangled him.
The Chapel keeper carried him off. They carried him off in a chair
about Piccadilly and so on to the fields.
He did not see him after he was dead.
Le Fere sent to him by a foot-boy immediately afterwards to tell him of
it.
Wintour told him two years ago that if he would keep private so great
a design, he should be governour to Chepstow Castle, etc. My Lord of
Worcester has kept a very ingenious gunsmith, one David Winkett, in his
house for many years to make arms. Mr. Charles Price, steward to my
Lord of Worcester, took them off from time to time and disposed of them
to my Lord Powis. Mr. Christall, my Lord Powis’ servant, told him my
lord had the finest arms of that man’s making, etc. Mr. Jones, a sugar
baker on College Hill, can tell where his the informant’s brother is.
His brother was with him in Spain, and wondered how he could live as he
did.
Le Fere.
Lord Bellasis’ gentleman.
The usher of the Queen’s chapel, etc.
LORDS JOURNALS xiii. 343
Bedloe’s statement at the bar of the House of Lords. Die Veneris
8 die Novembris.
The Lord Treasurer reported by his Majesty’s directions, “That
yesterday one William Bedlowe was examined at Whitehall concerning
the discovery of the murder of Sir Edmond Bury Godfrey, and that his
Majesty had given order he should be brought to give this house an
account thereof.”
Who being brought to the Bar and had his oath given him, made a large
narrative to this effect.
“That he was born in Monmouthshire and was of the Church of England
till within these two years, that by Persuasion and Promises from
the Jesuits he was drawn over to them: that he is not in orders. He
knows that Sir E. B. Godfrey was murdered in Somerset House, on the
Saturday, by Charles Walsh and—Le Fere Jesuits, and two laymen, one a
gentleman that waits on the Lord Bellasis, the other an underwaiter in
the Queen’s Chapel. That he saw the body of Sir E. B. Godfrey, after
he was murdered, before he was carried out, and Le Fere told him ‘He
was stifled between two pillows,’ and he was offered 2000 guineas to
be one of the three to carry out the body, which was kept either in
the room or the next where the D. of Albemarle lay in state: That the
Chairmen who carried out the body on Monday night at nine of the clock
are retainers to Somerset House; but he knows them not.”
He saith “That Walsh and Le Fere and Pritchard told him ‘that the Lord
Bellasis employed them in this business.’”
He said further “That Walsh and Le Fere informed him ‘That the Lord
Bellasis had a commission to command Forces in the North, the Earl of
Powis in S. Wales, and the Lord Arundell of Warder had a commission
from the Pope to grant commissions to whom he pleased’: That Coleman
had been a great agitator in the design against the King; And that he,
asking the Jesuits ‘Why they had not formerly told him what they had
designed concerning the king’s death?’ they answered him ‘That none
but whom the Lord Bellasis gave directions for were to know of it.’
He desired he might have time to put the whole narrative into writing
(which he had begun).
“And being asked if he knew Titus Oates, he denied it.”
P.R.O. S.P. DOM. CHARLES II 408: ii. 47
Prance’s examination before the Council. The notes are in Sir Joseph
Williamson’s handwriting. Dec. 24, 78. Prance called in, etc.
On a certain Monday—with a twisted handkerchief—in the corner near the
stables. Carried him into a house in the dark entry, leading up out of
the lower court into the upper. Left at that house where Hill lived
then, two days, in the dark entry—by the water-gate. There Hill and
Gerald and the cushion-man (Green) carried him away. About ten Hill
told this informant to go to the other side of the house. Green told
him that he thought he had broke his neck before he was carried into
Hill’s house. After that, 4 days after. Hill carried him and shewed
him the place where he lay with a dark lanthorn about 9 o’clock—and
Hill brought him back to his house. Green and Gerald were there—and not
having conveniency for keeping him in his own house, conveyed him into
another house on the other side.—Hill procured a sedan, and had him
carried in a sedan from Hill’s out at the end gate of the upper court.
This was Wednesday night.—Was carried as far as the Greyhound in the
Soho. He was one that carried him. Green and Gerald and Irishman who
lay over the stables in certain lodgings that Green has there.—From
Hill’s house first he was carried somewhere to the other side of the
house, towards the garden, and Hill met them about the new church with
a horse, and he was set upon that horse and carried away, and the
sedan was left in one of the new houses when they came back. He came
back to his house, and Hill went with the body. Green, Gerald, and
the Irishman went also with the body.—Gerald said to him that my Lord
Bellasis engaged them to the thing, and said there would be a reward,
not yet. Does not know my Lord Bellasis.—Killed him because he loved
not the Queen or her servants, therefore Green and Hill, etc.—One Owen
in Bloomsbury was in the shop where he changed £100.—Two or three went
to his house to ask after him, the maid answered he was not within,
etc. They found him out and dogged him, till he came over against the
water-gate, came from St. Clement’s, about 9 o’clock, etc. Hill, etc.,
dogged him. He was not there.—Two feigned a quarrel in the gate, and
he was called in to appease the quarrel.—He knew Gerald a year and a
half. Hill upon five years. Green about a year, etc.—Hill was without
and prayed Godfrey to walk in to quiet the quarrel. He walks within the
gate (?) and the upper Court.—Knows not if any guard at the gate. Knows
not if any company. About 9 at night—He was strangled in the upper
court on the stable side in a corner that is railed (?). He struggled.
Carried in at the water-gate.—He had the £100 in gold from Owens in
Bloomsbury. Being to go out of town as a papist he got this informant
to get it for him. It was nothing to this ... [a line very indistinct].
He stood at the water-gate while he was strangled. Bury the porter
stood the other way, he watched also there.—Hill dwells in Stanhope
Street, keeps a victualling house.
As to the Plot. Was in Ireland’s chamber. Groves, Fenwick were there.
Ireland said there would be 50^m men in arms. So Fenwick. Two or three
days after Groves came to his house to buy two swords.—Said my Lords
Powis, Bellasis, Peters, Arundell should become councillors.—That
Bellasis, Powis, Arundell were to govern the army.... [Some words
indistinct].
One Le Fere came to his shop to ask for a silver sword hilt. Knows not
who he is more than that he is.—Knows not Walsh, Pritchard, nor Le Fere
not by the names.—50^m men.—They hoped Cath. Rel. would be established
in a little time, etc.—Heard nothing of the killing of the King,
etc.—Godfrey was kept from the time of his being killed in a sitting
posture, etc.—One Mr. Moore, servant to the D. of Norfolk, being on
a great horse, etc., would we had 10^m of them, etc.—His ill-will to
Godfrey (that the Queen could not protect her servants)—Knows nothing
of the plot nor of any person in it.—That one—a Messenger belonging to
Lord Arundell said—He hoped the R. C. Rel. would before long flourish
in England.
Has declared everything he knows, everything, etc.—Green, Hill, etc.,
said Godfrey had used some Irishman ill—Owen knows nothing of all this
that he learns (?).—Saw Ireland last at Will’s coffee house in Covent
Garden and Dr. Southwell were drinking with him in his own house the
night before Pickering was taken, etc.
APPENDIX C
LONGLEAT MSS. COVENTRY PAPERS xi. 148
Lord Windsor to Henry Coventry. July 8, 1676.
I was yesterday at the trial of Studesbury of Broadly at Worcester
assizes, where Judge Atkyns sat upon the bench. The treason was fully
proved against him according to that information I did send you. The
judge took occasion by advice of those justices which were upon the
bench to make the trial long, the better to discover whether he were
distracted or not: upon the whole examination and by the answers he
made to the many questions that were asked him, it was the opinion of
all that sat upon the bench (which were many) that he was very sensible
and in no way mad, but in justifying Venner’s action and holding the
worst of the fanatic opinions, and often using their ranting way of
talking; he said he held a halberd at the trial of the late King, and
repeated some of his words with Bradshaw’s answers to them, and said
the putting of Venner and his associates to death was murder. The chief
witness against him (besides his own confession) was one Harrington, an
anabaptist mentioned in the first examination, which Harrington being
asked if he did judge Studesbury mad upon the first discourse he had
with him (which held near an hour) when he would have advised him to
take arms against the King, he declared he found nothing of that mind
in him, but thought he designed to ensnare him; yet notwithstanding all
this the jury found him a madman. Upon that the judge told them that he
and all that sat with him were of a contrary opinion and desired them
to withdraw and consider better of’t, which they did do and came in
again of the same opinion, one of them saying that if he were not mad
he would not have said what he did.
BRIT. MUS. ADD. MSS. 28042: 19
Memorandum by the Marquis of Danby. (Endorsed) Mem^{d.} (7–8/9.)
To put forth a declaration. To examine the present state of the
revenue: to consider about stop of payment and when: what is yet to
come in upon the accounts and at what times: To know what is due to
the ships abroad: at what times those ships are expected: in what
state the victualling is. In what hands the militia; the justices
of the peace: the judges. When the dissolution ought to be: what
preparation for a new Parliament and when: About the sheriffs: the
next Lord Mayor: the Cinque Ports: the Port towns by the commissioners
of the customs, of treasury, of Navy: who have a particular interest
in Borrows. To consider what grateful things may be done in this
interval of Parliament: what should be said in the declaration
upon the dissolution: for these q^e Sir R. W. (Weston) and let the
journals of the Commons be searched for their proceedings in this
last session: To consider wherein they have exceeded all the due
limits of their own power as in imprisonment of men who are not their
members, etc., and meddling with the King’s prerogatives and private
accounts, etc.: To keep Lord Roberts by some encouragement: About
another Attorney-General, viz.: Sir R. W. (Weston) (which is of main
importance): what change of Councillors. In what condition all the
garrisons are as to their fortifications: what number of forces and
where placed after the disbanding: to inquire into the riots at the
last elections. How conventicles should be inquired after, and what
penal laws should be put in execution: who to be in the Treasury and
in the treasury of the Navy: what can be done for the suppressing of
seditious prints and papers: About directing somebody to write both
about the present state of things to give the world a better impression
of them than they are now possessed with and to give constant weekly
accounts of what is done at any time which may be for the satisfaction
of men’s minds. Q. Whether the Plot not triable out of Parliament.
Q. About securing the arms of all who have been officers in the late
Rebellion. To take their names and abodes in all counties. Q; how
for to take notice of them and dissenters from the Church how busy
they have appeared of late and what reasonable cause of danger to the
government from them. Parliament to be called to some other place: the
King to reside out of London: Tower to be well secured: L^d Ossory
sent to the Navy: that to be officered so as to have influence upon
their men: To have a control to know justly when the army is all
disbanded and whether there be any remains. About the Tower in case
of insurrection: To take some course about the reasons of the Commons
which are printed, (?) to suppress them and to have something writ to
satisfy the people.
BRIT. MUS. ADD. MSS. 32095; 196
(Paper endorsed) Popish Plot. This paper was presented to the King by
the D. of York, Oct. 20^{th} 1679.
That in or about May or June last Col. Fitzpatrick delivered to the
Pope’s internuncio at Brussels a letter or paper subscribed by four R.
C. bishops, two of which were Plunket archbp. of Armagh, and Tyrel bp.
of Clogher, recommending the said Fitzpatrick for the only person fit
to be entrusted general of an army for establishing the R. C. religion
in Ireland under the French sovereignty, which paper after coming to
the internuncio’s hands was seen by several clergy and laymen, known to
Father Daly, procurator, F. O’Neill, commissary. F. Macshone, guardian
of the Irish Franciscans, and F. Macmahone alias Matthews, Prior of
the Dominicans in Lovain, among whom ’tis also said that Fitzpatrick
carried such another instrument into France, where he first arrived
from Ireland and whence he went into Flanders, where he resolved to
settle at Brussels. But he was forced to remove thence by his R.H.
commands, which he obeyed not without much regret and murmuring.
P.R.O. ROMAN TRANSCRIPTS. VAT. ARCH. NUNT. DI FIANDRA 66
Di Brusselles dal Sig^r Internuncio, May 24/June 3, 1679.
In Ibernia, dove il numero de’ Cattolici è molto maggiore che quello
de’ Protestanti, ha gran seguito e autorità il Colonello Fitzpatrice,
onde il Duca d’Jorch a mostrato haverlo veduto malvolontieri venire à
Brusselles, per dubbio che il Parlamento pigliando gelosia del ricorso
di lui à S. A. Reale prenda motivo di maggiormente inasprirsi contro la
medesima, contro di essa, e contro il Duca d’Ormond. N’è perciò egli
partito per Olanda à titolo di veder quel paese, ma precedentemente ha
tenuta una segreta conferenza col Sig^r Duca d’Jorch, dopo la quale mi
ha lasciato intendere soffrirsi troppo patientemente da S. A. Reale
l’audacia de’ Parlamentarii, e doversi di gia pensare almeno à modi di
respingerla quando la temerità loro e la debolezza del Rè d’Inghilterra
passasse à porre in esecutione il projetto della sua diseredatione.
Toccante l’Ibernia ha detto chiaramente essere insofferibile il
giogo sotto l’oppressione del quale gemono quei Cattolici, e ha
aggiunto che apprendendosi per massima naturale il difendersi in
qualsivoglia maniera, non dubita egli che non fussero per commoversi
tutti concordemente, non solo se il Sig^r Duca d’Jorch ma se qualunque
barbaro Principe con qualque denaro, e con assistenza di pochi vascelli
si accostasse alle spiaggie dell’ Isola, e portasse armi e munitioni da
guerra à quelli habitanti.
APPENDIX D
“The trial of John Giles at the Old Bailey, for assaulting and
attempting to murder John Arnold, Esq.,” is a case which presents some
difficulty.[770]
Arnold’s character for activity against the Roman Catholics has already
been mentioned. The way in which this trial is regarded materially
affects the answer to the question whether or no he exceeded the
legitimate bounds of his magisterial duty. If Giles was rightly
convicted, the excess was not great; if wrongly and the attempt on
Arnold’s life was a sham, not only did Arnold lend himself to a
criminal and most disreputable intrigue, but all his other actions must
be more severely judged. The case was as follows. Arnold had accused
Mr. Herbert, a Roman Catholic gentleman of Staffordshire, of speaking
seditious words against the king and government.[771] They were both
ordered to appear before the privy council on April 16, 1680.[772] On
the day before that date it was alleged that Giles, who was a friend
of Herbert,[773] attempted to murder Captain Arnold. For this Giles
was tried on July 7, before Jeffreys, the Recorder of London, and
convicted after what seemed to be a singularly fair trial. The case
for the prosecution was that, as Arnold was going between ten and
eleven o’clock on the night of April 15 to see his solicitor, he was
assaulted in Bell-yard, Fleet Street, by the accused and one or two
other persons, and but for the appearance of the neighbours would have
been murdered. Giles had spoken disrespectfully of the Plot and the
Protestant religion, had been seen to dip handkerchiefs in the blood of
the Jesuit Lewis who was executed the year before at Usk,[774] and was
supposed to have attacked Arnold in revenge for the part he had played
in the capture of Evans. Arnold himself gave evidence of the fact. He
swore that he had been dogged by two or three men into Bell-yard. One
of these went by him and then stood still while the magistrate passed.
By the light of a candle which a woman was holding at the door of a
neighbouring house Arnold saw the man whom he afterwards recognised
to be the prisoner. As he crossed a lane which ran into the yard, a
cloak was thrown over his head and he was knocked down into the gutter,
though not before he had time to draw his sword. As he lay on the
ground the men stabbed at him with their swords. He was cut in the
face, the arm, and the stomach, but the men were unable to pierce the
bodice of whalebone which he wore under his coat. One of them cried,
“Damme, he has armour on; cut his throat.” A light in Sir Timothy
Baldwin’s house, hard by, and a boy coming into the yard with a link
disturbed the murderers and they made off. As the cloak was pulled from
his head, Arnold again recognised the prisoner by the light of the
link. The men swaggered away and one turned back to call, “Now, you
dog, pray for, or pray again for the soul of Captain Evans.”[775]
The evidence called to support and to oppose this was very
contradictory. It was sworn that, talking about the affray at a tavern
next day, Giles said, “God damn him, God rot him, he had armour on”;
but the witness admitted that he might have said, “God rot him, he had
armour on, they say.”[776] The prisoner declared that he merely told it
as a common piece of news that Arnold would have been killed had he not
worn armour, and called a witness who affirmed that this was so, that
Giles had called the attempt “a cruel assassination” of which he was
sorry to hear, and had made use of no oaths at all.[777] Evidence was
given for the crown that Giles had hurried through Usk on May 5, saying
that he was afraid of being arrested for the assault on Arnold, and at
a cutler’s shop where he went to have a sword mended said he had been
fighting “with damned Arnold.”[778] This was contradicted by the Mayor
of Monmouth, who proved that Giles had not hurried through Usk, but
stayed there several hours; and by the cutler’s apprentice, who proved
that when the prisoner was asked, “How came your sword broke? Have you
been fighting with the devil?” so far from speaking the words alleged,
he had answered, “No, for I never met with Arnold.”[779] A great deal
of evidence was given concerning the prisoner’s movements on the night
of April 15. He had passed the evening in company at various taverns,
and had finally gone to sleep at the King’s Arms in St. Martin’s Lane;
but as the witnesses arrived at the times o’clock to which they deposed
by guess-work alone, their evidence was naturally contradictory; and it
seems now quite impossible to know certainly whether Giles was, as the
prosecution contended, seen last at ten o’clock and did not go to bed
till one in the morning, or, as the witnesses for the defence stated,
had been in company till the hour of eleven or twelve.[780] According
to the evidence therefore, which Jeffreys summed up at length and with
moderation,[781] it was open to the jury to find either for or against
the prisoner, and after deliberating for half an hour they returned a
verdict of guilty. Giles was sentenced to the fine of £500 and to be
pilloried three times. On July 26 he was pilloried in Lincoln’s Inn
Fields and was pelted so severely that his life was in danger; and
when the remainder of the sentence was carried out in Holborn and the
Strand, he had to be protected from the mob by a guard of constables
and watchmen.[782]
The real case against Arnold and in favour of the prisoner did not come
into court. Sir Leoline Jenkins, secretary of state, employed an agent
to draw up a report on the subject. The report was confined entirely to
the assault itself and did not discuss the movements of either Arnold
or Giles before or afterwards. It is notable that Arnold himself was
the only witness as to the manner of the attack and the incidents
connected with it, and that the important part of his evidence was
wholly uncorroborated. Although he wished to deny the fact, he was well
acquainted with Giles, who had been his chief constable, and probably
knew enough of his movements to lay a false charge against him without
running too great a risk of detection.[783] Jenkins’ information throws
a curious light upon his evidence. It does not afford proof that Arnold
lent himself to a bogus attempt on his life, but it raises strong
suspicion that this was the case. There was no motive for the reporter
not to tell the truth in points of fact. His deductions are lucid and
apparently sound. The government probably refrained from bringing
forward the new material owing to the intense opposition which the
effort to obtain Giles’ acquittal would have raised. I quote the most
important portion of the minute at length from the S.P. Dom. Charles
II 414: 245. The paper is undated, but from internal evidence is seen
to have been composed before the trial. It is without title, but is
endorsed by Jenkins: “Mr. Arnold and about his being assassinated.”[784]
“1. Mr. Arnold was found near two at night April 15th, 1680 sitting in
the dirt, wounded, leaning his head against the wall, some four yards
within Jackanapes Lane, and immediately upon crying out, Murther.
“2. Quaere:—the manner of the assault. When and where he received his
wounds; whether before his crying out or just at the time: what words
passed on the one side and on the other, and concerning their going
away laughing and triumphing.
“3. He was struck down, muffled in a cloak, and they stamped upon his
breast; and yet he was found with a white hat on his head, no dirt upon
it, and his clothes only dirty where he sat; though the land was fouler
at that time than ordinary.
“4. Two pricks in his arm, the one so just against the other, that it
seemed to be one wound; and yet hard to imagine how it should pass, for
the bone.
“5. Upon his crying out, a woman held a candle from a window just over
him, and two of the neighbours’ servants went immediately to him; but
neither could see nor hear of anybody near him.
“6. If wounded before he cried out, ’tis a wonder that one of these
boys should not hear either the blows or the scuffle; especially
standing within 6 or 7 yards of him in the street, and having a duskish
view of his body so long before he cried out, till upon his knocking
at the door of the Sugar-loaf for drink, a servant of the house came
downstairs, took his errand, went down for drink and came up again, in
the meantime.
“7. Or if before this boy knocked, ’tis a wonder that upon that
knocking he did not immediately cry out for succour, hearing people
within distance of relieving him.
“8. If he was stunded when they left him, how could he take notice of
what they said, and that they went laughing and triumphing away? Beside
the danger of being heard into Sir Timothy Baldwin’s house, on the one
side, and Mrs. Camden’s on the other, that looked just on to the place.
“9. If he could not be heard to cry out because he was muffled, how
should he hear what the ruffians said? For they durst not speak so loud
as he might cry; neither with a cloak over him could they well come at
his throat.
“10. If they meant to kill him, they might have stabbed the knife into
his throat; as well as have cut him; or having him down they might well
have thrust him into his belly when they found the sword would not
enter his bodice.
“11. There was no blood seen upon the ground neither where he lay, or
thereabouts.”
The balance of probability seems to be undoubtedly that no attempt
whatever was made on Arnold’s life, and that he deliberately engaged
in a worse than dishonest scheme to inflame popular prejudice against
the Catholics.
This result supports the evidence received from other quarters. The
opinion at court and of the king himself was that the attack on Arnold
was a part of the Whig political machinery. Barillon, writing on April
26/May 6, 1680, says:—“Ce prince (Charles II) n’est sans inquiétude,
il voit bien par ce qu’il s’est fait sur le prétendu assassinat de
Arnold que ses ennemis ne se rebuttent pas et qu’ils veulent de temps
à temps faire renaître quelque occasion d’animer le peuple contre les
Catholiques.”
In his manuscript history of the Plot (118) Warner gives the following
account of the affair: “Supra dictum nihil magis commovisse plebem
quam Godefridae eirenarchae caedes. Tentandam alterius caedem visum,
eundem ad finem et aptus visus Arnoldus personam in ista tragicomica
fabula sustineret, et Londini ... qui tum versabatur. Omnibus ad eam
exhibendam paratis, designata hora ix vespertina, nocte illumi. Cum
ergo biberet cum sociis in taberna publica, monitus a famulo instare
tempus, quod ad causidicum condixerat, se statim inde proripit et
conjicit in obscurissimam [sic] angiportum, destinatam scenam. Illic
magnis clamoribus civium opem implorat; a papistis sibi structas
insidias, sicarios ibi expectasse, jugulum haurire voluisse, sed
errante ictu mentum vulnerasse; eos fuga elapsos, ubi cives convenire
vidissent; eorum neminem sibi notum sed unum in tibia laesum; hunc
ex vulnere, reliquos ejus indicio comprehendi posse. Hoc xix Aprilis
contigit. Hinc tragice debacchant in Catholicos factiosi, Oate
praeeunte: legum beneficio juste privari qui leges susque deque
haberent; gladio utendum in publicos sicarios, internecione delendos,
ut ne catulus quidem reliquatur; averruncandam semel pestem omnium
vitae imminentem. Inventae una nocte omnes Catholicorum domus cruce
cretacea signatae, percussoribus indiciae, ubi hospitarentur. Nihil
deesse visum quam qui signum daret: hoc saluti fuit Catholicis sub
cruce militantibus, cruce signatis. Brevi motus ipsi subsiderunt, dum
constitit leniter tantum perstrictam cutem; nec constare a se, an ab
alio id factum; nemo vero Catholicus erat, in quem facinoris invidia
derivaretur. Testati chirurgi neminem in tota civitate vulnus in tibia
habere. Unus tandem inventus in familia Powisii qui attritam lapsu
tibiam oleo lenibat. Hic tentatae caedis arcessitur coram consilio
regio inde ad Arnoldum deducitur. Sed cum hic eum non accusaret, et
ipse probaret se navem conscendisse Brillae xix Aprilis (id est,
eodem die quo tentatum facinus) et tantum tertio post die Londinum
appulisse, et ipse demissus est, et Arnoldi fictae querimoniae cum risu
transmissae.”
Strangely enough, Warner seems to have known nothing about the arrest
and trial of Giles. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, judging from the
report of the trial, regards the attempt to murder Arnold as an act of
revenge for the magistrate’s energy against the Roman Catholics, and
quotes it in support of Macaulay’s suggestion that Sir Edmund Godfrey
was murdered by some Catholic zealot for a similar motive.[785] In the
face of the probability that no real attack was made on Arnold, this
support falls to the ground. It is far more likely that the rumours
at court that Oates had murdered Godfrey to gain credit for the plot
suggested to Arnold or his wire-pullers the method of continuing the
credit of the Whig party by the shameful means of a bogus attempt on
his own life.
APPENDIX E
PENAL LAWS IN FORCE AGAINST ROMAN CATHOLICS, 1678
1. 1 _Eliz._ _cap._ 1 (Act of Supremacy), 1559.
No foreign potentate shall exercise ecclesiastical power in
the Queen’s dominions.
All the Queen’s servants, all temporal and eccles. officers,
all with degrees in the universities shall take the oath of
supremacy.
None shall maintain the jurisdiction of any foreign
potentate in the Queen’s dominions under penalty of fine
and imprisonment for the first offence, for the second of
Præmunire (_i.e._ to be put out of the King’s protection and
forfeit all goods and chattels to the crown), for the third of
high treason.
2. 5 _Eliz._ _cap._ 1, 1562.
None shall maintain the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome
within the Queen’s dominions under penalty of Præmunire.
Two judges of assize or justices of the peace in sessions have
power to hear and determine this offence.
All members of Parliament, schoolmasters, attorneys, officers
of the courts, etc., shall take the oath of supremacy on
penalty of Præmunire for the first and high treason for the
second offence of refusal.
3. 13 _Eliz._ _cap._ 1, 1571.
All obtaining or putting in use any Bull of absolution or
reconciliation from the church of Rome shall be guilty of
high treason, their concealers of misprision of treason,
their comforters of Præmunire. All bringing into the Queen’s
dominions crosses, beads, etc., shall be guilty of Præmunire.
4. 23 _Eliz._ _cap._ 1, 1581.
All persons pretending to have power to absolve the Queen’s
subjects from their natural obedience and converting them to
the church of Rome shall be guilty of high treason, and their
aiders and maintainers of misprision of treason. None shall
say mass under penalty of two hundred marks’ fine and a year’s
imprisonment, or hear mass under penalty of one hundred marks’
fine and a year’s imprisonment.
Every person above sixteen years of age who forbears to attend
church regularly (according to the Act of Uniformity 1 Eliz.
c. 2 § 3) shall forfeit to the Queen the sum of £20 monthly.
5. 27 _Eliz._ _cap._ 2, 1584.
All Jesuits, seminary priests, or priests in orders from the
see of Rome, being born within the Queen’s dominions and
returning into or remaining in them, shall be guilty of high
treason.
All others educated in Roman Catholic seminaries and not yet
having received orders shall be guilty of high treason, unless
they return within six months after proclamation made in
London and take the oath of supremacy. Penalty for concealing
a priest or Jesuit for more than twelve days, fine and
imprisonment during pleasure.
6. 29 _Eliz._ _cap._ 9, 1587.
All Popish recusants shall, on conviction, pay into the
exchequer twenty pounds a month: in default, two-thirds of
their goods and two-thirds of their lands shall be forfeited
to the Queen.
7. 35 _Eliz._ _cap._ 2, 1592.
All Popish recusants above sixteen years of age shall, on
conviction, repair to their usual dwellings and not remove
thence more than five miles, on pain of forfeiting all goods,
lands, and annuities.
A Popish recusant, not having land worth twenty marks and
goods worth forty pounds yearly, and not complying with this,
shall abjure the kingdom, or not abjuring the kingdom, shall
be adjudged a felon.
A Jesuit or priest refusing to answer shall be committed to
prison until he do answer.
All married women shall be bound by this act, save only in the
case of abjuration.
8. 1 _Jac. I_, _cap._ 4, 1603.
All statutes of Queen Elizabeth confirmed and appointed to
be put in execution. The heir of a Popish ancestor, not
conforming before the age of sixteen years, shall suffer the
penalties of the above statutes and forfeit two-thirds of his
land to the King to answer the arrears of twenty pounds a
month, according to the act of 23 Eliz. cap. 1.
None shall send a child beyond seas to be instructed in the
Roman Catholic religion, on pain of the fine of one hundred
pounds.
9. 3 _Jac. I_, _cap._ 4, 1606.
The recusant that conforms shall receive the sacrament within
one year of his conforming and once in every year, on pain to
forfeit for the first offence twenty pounds, for the second
forty, and so on. In forementioned cases the King may at will
refuse the twenty pounds a month from a Popish recusant and
take the two-thirds of his lands, saving only the recusant’s
mansion-house.
The Bishop of the diocese or the justices of the peace
may tender the oath of allegiance to any persons (except
noblemen), being eighteen years of age and being convicted or
indicted for recusancy.
Penalty for refusal to take the oath, Præmunire.
To withdraw the King’s subjects from their natural obedience,
to reconcile them to the church of Rome, or to move them to
promise it, is high treason.
None shall be punished for his wife’s offence.
10. 3 _Jac. I_, _cap._ 5, 1606.
Informers discovering any harbouring Popish priests or hearing
mass shall have a third of the forfeiture due for the said
offences, or if the whole exceeds £150, then £50.
No Popish recusant shall come to court on pain of the fine
of a hundred pounds, or to London or within ten miles of it,
unless a tradesman, on pain of the same fine, half to the
King, half to the informer.
No Popish recusant shall practise law, medicine, or hold
office in any court, ship, castle, or fort on pain of the same
fine.
None whose wife is such shall hold any office in the
commonwealth unless he educates his children as Protestants
and takes them to church.
A married woman, being a Popish recusant, must conform a
year before her husband’s death, or forfeit two-thirds of
her jointure and be incapable of administering her husband’s
estate.
Popish recusants must be married in open church by an Anglican
minister, and must cause their children to be similarly
baptised on pain of the fine of one hundred pounds, to be
divided between the King, the prosecutor, and in the latter
case the poor of the parish.
Popish recusants must be buried in the Anglican churchyard, on
pain of a fine of twenty pounds from the executors.
Popish recusants are disabled from presenting to benefices,
and from being executors, administrators, or guardians.
Two justices of the peace have power to search the houses of
all Popish recusants, and of all whose wives are such, for
Roman Catholic books and relics, to burn and deface them.
By warrant from four justices all arms, gunpowder, and
ammunition belonging to Popish recusants may be seized.
11. 7 _Jac. I_, _cap._ 6, 1609.
Popish recusants may be required by justices of the peace (or
if barons and baronesses by three privy councillors) to take
the oath of allegiance. Penalty for refusing, Præmunire and
imprisonment until the oath is taken. Those refusing shall
be incapable of holding any office and of practising law,
medicine, surgery, or any liberal science for gain.
A married woman, being a Popish recusant, and not conforming
within three months after conviction, may be imprisoned by
warrant of two justices of the peace (or if a baroness, of
a privy councillor or bishop) until she conform, unless the
husband pay £10 monthly, or forfeit a third of all his lands.
12. 3 _Car. I_, _cap._ 2, 1627.
None of the King’s subjects shall go, or send, or cause to be
sent any one to be trained beyond seas in the Roman Catholic
religion, or pay any money for the maintenance of others for
that purpose, on pain of forfeiting all his goods, lands, and
chattels, and being disabled from prosecuting any suit at law.
13. 16 _Car. II_, _cap._ 4, 1664. (The Conventicle Act, directed
against all Nonconformists.)
All meetings, other than those of the family, of more
than five persons declared to be unlawful and seditious
conventicles.
Penalty for first offence, a fine of £5 or imprisonment for
3 months; for second, a fine of £10 or imprisonment for 6
months; for third, transportation for 7 years, or a fine of
£100.
14. 17 _Car. II_, _cap._ 2, 1665. (The Five Mile Act, directed
against all Nonconformists.)
No person preaching in an unlawful conventicle or meeting to
approach within 5 miles of any corporation sending members
to Parliament, without having taken an oath “that it is not
lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take arms against the
King.”
No such person shall teach in any public or private school.
Penalty for not complying, a fine of £40.
15. 25 _Car. II_, _cap._ 2, 1673.
All persons holding office, civil or military, or having
command, or receiving pay in whatever capacity in the service
or household of the King or the Duke of York, shall before a
specified date appear in the court of Chancery or King’s Bench
or of their respective counties openly to take the oaths of
allegiance and supremacy.
And the said officers shall receive the sacrament of the
Lord’s Supper according to the usage of the church of England
on or before August 1, 1673 in some parish church upon some
Lord’s Day.
Penalty for refusing to take the oaths, incapacity to hold any
office or position of trust either civil or military, and for
executing office after refusal, incapacity to prosecute any
suit at law and fine of £500.
16. 30 _Car. II_, _cap._ 1, 1678.
No peer or member of the House of Commons shall sit or vote
until he has taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and
subscribed to a declaration that the worship of the church of
Rome is idolatrous.
Penalty for peers and members offending, disability to hold
office and a fine of £500.
Provided that this does not extend to the Duke of York.
MATERIALS FOR THE HISTORY OF THE POPISH PLOT
1. _Manuscripts._
Public Record Office.
State Papers Domestic, Charles II 407–416. The state papers
of the period have not been calendared and are preserved
in loose bundles, some of which are ill arranged. Thus in
referring to the S.P. Dom. Charles II 407, I have been
compelled to add _e.g._ i. 285, ii. 23, as there are two
sets of papers in the bundle bearing the same numbers.
State Papers, Ireland 339.
Transcripts from Paris: dispatches of the French ambassadors.
Transcripts from the Vatican archives in Rome.
British Museum.
Additional MSS.: 11,058, 17,018, 24,136, 28,042, 28,053,
28,054, 28,093, 34,195.
Harl. MSS.: 3790, 4888, 6284.
Land. MSS.: 1235.
Stowe MSS.: 144, 180, 186, 302.
Longleat.
MSS. belonging to the Marquis of Bath. Coventry Papers xi.
xx. lx. By the generous permission of the Marquis of Bath
and the courtesy of the authorities at the British Museum I
have been enabled to use these important papers (of which
an unsatisfactory account will be found in the appendix to
the 4th report of the Hist. MSS. Com.) in the Manuscript
department of the Museum. I am greatly indebted to Mr. S.
Arthur Strong, librarian of the House of Lords, for his kind
offices in obtaining access to the papers for me.
I have also to express my thanks to Mr. Warner and Mr.
Bickley of the British Museum, and to Mr. Hubert Hall and
Mr. Salisbury of the Record Office for much kind help and
courtesy shewn to me during my work in their departments.
The manuscripts in the Vatican archives of which I have made
use were copied for me by Mr. Bliss, who most generously
interrupted his other work to make the transcripts.
Cambridge University Library: “Persecutionis Anglicanae et
Conjurationis Presbiterianae Historia.” Autore P. Warner,
S.J., Regi Jacobo II^{do} a sacris. 181 pp. fol.
Letter-book of John Warner, S.J.
These manuscripts, of which the former is the more
important, have, I believe, never been used before. They
were seen by Henry Foley, compiler of the Records of the
English Province, S.J., but do not appear to have been
used by him. A notice of them is so deeply buried in his
laborious and unordered work (v. 289) that it has escaped
the notice of the author of Warner’s life in the _Dictionary
of National Biography_. Foley left inside the cover of
Warner’s _History_ a note, which I quote below. Few are
likely to agree with him that it is “probably the best, the
fullest, and the most truthful ever recorded.” The account
of the Jesuit father is naturally prejudiced in favour of
his society and partakes of the nature of a martyrology.
There are nevertheless points of considerable interest
contained in it. The euphuistic style of Warner’s writing
marks him as a man of learning and culture.
_Note by Henry Foley. 13 Nov. 1876._
“The original draft of this valuable MS. in the hand of the
Rev. Father John Warner, S.J., is in the British Museum,
Harlean MSS. 880.
“It is closely written, divided into 8 chapters—f.c. 4^{to}
[_sic_]. The writing is so bad that it is difficult to make
it out.
“Father Warner succeeded Father Thomas Whitbread, who
suffered at Tyburn 30 June 1679, as Provincial of the
English Province, S.J., and remained in that office for
three years.
“In 1686 he was appointed confessor to King James II. He
died at the court of St. Germains the 2nd of Nov. 1692,
aet. 64. He was a very learned man and wrote several
controversial works.
“HENRY FOLEY.
“The history of these terrible times is probably the best,
fullest, and most truthful ever recorded. The learned author
was upon the spot and had his own personal share in the
sufferings.
“The facts recorded are fully borne out by the _Litterae
Annuae, Prov. Angl. S.J._ of the time, and likewise by
contemporary writers. _Vide_ Echard, _Hist. Engl._, etc.
“One new fact is ascertained—that the meeting of the Fathers
in London (upon the affairs of their body) was not held,
as sworn by Oates and his associates, at the White Horse
Tavern, Strand, but at St. James’ Palace, the residence of
the Duke of York. The Fathers who were tried and suffered
death could have proved this upon the trial, but were
silent, preferring death to the danger of compromising the
Duke.”
2. _Printed Documents and Sources._
Historical Manuscripts Commission: appendices to 1st Report
(Lefroy MSS.); 4th Report (Bath MSS.); 7th Report, Part
II. (Verney MSS.); 11th Report, Part II. (House of
Lords MSS. 1678–1688); 11th Report, Part V. (Dartmouth
MSS.); 12th Report, Part VII. (Le Fleming MSS.); 12th
Report, Part IX. (Beaufort MSS.); 14th Report, Part VI.
(Fitzherbert MSS.); 14th Report, Part IX. (Lindsey MSS.);
15th Report, Part II. (Elliot Hodgkin MSS.); 15th Report,
Part V. (Savile Foljambe MSS.).
Ailesbury (Thomas, Earl of): Memoirs. Written by himself. Ed.
W. E. Buckley. Roxburgh Club. 1890.
Arnauld (Antoine): Œuvres, 42 tomes. T. xiv. Apologie pour les
Catholiques. Paris et Lausanne. 1775–1783.
Avrigny (Hyacinthe Robillard d’), de la campagnie de Jésus:
Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire universelle de l’Europe.
Paris. 1757.
Anglesey (Earl of): Memoirs. London. 1693.
Bedloe (William): Narrative and Impartial Discovery of the
horrid Popish Plot. London. 1679.
Calamy (Edmund): An Historical Account of my own Life. Ed. J.
T. Rutt, London. 1829.
Campana de Cavelli (Marquise de): Les Derniers Stuarts à St.
Germain en Laye. Paris. 1871.
Clarke (Rev. J. S.): Life of King James the Second. London.
1816.
Dalrymple (Sir John): Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland.
Edinburgh. 1771.
Danby (Earl of): Impartial State of the Case of the Earl of
Danby. London. 1679.
—— Copies and extracts of some letters written to and from
the Earl of Danby (now Duke of Leeds) in the years 1676,
1677, and 1678, with some particular remarks upon them.
Published by his Grace’s direction. London. 1710.
—— Memoirs relating to the Impeachment of Thomas, Earl of
Danby (now Duke of Leeds) in the year 1678. London. 1710.
Evelyn (John): Memoirs. London. 1827.
Grey (Hon. A.): Debates of the House of Commons. London. 1769.
Florus Anglo-Bavaricus. Liège. 1685.
Groen van Prinsterer: Archives de la Maison d’Orange Nasau.
2nd série. T. v. Utrecht. 1861.
Hale (Sir Matthew): Historia Placitorum Coronae. London. 1736.
Halstead (Robert): Succintes Genealogies. London. 1685.
Hatton Correspondence. Camden Society. Ed. M. Thompson. 1878.
Journals of the House of Lords.
Journals of the House of Commons.
Jurieu (Pierre): La Politique du Clerge de France. 1681.
L’Estrange (Roger): Brief History of the Times. London. 1687,
1688.
Luttrell (Narcissus): Brief Historical Relation of State
Affairs. Oxford. 1857.
Kirkby (Christopher): A Complete and True Narrative of the
Manner of the Discovery of the Popish Plot to his Majesty.
London. 1679.
North (Roger): Examen, London. 1740.
—— Lives of the Norths. Ed. Jessopp. London. 1890.
Oates (Titus): True Narrative of the Horrid Plot and
Conspiracy. London. 1679.
Orléans (Pierre Joseph d’): History of the Revolutions in
England under the family of the Stuarts. London. 1722.
Palmer (Roger), Earl of Castlemaine [ascribed to; see
Wheatley’s note to Pepys’ Diary, Dec. 1, 1666]: The
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Parliamentary History iv. London. 1808.
Pomponne (Marquis de): Memoires. Ed. Mavidal. Paris. 1860,
1861.
Prance (Miles): True Narrative and Discovery. London. 1679.
Reresby (Sir John): Memoirs. Ed. Cartwright. London. 1875.
Sidney (Algernon): Letters to the Honourable Henry Savile,
ambassador in Paris in the year 1679. London. 1742.
Sidney’s Charles II. Ed. Blencowe. London. 1843.
Smith (William): Intrigues of the Popish Plot. London. 1685.
Schwerin (O. von): Briefe aus England über die Zeit von 1674
bis 1678. Berlin. 1837.
Secret Service Expenses of Charles II and James II. Camden
Society. Ed. J. Y. Akerman. 1851.
Somers Tracts vii. viii. London. 1812.
State Trials 6, 7, 8, 10. Cobbett’s Collection. London. 1809.
Treby (Sir George): A collection of letters. London. 1681.
—— The second part of the collection of letters. London. 1681.
Temple (Sir William): Works. Edinburgh. 1754.
Welwood (James): Memoirs. London. 1718.
Wood (Anthony à): Life and Times. Oxford. 1892.
3. _Histories and Biographies, etc._
Acton (Lord): The Secret History of Charles II. Home and
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Airy (Osmund): The English Restoration and Louis XIV. London.
1888.
—— Charles II. London. 1901.
Boero (Giuseppe): Istoria della Conversione alla Chiesa
Catholica di Carlo II, Rè d’Inghilterra. Roma. 1863.
Brosch (Moritz): Geschichte von England. Gotha. 1892.
Burnet (Gilbert): History of My Own Time. Ed. Airy. Part I.
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—— Lives of the Chief Justices of England. London. 1849–1857.
Carte (Thomas): An History of the Life or James, Duke of
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Chantelauze (Régis de): Le Père de la Chaize. Paris. 1859.
Christie (W. D.): Life of Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of
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Cooke (G. W.): History of Party. London. 1836.
Courtenay (T. P.): Life of Sir William Temple. London. 1836.
Cretineau Joly (J.): Histoire politique, religieuse, et
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Douglas (R. K.); Article on Titus Oates in Blackwood’s
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Echard (Laurence): History of England. London. 1707.
Foley (Henry): Records of the English Province of the Society
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Fox (Charles James): History of the Early Part of the Reign of
James II. London. 1808.
Foxcroft (H. C.): Life and Letters of Halifax. London. 1898.
Gentleman’s Magazine: January 1866. Article on the conversion
of Charles II.
—— July 1848. Notes on Sir E. B. Godfrey.
—— September 1849. Notes on the Popish Plot.
Gneist (Rudolf): History of the English Constitution. Trans.
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Hallam (Henry): Constitutional History of England. London.
1884.
Hargrave (Francis): Opinion and Argument in support of Lady A.
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Parkinson (Father): The Yorkshire Branch of the Popish Plot.
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INDEX
Albani, papal internuncio, 33, 38, 39
Alexander VII, Pope, 25
Aleyn, Sir Thomas, 269–270, 294
Anderton, Christopher, S.J., 342
Anglesey, Lord Privy Seal, 368, 369
Anne, Princess, 50
Arlington, Lord, 27, 35
Armstrong, Sir Thomas, 241
Arnold, Captain, 273, 361
Arnold, Margaret, 314
Arundel of Wardour, Baron, 12, 27, 50, 54, 61, 67, 77, 205, 209
Ashburnham, Sir Denny, 331
Ashby, 348, 349
Atkins, Captain Charles, 106, 108, 113, 116, 157, 158
Atkins, Samuel, 106–116 _passim_, 144, 158
Atkyns, Sir Robert, 286
Aubigny, Abbé d’, 25
Bacon, Francis, 276–277
Barillon, 31, 179, 183, 188, 256, 260 _note_, 368
Barker, Sir Richard, 4, 10, 12, 13
Bedford, Duke of, 239
Bedingfield, Father, S.J., 74, 150
Bedloe, William, 63, 67, 109–148 _passim_, 157–160, 170, 229,
312, 321, 328, 329, 334, 336, 337, 341, 347, 353, 356;
his character, 111, 113
Bellasis, Lord, 12, 62, 67, 77, 111, 122, 205, 328
Bellings, Sir Richard, 25, 27
Berkeley, Lord, 28
Berkshire, Earl of, 33, 54, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 69
Berry, porter of Somerset House, 123, 124, 126, 130, 131, 132, 140
Boatman, Jerome, 320
Bobbing, Kent, 4
Bolron, Robert, 199
Boyce, William, 135
Breda, Declaration of, 18, 21
Bristol, Earl of, 54, 65
Broadstreet, Mrs., 124, 129
Browne, Dr., 294
Buckingham, Duke of, 111, 121, 224, 225, 232, 238
Bulstrode, Sir Richard, 207
Burnet, Gilbert, 80, 95, 103, 156, 163, 333
Busby, George, S.J., 271–273
Cardigan, Earl of, 54
Carlisle, Earl of, 64
Carr, trial of, 285
Castlemaine, Earl of, 198, 205, 213, 298, 360, 361
Catherine, wife of Charles II, 159, 160, 229–231, 246, 347–348, 362
Cavendish, Lord, 236, 247, 258
Cellier, Elizabeth, 137–138, 205–213 _passim_, 240, 338, 344, 360
Chaize, Père de la, S.J., 34, 35, 39, 42, 51, 68, 77, 305, 306, 317
Chapman, 348
Charles II, 10, 13, 15, 18, 26, 36, 42, 56, 59, 88, 103, 122, 125,
169, 172, 184, 189, 195, 216, 218, 223–260 _passim_, 282, 333,
362, 368; his policy, 23–25, 29–30, 232
Chepstow, 112
Chetwyn, Mr., 271
Child, 107, 109, 116
Clarendon, Earl of, 20, 22, 232, 278, 369
Clayton, Sir Robert, 209
Clement X, Pope, 38, 50
Clifford, Lord, 27
Cloche, James de la (James Stuart), 26
Coffee-houses, suppression of, 284
Coke, Lord Chief Justice, 46, 276–277, 358
Colbert, 27
Coleman Correspondence, 34–36 and _note_, 40 _note_, 42, 44 and
_note_, 47, 49, 51, 55, 58 _note_, 175, 317, 320 _note_, 353
Coleman, Edward, 11, 12, 17, 32 and _note_, 38, 39, 59–60, 61,
62, 68, 78, 327, 346; his trial, 91, 120, 149, 151, 170,
304–322 _passim_, 363
Colledge, trial of, 297
Colombière, Père de la, S.J., 66
Compton, Bishop of London, 174
Conway, Earl of, 173
Cooper, Charles, 134–135
Corral, Francis, 137
Cotton, Sir John, 171
Courtin, 31, 51
Coventry, Henry, 106, 109, 169 and _note_, 173, 175, 207, 208
Criminal procedure, 288–303
Croissy, Colbert, quoted, 226
Curtis, Elizabeth, 128
Danby, Earl of, Lord Treasurer, 29, 71–75 _passim_, 78, 173, 176–181
_passim_, 186, 190, 195, 215, 224, 225, 253; his policy, 41, 42
Dangerfield, Thomas (Willoughby), 164, 204, 213 _passim_, 338, 360
De Quincey, on murder of Godfrey, 3
Deane, Sir Anthony, 352 and _note_
Declaration of Indulgence, 21, 28, 29, 30, 223
Dennis, Bernard, 362
Devon witches, trial of, 314
Devonshire, Duke of, 239
Dolman, Sir Thomas, 309 and _note_, 331
Dover, Treaty of, 27, 28, 30, 48, 59, 224, 260
Dryden, John, quoted, 7, 85 _note_, 222, 360
Dugdale, 67, 275, 339, 340–341 and _note_, 348, 362, 363, 364, 370
Duras, Lord, 33
Eastchurch, Elizabeth, 315
Elliot, Mrs., 229
Essex, Earl of, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 236, 241, 251, 254, 336
Este, Prince Rinaldo d’, 50, 51
Evans, Philip, S.J., 274
Evelyn, John, 10
Everard, Edmund, 174
Evers, S.J., 341 and _note_
Exclusion Bill, 153, 182, 190, 216, 218, 233, 244, 251, 252, 257–258,
260
Faulconer, Benjamin, 293
Fenwick (Caldwell), S.J., agent at St. Omers, 76, 125, 312–313, 326,
327, 328, 329, 332, 363
Ferguson, Robert, 238, 253
Ferrier, Père, 33, 34, 35
Finch, Sir John, 279, 286, 299, 300, 359
Fiquet, Olivier du, 66
Fitzharris, trial of, 354, 360
Fitzpatrick, Colonel, 65, 218–219
Fletcher, W. M., 100 _note_
Forset, Robert, 98
Fox, quoted on witnesses, 314, 315
Frazier, Sir Alexander, 88
Fromante, 323, 325
Gadbury, astrologer, 205, 240
Gardiner, Dr., and Gunpowder Plot, 86
Gascoigne, Sir Thomas, 66, 199, 200, 360, 361
Gauden, Dr., 122, 124, 129
Gavan, John, S.J., 201, 202, 341, 343
Gerald, Father, 122, 123, 124, 129, 140
Gerard, Lady, of Bromley, 229
Gerard, Lord, 236, 246
Gerard, Sir Gilbert, 246
Gilbert, Henry, 271–273
Giles, John, 274
Godfrey, Benjamin, 92, 95
Godfrey, Sir Edmund Berry, 3, 11, 80, 83–166 _passim_;
his secret, 153, 155
Godfrey, Michael, 92, 95
Godolphin, Sydney, 10
Godolphin, Sir William, 12, 328
Goodrick, Sir Henry, 16
Green, 122, 123–124, 126, 130, 131, 132, 140, 147
Green Ribbon Club, 237–238, 239, 254
Gregory, Serjeant, 185
Grey of Werke, Lord, 236, 239, 247
Grove, W., lay-brother, S.J., 70, 73, 121, 125, 326, 327, 328, 330,
332
Habeas Corpus Act, 191
Habernfeld’s Plot, 11
Hale, Sir Matthew, 46, 47, 281, 282, 316
Halifax, Viscount, 17, 44, 55, 183, 189, 190, 232, 233, 241, 251,
252, 253, 255
Hamilton, Duke of, 235
Harbord, Sir Charles, 16
Harbord, William, 249
Harcourt, William, Rector of the London College, S.J., 197, 329, 332;
his trial, 340–345
Harris, trial of, 285
Hastings, 4
Hatton, Charles, 242
Hatton, Lady, 368
Hawkins, Robert, trial of, 293, 300 _note_, 313
Henrietta of Orleans, 27
High Treason, 45–48
Hill, Lawrence, 122, 123–126, 131–132, 140
Hobson, George, 363, 364
Holles, Lord, 233, 238, 245, 369
Howard, Cardinal (Norfolk), 34 and _note_, 50, 51, 305, 320
Howard, Sir Philip, 106
Hulet, trial of, 293, 296 _note_
Huntingdon, Earl of, 247
Hyde Laurence, 255, 256
Innocent XI, Pope, 50
Ireland (Ironmonger), Father, S.J., 76, 120, 125, 326, 328, 330–332
Ireton, Lieut.-Col., 238, 239
James I., 276
Jeffreys, Sir George, 3, 7, 304, 332, 351, 352
Jenkins, Sir Leoline, 173, 250
Jennison, informer, 204, 362
Jennison, Thomas, S.J., 204 _note_
Jesuit congregation at St. James’ Palace, 152, 166
John of Austria, Don, 77
Jones, Sir William, 116, 172, 251, 252, 258, 305, 362, 367, 370
Justices of the peace, 269–287
Kelly, Father, 124, 140
Keynes, John, S.J., 140, 220
Kirkby, Christopher, 12, 13, 70–75 _passim_, 89
Knox, Thomas, 335, 338–339
Lane, John, 335, 338–339
Langhorn, Richard, trial of, 298, 304, 345–347
Lauderdale, Duke of, 28, 233, 235, 236, 245, 369
L’Estrange, Sir Roger, 13 _note_, 92 and _note_, 100, 102 _note_, 121
_note_, 133, 134, 147, 149
Le Fevre, Father, S.J., 117–119, 127, 140, 141, 155, 157, 158
Legge, Colonel, 252
Leopold I, Emperor, 38, 220
Lewis, David Henry, S.J., 274
Lloyd, Dr., 72, 87, 89, 104, 135, 136, 138, 163
Lloyd, Sir Philip, 349–351
Lloyd, Temperance, 315
Locke, John, 223
Louis XIV, 24, 27, 255–257
Lovelace, Lord, 366
Lucas, Lord, 369
Luzancy, 16, 17
Manchester, Countess of, 368
Mansell, Colonel, 208, 209, 210
Marshal, O.S.B., 351, 360
Marvell, Andrew, 225
Maynard, Sergeant, 305, 319, 362
Mazarin, Duchesse, 198
Meal Tub Plot, 204 _seq._, 335, 344, 360
Medburne, Matthew, 5
Meres, Sir Thomas, 184
Monmouth, Duke of, 25, 122, 123–124, 127, 129, 160, 227, 232, 233,
234, 236, 238, 240, 241, 242, 245, 254
Montagu, Ralph, 178–181
Morley, Dr., Bishop of Winchester, 176
Morris, Father David, 202
Mowbray, Laurence, 199
Mulgrave, Marquis of, 239
Non-Resistance Bill, 42
Norfolk, Duke of, 6, 202
Norfolk, Duke of (1571), his trial, 291
North, Chief Justice, 357
North, Roger, 89, 104, 150
Nymeguen, Peace of, 225
Oates, Samuel, 4
Oates, Titus, 3–13 _passim_, 63, 64, 66, 70–80 _passim_, 89–91,
112, 150, 151, 164, 170, 225–231 _passim_, 237, 239, 247,
306–314 _passim_, 321, 327, 329, 331, 342–353 _passim_,
356, 362–369 _passim_
Ogle, Lord, 224
Oliva, Johannes Paulus de, General, S.J., 26, 327
Orange, Mary, Princess of, 50, 225
Orange, William, Prince of, 29, 217, 220, 225, 233
Ormonde, Duke of, 194
Osborne, William, 338
Ossory, Earl of, 122, 123–124, 127, 160, 172
Oxford, Earl of, 369
Parsons, Robert, S.J., 56
Pemberton, Chief Justice, 102, 298, 299, 300, 354
Penal statutes against Romanists, 19, 41, 53, 196, 244
Penn and Meade, trial of, 283, 358
Pepys, Samuel, 106, 107–109, 173, 352 and _note_
Peterborough, Earl of, 207, 209, 210, 212
Petre, Edward, S.J., 329, 342
Petre, Lord, 12, 54, 62, 205, 337
Peyton, Sir Robert, 207, 238, 240
Pickering, lay-brother, O.S.B., 70, 73, 76, 326, 327, 328, 330, 332
Plucknet, Mr., 96, 99
Plunket, Archbishop, 304, 360
Pomponne, Marquis de, 37, 52, 58
Portsmouth, Duchess of, 27, 242, 247, 250, 362
Powis, Countess of, 205, 207, 209, 212, 213
Powis, Earl of, 12, 62, 205, 337
Pracid, John, S.J., 66
Prance, Miles, 120–148 _passim_, 155, 158–166 _passim_, 348
Preston, Lord, 47
Price, Anne, 335, 339–340
Prison life in seventeenth century, 136
Pritchard, Charles, S.J., 119, 120, 140, 155
Pugh, Father, S.J., 273
Radley, Richard, 353
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 292, 358
Rawson, John, 95, 96, 99
Reading, Nathaniel, trial of, 328, 335–338
Reresby, Sir John, 152 and _note_, 164, 179, 186, 227, 253, 270, 361,
368
Rich, Sir Edward, 171
Richardson, Captain, 125, 134, 205
Roman Catholics, persecution of, 196–221
Rupert, Prince, 336
Russell, Lord, 16, 182, 183, 189, 235, 238, 247, 252, 258, 299, 333,
334
Ruvigny, 31, 36, 38, 43, 52
Rye House Plot, 212, 237, 239, 260, 270, 334, 371
St. Germain, Father (Dr. Burnet), S.J., 16, 17, 34, 52, 64, 80,
201, 319
St. James’ Palace, Jesuit meeting at, 152, 166
St. Omers, 8, 9, 10, 67, 326, 342, 343
Salamanca, 8
Salisbury, Earl of, 225
Sarotti, quoted, 18 _note_
Savile, Henry, quoted, 239
Scott, Colonel John, 61–64 and _note_, 69
Scroggs, Chief Justice, 286, 298, 309, 317–319, 321, 322, 328, 329,
332, 342, 345, 347, 349, 352–359 _passim_
Sergeant, Dr. John, 53, 201, 202 _note_
Seymour, Edward, 184
Shadwell, poet laureate, 239
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 22, 29, 42, 85, 103, 108, 142, 182, 183, 188,
189, 191, 223–260 _passim_
Sheldon, Father, S.J., 33, 37, 38
Ship-money, 279
Sidney, Algernon, 234, 238, 239, 333, 343
Sidney, Henry, 202
Sitwell, Sir George, 13 _note_, 85 _note_, 228
Smith, Aaron, 237, 239
Smith, John, 362
Smith, William, 5
Somerset House, 156, 159, 161
Southwell, Sir Robert, 124 _note_, 129, 130
Southwell, Sir Thomas, 309
Speke, George, 336 and _note_, 337
Speke, Hugh, 238, 253
Stafford, Lord, 12, 54, 62, 64, 65, 67, 205, 337; his trial,
153 _note_, 275, 280, 286, 298–300, 360–371 _passim_
Staley, William, his trial, 323–326
Stapleton, Sir Miles, 199, 360
Stephen, Sir James Fitzjames, 46, 83, 146 _note_, 311
Strange, Richard, Provincial, S.J., 6, 8
Stuart, James (De la Cloche), 26
Suffolk witches, trial of, 293–294, 314
Sunderland, Earl of, 187, 189, 241
Tasborough, John, 335, 339–340
Tempest, Lady, 199
Temple, Sir William, 173, 179, 186, 187, 190, 192, 218, 232, 239
Test Act, 29, 35, 42
Thomas, Grace, 315
Thompson, Pain, and Farwell, trial of, 98, 102
Throckmorton, Sir Nicolas, 291
Throckmorton, Sir William, 33, 35, 37, 38, 60, 305
Thwing, Father, 199, 360
Thynne, Mr., 236, 270
Tichbourne, Sir Henry, 337
Tilden, Mary, 129
Titus, Colonel, 251
Tonge, Dr. Ezrael, 3, 9, 12, 70–80 _passim_, 89–90, 177, 227, 326
Tonge, Simpson, 10, 13 _note_
Tory, origin of name, 244
Townley, Christopher, 344
Trade riot, 284
Trelawny, Sir Jonathan, 181
Trenchard, Sir John, 238, 239
Tuke, Colonel, 20
Tunstall, William, S.J., 329
Turbervile, John, 365
Turner, Anthony, S.J., 341 and _note_
Turner, Colonel, 269–270, 293, 298
Twyn, printer, sentence on, 285
Valladolid, 6, 8, 67, 112, 326
Vane, Sir Harry, 366
Verdier, Francois, 66
Vernatt, 128, 140
Vittells, Captain, 114–115, 116
Wakeman, Sir George, 12, 70, 295, 309, 322, 324; his trial, 347–352,
355, 356, 361
Waller, Sir William, 143, 183, 209, 238, 249, 271, 343
Walsh, Charles, S.J., 117, 140, 141, 155, 157, 158
Walters, Lucy, 246, 247
Warcup, Justice, 271
Warner, John, S.J., 164, 165, 198
Warrier, James, 130
Watchmen, 268
Welden, George, 151
Wemyss, Countess of, 247
Wharton, Lord, 224, 225
White, Mrs., 205
Whitebread (White or Harcourt), Thomas, Provincial, S.J., 73, 78;
his trial, 326–330, 340–345
Williamson, Sir Joseph, 16, 109, 173, 178, 187
York Castle, 199
York, Duchess of, 31, 49, 50, 79, 198, 205, 215
York, James, Duke of, 17, 27, 30, 35, 38, 39, 41, 42, 44, 57, 69, 75,
152, 164, 166, 181, 186, 198, 203, 207, 213–221 _passim_, 224,
226, 234, 240, 241, 245, 251, 322, 341 _note_
THE END
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
FOOTNOTES
[1] 7 State Trials 128. Evidence of Sir Denny Ashburnham, _ibid._ 1097.
[2] Anthony à Wood, _Life and Times_ ii. 417. 7 State Trials 1094.
[3] Burnet ii. 157.
[4] Smith, _Intrigues of the Popish Plot_ 4. Oates, _Narrative_ 35, 36.
It was at this house that Baxter was insulted in 1677 by a Catholic
gentleman, who accused him of having been tried at Worcester for the
murder of a tinker. Baxter’s _Relation_ iii. 179.
[5] Burnet ii. 157. 7 State Trials 1320.
[6] 7 State Trials 1320.
[7] _Ibid._ 1096, 1320, 1321. Burnet ii. 157. Foley, _Records_ v. 12.
[8] _Absalom and Achitophel_ 646–649. Father John Warner describes
Oates in similar terms: “Mentis in eo summa stupiditas, lingua
balbutiens, sermo e trivio, vox stridula et cautillans, plorantis quam
loquentis similior. Memoria fallax, prius dicta nunquam fideliter
reddens, frons contracta, oculi parvi et in occiput retracti, facies
plana, in medio, lancis sive disci instar, compressa, prominentibus hic
inde genis rubicundis nasus, os in ipso vultus centro, mentum reliquam
faciem prope totam aequans, caput vix corporis trunco extans, in pectus
declive, reliqua corporis hisce respondentia, monstro quam homini
similiora.” MS. history 104.
[9] _Lettre écrite de Mons à un ami à Paris_, 1679. 7 State Trials 1322.
[10] _Absalom and Achitophel_ 657–659.
[11] Sir William Godolphin to Henry Coventry, on information obtained
in Spain, November 6/16, 1678, Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers lx. 264.
[12] 7 State Trials 358, 1322. Burnet ii. 158. _Florus Anglo-Bavaricus_
93.
[13] See below in Trials for Treason.
[14] _The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and
Religion enquired into._ By John Eachard, D.D., Master of Catherine
Hall, Cambridge, 1670.
[15] 7 State Trials 360–375. 10 State Trials 1097–1132.
[16] _Florus Anglo-Bavaricus_ 93, 94, 95.
[17] 7 State Trials 324, 1325, _Lettre écrite de Mons à un ami à
Paris_. _Florus Anglo-Bavaricus_ 95.
[18] Simpson Tonge’s Journal, S.P. Dom. Charles II 409: 39. Simpson
Tonge to L’Estrange, _Brief Hist._ i. 38. Simpson Tonge’s Case, House
of Lords MSS. 246–249.
[19] S.P. Dom. Charles II 414: 185. Sydney Godolphin to Sir Leoline
Jenkins, September 25, 1680.
[20] S.P. Dom. Charles II 409: 36.
[21] Evelyn, _Diary_ January 25, 1665.
[22] Simpson Tonge’s Journal S.P. Dom. Charles II 409: 39. Simpson
Tonge to the King, _ibid._ 414: 139. Simpson Tonge to L’Estrange,
_Brief Hist._ i. 38. Kirkby, _Compleat and True Narrative_ 1.
_Impartial State of the Case of the Earl of Danby_ 14. _Brief Hist._
ii. 100–125. Burnet ii. 158. North, _Examen_ 170. Ralph i. 382, 542.
In this account of Oates and the revelation of the Plot I have made
considerable use of Mr. Seccombe’s monograph on Titus Oates in _Twelve
Bad Men_, and of Sir George Sitwell’s study of _The First Whig_. I
am unable however to follow these writers, and especially Sir George
Sitwell, to whom I am much indebted for a loan of his book, in placing
much reliance upon witnesses on the Catholic and Tory side. These
labour under as great a bias as their opponents, and on some points
are convicted of falsehood. This applies in particular to the evidence
of L’Estrange and Simpson Tonge, upon whose authority the story of
the deliberate concoction of the Plot by Oates and Dr. Tonge rests.
That Tonge was a fanatic and Oates a villain is unquestioned; and it
is probably as just to call Tonge villain and Oates fanatic. But that
their rascality took this form is not proved. Simpson Tonge was also
a rascal, and his repeated contradictions, in the hope of gain from
both parties, make it impossible to discover the truth from him. In
the winter of 1680 L’Estrange challenged Oates (_Observator_ i. 138)
to prosecute young Tonge for defamation of character. The challenge
passed unnoticed; but the fact proves nothing, for however many lies
Tonge had told, Oates was not then in a position to risk a rebuff or to
court an inquiry into his own conduct. And L’Estrange’s bare assertion
is no proof of the truth of the fact asserted. The way I have treated
this, as all other doubtful evidence in the course of this inquiry, is
always to disbelieve it, unless it is corroborated from other sources,
or unless the facts alleged are intrinsically probable, and the witness
had no motive for their falsification. When the test is applied to the
present case, I believe that no other result than that stated above can
be obtained.
[23] See, for instance, _La Politique du Clergé de France_, by
Pierre Jurieu. Arnauld, _Apologie pour les Catholiques, Le Jesuite
sécularisé_, and _La Critique du Jesuite sécularisé_, Cologne, 1683.
[24] Barillon, January 16/26, 1680. See below in Trials for Treason.
[25] He was wrongly said to be the Duchess’s confessor. Sarotti,
October 26/November 4, 1678. Ven. Arch. Inghil. 65.
[26] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 780, 781, 782. C.J., November 8, 1675.
[27] _Ibid._ Reresby, _Memoirs_ 98, 99. Ralph i. 292. Verney MSS. 466.
Foley i. 276 _seq._ Lingard xii. 278–282. Antoine Arnauld, _Œuvres_
xiv. 532, 533. Foley i. 276, 277. Wood, _Fasti Oxon._ (ed. Bliss
1815–20) ii. 350.
[28] Ralph i. 292. Verney MSS. 466. Burnet ii. 104.
[29] Ruvigny, November 7/17, 8/18, 1675.
[30] Fitzherbert MSS. 112, 76; St. Germain to Coleman, December 3/13.
1675; January 5/15, 1676.
[31] Sarotti, who might have been expected to have heard of the case
favourably to St. Germain, writes of him simply as “un Padre Jesuita
che fu capellano della medesima Signora Duchessa e già tre anni in
circa fuggì, ritrandosi a Parigi per le differenze ch’ hebbe con
un ministro Calvinista della casa del Signor di Rouvigny,” October
26/November 4, 1678, as above.
[32] See Appendix E.
[33] L.J. xi. 276, 286, 299, 310. Kennet, _Register and Chronicle_
469, 476, 484, 495. Orleans, _History of the Revolutions in England_
236. _Letter from a Person of Quality to a Peer of the Realm_, 1661.
_Collection of Treatises on the Penal Laws_, 1675. Continuation of
Clarendon’s _Life_, by himself, 140, 143.
[34] December 6, 1662. Kennet, _Register and Chronicle_ 848–891.
Baxter’s _Life_ ii. 429.
[35] February 27, 1663.
[36] July 25, 1663. C.J. Feb. 27, 28, April 27, May 30. L.J. xi. 478,
482, 486, 491, 558, 578. Clarendon 245–249. James i. 428.
[37] For a general statement of the Catholic case see _The Catholique
Apology_, attributed to the Earl of Castlemain, and on the other
side _An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in
England_, by Andrew Marvell.
[38] Ranke iv. 323. W. A. Shaw, “The Beginnings of the National Debt,”
_Owens College, Manchester, Historical Essays_. Mr. Shaw’s remarkable
essay throws a flood of light on the financial difficulties of the
early part of the reign. He considers the year 1667, when the Commons
attacked the administration and voted a commission to examine public
accounts, to be the point beyond which patriotic action could be
expected on the part neither of the Commons nor of the king.
[39] Ruvigny, January 17/27, 1675: “Que les finances du roi ne
pouvaient pas mieux être employées qu’à la destruction d’un puissant
ennemi, qui soutenait tous les autres.”
[40] As to the date of Charles’ conversion see Ranke iv. 383, 384.
[41] Ranke iv. 384–386. _Gentleman’s Magazine_, January 1866. Lord
Acton, “Secret History of Charles II,” _Home and Foreign Review_ i.
146. Hallam ii. 387.
[42] Acton, _op. cit._ _Gentleman’s Mag._ January 1866. Boero, _Istoria
della Conversione alla Chiesa Cattolica de Carlo II_. Welwood,
_Memoirs_ 146.
[43] Brosch 420, n. Ranke v. 88.
[44] _Lectures on Modern History._
[45] April 1675.
[46] Clarke, _Life of King James II_ i. 440, 629. In referring to this
work I adopt Lingard’s plan of mentioning it simply as “James,” except
where the passage referred to is based, as here, upon James’ original
memoirs, when I refer to it as “James (Or. Mem.).” Klopp i. 235. Foley
i. 272 _seq._
[47] Cardinal Howard to Coleman, April 18, 1676. Treby i. 85. Courtin,
April 2, 1676.
[48] Ruvigny, August 19/29, 1675. Courtin, October 9/19, 1676, January
11/21, 15/25, 1677. Barillon, December 17/27, 1677. Giacomo Ronchi,
October 3/13, 1678, in Campana de Cavelli i. 233. Longleat MSS. Strange
to Warner, December 28, 1676; Bedingfield to Warner, December 28, 1676;
Coleman to Whitehall, January 1, 1677; Mrs. Coleman to Coleman, January
1, 1677, January 4, 1677; Coventry Papers xi. 245, 246, 247. MS. diary
of Lord Keeper Guildford, Dalrymple ii. 199, 200. _Parl. Hist._ iv.
1035. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. i. Ap. 56. _Floras Anglo-Bavaricus_ 136.
Forneron, _Louise de Keroualle_ 136, 161, 179. Ralph i. 272. Burnet ii.
51, 99.
Coleman is described by Warner, MS. history 41: “Hunc proxime secutus
est Edwardus Colemannus, serenissimae Ducissae Eboracensi a secretis,
in haeresi educatus, quam detectis erroribus ejuravit, et totus in
Catholicorum partes transiit, quas exinde promovit pro virili, magno
zelo sed impari prudentia. Magnum a natura sortitus est et festivum
ingenium, cui dum nimium indulgeret, et liberrimis censuris quae
parum a satyris abessent curules perstringeret, divûm nulli parcens,
multorum, praecipue, Danbaei, offensam incurrit, a quibus tandem
oppressus est.”
The imputation that he diverted the Frenchmen’s gold to his own use
was put upon Coleman by Whig historians. Of this his character has
been cleared by Sir George Sitwell (_First Whig_ 25, note). The Whig
Committee of the House of Commons appointed to examine Coleman reported
his confession “that he had prepared guineas to distribute among
members of Parliament, but that he gave none and applied them to his
own use” (C.J. November 7, 1678). The committee was composed of men who
themselves received money from the French ambassador, and therefore had
the strongest motive to conceal the facts. But the truth slipped out
two years later in a speech made in the House by Mr. Harbord (December
14, 1680). Coleman, he said, did confess “that he had twenty-five
hundred pounds from the French ambassador to distribute amongst members
of Parliament, and your committee prudently did not take any names from
him, it being in his power to asperse whom he pleased, possibly some
gentlemen against the French and Popish interest.” The prudence of the
committee in attributing to Coleman statements which he never made is
also indubitable.
[49] Coleman to Ferrier, June 29, 1674. Ferrier to Coleman, September
25, 1674. Coleman to Ferrier in answer to above. Coleman to La Chaize,
September 29, 1675. Treby i. 1, 3, 6, 109. Chantelauze, _Le Père de la
Chaize_ 4.
[50] Berkshire to Coleman, March 24, 1675. Treby i. 103.
[51] Throckmorton to Coleman, April 27, May 1, 1675. Fitzherbert MSS.
70. Burnet ii. 103.
[52] Chantelauze, _Le Père de la Chaize_ 4. See below in Trials for
Treason.
[53] In 1672 Howard was appointed bishop-elect of England with a see
“in partibus” but not consecrated. In 1675 he was created cardinal by
Clement X, and in 1679 nominated by Innocent XI Cardinal Protector of
England and Scotland.
[54] Some of the letters could not be deciphered; see for instance
Albani to Coleman, January 12, 1675. Treby i. 121.
[55] Treby i. 109–116.
[56] Colbert, November 10/20, 1673, on the information of St.
Évremonde. Mignet, _Negotiations_ iv. 236.
[57] Treby i. 110. Ferrier to Coleman, September 25, 1674; and
Coleman’s answer to Ferrier, Treby i. 3, 6. The Duke of York to
Ferrier, Treby i. 119. This last letter Coleman declared at his
examination in Newgate to have been written by himself in the duke’s
name and without his knowledge. 7 State Trials 54. There is however
no reason to accept his statement as true. Answering Ferrier’s letter
Coleman writes, “His royal highness has received the letter that you
sent him by Sir William Throckmorton, which he has answered to you
himself.” Treby i. 3. Supposing Coleman to have told the truth to his
examiners, he must have forged the letter, a work of considerable
difficulty, since James’ writing would certainly have been well known
at the French court. Throckmorton and Coleman must also in this case
have conspired to divert Ferrier’s letter to James and never deliver
it; for there could be no reason for the duke to meet with a marked
rebuff a letter so flattering to him and written in his interest, and
unless he refused to send an answer, Coleman would have no motive
to forge one. Nor can it be supposed that Coleman carried on his
correspondence without the duke’s knowledge. Beyond the certainty
that Coleman was in James’ confidence, this is plain from the fact
that on several occasions either Coleman’s correspondent desires him
particularly to show his letter to the duke or he mentions that he has
done so. And Coleman had the strongest motive to shield his master by
taking on himself the authorship of the letter. That he was believed is
probably due to Oates’ careful exoneration of the duke from concern in
the Plot at a time when he was not certain of a favourable reception
for his story. Another misunderstanding would be welcomed by Coleman.
This letter was said at the time to have been addressed to La Chaize,
and the belief would suit Coleman, since the letter would be less
likely to be connected with his own written to Ferrier at the same
time. The confessor to whom it was sent was certainly Ferrier and not
La Chaize, for Throckmorton, who is mentioned in it, was dead some
months before the latter came to court. The erroneous idea was probably
owing to the manner in which Ferrier is spoken of in the letter in the
third person, an use common with the writers in this correspondence.
[58] Treby i. 110, 111, 112.
[59] Treby i. 112. Coleman to Throckmorton, February 1, 1675. Treby ii.
1. Throckmorton to Coleman, November 28, December 1, 1674. Fitzherbert
MSS. 50, 51. Same to same, February 13, 1675. Treby i. 73.
[60] Sheldon to Coleman, July 13, 1675. Treby i. 49.
[61] Treby i. 112. Throckmorton to Coleman, December 8, December 22,
1674, January 19, 1675. Fitzherbert MSS. 51, 62, Treby i. 66. Coleman
to Throckmorton, February 1, 1675. Treby ii. 1. Sheldon to Coleman,
July 13, 1675. Treby i. 45.
[62] Albani to Coleman, August 4, 1674. Coleman to Albani, August 21,
1674. Treby i. 21: 7.
[63] Albani to Coleman, October 19, 1674. Treby i. 23.
[64] Coleman to Albani, October 23, 1674. Albani to Coleman, January
12, 1675. Treby i. 12, 25.
[65] Fitzherbert MSS. 113. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1024, 1025. Burnet ii. 104.
[66] Coleman to Throckmorton, February 1, 1675.—“The duke having
the king wholly to himself, he would no longer balance between the
different motives of his honour and the weak apprehensions of his
enemies’ power; but then the duke would be able to govern him without
trouble, and mark out to him what he ought to do for the establishment
of his grandeur and repose. For you well know that when the duke comes
to be master of our affairs the King of France will have reason to
promise himself all things that he can desire. How shall we get this
parliament dissolved? ... by the King of France and the help of three
hundred thousand pounds. This parliament is revengeful to the last
degree, and no man that offends them must think to escape. But as for a
new parliament that will be better natured and will doubtless accord to
his Majesty all that he shall need for his occasions. And this for very
good reason, since they will more depend upon his Majesty upon other
accounts than his Majesty upon them for money. And to conclude where we
began, the duke by the dissolution will be all-powerful” (Treby ii. 1,
2, 3).
Coleman to Albani, August 21, 1674.—“So that if the duke can happily
disengage himself of those difficulties wherewith he is now encumbered,
all the world will esteem him an able man, and all people will entrust
him in their affairs more willingly than they have done formerly. And
the king himself, who hath more influence on the East India Company
(Parliament) than all the rest, will not only re-establish him in
the employment he had before, but will put the management of all the
trade into his hands. We have in agitation great designs, worthy the
consideration of your friends, and to be supported with all their
power, wherein we have no doubt but to succeed, and it may be to the
utter ruin of the Protestant party” (Treby i. 78).
Coleman to Albani, October 2, 1674.—“If the duke can shew to the king
the true cause of all these misfortunes and persuade him to change
the method of their trade, which he may easily do with the help of
money, he will without difficulty drive away the Parliament and the
Protestants who have ruined all their affairs for so great a time, and
settle in their employments the Catholics, who understand perfectly
well the nature of this sort of trade” (Treby ii. 6).
[67] Treby ii. 21–25.
[68] Coleman to Albani, October 2, 1674. Treby ii. 6.
[69] Coleman to Albani, February 12, 1675. Treby ii. 8. John Leybourn,
president of the English College at Douay, to Cardinal Albani, June 17,
1675. Vat. Arch. Misc. 168. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 673, 674. Brosch 431, 432.
[70] Ranke v. 184, 185, 186. Airy, _The English Restoration_ 235, 236,
237. Brosch 432. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 715 _seq._ Schwerin, _Briefe aus
England_ 24. Andrew Marvell, _Growth of Popery_. Treby i. 114.
[71] This is awkwardly expressed. What they were about before was to
have the duke put again over the fleet, but not to have this done
at the request of Parliament; for it was then the object to have
Parliament dissolved.
[72] Treby i. 116. Sec also Coleman to Albani, February 12, 1675. Treby
ii. 8.
[73] Treby i. 117.
[74] Treby i. 117, 118.
[75] Halifax, _Maxims of State_:—
XXIII.—The Dissenters of England plead only for conscience, but their
struggle is for power; yet when they had it, have always denied to
others that liberty of conscience which they now make such a noise for.
XXVI.—They that separate themselves from the Religion of the State and
are not contented with a free Toleration, aim at the Subversion of it.
For a conscience that once exceeds its bounds knows no limits, because
it pretends to be above all other Rules.
The dangerous nature of Coleman’s correspondence was recognised at the
time by sensible people, as well Catholics as Protestants. Barillon,
October 3/13: “On trouve dans les papiers de ceux qui ont été arrêtés
beaucoup de commerces qui paraissent criminels en Angleterre, parce
qu’il s’agit de la religion.” October 10/20, 1678: “On continue
toujours ici la visite des papiers du Sieur Coleman.... Tous les gens
raisonnables croyent que la conjuration contre la personne du Roi de
la Grande Bretagne n’a aucun véritable fondement. Les commissaires du
conseil qui instruisent l’affaire parlent de la même manière sur cela,
mais en même temps ils disent qu’il paraît un commerce fort dangereux
pour l’État avec les étrangers. Qu’il s’emploie de grandes sommes pour
soutenir les cabales et pour augmenter la religion catholique, et que
par les lois d’Angleterre la plupart de ceux qui sont arrêtés sont
criminels. Ils parlent bien plus affirmativement du Sieur Coleman.
On a trouvé dans ses papiers des minutes de toutes les lettres qu’il
écrivait à Rome, en France, et ailleurs. On prétend qu’il y a quantités
de projets qui tendent à la ruine de la religion protestante en
Angleterre et à l’établissement d’une autorité souveraine en Angleterre
et d’un changement de gouvernement par le papisme.”
Il Nuntio di Vienna al Nuntio in Francia, Nimega, October 18/28, 1678:
“Al Colman oltre l’ insufficienti imputationi de complicità s’adossa
hoggi corrispondenza per altri capi criminali, che lo mettono in gran
pericolo della vita.” Vat. Arch. Nunt. di Francia 329.
J. Brisbane to Henry Coventry, October 14/24, 1678.—M. de Pomponne
and M. Courtin treat the whole matter of the plot _en ridicule_ and
say that “le pauvre Coleman est mort seulement pour être Catholique.”
February 11, 1679.—Finds that those who did not long ago canonise
Mr. Coleman, do now acknowledge his execution to have been a just
punishment. Bath MSS. 242, 243.
[76] 25 Edward III St. 5, c. 1.
[77] Third Institute 6, 12, 14.
[78] Hale, _P.C._ i. 109, 110.
[79] _History of the Criminal Law_ i. 268. See on the whole subject
Stephen i. 241–281 and Hale, _P.C._ i. 87–170.
[80] S.P. Dom. Charles II 407: i. 128.
[81] 12 State Trials 646.
[82] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 519.
[83] See above.
[84] 7 State Trials 60, 67.
[85] Hale, _P.C._ i. 110.
[86] Evidence of Jerome Boatman, his secretary, House of Lords MSS. 8.
[87] St. Germain to Coleman, March 28, April 8, April 15, September
6, 1676. Treby i. 32, 40. Fitzherbert MSS. 81. Treby i. 42, ii. 18.
Courtin, March 23, April 1, July 16, August 11, August 13, 1676.
Pomponne to Ruvigny, April 1, 1676. Both Ruvigny and Courtin were in
London at this time.
[88] St. Germain to Coleman, January 15, 29, February 1, 5, 8, March
18, April 13, November 18, 1676. Fitzherbert MSS. 76, 78, 79, 96, 107.
Treby i. 30, 32, 35.
[89] Leybourn, Howard’s secretary, to Coleman, May 16, June 20,
September 5, September 21, 1676, June 25, July 10, July 16, August 6,
1677, January 1, 1678. Fitzherbert MSS. 102, 103, 104, 105. Treby i.
94, 95, 96. Howard to Coleman, March 1, April 18, 1676. Treby i. 81,
85. Courtin, March 13/23, March 22/April 1, April 3/13, April 10/20,
July 6/16, November 9/19, November 22/December 2, November 30/December
10, 1676. Correspondence later on the same subject March 29, April 8,
1679; the Duke of York to the Pope; the Duchess to the Pope. Vat. Arch.
Epist. Princ. 106. The internuncio at Brussels to the Pope. Nunt. di
Fiandra, 66.
[90] See below in Trials for Treason.
[91] Above, 43.
[92] St. Germain to Coleman, January 29, April 15, July 25, 1676. Treby
i. 30, 43. Fitzherbert MSS. 80.
[93] _Mémoires du Marquis de Pomponne_ i. 538.
[94] This distinction was widely recognised, see 7 State Trials 475.
Ralph i. 91, note. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 274. It corresponded in the ideas
of the time to the difference between a simple Roman Catholic and “a
Jesuited Papist.”
[95] Stafford’s statement; House of Lords MSS. 43. Burnet i. 346. Foley
v. 19.
[96] Foley v. 80. John Leybourn, April 19/29, 1674; same to Cardinal
Albani, June 7/17, 1675. Vat. Arch. Nunt. di Inghilterra and Misc. 168.
Pietro Talbot (the Jesuit Archbishop of Dublin), Primate de Irlanda
al Nuntio F. Spada, Nuntio in Parigi, April 3/13, 1675. Nunt. di
Francia, 431. “V. S. Ill^{ma} si compiaccia de aggiungere le inchiuse
propositioni del Sig^n Giovanni Sargentio alle altre sue; tutte (come
V. S. Ill^{ma} vede) sono heretiche o almeno inferiscono l’heresia.”
Continual references to the same subject are found in the Papal
despatches of the time.
[97] _Maxims of State_ lxv.
[98] See D’Avrigny, _Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de l’Europe_ 47,
48. Arnauld, _Œuvres_ xiv. 410.
[99] Leybourn to Coleman, May 2, 1676. Fitzherbert MSS. 102. John
Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, March 30, 1676, “The Duke of York did
declare that he would never more come under the roof of Whitehall
chapel, which makes every one say he is a perfect papist.... ’Tis
said he publicly goes to mass. God bless him and preserve the King.”
Verney MSS. 467. Courtin, March 23, April 2, October 2/12, 1676.
Le ministre des affaires étrangères à Courtin, April 1/11, 1676.
_Mémoires du Marquis de Pomponne_ i. 491. Marchese Cattaneo al Duca
di Modena, April 20/30, 1676: “In alcune parti d’Inghilterra si e
cominciata l’esecuzione delle legge contro i Cattolici, imprigionandoli
e confiscandogli i beni.... Delle rincrudite persecuzioni verso i
Cattolici e accagionato il Duca d’York perche non ha voluto nella
Pasqua recarsi alla capella Regia (Protestante),” in Campana de Cavelli
i. 171. Longleat MSS. Proclamation of October 3, 1676. Coventry Papers
xi. 154.
[100] The interpretation of the following letter seems doubtful, but
it is worth quoting. It is a curious fact that Lord Castlemaine should
have either taken, or intended to take, orders in the Church of Rome.
January 1, 1677. To the Lord Castlemaine at Liège: “118 and 109, as I
am privately told, are now perfectly reconciled to the Duke of York,
and fully resolved to serve him and his interest, so that if the
Lords and Commons when they meet do nothing, the King will dissolve
them and once more publish a toleration. Consider if Mr. Skinner can
make a seasonable check of mettlesome stuff for the conjuncture. By
a letter from Mr. Warner at Paris I find D. of Cleveland persuaded
that Ld. Castlemain is already made a priest by the Jesuits’ underhand
contrivances, and that she obstructed it what she could at Rome. I
should think it expedient that she should continue in that belief,
that she may think it now too late to go about to hinder it.” Unsigned
Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 347.
[101] Throckmorton to Coleman, January 9, February 20, 1675.
Fitzherbert MSS. 60, 66. Berkshire to Coleman, n.d. Treby i. 102.
[102] Journal of Sir Joseph Williamson, March 12, 30, 1672, in Cal.
S.P. Dom. 1671–1672, 608. Longleat MSS. Francis Bastwick to Henry
Coventry, April 29, 1679. Examination of Col. Scott at Dover of same
date. Coventry Papers xi. 393, 396. Two letters in the same collection
seem to show that Scott was a regular spy of the English Government,
but they are so vague that much reliance cannot be placed on them.
Coventry Papers xi. 171, 506. See Appendix A.
[103] Longleat MSS. “An account of what the Earl of Berkshire desired
Colonel John Scott to communicate to his Majesty.” Coventry Papers xi.
397. See Appendix A. See too Collins’ _Peerage_, 1812, iii. 163.
[104] Scott afterward gave evidence before the House of Commons against
Pepys, whom he charged on report with having given information of
the state of the navy to the French court; but the affair was never
thoroughly investigated. Grey, _Debates in Parliament_ vii. 303–309.
[105] House of Lords MSS. 43, 44. Burnet i. 345, 346; ii. 276, 277.
Airy, _The English Restoration_ 240.
[106] Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 310, 313, 317. See Appendix A.
[107] J. P. Oliva Generale dei Gesuiti al Cardinale Altieri, September
23/October 3, 1674. Vat. Arch. Archivio di Propaganda Fide. Ranke v. 91.
[108] Dal Sig^r Internuncio, May 24/June 3, 1679. Vat. Arch. Nunt. di
Fiandra 66. Add. MSS. 32095: 196. See below in Politics of the Plot.
[109] L.J. November 21, 1678. Foley v. 221, 222. Longleat MSS. Coventry
Papers xi. 483, a version of Du Fiquet’s information in French.
[110] 7 State Trials 1007.
[111] Brusselles Dal. Sig^r Internuncio, April 19/29, 1679. Vat. Arch.
Nunt. di Fiandra 66.
[112] Longleat MSS. St. Omers, August 14, 1678. Sam Morgan to his
father, Coventry Papers xi. 204. See Appendix A.
[113] Pepys, _Memoires relating to the State of the Royal Navy in
England_ 4, 5, 8.
[114] Longleat MSS. Letter of December 23, 1676. Coventry Papers xi.
171. See Appendix A.
[115] Treby i. 19. September 18/28, 1678.
[116] L’Abbate G. B. Lauri a S. Em^{za}, November 22/December 2, 1678.
Vat. Arch. Nunt. di Francia 332. See Appendix A.
[117] Barillon, October 21/31, 1680. “Il (le Duc d’York) me fit
entendre. ...qu’il ne comprenait pas que le Roi son frère voulût
mettre tous les Catholiques en désespoir et les persécuter sans
aucunes mesures. Il ajouta à cela en termes pleines de colère et
ressentiment que si on le poursuit à bout et qu’il se voit en état
d’être entièrement ruiné par ses ennemis, il trouvera le moyen de les
en faire repentir et se vangera d’eux.... M. le Duc de Bouquinham m’a
dit plusieurs fois qu’il avait bu fort souvent avec le Roi de la Grande
Bretagne, mais qu’il n’avait jamais vu ce Prince dans une débauche un
peu libre qu’il ne temoignât beaucoup d’aigreur et de la haine même
contre son frère.”
[118] Examinations of Saunders, Coulster, and Towneley, April 28, 1679.
House of Lord MSS. 149–152.
[119] Macaulay iv. 649–652. Lord Acton, _Lectures on Modern History_.
If Charles’ word when he was sober can be trusted, he believed there
was no ground to suspect the duke of any intention against his life.
Barillon, November 22/December 2, 1680. “Le Roi de la Grande Bretagne
dit encore en jurant avant hier au conseil: Mon frère ne m’a point
voulu faire tuer, ny pas un de vous ne le croît.” It was however
Charles’ constant policy to uphold the Duke of York. See too Reresby,
_Memoirs_ 146.
[120] Ralph i. 382.
[121] It is a tribute to the liveliness of Oates’ imagination that
Pickering, said to be an agent in the Jesuit plot, was a Benedictine
lay-brother.
[122] Kirkby, _Compleat and True Narrative_ i. Simpson Tonge’s Journal
38; S.P. Dom. Charles II 409.
[123] Simpson Tonge’s Journal 39.
[124] Kirkby, _Compleat and True Narrative_ 2. Simpson Tonge’s Journal
40, 41. _Impartial State of the Case of the Earl of Danby_ 13, 14.
[125] _Impartial State of the Case_ 14, 15.
[126] _Florus Anglo-Bavaricus_ 95.
[127] _Impartial State of the Case_ 15. Kirkby, _Compleat and True
Narrative_ 2. 7 State Trials 96, 328, 345. Simpson Tonge’s Journal 39,
59.
[128] _Impartial State of the Case_ 15.
[129] _Impartial State of the Case_ 15, 16. Kirkby, _Compleat and True
Narrative_ 2, 3. Simpson Tonge’s Journal 64, 65, 124. L’Estrange,
_Brief Hist._ ii. 4–15. _Observator_ ii. 150–153, October 1684. James
(Or. Mem.) i. 518, 519. Ralph i. 383, 384. Burnet ii. 158.
[130] Simpson Tonge’s Journal 135. Kirkby, _Compleat and True
Narrative_ 3. _Impartial State of the Case_ 16. James (Or. Mem.) i.
518. Temple, _Works_ i. 398. Reresby, _Memoirs_ 147. Burnet ii. 158.
[131] Simpson Tonge’s Journal 152. 7 State Trials 29, James (Or. Mem.)
i. 518–521. Warner MS. history 26. _Florus Anglo-Bavaricus_ 98. Foley
v. 16. Burnet ii. 160. North, _Examen_ 58.
[132] Barillon, September 30/October 10, 1678. 7 State Trials 656.
Foley v. 17, 18, 20, 21. Schwerin, _Briefe aus England_ 330, 334, 342.
[133] Barillon, October 3/13, 10/20, 1678. 7 State Trials 29, 30, 33.
_Impartial State of the Case_ 17. Add. MSS. 28,042: 32. Notes by Danby
for a letter to be sent to a member of the House of Commons. Danby to
Lord Hatton, March 29, 1678. _Hatton Correspondence_ i. 184.
[134] Il Nuntio di Vienna al Nuntio in Francia. Nimega, October 18/28,
1678. Vat. Arch. Nunt. di Francia, 329.
[135] Barillon, October 3/13, 7/17, 10/20, 17/27, 1678. Paolo Sarotti,
Ven. arch. October 11/21, 1678. Schwerin, _Briefe aus England_ October
4/14, 1678. Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 1. Halstead, _Succinct
Genealogies_ 433. Reresby, _Memoirs_ 145. North, _Examen_ 177. Evelyn,
_Diary_ October 1, 1678. _Caveat against the Whigs_ ii. 42. Foley v.
18. Burnet ii. 161, 162.
[136] Calamy, _Own Life_ i. 83, 84. Christie, _Life of Shaftesbury_ ii.
309. Burnet ii. 165. North, _Examen_ 206. Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i.
12, 21. Schwerin, _Briefe aus England_ 336, 351, November 18, 1678.
[137] See the prologue to Dryden’s tragi-comedy, _The Spanish Friar_,
produced early in 1681:—
A fair attempt has twice or thrice been made
To hire night murderers and make death a trade.
When murder’s out, what vice can we advance,
Unless the new-found poisoning trick of France?
And when their art of rats-bane we have got,
By way of thanks, we’ll send them o’er our Plot.
Scott suggests that the allusion is to the murder of Mr. Thynne, but
this did not occur till some months after the production of the play.
Christie refers it to the assault made upon Dryden himself in Rose
Alley in December 1679; but the reference to the plot makes it far more
probable that Dryden had in his mind the murder of Godfrey and the sham
attempt on Arnold eighteen months later. He would certainly class the
two together, for he attributed Godfrey’s death to Oates:—
And Corah might for Agag’s murder call
In terms as coarse as Samuel used to Saul.
_Absalom and Achitophel_, 676, 677.
[138] Sir George Sitwell gives a most instructive and entertaining
description of these, _The First Whig_, chap. vi.
[139] _What Gunpowder Plot was_ 13.
[140] Tuke, _Memoirs of Godfrey_ 1–15. Sidney Lee, Article on Godfrey
in _Dict. of Nat. Biog._ _Gentleman’s Magazine_, January 1848.
Godfrey’s Christian names are variously spelt. I give the most correct
form in writing, but in quoting retain that used by the writer or
reporter.
[141] Tuke, _Memoirs_ 39–51.
[142] Sidney Lee, _op. cit._ _Gazette_ No. 88. Ralph i. 139.
[143] Pepys, _Diary_ May 26, 1699. Tuke, _Memoirs_ 36–39. Tuke is
mistaken in saying that Godfrey was knighted on this occasion, in
recompense for the injury done him. The knighthood was conferred in
September 1666.
[144] An engraving by F. H. van Hove is inserted in Tuke’s _Memoirs_.
[145] Tuke, _Memoirs_ 19, 20. North, _Examen_ 199.
[146] Tuke, _Memoirs_ 52, 53.
[147] Kirkby, _Compleat and True Narrative_ 2, 3.
[148] Kirkby, _Compleat and True Narrative_ 3. Simpson Tonge’s Journal
126, 135.
[149] Tuke, _Memoirs_ 22, 23, 29, Burnet ii. 163. North, _Examen_ 199,
200.
The author of the Annual Letters of the English Province S.J. is
probably inaccurate in stating, “He was especially kind to the Roman
Catholics, and was moreover a great confidant of the Duke of York”
(quoted Foley Records v. 15); but the statement is only an exaggeration
of the truth. Warner MS. history 26, “Nec alius in eo magistratu
aut Carolo fidelior aut Catholicis, etiam Jesuitis, quorum multos
familiarissime noverat, amicior.”
[150] Burnet ii. 164. Depositions of Henry Moor, Godfrey’s clerk.
L’Estrange, _Brief History_ iii. 203, 204, 208. The depositions
collected by L’Estrange in this work must be regarded with suspicion.
The statements in many are obviously untrue, and L’Estrange was not
above falsifying evidence to suit his purpose. Among other reasons for
the use of great caution is the fact that most of the depositions were
not taken until eight or nine years after the event. Their exact dates
cannot be ascertained, as they are seldom quoted by L’Estrange, and the
original documents are missing. They are supposed to have been stolen
from the State Paper Office immediately after the Revolution (Sitwell,
_First Whig_ ix.). Only after careful scrutiny can these papers be used
as evidence. Moor’s evidence was taken for the coroner. He afterwards
went to live at Littleport, in Cambridgeshire, and died apparently in
1685 or 1686. _Brief Hist._ iii., Preface vii. 171.
[151] _Brief Hist._ iii. 204, 205.
[152] _Brief Hist._ iii. 205, 206. Depositions of Pengry and Fall.
[153] _Brief Hist._ ii. chap. vi, 199, iii. 195–201. The evidence that
the news of Godfrey’s absence was known before Tuesday, October 15,
is not to be relied on. It consists wholly of depositions taken by
L’Estrange several years after. Some contain such ridiculous statements
as that before 3 P.M. on Saturday, October 12, it was a common report
that Godfrey was murdered by the Papists. (Dep. of Wynell, Burdet,
Paulden, 195, 196, 200.) At this time even his household could not
possibly have known that he would not return. Another declares that
on the morning of Sunday “it was in all the people’s mouths in that
quarter that he was murdered by the Papists at Somerset House.” (Dep.
of Collinson, 200.) At this time it was not known in Hartshorn Lane
that Godfrey had not spent the night at his mother’s. In another a
false statement can fortunately be detected. Thomas Burdet deposed
(196, 197) that Godfrey and Mr. Wynell had an appointment to dine
on the Saturday with Colonel Welden, that Godfrey did not keep his
appointment, and that the surprise which was caused by this was
increased by the immediate report of his murder. As a matter of fact
Godfrey had no appointment to dine with Welden, and so could not have
caused surprise by not appearing. He had been invited, but could not
promise to come. Welden gave evidence before the Lords’ Committee: “He
came on Friday night with officers of St. Martin’s, and at going away
I asked him to dine with me on Saturday. He said he could not tell
whether he should.” (House of Lords MSS. 48.) North’s assertions to the
same effect (_Examen_ 201) are equally worthless. Burnet is positive
that the news of Godfrey’s absence was not published before Tuesday,
October 15. Burnet’s character has been sufficiently rehabilitated
by Ranke and Mr. Airy; but I may remark that, as he was opposed to
the court, did not believe in Oates’ revelations, and had access to
excellent sources of information, his evidence upon the Popish Plot is
of remarkable value.
[154] Burnet places this tale at a time before the news was public,
and says that the suggestion was credited by Godfrey’s brothers. Very
likely they may have believed it, but a comparison with Moor’s evidence
(see above) makes it probable that this explanation was the first given
after his absence was known.
[155] Burnet ii. 164. North, _Examen_ 202. _Diary of Lord Keeper
Guildford_, Dalrymple ii. 321.
[156] John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, Verney MSS. 471.
[157] Lloyd to L’Estrange, _Brief Hist._ iii. 87. Burnet ii. 164. North
says the body was found upon Wednesday, October 16 (_Examen_ 202), but
this is a mistake.
[158] “7 guineas, 4 broad pieces, £4 in silver.” The coroner’s evidence.
[159] Evidence of the coroner and Rawson before the Lords’ Committee.
House of Lords’ MSS. 46, 47. Evidence of Brown, the constable, at the
inquest. _Brief Hist._ iii. 212–215, 222.
[160] Deposition of White, coroner of Westminster. _Brief Hist._ iii.
224.
[161] Quoted from the printed copy published by Janeway in 1682. _Brief
Hist._ iii. 232.
[162] “The jury’s reasons for the verdict they gave.” _Brief Hist._
iii. chap. xii.
[163] Evidence of Collins, Mason, and Radcliffe. _Brief Hist._ iii.
252, 300. Some not very good evidence was collected several years
afterwards as to Godfrey’s movements later in the day. It cannot be
considered trustworthy. 8 State Trials 1387, 1392, 1393. _Brief Hist._
iii. 174, 175.
[164] The coroner’s evidence before the Lords’ committee; “There was
nothing in the field on Tuesday.” House of Lords MSS. 47. Evidence of
Mrs. Blith and her man at the inquest. _Brief Hist._ iii. 244.
[165] Deposition of Robert Forset. 8 State Trials 1394, 1395.
[166] Sir George Sitwell says: “The bruises or discolourations upon
his chest might well have been produced by those who knelt upon it in
stripping off the clothes” (_First Whig_ 41). Bruises however cannot
be made to appear upon a corpse beyond the time of three and a half
hours after death (Professor H. A. Husband in the _Student’s Handbook
of Forensic Medicine_), nor is there any evidence that the body was so
treated. Marks which look like bruises may be caused after death by the
process of hypostasis or suggillation, the gravitation of the blood to
the lowest point in the dead body. But if the marks on Godfrey’s body
had been thus caused, the face and neck would have shown pronounced
signs of discolouration, since the head was lower than any other point
in the body. It had moreover been in that position for at most only
twenty-four hours, so that the blood would not have gravitated to the
chest immediately after death at all.
[167] L’Estrange afterwards persuaded the surgeon Lazinby to say that
the mark was caused by the pressure of the collar. _Brief Hist._ iii.
259. But his evidence in court was, on the contrary, that it was caused
“by the strangling with a cord or cloth.” 8 State Trials 1384.
[168] The evidence as to the exact condition of the neck, varies
slightly, but the doctors, and indeed all who saw the body, were agreed
that it was broken.
[169] Evidence of the surgeons Cambridge and Skillard at the trial
of Green, Berry, and Hill. 7 State Trials 185, 186. Evidence of the
coroner before the Lords’ committee. House of Lords MSS. 46. Evidence
of Hobbs and Lazinby, surgeons, and the two Chaces, apothecaries, at
the trial of Thompson, Pain, and Farwell. 8 State Trials 1381–1384.
[170] Evidence of Brown, Skillard, and Cambridge at the trial of Green
and others. 7 State Trials 184, 185, 186. Evidence of Hazard, Batson,
Fisher, Rawson, Mrs. Rawson, Hobbs, Lazinby, the Chaces, at the trial
of Thompson and others. 8 State Trials 1379–1384. Depositions of
Skillard, Rawson, and others. _Brief Hist._ iii. 265–271. Some of the
witnesses in their depositions before L’Estrange spoke of the presence
of a greater quantity of blood than they had previously remembered.
Obviously their earlier impressions are the more trustworthy. Even at
the later date the quantity to which they swore was not considerable.
[171] _Brief Hist._ iii. 271. He does not attempt however to give any
evidence for his statement.
[172] _Brief Hist._ iii. 230.
[173] Mr. W. M. Fletcher, M.B., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,
has kindly furnished me with his opinion on this point. He says: “A
sword transfixing the living body and at the same time driven through
the cavity of the heart would cause violent hæmorrhage from one or
other of the external wounds, except only under a set of circumstances
which could be present only by the rarest chance; the hæmorrhage, that
is to say, could be restrained only by an accidental block produced
not only at one but at two points on either side of the heart cavity,
where the torn tissues might happen so to fit outwards upon and closely
against the undisturbed sword as to form a kind of valve. Such an
accidental valve formation, occurring at two separate points on each
side of the pent-up blood, is improbable enough, but could not be
imagined as a prevention of hæmorrhage if the sword were bent, twisted,
or withdrawn after the infliction of the wound.”
[174] 7 State Trials 295. Information of Mrs. Warrier. _Brief Hist._
iii. 142. Burnet ii. 164. Evidence of the coroner before the Lords’
committee. House of Lords MSS. 46. L’Estrange produces two depositions
to the effect that the ground was quite dry and not muddy, and in
doing so contradicts the argument upon which he lays stress in arguing
against Prance’s story (see below) that if the body had been brought to
Primrose Hill upon a horse, the feet and legs must have been covered
with mud. _Brief Hist._ iii. 261, and see 8 State Trials 1370 for the
same point in Thompson’s libel.
[175] 8 State Trials 1359–1389.
[176] Barillon, October 21/31, 1678. “Ce Godefroy s’est trouvé mort à
trois milles d’ici sans qu’on sache qui l’a tué. Le Roi d’Angleterre
et M. le Duc d’York m’ont dit que c’était une espèce de fanatique et
qu’ils croyent qu’il s’était tué lui-même.”
[177] Burnet ii. 165. Blencowe’s _Sidney_ lxii. Lady Sunderland to John
Evelyn, December 25, 1678.
[178] See the letter subscribed T. G. to Secretary Coventry and
Coventry’s reply. Longleat MSS. See Appendix B.
[179] John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, Verney MSS. 471. This did not
take place till November, but it may be noted at this point.
[180] Barillon, January 16/26, 1679. Despatches of Giacomo Ronchi,
secret agent of the Duke of Modena in London, January 20, 1679. Campana
de Cavelli i. 239. _Memoirs of Thomas, Earl of Ailesbury_ i. 29.
[181] Lansd. MSS. 1235: 76. North, _Examen_ 202, 204, 205. North alone
relates the incident of the pulpit. As Ranke observes, he has never
been contradicted, so that the story may be accepted. Burnet ii. 165.
Ralph i. 392. Echard 950. Oldmixon 620.
[182] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1022. L.J. xiii. 299. House of Lords MSS. i.
[183] Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 232. The information of October
27 is practically the same as that given below from the Lords’ Journals.
[184] Examination of Charles Atkins, Esq. 6 State Trials 1479. L.J.
November 12, 1678.
[185] Evidence of C. Atkins before the Lords’ Committee. 6 State Trials
1474.
[186] 6 State Trials 1473–1492.
[187] 6 State Trials 1484, 1491.
[188] There is unfortunately a gap from October 28 to December 11 in
the minutes of the committee of inquiry of the House of Lords, so that
it is impossible to check Atkins’ statements exactly.
[189] See 6 State Trials 1476, 1481.
[190] _Ibid._ 1474.
[191] _Ibid._ 1481.
[192] See the conversations between Charles and Samuel Atkins on the
stairs of the committee room, November 6, and in Newgate, November 8.
_Ibid._ 1480, 1484. North, _Examen_ 243–247.
[193] S.P. Dom. Charles II 407; i. 285. Bedloe to Williamson, October
31, 1678; ii. 23. Williamson to Bedloe, November 5. _Brief Hist._ iii.
7. Coventry to Bedloe, November 2.
[194] See Appendix B.
[195] Whence Lingard derives the words I cannot discover, xiii. 98.
_Brief Hist._ iii. 16. Ralph i. 393. Burnet ii. 168. Burnet, who
relates that Charles told him the same thing of Bedloe, must have
misunderstood the king’s words, unless, which is quite possible,
Charles deceived him intentionally.
[196] Add. MSS. 11,058: 244. See Appendix B.
[197] S.P. Dom. Charles II 407: ii. 29. See Appendix B.
[198] Deposition of November 8 before the Lords’ committee. 6 State
Trials 1487.
[199] _Ibid._ 1489.
[200] _Ibid._ 1484.
[201] 7 State Trials 347, 349. Exam. of November 7. S.P. Dom. Charles
II 407. See Appendix B. Care, _History of the Plot_ 127.
[202] Warner MS. history 36. Exam, of Mary Bedloe (see below). Burnet
ii. 168. _Florus Anglo-Bavaricus_ 127, _Lettre écrite de Mons à un ami
à Paris_, 1679. L.J. xiii. 392. Reresby, _Memoirs_ 149.
[203] L.J. xiii. 343, November 12.
[204] Deposition of Alice Tainton, alias Bedloe, taken this 14th day of
November 1678, before the Rt. Rev. father in God William Lord Bishop
of Landaffe, one of his Majesty’s justices of the peace in the county
of Monmouth. Deposition of Mary Bedloe of Chepstow of same date before
the Bishop of Landaffe. Deposition of Gregory Appleby, December 2, 1678
before the Bishop of Landaffe. Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 287,
307.
[205] L.J. November 24, 28; xiii. 389, 391.
[206] 6 State Trials 1489, 1490. Sitwell, _First Whig_ 51. North,
_Examen_ 248.
[207] 6 State Trials 1490, 1491. For Staley’s case see below in Trials
for Treason. North, _Examen_ 249.
[208] Evidence of Captain Vittells and his men before the Lords’
committee. House of Lords MSS. 49, 50, 51. Evidence of Vittells and
Tribbett at Atkins’ trial. 7 State Trials 248.
[209] 6 State Trials 1491, 1492.
[210] 7 State Trials 238–240.
[211] Bedloe’s evidence. _Ibid._ 242, 243.
[212] _Ibid._ 241, 245.
[213] _Ibid._ 246–249.
[214] _Ibid._ 249. North, _Examen_ 250, 251. North’s account is as
usual highly coloured, and contains at least one untrue statement.
[215] Bedloe’s deposition before the Lords’ committee. L.J. November
12, xiii. 350, 351.
[216] 7 State Trials 237.
[217] See below in _Trials for Treason_.
[218] Burnet ii. 191. 7 State Trials 183. _True Narrative and
Discovery_ 20. _Brief Hist._ iii. 52, 53, 65. L’Estrange alone gives
the words. The fact that Prance was questioned about the periwig makes
it probable that they are more or less correct. L’Estrange also says
that the meeting was prearranged by Bedloe and Sir William Waller.
Reasons for disbelieving this will appear later.
[219] House of Lords MSS. 51.
[220] L.J. xiii. 431. Blencowe’s _Sidney_ lxii. Lady Sunderland to John
Evelyn, December 25, 1678.
[221] C.J. ix. 563. L’Estrange comments on this: “It makes a man
tremble to think what a jail delivery of discoverers this temptation
might have produced” (_Brief Hist._ iii. 55). Surely it is more
natural to suppose that the information was directed not to the common
malefactors, but to those already imprisoned in Newgate on account
of the plot. If an examination of Prance was taken by the Commons’
committee, it was never reported to the House. On December 30, 1678
Parliament was prorogued, and on January 24, 1679 dissolved. The new
parliament did not meet till March 6, when the trial for Godfrey’s
murder had already taken place, and Green, Berry, and Hill had been
hanged.
[222] L.J. xiii. 436.
[223] The deposition begins, “That it was either at the latter end or
the beginning of the week that Sir E. Godfrey,” and so on. The rest
of the examination is only intelligible on the ground that Saturday
was the day of the murder. Prance’s reasons for prevaricating in this
statement will be the subject of discussion below.
[224] L.J. xiii. 437, 438. 7 State Trials 191, 192. Evidence of Sir
Robert Southwell, clerk to the privy council. There exists among the
state papers the notes taken by Sir Joseph Williamson, secretary of
state, of Prance’s first examination before the council. They only
differ from the account in the Lords’ Journals in that they begin
“On a certain Monday.” The paper is worth studying for the wonderful
vividness in which Williamson’s disjointed sentences bring the scene to
the mind. See Appendix B.
[225] L.J. xiii. 439.
[226] House of Lords MSS. 52.
[227] Warner MS. history 37. S.P. Dom. Charles II 407: ii. 17. Note
of the proceedings at the council on December 30. 7 State Trials 177,
210. Evidence of Richardson and Chiffinch. James (Or. Mem.) i. 535.
Burnet ii. 193. _Brief Hist._ iii. 61, 62, 65. L’Estrange says that
the king saw Prance alone on the evening of December 29, and called in
Richardson and Chiffinch afterwards. This is contradicted by Richardson
and Burnet. It would moreover have been a piece of imprudence unlike
Charles’ caution; and as none of the Whig writers, who would have
given much to obtain such a handle against the king, mention a private
interview, the story is probably without truth. The events which passed
between Prance’s first confession and his final adherence to it will be
discussed below.
[228] 7 State Trials 167, 168, 169.
[229] _Ibid._ 179–183.
[230] L.J. xiii. 437.
[231] 7 State Trials 169–173.
[232] _Ibid._ 186, 187.
[233] _True Narrative and Discovery_ 12.
[234] 7 State Trials 169, 188, 189.
[235] 7 State Trials 174. _True Narrative_ 18.
[236] 7 State Trials 190.
[237] 7 State Trials 195–200.
[238] _Ibid._ 201, 202.
[239] _Ibid._ 204, 205, 206.
[240] _Ibid._ 207, 208, 209.
[241] 7 State Trials 213–221.
[242] _Ibid._ 223–230. Burnet ii. 194, 195.
[243] Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 9.
[244] 7 State Trials 228.
[245] _Brief Hist._ iii. 26, 27.
[246] _Brief Hist._ iii. 66, 67.
[247] _Ibid._ 67, 68. Cooper’s information of January 9 and January 11.
[248] _Ibid._ 69, 75. Informations of Boyce.
[249] Lloyd’s report to the Council. _Brief Hist._ iii. 69. Lloyd to
L’Estrange. _Ibid._ 82.
[250] Lloyd’s report to the Council. Fitzherbert MSS. 154. _Brief
Hist._ iii. 69, 71. Lloyd to L’Estrange. _Ibid._ 85.
[251] Burnet ii. 193, 194.
[252] Burnet ii. 194. _Brief Hist._ iii. 85, 86.
[253] State Trials 1183–1188. This was also a Jesuit story. Warner MS.
history 37, “fidiculis tortus et se reum asseruit, et complius [sic.
qu. complures] se accusaturum.”
[254] 7 State Trials 1199, 1200, 1210–1212.
[255] Evidence of Fowler. _Ibid._ 1194–1197, 1204–1209.
[256] The improbability does not lie in the unlikelihood of the
application of torture to witnesses at this date so much as in the
nature of the particular facts alleged, which cannot be believed.
_Brief Hist._ iii. 76, 77, 78, 80. L’Estrange procured Corral to
contradict his evidence at the trial. _Ibid._ 102, 106. It is important
to insist upon the falsehood of the charge in this case, because it has
been adopted without question by Foley v. 29, n., and see Echard, 503
_seq._
[257] _Brief Hist._ iii. 84.
[258] _True Narrative_ 11.
[259] 7 State Trials 180.
[260] _True Narrative_ 13, 14.
[261] 7 State Trials 172. _True Narrative_ 15.
[262] 7 State Trials 173. _True Narrative_ 16, 17.
[263] 6 State Trials 1487. 7 State Trials 182.
[264] 6 State Trials 1488.
[265] _Ibid._ 1487.
[266] Prance to L’Estrange, January 17, 1688. _Brief Hist._ iii. 127.
[267] _Brief Hist._ ii. 52, 53.
[268] It is worthy of remark that Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, judging
only from the evidence which Prance gave at the trial, has come to the
same conclusion. _Hist. Crim. Law_ i. 393.
[269] It was ordered that an examination should be held on the subject,
but Coleman was never questioned on Godfrey’s death. House of Lords
MSS. 48. L.J. xiii. 303, 307, 308.
[270] Warner MS. history 27: “Rem totam Eboracensi detulit,” _Florus
Anglo-Bavaricus_ 97. James (Or. Mem.) i. 534. North, _Examen_ 174.
Lingard xiii. 69. Sitwell, _First Whig_ 40.
[271] _Brief Hist._ iii. 181–186.
[272] See above, 89.
[273] James (Or. Mem.) i. 517–519. _Impartial State of the Case of the
Earl of Danby._ Lingard xiii. 68.
[274] North, _Examen_ 174. _Florus Anglo-Bavaricus_ 97, 98. Godfrey
“rem totam Edwardo Coleman ... per literas aperuit: quod non neminem
usque adeo offendit, ut Godefredus haud ita multo post violenta morte
suam in Catholicos benevolentiam luerit.” Warner MS. history 26, 31,
to the same effect. Warner names Danby as the probable author of the
murder.
[275] 7 State Trials 168. House of Lords MSS. 47. _Brief Hist._ iii.
187. Burnet ii. 163.
[276] Burnet, _ibid._
[277] 7 State Trials 29.
[278] Welden’s evidence before the Lords’ committee. House of Lords
MSS. 48.
[279] Reresby, _Memoirs_ 325. Warner MS. history 27. “Ad congregationem
provincialem ubi ventum est, cui se interfuisse mentitus predicat
Oates, Carolus ab eo petiit, ubinam convenissent Jesuitae? Respondit
alter, magna cum fiducia, convenisse Londini, in plataea quae Strand
dicitur, in oenopolio cui insigne Equi Albi. Hoc falsum esse sciebat
Carolus, cui notum ipsos in ipsa Eboracensis Aula convenisse; cujus
tamen rei nec Carolus nec ullus alius Catholicorum apologista mentionem
fecit donec persecutio plane desaevisset, ne augeretur inde in
Eboracensem invidia.”
[280] At Lord Stafford’s trial in 1680 Dugdale, the informer, declared
that Godfrey had been murdered by the Duke of York’s orders because
Coleman had made disclosures to him. He did not however suggest what
the nature of those disclosures was. A theory not unlike that set out
in the text was therefore in the air at the time. As almost every
conceivable hypothesis to account for the murder was being discussed,
this is not surprising; but there was this difference, that then
Dugdale had no good reason to offer in favour of the truth of what he
said. He was at the time of the murder in communication with various
Jesuits in Staffordshire: but it is most unlikely that, even if they
knew anything about it, they would have told him. If he had known
anything, it would probably have been that the Jesuit congregation
was held at St. James’; and he was certainly ignorant of this. Burnet
tells, on the authority of the Earl of Essex, that the king prevailed
on Dugdale to stifle this part of his information because it pressed on
the Duke of York; but, as Essex, or Burnet, taking the tale from him,
was mistaken as to the date when Dugdale first told the story, and as
Dugdale could beyond doubt have had a better price for his information
from Shaftesbury than from Charles for the suppression of it, this
cannot be believed without corroboration, which is not forthcoming.
Burnet ii. 190, 191. 7 State Trials, 1316, 1319. And see below in
Trials for Treason.
[281] See below (in materials for the history of the Popish Plot),
Foley’s note on Warner’s MS. history.
[282] Slip appended to examination of November 7. Longleat MSS.
Coventry Papers xi. 276.
[283] 7 State Trials 168. Burnet ii. 163.
[284] James (Or. Mem.) i. 527, 528. Burnet ii. 174. House of Lords MSS.
52. 7 State Trials 154. L.J. xiii. 353.
[285] 7 State Trials 172, 192.
[286] Burnet ii. 164, 165. L’Estrange produced some bad evidence, which
he does not even seem to have believed himself, to the effect that
these stains were of mud, and not wax. _Brief Hist._ iii. 326, 336.
Sir George Sitwell says: “The drops of wax ... may have been spilt
the evening before, when Sir Edmund, for some mysterious reason, was
engaged in burning a quantity of his private papers” (_First Whig_ 41).
But the evidence for this is wholly valueless, being told on hearsay
from a bad witness by a worse. _Brief Hist._ iii. 179.
[287] Evidence of the coroner before the Lords’ committee, House of
Lords MSS. 46.
[288] Examination of Charles Atkins, October 27, 1678. Slip appended to
the examination in Coventry’s hand. “Mr. Charles Atkins lodgeth at the
Golden Key in High Holborn, over against the Fountain Tavern.” Longleat
MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 234. Examination of Bedloe of November 7.
“Lodges where Captain Atkins lodges, where Walsh the priest lodges,
near Wild House.” S.P. Dom. Charles II 407: ii. 29. Longleat MSS.
_ibid._ 272–274; _ibid._ 278, on a slip appended to the examination,
“Le Fevre: about fifty years of age, with a flaxen periwig, a handsome
man. He lodges where Captain Atkins lodges, near Wild House.”
[289] L.J. xiii. 353. Evidence of Diana Salvin, Elizabeth Salvin, John
Saunders, Alexander Oldis.
[290] 6 State Trials 1475–1477.
[291] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1113. _Secret Services of Charles II and James
II_, payment to Prance 22.
[292] L.J. November 15, 1678. Ralph i. 398.
[293] For example the libel, “A copy of a letter dropped in the
exchange,” 1679.
[294] See above and Appendix B.
[295] See above, 122.
[296] James (Or. Mem.) i. 528. Schwerin, November 22, 1678. “Bedloo
hat in Somerset House das Gemach gewiesen in welchem ihm der todte
Körper gezeigt worden ist; allein weil er in derselben Kammer eine
Thüre angab, die sich nicht daselbst vorfand,—überdem die Königin
damal in diesem Gemache wohnte,—und der Ort, an welchem ihm der todte
Körper gezeigt worden sein soll, ein steter Durchgang und Aufenthalt
aller Domesticken der Königin ist, so wird die Angabe von vielen für
verdächtig gehalten.” _Briefe von England_ 352.
[297] James, Duke of York, to the Prince of Orange, December 24, 1678,
“... some are not well pleased with what this man says, because it
contradicts Bedloe.” Foljambe MSS. 127.
[298] House of Lords MSS. 52.
[299] 7 State Trials 343.
[300] _Ibid._ 425, 612, 613.
[301] _Ibid._ 1320.
[302] Lloyd to the council, January 11, 1679. Examinations of Prance of
December 26, 1678, January 13, March 19, March 22, 1679. Fitzherbert
MSS. 154–158. 7 State Trials 1226, 1231. Warner MS. history 37. _True
Narrative_ 2–8, 26–40.
[303] Lloyd to L’Estrange, April 16, 1686. _Brief Hist._ iii. 83.
[304] Burnet ii. 195.
[305] Warner MS. history 37: “librum edidit in quo pauca de Jesuitis,
eaque leviora retulit ... et in sacerdotes saeculares fanda infanda
conjecit, tanquam e plaustro probra jaceret (qu, tanquam e plaustro
= histrionis more. v. Hor. _A.P._ 275 ap. Facc.), ipsa maledicentiae
magnitudine fidem sibi detrahens: quam apud paucissimos invenit.”
[306] _Florus Anglo-Bavaricus_ 103, 128.
[307] 7 State Trials 228. House of Lords MSS. 1689–1690, 61.
[308] House of Lords MSS. 1689–1690, 61. Foley v. 285, 286.
[309] S. A. Tanari, Internuncio at Brussels, to the papal secretary
of state, June 17, 1679: “Nella salute della sua persona consistevano
tutte le speranze di veder ristabilita la vera religione in
Inghilterra.” Vat. Arch. Nunt. di Fiandra 66.
[310] Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 8.
[311] Memorandum by Danby. “Q. Whether the Plot be not triable out of
Parliament?” Add. MSS. 28042: 19. Henry Coventry to the king, October
7, 1678.... “It will be worth your serious consideration when you
return on which side the greater inconveniency will be, either in the
suppressing them [Coleman’s letters] or publishing them, or whether any
middle way can be taken.” Add. MSS. 32095: 119.
[312] A narrative of proceedings in the House of Commons. Harl. MSS.
6284: 35, 36.
[313] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1021–1026.
[314] House of Lords MSS. 16, 17. Lady Sunderland to John Evelyn,
October 28, 1678. Correspondence of John Evelyn, 1852, 251.
[315] W. Harrington to George Treby, February 1679. Fitzherbert MSS.
14. John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, November 11, 1678. Same to same,
May 12, 1679. Verney MSS. 471. Sarotti, November 15/25, 1678. Ven.
Arch. Inghilterra 65. Lives of the Norths i. 70. Le Gros to Sir Charles
Lyttleton, November 26, 1678. Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 301.
[316] Sir W. Godolphin to Henry Thynne, August 14/24, 1679. Longleat
MSS. Coventry Papers lx. 275. S.P. Dom. Charles II 408: i. 119, 120;
ii. 70, 79.
[317] Earl of Conway to Sir L. Jenkins, September 26, 1681. S.P. Dom.
Charles II 416: 30.
[318] Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 17–54. _Narrative of Edmund
Everard_ 1679.
[319] Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 67, 92, 98, 100, 114, 138, 140.
_Ibid._ 148, Lord Windsor to Henry Coventry, July 8, 1676. See Appendix
C. Verney MSS. 465. Earl of Danby to the Lord Chancellor, April 4,
1676. Leeds MSS. 13. Particulars of Conventicles. Leeds MSS. 15. John
Smith to Henry Coventry, January 24, 1676. Longleat MSS. Coventry
Papers xi. 172. A paper endorsed by the Earl of Danby; “Fifth monarch
meetings in London and Southwark. This was given me by the Bishop of
London in October 1677.” Add. MSS. 28093: 212. And see Gooch, _English
Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century_ 326.
[320] Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 117, 120, 122, 124, 126, 132.
[321] “Memd. of his Majesty’s directions for interrupting Coleman’s
letters.” December 10, 1676. Henry Coventry to Col. Whitely, December
11, 1676. Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 168, 170. And the letters
intercepted, _ibid._ 224, 245, 246, 247, 248. And see above, Designs of
the Catholics 32, n.
[322] Spillmann. Pater Spillmann’s work is in general of little value.
Bishop Morley to the Earl of Danby, June 10, 1676. Leeds MSS. 14.
Courtin, August 6, 1676.
[323] Leeds MSS. 17.
[324] Foley v. 11, 12, 13. Diary of Lord Keeper Guildford, Dalrymple,
ii. 200, 320. Articles of _Impeachment against the Earl of Danby_ iv.
_Parl. Hist._ iv. 1068.
[325] See above 78.
[326] Memorandum by Danby, undated, but probably in 1677. “State and
present condition of the crown, which cannot be amended but by force or
by compliance.
“[Compliance to the old parliament would mean war with France and the
enforcement of all laws against papists and dissenters; with a new
parliament, war with France and general toleration except for the
papists.] From all this it seems as if compliance must necessarily
conclude in a resolution to give satisfaction in point of France.
[Force could hardly be exerted without foreign aid, which would
certainly mean a total conquest.]” Add. MSS. 28042: 17.
[327] Earl of Danby to Sir W. Temple, November 19, 1678. Add. MSS.
28054: 196. Burnet ii. 97, note, 151, 152. See also Lindsay MSS. 399.
Forneron, _Louise de Kéroualle_ 153. Harris, _Life of Charles II_ 226
_seq._
[328] Memoranda by Danby. Add. MSS. 28042: 53.
“The three points to be considered by the committee of trade every
Thursday:—
“(1) A treaty marine with France.
“(2) What should be proposed to the king to be done by his example in
not permitting French commodities to be worn in the court.
“(3) A treaty of commerce with France.”
Add. MSS. 28042: 60.
“For the 30 ships
In 1677 £90,000 0 0
In 1679 [?8] 339,735 0 0
In 1679 before the 25th March 47,957 0 0
———————
£477,692 0 0
£584,978
477,692
————
£107,286 remaining in the Exchequer, Lady Day, ’79.”
See too Campana de Cavelli i. 290–294. Barillon, March 3/13, 1679.
[329] Webster MSS. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iii. 421. Article by Mr. Sidney
Lee on Osborne (Thomas) in the _Dict. of Nat. Biog._ Danby obtained his
knowledge of Montagu’s connection with the nuncio from Olivencranz, the
Swedish ambassador. Sir Leoline Jenkins to the Earl of Danby, January
13, 1679. Lindsey MSS. 398. Grey, _Debates_ vi. 388. The authorities
for the story of Danby’s fall are well known and too numerous for
citation.
[330] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1039–1045, 1052. Burnet ii. 176, 178. Barillon,
November 25/December 5, 1678. Ferguson, _Growth of Popery_, Part II.
219.
[331] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1034. Sitwell, _First Whig_ 63.
[332] Reresby, _Memoirs_ 149. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1035. Barillon, October
17/27, 1678. Ranke v. 236.
[333] Barillon, February 17/27, February 24/March 6, 1679. Edm. Verney
to Sir R. Verney, February 24, 1679. Verney MSS. 471, Fitzherbert MSS.
12, 13. Foljambe MSS. 127. _Caveat against the Whigs_ i. 47. Ranke v.
244, 245. Sir Thomas Browne, _Works_, 1836, 240. Sitwell, _The First
Whig_ 54, 55.
[334] Barillon, December 30, 1678/January 9, 1679, January 30/February
9, May 12/22, June 2/12, 1679. John Verney to Sir R. Verney, May 22,
1679. Verney MSS. 472. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1086, 1121.
[335] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1092–1111. Burnet ii. 205 and note 2. And see
Temple i. 412. Seymour had formerly been on the court side, and after
Danby’s imprisonment made up the quarrel. A memorandum in the Leeds
papers contains the following note on Seymour; “This man, the most
odious to the House, till he disturbed your Majesty’s affairs.” Add.
MSS. 28042: 21.
[336] See Reresby, _Memoirs_ 170, 171. Temple i. 396–414.
[337] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1122. Algernon Sidney wrote that Halifax was
the author of the scheme. _Letters_ 34. James had news that the Duchess
of Portsmouth bragged that she had helped to make it. James to the
Prince of Orange, May 8, 1679. Foljambe MSS. 129.
[338] Temple i. 414–419, 473–477. Barillon, April 7/17, April 21/May 1,
April 24/May 4, April 28/May 8, 1679. Dalrymple ii. 216, 217. Reresby,
_Memoirs_ 168. North, _Examen_ 76, 77. Ferguson, _Growth of Popery_,
Part II. 238; and see Foxcroft, _Life of Halifax_ i. chap. vi.
[339] Burnet ii. 209.
[340] Barillon, February 5/15, 1680. Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 19,
33. Burnet ii. 246, 248, 249. Temple i. 419, 420, 441–444. Ailesbury,
_Memoirs_ i. 35. Foxcroft, _Life of Halifax_ i. 173–178, 192. Christie,
_Life of Shaftesbury_ ii. 357. Airy, _Charles II_ 240.
[341] Barillon, May 26/June 5, 1675. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1125–1149.
Temple i. 424, 429–432. Burnet ii. 210–215. Reresby, _Memoirs_ 173.
North, _Examen_ 506. Ralph i. 453, 454, 455.
[342] Burnet ii. 263, 264. House of Lords MSS. 136. And see Ferguson,
_Growth of Popery_, Part II. 246.
[343] See Lord Keeper Guildford MS. diary. Dalrymple ii. 91, 321. “It
is certain the Church of England men joined in this cry as heartily
as any else, for they were always most eager against Popery, although
they had friendship with the Cavalier papists, and many considering men
seeing an army kept up against an act of Parliament were zealous that
fetters might be put on the King, and therefore would join in showing
any discontent.” The Whig party on Temple’s council tried to purge the
commission of the peace of justices on the other side, but Charles
prevented this by a very droll device. North, _Examen_ 78. Nevertheless
the weight of the commission was against the court. See below in Trials
for Treason.
[344] W. Harrington to Sir G. Treby, February 20, 1679. Fitzherbert
MSS. 14. Thomas Ward to Sir J. Williamson, November 15. Sir Francis
Chaplin to same, November 30. Henry Layton to same, December 9, 1678.
S.P. Dom. Charles II 407; i. 108, 167; ii. 117. George Beckett, vicar
of Castham, to Sir Peter Pindar at Chester, October 28. Examination
of same, November 4, 1678. Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 229. Dr.
Henry Corneil to Sir J. Williamson, December 23, 1678, January 20,
1679. S.P. Dom. Charles II 408: ii. 59; 411: 69.
[345] Add. MSS. 32095: 160. S.P. Dom. Charles II 408: i. 36.
[346] Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xx. 120–130. S.P. Ireland 339.
Carte, _Life of Ormonde_ 477–481.
[347] S.P. Dom. Charles II 407: i. 268. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1034. John
Verney to Sir R. Verney, June 12, 1679. Verney MSS. 472. Barillon,
April 19/May 1, June 12/22, 1679. And see Klopp ii. 193.
[348] Burnet ii. 179. Add. MSS. 28042: 19. See Appendix C.
[349] Klopp i. 26.
[350] Foley v. 95, 96.
[351] Ranke v. 233. Das papistische Complot erscheint als ein Symptom
der zwischen den Bekenntnissen wieder angeregten heftigen Antipathien.
Schwerin, _Briefe_ 330. Es sei nun an dieser Conspiration viel oder
wenig, so ist es doch gewiss, dass diese Nation sowohl gegen die
Papisten als gegen Frankreich—dem es besonders beigemessen wird—von
neuem erbittert wird.
[352] L.J. xiii. 408. Airy, _Charles II_ 70.
[353] Warner MS. hist. 29 from _Gazette de Hollande_, November 22,
1678. Schwerin, _Briefe_ 340, 348. Duchess of York to Duke of Modena,
November 3, November 24, December 16, 1678. Ronchi, January 20,
February 23, November 21, 1679. Campana de Cavelli i. 229, 236, 239,
240, 242. Warner MS. Letter book, December 3, December 30, 1678.
Fitzherbert MSS. 12. House of Lords MSS. 39, 126. Foljambe MSS. 123.
L.J. xiii. 482, 485, 502, 512. Foley v. 21, 23, 80, 482–488, 915, 965,
966. 8 State Trials 532, 533.
The internuncio at Brussels acutely noted as the three causes of the
feeling aroused—“l’odio de’ Protestanti, gli amatori di novità, e li
nemici della casa Reale.” October 30/November 9, 1678. Vat. Arch. Nunt.
di Fiandra 66.
[354] 7 State Trials 995.
[355] 7 State Trials 959–1043, 1162–1183. C.J. December 16, 1680.
_Narrative of Lawrence Mowbray_ 1680. _Narrative of Robert Bolron_
1680. Depositions from York Castle, Surtees Society xl. 1861. Foley v.
759–767. _The Month_ xviii. 393.
[356] Foley v. 19, 21. Warner MS. history 29. Misera Catholicorum
omnium conditio, maxime vero Jesuitarum, quos et communia mala et
omnium insuper invidia gravabat, etiam apud simul patientes. _Ibid._ 36.
Maxime odiosum Jesuitarum nomen, sacerdotibus etiam et saecularibus et
regularibus et ipsis Catholicis laicis, quod ab iis orta feratur ista
saevissima tempestas quae totam religionem Catholicam evertet.
[357] Brosch 432.
[358] S.P. Dom. Charles II 411: 87, a paper endorsed by Sir Joseph
Williamson, “25 January, 78/9. Gavan the priest. Information, etc.”
_Ibid._ 92. “It was Sir William Waller who, by a warrant from the
council, seized Gavan in Count Wallenstein the Imperial ambassador’s
stables in bed.” Foley v. 454. Le Fleming MSS. 155.
[359] See above 53.
[360] Di Brusselles dal Sig^r Internuncio, March 20/30, 1680. Vat.
Arch. Nunt. di Fiandra 66. S.P. Dom. Charles II 413: 252. Order in
Council for a passport for Henry, Duke of Norfolk, May 26, 1680.
[361] 7 State Trials 496. Foley v. 460.
[362] Sidney’s diary in Sidney’s _Charles II_ i. 82, 163, 165, 166,
174–176. Sidney, _Letters_ 154. _Domestic Intelligence_, September 26,
1679. C.J. March 26, 1681. Foley v. 80, 81, 460–467. Burnet ii. 228.
It has been supposed that John Sergeant who bore witness against
Gavan was a different person from the eminent controversialist of
the same name (see his life in _Dict. of Nat. Biog._ by Mr. Cooper).
His identity is however placed beyond question by the advertisement
in the _Domestic Intelligence_ above cited, by despatches of Roman
ecclesiastics which refer to “il Dottore Sargentio” without hinting at
any change of person, and by the indignant exclamation of Warner (MS.
hist. 132), “et, proh dolor! Johannes Sergeantius et David Mauritius”
in speaking of the witnesses for the Plot. So too Luttrell (_Brief
Relation_ i. 21): “One Sergeant, a secular (who hath writ against
Dr. Stillingfleet), is expected from Holland, and ’tis said he will
discover several matters about the plot.” The letter of the internuncio
from Brussels of March 20/30, 1680 contains the following passage: Ho
pregato S. A. di discorrere opportunamente col Sig^r Duca d’Jorch,
excitandolo ad opporsi ad ogni tentativo che potesse tentarsi dal Frate
Valesio, e delli Dottori Sergeant e Mauritio accioche non si propongà a
Catt^{ci} il giuramento di Fedeltà, gia censurato dalla S. Sede, ò non
se ne inventi nuova formula che non sia precedentemente approvata da S.
B^{ne} quale ho assicurato esser per mostrarsi sempre propenso verso le
convenienze di S. A. Reale. Vat. Arch. Nunt. di Fiandra 66.
[363] Di Brusselles del Sig^r Internuncio, April 28/June 8, 1680.
Circa il giuramento di fedeltà condannato altre volte dalla S. Sede,
e pur troppo vero che il Sig^r Duca di Jorch lo presto anni sono,
sedotto dall’ esempio di molti allevati nella Religion Catt^{ca} e non
informato che lo stesso fosse stato prescritto da Sommi Pontifici. Vat.
Arch. Nunt. di Fiandra 66.
[364] Di Brusselles dal Sig^r Internuncio, August 16/26, August
22/September 2, 1679. Vat. Arch. Nunt. di Fiandra 66.
[365] See below in Trials for Treason. 7 State Trials 617. Burnet ii.
196–198.
Thomas Jennison, S.J., died in Newgate on September 27, 1679.
[366] See below in Trials for Treason.
[367] 7 State Trials 1049. Dangerfield’s _Particular Narrative_ 1–7.
_Malice Defeated: or a Brief Relation of the Accusation and Deliverance
of Elizabeth Cellier_ 12, 13, 28. Col. Mansell’s _Exact and True
Narrative_ 7, 60.
[368] Dangerfield’s _Narrative_ 8. _Malice Defeated_ 13, 39. Mansell’s
_Narrative_ 39, 47, 60, 69.
[369] Mansell’s _Narrative_ 43, 53, 54, 69. _Malice Defeated_ 13, 14.
Dangerfield’s _Case_ 2. North, _Examen_ 268.
[370] Dangerfield’s _Narrative_ 30–36. _Malice Defeated_ 14. Mansell’s
_Narrative_ 57, 58, 62. North, _Examen_ 267.
[371] Dangerfield’s _Narrative_ 37–49. Dangerfield’s _Information_
1680. _Malice Defeated_ 14–18. Mansell’s _Narrative_ 18–40.
[372] Ferguson, _Growth of Popery_ ii. 265. Sidney, _Letters_ 152, 153.
Halstead, _Succinct Genealogies_ 434–437. North, _Examen_ 261, 262. And
see Burnet ii. 244, 245. Hatton Correspondence v. 201, 202.
[373] _Malice Defeated_ 15. Examination of Anne Blake, Mansell’s
_Narrative_ 41.
[374] _Malice Defeated_ 15.
[375] Barillon, November 27/December 7, 1679.
[376] See below in Shaftesbury and Charles. Dangerfield’s _Narrative_
30.
[377] Dangerfield’s _Narrative_ 39.
[378] Traill shews the absurdity neatly, though he makes the mistake of
joining Mrs. Cellier with Dangerfield. _Shaftesbury_ 154.
[379] 7 State Trials 1043–1111.
[380] Mansell’s _Narrative_ 40.
[381] Barillon, November 27/December 7, 1679. Sidney’s _Diary_, October
7, October 14, in Sidney’s _Charles II_ i. 181, 185.
[382] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1029, 1030.
[383] Dartmouth MSS. 36.
[384] Sir W. Temple to the Earl of Essex, October 25, 1673. Essex
Papers. Burnet ii. 31. James (Or. Mem.) i. 530, 536, 537. _Clarendon
Cor._ ii. 467–471. Brusselles Dal. Sig^r Internuncio, March 8/18, 1679.
Vat. Arch. Nunt. di Fiandra 66.
[385] Barillon, July 19/29, October 4/14, 14/24, 21/31, 1680.
[386] James to Col. Legge, December 11, 1679, January 25, December 14,
1680. Dartmouth MSS. 40, 47, 55. James i. 657.
[387] James i. 550, 551.
[388] Temple i. 382.
[389] Barillon, October 21/31, 1680.
[390] James i. 554, 556, 574, 659, 660. Dartmouth MSS. 35, 36, 39, 41,
45, 47, 58. Savile Foljambe MSS. 134, 135.
[391] James to Col. Legge, May 28, 1679, Dartmouth MSS. 33, 34.
[392] James to the Prince of Orange, May 14, May 29, June 1, 1679.
Savile Foljambe MSS. 129–131. To Col. Legge, July 22, Dartmouth MSS.
36. And see James (Or. Mem.) i. 551.
[393] _E.g._ Dartmouth MSS. 38, 42, 46, 54.
[394] Barillon, July 1/11, July 24/August 3, October 21/31, 1680.
[395] Campana de Cavelli i. 302, 304.
[396] Vat. Arch. L’Abb^e G. B. Lauri a S. Em.3^a October 23/December
2, 1678. Nunt. di Francia 332. Di Brusselles dal Sig^r Internuncio.
May 24/June 3, 1679. Nunt. di Fiandra 66. Add. MSS. 32095: 196. See
Appendix C.
[397] Barillon, August 9/19, September 20/30, October 21/31, 1680.
[398] Vat. Arch. Di Brussells dal Sig^r Internuncio, June 7/17,
September 6/16, October 18/28, November 15/25, 1679. Nunt. di Fiandra
66.
_Ibid._ July 30/September 9. La sera però di detto giorno fattomi
introdurre nel suo gabinetto (del Duca d’Yorch), m’incarico di dar
parte del successo a S. B^{ne}, e di confermargli nuovamente che in
ogni luogo e stato havrebbe sempre vissuto figlio obedientissimo della
S. Sede, e che nell’ animo suo a qualsivoglia altra consideratione o
interesse havrebbe prevaluto il riguardo di conservare la fede, e di
propagarla per quanto sarà in suo potere.
[399] Foley v. 152, 157.
[400] _Absalom and Achitophel_ 114–117, 134–141.
[401] Ranke v. 186.
[402] John Verney to Sir R. Verney, May 19, 1677. “The people about
town call this the Pump Parliament, alluding, as a little water put
into a pump fetches up a great deal, so, etc.” Verney MSS. 469, and see
_The Pump Parliament_ by Sir Charles Sedley.
[403] Ranke v. 201, 220. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 861–863. C.J. April 4, 1677.
Ralph i. 310–314, 318. Andrew Marvell, _Growth of Popery_, Part I. 149.
[404] Burnet ii. 155.
[405] Burnet ii. 179. Barillon, September 30/October 10, 1678.
[406] Sir Edward Carteret provided his rooms at the rent of £60 a year.
[407] _Secret Services of Charles II and James II_ 3–15. I do not know
if the very comic accounts said to have been presented by Oates and
Bedloe are authentic (L’Estrange, _Brief Hist._ iii. 121–124. Lingard
xii. 363). They are not inconsistent with the men’s character, but
L’Estrange was quite capable of having invented them. In any case they
were not paid.
[408] State Trials vii. 796, ix. 489, 490, x. 134, 136, 137, 1275,
1299. Reresby, _Memoirs_ 196. Evelyn, _Diary_ October 1, November 15,
1678. Smith, _Intrigues of the Popish Plot_. Luttrell, _Brief Relation_
i. 112. North, _Examen_ 223. _Lives of the Norths_ ii. 180. Hatton
Correspondence i. 198. Sitwell, _First Whig_ 43, 44. I am indebted to
Sir George Sitwell for some of these references, and have ventured to
quote a portion of his admirable description, some strokes of which
however are drawn from sources not beyond doubt. The epithet applied to
the Pope is from “Rawleigh Redivivus.”
[409] Grey, _Debates_ vi. 296. Barillon, November 25/December 5, 1678.
L.J. xiii. 389–392. C.J. November 28, 29, December 6, 7. Danby’s notes
of Oates’ examination, November 25. Add. MSS. 23043: 5. James to the
Prince of Orange, November 26, 1678. Foljambe MSS. 125. See too House
of Lords MSS. 66. Lord Ossory to the Duchess of Ormonde. Hist. MSS.
Com. Rep. vi. App. 723. James (Or. Mem.) i. 529. Burnet ii. 173, 174.
Even Oldmixon did not believe the accusation. _History of the House of
Stuart_ 618.
[410] Burnet i. 470–474. In 1671 Burnet propounded the questions; “Is
a woman’s barrenness a just ground for divorce or polygamy; and is
polygamy in any case lawful under the Gospel?” The answer to both was
in the affirmative.
[411] Sarotti describes him as “un cadavere spirante.” December 12/22,
1679.
[412] Burnet i. 474, ii. 180. North, _Examen_ 186. Airy, _Charles
II_ 137, 138, 230. The relations between the king and queen became
much better about this time in consequence, one may imagine, of these
intrigues. Countess of Sunderland to Henry Sidney, August 15, 1679:
“The Queen, who is now a mistress, the passion her spouse has for her
is so great....” Sidney’s _Charles II_ i. 86.
[413] Pepys, _Diary_ December 24, 31, 1662. Burnet i. 469, 470.
[414] Barillon, April 28/May 8, May 5/15, 1679. Temple i. 421, 423,
426, 429. MS. diary of Lord Keeper Guildford, Dalrymple ii. 322. Burnet
ii. 233. Foxcroft, _Life of Halifax_ i. 173–178. Hatton Correspondence
v. 192.
[415] Sidney, _Letters_ 52, 53.
[416] _Ibid._
[417] Ralph i. 434. North, _Examen_ 86. Sidney, _Letters_ 52, 90.
[418] Burnet ii. 235. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1130. North, _Examen_ 79. This
story may be accepted, since North probably had it from his brother the
Chief Justice. And see Sidney’s _Charles II_ i. 5, where Henry Sidney
states that Charles supported Lauderdale at the council.
[419] Barillon, June 12/22, 1679. Sidney, _Letters_ 95–97, 104–107,
112–113. Temple i. 420, 427, 428. North, _Examen_ 81, 82. Burnet ii.
234, 235, 239. S.P. Dom. Charles II 412: 26. Sunderland to Essex, July
1679, 262. Essex to the King, July 21, 1679.
[420] Sitwell, _First Whig_ 70.
[421] MS. diary of Lord Keeper Guildford, Dalrymple ii. 322, 323.
North, _Examen_ 571–575. _Parl. Hist._ iv. App. ix. Ralph i. 476, 477,
483. Sitwell, _First Whig_ 83–89. And see the trial of Benjamin Harris,
the publisher of the Appeal, 7 State Trials 925. Wilson, _Life of
Defoe_, chap. i. Defoe, _Review_ ix. 152. “As to handing treasonable
papers about in coffee-houses, everybody knows it was the original of
the very thing called a coffee-house and that it is the very profession
of a coffee-man to do so, and it seems hard to punish any of them for
it.”
[422] Sitwell, _First Whig_, 87, 88.
[423] Barillon, September 4/14, 1679. Temple i. 433. Countess of
Sunderland to Henry Sidney, September 2. Henry Savile to Henry Sidney,
September 11, 1679. Sidney’s _Charles II_ i. 122, 140. Sidney,
_Letters_ 143. Ralph i. 477.
[424] Barillon, July 3/13, 1679, January 12/22, 1680. Dangerfield’s
_Particular Narrative_ 30, 60. _The Case of Thomas Dangerfield_ 5.
Mansell’s _Exact and True Narrative_ 62. Grey, _Debates_ vii. 358, 359,
viii. 136–149. _Gazette_, No. 1476. Ralph i. 496, 497. _Parl. Hist._
iv. 1233. Le Fleming MSS. 174.
[425] Burnet ii. 242. Carte, _Life of Ormonde_ ii. 493. Barillon,
September 4/14, 11/21, 15/25, 1679. Temple i. 433–438. Foljambe MSS.
137, 138. Foxcroft, _Life of Halifax_ i. 189–191. _Gazette_ 1449. S.P.
Dom. Charles II 412: 24. Conway Papers, September 11, 1679. Airy,
_Charles II_ 245. James (Or. Mem.) i. 566, 570–580.
[426] James (Or. Mem.) i. 563. James to the Prince of Orange, Foljambe
MSS. 137. Burnet ii. 243. Hatton Correspondence i. 194. Barillon,
September 15/25. December 1/11, 1679.
[427] Dal. Sigr. Internuncio Brusselles, June 8, 1679. Arch. Nunt. di
Fiandra 66. Ferguson, _Growth of Popery_, Part II. 276.
[428] Barillon, December 1/11, 8/18, 1679. Sidney, _Letters_ 165.
Charles Hatton to Lord Hatton, November 29, 1679. Hatton Correspondence
i. 203. Ralph i. 484, 497.
[429] Sidney, _Letters_ 143, 144.
[430] Temple i. 441. Ralph i. 490–494. Le Fleming MSS. 165. North,
_Examen_ 541–548. Defoe, _Review_ vii. 296.
[431] Barillon, December 11/21, 15/25, 18/28, 1679. James i. 581.
[432] Barillon, January 8/18, 12/22, 15/25, 19/29, January 29/February
8, March 11/21, 1680. James (Or. Mem.) i. 587. Ralph i. 494.
[433] The declaration was made twice, on January 6 and March 3, 1679.
[434] The author was probably Ferguson. Sec Sprat’s _History of the
Ryehouse Plot_, where a printer’s bill made out to him is printed in
the appendix, one item of the bill being for the Letter. The pamphlet
was published on May 15, 1680.
[435] S.P. Dom. Charles II 413: 103, 105, 107, 118, 120, 131, 132, 229,
231. Informations and examinations concerning the Black Box. _Gazette_,
Nos. 1507, 1520. Somers Tracts viii. 187–208. James I 589.
[436] Barillon, June 28/July 8, July 1/11, 8/18, 1680. 8 State Trials
179. Burnet ii. 300.
[437] S.P. Dom. Charles II 413: 75, Lord Massareen to Lord Conway. 76,
Francis Gwyn to same, March 23, 1680. Barillon, March 25/April 4, May
17/27, 20/30, July 1/11. Countess of Sunderland to H. Sidney, May 18,
1680. Sidney’s _Charles II_ ii. 60. Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 38.
[438] William Harbord to H. Sidney, April 1680. Sidney’s _Charles
II_ ii. 23. Countess of Sunderland to same, April 16. Sir L. Jenkins
to same, _circa_ May 20. Sir W. Temple to same, April 27. Sidney’s
_Diary_, May 25. _Ibid._ 52, 53, 64, 66. Barillon, October 7/17, 1680.
[439] Barillon, December 1/11, 11/21, 1679, January 5/15, April 5/15,
July 1/11, 1680. S.P. Dom. Charles II 413: 82. Sir James Butler to Lord
Craven, March 25, 1680. Temple i. 450. Sir L. Jenkins to Henry Sidney,
July 24, 1680. Sidney’s _Charles II_ ii. 86. A concise account of the
extreme difficulties of the time may be found in a letter from Henry
Sidney to the Prince of Orange, October 7, 1680. Groen van Prinsterer
v. 422.
[440] Ralph i. 502, 503. Groen van Prinsterer v. 428. Burnet ii. 253.
Barillon, October 21/31, 1680. James (Or. Mem.) i. 591–600. And see
Somers Tracts viii. 137. _Articles of Impeachment against the Duchess
of Portsmouth._
[441] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1118, 1160–1175, 1291. Beaufort MSS. 112.
Burnet ii. 212, 256. Temple i. 421. Foxcroft, _Life of Halifax_ i. 154,
208, 224, 236. Ralph i. 444. Groen van Prinsterer v. 435, 437.
[442] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1175–1215. L.J. xiii. 666. Barillon, November
18/28, 1680. James (Or. Mem.) i. 617, 618. Temple i. 453. Halstead,
_Succinct Genealogies_ i. 204. Reresby, _Memoirs_ 192, 197. Burnet ii,
259. Foxcroft, _Life of Halifax_ i. 246–249. James to the Prince of
Orange, November 23, 1680, Groen van Prinsterer v. 440.
[443] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1215–1295. Reresby, _Memoirs_ 191, Groen van
Prinsterer v. 444.
[444] Sitwell, _First Whig_ 142. S.P. Dom. Charles II 414: 101, Robert
Ferguson to his wife, August 14, 1680. 243, Hugh Speke “for Mr. Charles
Speke at Whitelackington.” 275, James Holloway to the Earl of Essex,
December 14, 1680.
[445] Charles’ actual words are in doubt, but it is certain that he
received the deputation coldly and sent it away unsatisfied.
[446] “Instructions for members of Parliament summoned for March 21,
1681, and to be held at Oxford.”
[447] North, _Examen_ 100–102. Reresby, _Memoirs_ 204. S.P. Dom.
Charles II 415: 37. Answer of the Earl of Essex, January 27, 1681.
66, The Earl of Craven’s proposition, February 14, 1681. “About the
disposing of the king’s forces.” 126, Information of Mr. John Wendham
of Thetford against Wm. Harbord, M.P. 156, Quarters of his Majesty’s
forces, March 22, 1681. Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 70. Ralph i. 562,
563. Sitwell, _First Whig_ 144, 145. Klopp II. 308. And see the trial
of Stephen Colledge 8 State Trials 549–724.
[448] Barillon, January 13/23, 1679.
[449] Barillon, _passim_. There was however talk of the negotiations in
diplomatic circles. Brosch 452.
[450] North, _Examen_ 104, 105. Barillon March 28/April 7, 1681.
Beaufort MSS. 83. Reresby, _Memoirs_ 207–211. Ralph i. 570–580. _Parl.
Hist._ iv. 1298–1339. Airy, _Charles II_ 257. Ailesbury, _Memoirs_ i.
57. Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 72. “Some are pleased to call it the
Jewish Parliament, it being dissolved on the eighth day, alluding to
that people’s manner of circumcision on the eighth day.”
[451] Lord Grey’s confession 12, 13, 14. North, _Examen_ 105.
[452] It is remarkable that every one thought he understood Charles
and that most who opposed him paid in the end the penalty of their
mistake by failure. Only the most acute indeed were able to realise
the strength of the character which they began by thinking weak.
Thus Courtin believed that Charles could do nothing but what his
subjects wanted. Jusserand, _A French Ambassador_ 150. Barillon, with
the possible exception of Gremonville, the ablest of Louis XIV’s
diplomatists, whom Ranke compares to the Spanish ambassador Mendoza of
the time of the League, thought when he first came to England that he
could in every instance measure Charles’ weight in the balance. Before
the Popish Plot had ceased its course, he perceived that he could not.
He writes on January 15/25, 1680: Il est fort difficile de pénétrer
quel est dans le fonds son véritable dessein. Again on September 9/19
of the same year; Le Roi de la Grande Bretagne a une conduite si
cachée et si difficile à pénétrer que les plus habiles y sont trompés.
And again on January 13/23, 1681: Je ne puis encore expliquer aver
certitude à V.M. l’état des affaires de ce pays-ci. Ceux qui approchent
de plus près du Roi d’Angleterre ne pénètrent point le fonds de ses
intentions. See too Burnet II 409 n. 3, 467 n.
[453] If Pemberton is counted.
[454] Pilgrimage of Grace; Insurrection in West; Kent; Wyatt; Rising in
North; Essex; Penruddock; Booth, 1659; Venner; Monmouth.
[455] See the evidence of Lord Ferrers against Southall at the trial of
Lord Stafford. 7 State Trials 1485.
[456] Dalton, _Justice_, quoted Stephen, _History of the Criminal Law_,
i. 195. Temp. James I.
[457] Colquhoun, _Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis_, quoted
Stephen i. 195.
[458] Ralph i. 399. See also the Statutes: 13 C. II c. 6, 14 C. II c.
3, 15 C. II c. 4.
[459] 6 State Trials 566–630.
[460] £1000 was stolen in cash, and over £2000 in jewelry.
[461] 6 State Trials 572–575.
[462] By two Germans and a Pole, acting, it was said, under orders from
Count Königsmark, who had been courting Mr. Thynne’s bride.
[463] Reresby, _Memoirs_ 235, 236.
[464] Reresby, _Memoirs_ 281, 282.
[465] This was the recognised appellation of a J.P. in the seventeenth
century.
[466] House of Lords MSS. 39, under date May 29, 1679.
[467] 7 State Trials 1471.
[468] 8 State Trials 525–550.
[469] Gilbert’s evidence, _ibid._ 531–534.
[470] 8 State Trials 531.
[471] _Ibid._ 532.
[472] Foley v. 891. House of Lords MSS. 89. See also Fitzherbert MSS.
18, 19.
[473] Foley v. 34. House of Lords MSS. 89.
[474] Foley v. 883.
[475] “A true narrative of the imprisonment and trial of Mr. Lewis,”
written by himself. Foley v. 917–928. His account of the trial is
inserted in 7 State Trials 249–260.
[476] Foley v. 885. 7 State Trials 249, 252.
[477] Foley v. 96. Catalogue of those who suffered in Oates’ Plot and
on account of their priesthood, taken from Dodd and Challoner.
[478] 7 State Trials 1131.
[479] Ralph i. 570.
[480] See Appendix D, where Giles’ trial is discussed. Lawrence Hyde to
the Prince of Orange, April 16, 1680. “This I say is a very unfortunate
accident to revive men’s fears and apprehensions of the Plot, which
were pretty well asleep, but there is no care or watchfulness can
prevent the folly and wickedness of men that are so given to it.” Groen
van Prinsterer v. 395.
[481] See Stephen i. 228.
[482] 7 State Trials 1397–1399.
[483] Southall’s evidence. 7 State Trials 1467–1471.
[484] For the following paragraph I have used Gardiner’s _History of
England_ iii. 1–27.
[485] Essay of Judicature.
[486] This rule was not without exception. Baron Flowerdue, raised to
the bench in 1684, held office _quamdiu se bene gesserit_. (Prothero,
_Statutes and Constitutional Documents_ 143). And we learn from Coke
(Inst. iv. 117) that the Chief Baron always held office on a permanent
tenure (Prothero cviii.). Of course it made no difference, for good
behaviour in the eyes of the king, with whom the decision rested, was
likely to have much in common with his good pleasure.
[487] Gneist, _Constitutional History of England_ (trans. Ashworth) 550.
[488] Clarendon, _Hist. Reb._ (Oxford, 1826) i. 123, 124.
[489] Gneist 552 n. See _Gardiner_ viii. 208.
[490] Gardiner ix. 246, 247. Gneist 555.
[491] L.J. May 6, 1641. _Parl. Hist._ ii. 757.
[492] In a somewhat similar case the judges under Charles II refused
to give an opinion until the matter had been argued before them by
counsel. The Attorney-General, among other questions put to the judges
at the outbreak of the agitation of the Popish Plot, asked “Whether
there be any evidence against these particular persons besides the
single testimony of Mr. Oates?” To which it was answered that it was
a question of fact, and could only be determined in court. S.P. Dom.
Charles II 407: i. 128.
[493] Gardiner ix. 306, 307. Gneist 555 n. Hallam (ii. 107) attempts to
uphold the judges’ decision, but Stephen’s argument (i. 362, 363) must
be held to settle the question.
[494] Gneist 570 n. (2).
[495] 4 State Trials 445–450.
[496] Foss, _Judges of England_ vii, 109, 110. Burnet, _Life and Death
of Sir Matthew Hale_. Mr. J. M. Rigg in his article on Hale in the
_Dictionary of National Biography_ doubts the truth of this on the
ground that Penruddock was tried at Exeter, and Hale belonged to the
Midland circuit. Hale however changed his circuit on at least one
occasion. See Foss vii. 112, and the _Gentleman’s Mag._, July 1851, p.
13, where an anecdote is told which shows that Hale had belonged at one
time to the Western circuit.
[497] North, _Life of Lord Keeper Guildford_ 119. Dryden, _Prose Works_
(ed. Malone) iv. 156.
[498] Gneist 600 n. (2).
[499] 6 State Trials 951–1013.
[500] See also Hallam iii. 8. Stephen i. 373–375.
[501] Hale, P.C. i. 143–146.
[502] Compare the attempt to create a riot among the apprentices in
July 1679, immediately after the trial of the Five Jesuits.
[503] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 803. Ralph i. 297. North, _Examen_ 139.
[504] Amos, _The English Constitution in the Reign of Charles II_ 302.
[505] _Gazette_, May 5, 1680.
[506] 7 State Trials 926–931.
[507] _Ibid._ 1111–1130.
[508] Twyn and two other printers were sentenced to the pillory,
imprisonment, and heavy fines. Amos 249. 6 State Trials 513–539. See
also the trials of Dover, Brewster, and Brooks, which followed on
Twyn’s case, _ibid._ 539–564.
[509] April 30 to November 28, 1684. Luttrell, _Diary_, printed 10
State Trials 125–129.
[510] _Clarendon Correspondence_ i. 2.
[511] 8 State Trials 193, _i.e._ as resembling the opinions of 1641.
[512] Gneist 600 n.
[513] 8 State Trials 194.
[514] 7 State Trials 1556–1567.
[515] In this I have constantly used, as will be seen, Sir J. F.
Stephen’s _History of the Criminal Law in England_ (vol. i., especially
chapters viii. and xi.), a work to which I am under the deepest
obligations.
[516] _History of England_ i. 125.
[517] See the trial of Ireland, Pickering, and Grove. 7 State Trials
126–129, and 10 State Trials 1087.
[518] See Raleigh’s Trial, 2 State Trials 18. Jardine, _Crim. Trials_
421, where the court decided unanimously against Raleigh’s repeated
demand for the production of Lord Cobham, not, according to Sir James
Fitzjames Stephen’s opinion, without fair colour of law. _Hist. Crim.
Law_ i. 335, 336.
[519] 1 State Trials 869.
[520] Not indeed without grievous consequences to themselves. Being
brought to question for their verdict, four of them submitted and
apologised at once. The remainder were imprisoned by order of the Star
Chamber and fined heavily. Stephen i. 329.
[521] 1 State Trials 957–1042.
[522] Stephen i. 326.
[523] _Ibid._ 336, 350.
[524] 2 State Trials 25.
[525] 4 State Trials 354–356.
[526] 5 State Trials 1185–1195.
[527] 6 State Trials 932–936.
[528] _Ibid._ 938.
[529] 6 State Trials 697.
[530] 6 State Trials 605–610.
[531] 7 State Trials 591–688. And see below 93 _seq._
[532] See Lilburn’s Trial. 4 State Trials 1342.
[533] Stephen i. 358.
[534] Trial of Hulet, who was said to have been the actual executioner
of Charles I. 5 State Trials 1185–1195. In summing up, Sir Orlando
Bridgeman, L.C.S., said to the jury:—“Gentlemen, you hear what has been
proved on behalf of the prisoner, that is, if you believe the witnesses
that are not upon oath.” Hulet was convicted, but the evidence was
thought so unsatisfactory that the judges afterwards procured a
reprieve.
[535] See the Lord Chief Justice’s remarks on the witnesses for the
Five Jesuits. 7 State Trials 41. As to the amount of truth in the
allegation see below.
[536] At the trial of Colledge:—Sergeant Maynard: “It is Mr. Oates’
saying; it is Mr. Turbervile’s oath.” 8 State Trials 638.
[537] See _e.g._ the statement of Hyde, L.C.J., at Twyn’s trial in
1663. L.C.J.: “If I did not mistake, you desired to have counsel; was
that your request?” Twyn; “Yes.” L.C.J.: “Then I will tell you, we are
bound to be of counsel with you in point of law; that is, the court,
my brethren and myself, are to see that you suffer nothing for your
want of knowledge in matter of law; I say we are to be of counsel with
you.... To the matter of fact, whether it be so or no; in this case
the law does not allow you counsel to plead for you, but in matter of
law we are of counsel for you, and it shall be our care to see that
you have no wrong done you.” 6 State Trials 516, 517. See also the 5th
Resolution in the case of Sir Harry Vane. 6 State Trials 131.
[538] See _e.g._ Coleman’s trial. 7 State Trials 14. L.C.J.: “The
labour lies upon their hands, ... therefore you need not have counsel,
because the proof must be plain upon you.” See also Don Pantaleon Sa’s
case. 4 State Trials 466.
[539] See Colledge’s trial. L.C.J. North: “Counsel you cannot have,
unless matter of law arises, and that must be propounded by you; and
then if it be a matter debatable, the court will assign you counsel;
but it must be upon a matter fit to be argued.” 8 State Trials 570.
Similarly Jones, J., _ibid._ 571.
At Sidney’s trial Jeffreys, L.C.J.: “If you assign any particular point
of law, then, if the court think it such a point as may be worth the
debating, you shall have counsel.”
[540] 8 State Trials 579.
[541] See Burnet ii. 196, 291. Pepys, _Diary_ January 21, 1667. North,
_Life of Guildford_ 195, 196, 291.
[542] 6 State Trials 570.
[543] 7 State Trials 463.
[544] 7 State Trials 1339. That the barristers withdrew is evident from
Winnington’s subsequent remark: “We did perceive his counsel come up
towards the bar and very near him, and therefore we thought it our duty
to speak before any inconvenience happened.” _Ibid._ 1340.
[545] Sir W. Jones: “My Lords, we do not presume at all to offer our
consent to what time the court shall be adjourned.” L.H.S.; “No, we do
not ask your consent.”
[546] 7 State Trials 1371–1373.
[547] 7 State Trials 1544.
[548] The trial of Hawkins for theft in 1669 is of great interest in
this connection. It was evidently considered to be an extreme piece
of good fortune that the accused was able to prove the conspiracy
against him, and it was only owing to the folly and clumsiness of the
prosecutor that he could clearly prove the perjury. 6 State Trials
922–952.
[549] Sometimes this gave rise to great hardship, as in Oates’ second
trial for perjury, where a witness named Sarah Paine was summoned, but
the wrong Sarah coming, the mistake was not detected until she was put
in the witness-box. 10 State Trials 1287.
[550] This however was considered rather unfair at the time. See the
case of Atkins. 6 State Trials 1491. The action of the government and
the judges in Colledge’s case (8 State Trials 570–587) in depriving
the prisoner of papers which leave had been given him to write, that
the crown case might be managed accordingly, strained this practice
still further, and is justly termed by Sir J. F. Stephen “one of the
most wholly inexcusable transactions that ever occurred in an English
court.” _Hist. Crim. Law_ i. 406.
[551] This was certainly so in Newgate and the other London prisons,
but Reading’s intrigue with the Five Popish Lords seems to shew that
the rule was relaxed for the Tower. 7 State Trials 301.
[552] See the cases of Coleman and Fitzharris. Mrs. Coleman managed
to convey letters to her husband in prison after his arrest. House
of Lords MSS. 8. Mrs. Fitzharris also was used, according to the
information received by the government, to convey messages to her
husband from the leaders of his party. She used, while talking to him
in the presence of a warder, to lower her voice so that he alone could
hear, and then repeat the message in the middle of their ordinary
conversation. Information of Lewis the spy. May 30, 1681. S.P. Dom.
Charles II 415: 334.
[553] _Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy_ ii. 310.
[554] That this was recognised at the time is evident from the
attention which they received in the debates in the Commons on the Duke
of York. That on the Lords’ Provision in the Popery bill exempting
the duke was carried on amid cries of “Coleman’s letters! Coleman’s
letters!” 4 _Parl. Hist._ 1044. And see the whole of the Debate on
a Motion for Removing the Duke of York, where they had the greatest
weight. _Ibid._ 1026–1034.
[555] 7 State Trials 6.
[556] _Ibid._ 3, 4.
[557] _Ibid._ 7–13.
[558] See above 45–48.
[559] 7 State Trials 70.
[560] _Ibid._ 16, 17.
[561] _Ibid._ 18.
[562] _Ibid._ 22.
[563] 7 State Trials 18, 19.
[564] _Ibid._ 30–33.
[565] _Ibid._ 23, 31.
[566] _Ibid._ 25.
[567] Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_ 646: “Sunk were his eyes.”
Warner MS. history 104. “Oculi parvi et in occiput retracti.”
L’Estrange, _Hue and Cry after Dr. O._ “His eyes are very small and
sunk.”
[568] 7 State Trials 25.
[569] _Ibid._ 25–27.
[570] 7 State Trials 27–29. L.C.J.: “What did he (Oates) say?” Dolman:
“That he did not well know him.” L.C.J.: “Mr. Oates, you say you were
with him (Coleman) at the Savoy and Wild-House; pray, Sir Thomas, did
he say he did not know him, or had seen Mr. Coleman there?” Dolman: “He
did not know him as he stood there.” Dolben, J.: “Did he say he did not
know Mr. Coleman, or that he did not know that man?” Dolman: “He said
he had no acquaintance with that man (to the best of my remembrance).”
[571] 7 State Trials 29, 30.
[572] 7 State Trials 21.
[573] Oates’ work had certainly been remarkably hard, and his fatigue
was no invention of his own. See the evidence of Sir Thomas Dolman at
Sir George Wakeman’s trial. 7 State Trials 656. Oates was confronted
with Coleman, and charged him with high treason on the night of Monday,
September 30. Dolman: “My Lord, Mr. Oates did appear before the king
and council, I think on the Saturday before which was Michaelmas
eve. The council sat long that morning, the council sat again in the
afternoon, and Mr. Oates was employed that night I think to search
after some Jesuits, who were then taken, and that was the work of that
night. The council I think sat again Sunday in the afternoon. Mr. Oates
was then examined; the council sat long, and at night he was sent
abroad again to search the lodgings of several priests and to find out
their papers, which he did seize upon, and one of the nights in that
season was a very wet night; he went either with a messenger or with
a guard upon him. On Monday morning the council sat again, and he was
further examined, and went abroad; and Monday night Mr. Oates was in as
feeble and weak a condition as ever I saw man in my life, and was very
willing to have been dismissed for that time, for he seemed to be in
very great weakness and disorder, so that I believe he was scarce able
to give a good answer.”
The whole incident is very similar to that which occurred at Wakeman’s
trial, with the exception that then the evidence went against the
witness, whereas now it was against the prisoner. The conduct of the
court on the two occasions was perfectly consistent. _Ibid._ 651–653.
See below.
[574] _Hist. Crim. Law_ i. 385.
[575] Compare the trial of Whitebread, Harcourt, Fenwick, etc. When
Oates had finished his evidence, Fenwick said: “Pray, my Lord, be
pleased to take notice that this man’s evidence all along is that he
saw such and such letters from such and such persons. They have no
evidence but just that, they saw such and such letters.” 7 State Trials
358.
[576] 7 State Trials 21, 32.
[577] As in the case of Dangerfield. 7 State Trials 1110.
[578] 7 State Trials 359, 411.
[579] See above 293.
[580] Fox, _History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II_ 34.
[581] Gardiner, _History of England_ vii. 323–326.
[582] 6 State Trials 693.
[583] One of the women supposed to be bewitched.
[584] 8 State Trials 1021. _Lives of the Norths_ i. 167.
[585] An extraordinary instance of the nature of the ideas of the time
on the subject of evidence appears in an examination before the Lords’
committee of inquiry. Oates complained that the Bishop of Chichester
and Justice Bickley had reviled his evidence. A witness named Nicholas
Covert was examined: “says he was at the public meeting at Chichester,
but he remembers not that anything was said reflecting on Dr. Oates.
The discourse was concerning the Narratives, and somebody there said
that he had contradicted himself twenty-two times.” House of Lords MSS.
146. If a score of self-contradictions were not generally taken as an
objection to a witness, it is hard to imagine what would have been.
[586] _History of his own Time._ London, 1727, 386.
[587] Ralph i. 412.
[588] 7 State Trials 13.
[589] _Ibid._ 35–53.
[590] 7 State Trials 59, 60.
[591] Being asked what he had to say he returned again to the subject:
“As for my papers I humbly hope ... that I should not have been found
guilty of any crime in them but what the act of grace could have
pardoned.”... _Ibid._ 71.
[592] 7 State Trials 8.
[593] _Ibid._ 15.
[594] _Ibid._ 76.
[595] House of Lords MSS. 8, November 6, 1678.
[596] House of Lords MSS. 14.
[597] This misunderstanding is so extraordinary that I was tempted at
one time to adopt the theory that the prosecution was aware of the
existence of the later letters, and suppressed the knowledge from
motives of expedience. Certainly the managers of the prosecutions for
the plot were guilty of conduct which not only would now be thought
unprofessional, but was on any consideration highly suspicious, as for
instance in the suppression of the forged letters sent by Oates and
Tonge to Father Bedingfield (see Ralph i. 384. Sir G. Sitwell, _The
First Whig_ 36), and on a question of honesty simply the balance of
probability might turn against them. But the supposition cannot be
maintained. It was suggested at the time that, if the letters of the
years 1673, 1674, 1675 contained such dangerous matter as appeared from
their perusal, those of the three ensuing years must, had they been
found, have revealed still more horrible schemes. But the force of this
argument was not sufficient to afford a motive for taking the risk of
detection (Ralph i. 412). And although the personality of Shaftesbury,
by whom alone such a scheme could have been worked out, was of great
potency in the committee of the House of Lords, he hardly dominated it
so completely as to render the manœuvre practicable in the presence of
such men as Lord Anglesey, the Marquis of Winchester, and the Bishop of
Bath and Wells (House of Lords MSS. i.).
[598] See above 312. 7 State Trials 59.
[599] _Ibid._ 65.
[600] L.C.J.: “If the cause did turn upon that matter, I would be well
content to sit until the book were brought; but I doubt the cause will
not stand on that foot; but if that were the case it would do you
little good.” 7 State Trials 65.
[601] 7 State Trials 71.
[602] _Ibid._ 66–68. Besides this he said several other things, of
which mention will be made later.
[603] _Ibid._ 70.
[604] _Ibid._ 78. Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 4. Burnet ii. 178.
[605] Burnet ii. 113.
[606] Evidence of Carstairs, 6 State Trials 1503.
[607] Macaulay, _Hist. of England_ i. 237. Lingard xiii. 107, 108.
[608] Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. 14. Appendix ii. 361. See also Fairfax
Correspondence. Civil Wars (ed. R. Bell) ii. 297. James Babington to
Henry Lord Fairfax, November 20, 1678. “Staley, the goldsmith’s son,
was tried to-day at the King’s Bench, and condemned.”
[609] Schwerin, _Briefe aus England_ 356. On December 2 (n.s.) he
notes: “Des Goldschmied’s Sohn, von dessen unbesonnenen Reden ich
bereits Mittheilung gemacht, ist gehangen und nachher geviertheilt
worden. Man hatte sich vorher überzeugt, dass er gesagt, dass der
König in England sei der grösste Ketzer und Schelm in der Welt. Darauf
hat er mit der Hand auf die Brust geschlagen, mit den Füssen fünf bis
sechsmal auf die Erde gestampft, und mit ausgestrecktem Arm gesagt.
Dies ist die Hand, die ihn hätte umbringen sollen, der König und das
Parlament glaubten, das alles gethan und vorbei sei, allein die Schelme
wären betrogen.” _Ibid._ 362. Barillon’s testimony is on the same
side: “Le témoin, sur la foi duquel Staley, fils d’un orrèvre, a été
condamné, a accusé le Duc d’Hamilton.” December 16/26, 1678. And Warner
(MS. history 40): “Primus, qui Catholico sanguine Angliam rigavit,
fuit Gulielmus Stalaeus, alterius Gulielmi auri fabri et trapazitae
Londiniensis civis divitis filius.” The act under which Staley was
condemned is 13 Charles II cap. i.
[610] House of Lords MSS. 77, 78.
[611] Burnet (ii. 171) speaks of Staley as “the popish banker, who had
been in great credit, but was then under some difficulties”; but this
is one of the rare mistakes he makes in point of fact.
[612] He disclaimed all such sentiments and did deny the words, but
afterwards said that he had “never with intention, or any thought or
ill-will, spake any word upon this matter.” 6 State Trials 1506, 1508.
[613] 6 State Trials 1509. Lingard (xiii. 108) states on the authority
of _Les Conspirations d’Angleterre_ that Fromante, who is there called
Firmin, was put into prison to prevent his appearance at the trial; but
the work is by no means above suspicion, and is directly contradicted
on the point. Large extracts from _Les Conspirations d’Angleterre_,
which was published in 1681 and is now extremely rare, are quoted by
Arnauld, _Œuvres_ xiv. 515–535. Arnauld says in a note: “C’est M.
Rocole, ancien chanoine de S. Benoit à Paris, qui en est l’auteur; mais
l’avertissement qui le fait paraître Protestant, n’est pas de lui.”
There is among the State Papers an order in council for the arrest of
Bartholemew Fermin for high treason on account of the Popish Plot, but
without date. S.P. Dom. Charles II 408; i. 110.
[614] 6 State Trials 1511, 1512.
[615] Foley v. 233, 234.
[616] _Ibid._ v. 12. Lingard xiii. 64. _True Narrative of the Horrid
Plot and Conspiracy_, lxxvii.
[617] Foley v. 233, 244, 245.
[618] _Ibid._ 223.
[619] 7 State Trials 91–101.
[620] _Ibid._ 101–104.
[621] _Ibid._ 105.
[622] 7 State Trials 105. L.C.J.; “You must be tried by the laws of
England, which sends no piece of fact out of the country to be tried.”
[623] There is much evidence to show this. The following instances
are from the same volume of the State Trials:—The Attorney-General
not allowed to read a certificate against the accused 129. Whitebread
not allowed to use Oates’ _Narrative_ 374. Fenwick, Whitebread, and
Harcourt not allowed to use the report of Ireland’s trial. Harcourt
was, in fact, mistaken on the point for which he wished to refer to the
report 360, 384–386. Lord Stafford not allowed to use the council book
as evidence 1440. See also 451, 462, 467, 654.
[624] 7 State Trials 106–108.
[625] On April 16, 1679. _Ibid._ 259–310, and see below.
[626] 7 State Trials 272, 295.
[627] _Ibid._ 392.
[628] _Ibid._ 117, 118. Sergeant Baldwin produced the letter, saying,
“We do conceive a letter from one of that party, bearing date about the
same time, concerning Mr. Whitebread’s summons, who was then master of
the company, is very good evidence against them.”
The prosecution was forced to retract, and Mr. Finch, the junior, was
made to eat his leader’s words: “My Lord, it can affect no particular
person, but we only use it in general.”
[629] 7 State Trials 120.
[630] 7 State Trials 315–317.
[631] Cf. Rookwood’s case 1696. Powell, J.: “Certainly now the jury is
charged, they must give a verdict either of acquittal or conviction.”
Sir T. Trevor, Att. Gen.: “I know what has been usually thought
of Whitebread’s case.” And the trial of Cook, 1696. Powell, J.:
“Whitebread’s case was indeed held to be an extraordinary case.” And
see 7 State Trials 497–500 n, where many instances and opinions adverse
to the decision of the court are collected.
[632] Hale, P.C. ii. 294. “By the ancient law, if the jury sworn had
been once particularly charged with a prisoner, it was commonly held
they must give up their verdict, and they could not be discharged
before their verdict was given up.... But yet the contrary course hath
for a long time obtained at Newgate, and nothing is more ordinary
than after the jury is sworn and charged with a prisoner and evidence
given, yet if it appears to the court that some of the evidence is
kept back, or taken off, or that there may be a fuller discovery and
the offence notorious, as murder or burglary, and that the evidence,
though not sufficient to convict the prisoner, yet gives the court a
great and strong suspicion of his guilt, the court may discharge the
jury of the prisoner, and remit him to the gaol for further evidence;
and accordingly it has been practised in most circuits of England, for
otherwise many notorious murders and burglaries may pass unpunished,
by the acquittal of a person probably guilty, where the full evidence
is not searched out or given.” “The whole law upon this subject,” says
Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, “was elaborately considered a few years
ago in R. _v._ Winsor (L.R. 1 Q.B. 289), when it appeared, from many
authorities, that the practice had fluctuated.” _Hist. Crim. Law_ i.
397.
[633] 7 State Trials 98.
[634] 7 State Trials 122–126.
[635] _Ibid._ 121, 122.
[636] _Ibid._ 124.
[637] 7 _Ibid._ 128.
[638] 10 State Trials 1243–1281.
[639] 7 State Trials 388–391.
[640] _Ibid._ 132.
[641] _Ibid._ 133–135.
[642] Stephen i. 399.
[643] 7 State Trials 138–141.
[644] 7 State Trials 142–144. Klopp II. 464, app. IV.
[645] Foley v. 58.
[646] See “An impartial consideration of these speeches,” etc., 1670,
attributed to John Williams, D.D. “Animadversions on the last speeches
of the Five Jesuits,” etc., 1679. Printed 7 State Trials 543.
[647] Burnet ii. 201.
[648] Sidney, _Letters_ 123, 124. The opinion of Ranke, who in his
writings was neither Catholic nor Protestant, lies midway between these
views: “Grässlich ist die lange Reihe von Hinrichtungen Solcher, die
nichts bekannten,” v. 235.
[649] “The examination of Captain William Bedloe deceased, taken in
his last sickness by Sir Francis North, Chief Justice of the Court of
Common Pleas.” Printed 6 State Trials 1493–1498.
[650] See Russell’s written Speech, printed at length, Ralph i. 755–757.
[651] Sitwell, _First Whig_ 153–158. And see Stephen i. 408, 409.
[652] Stephen i. 449. And see Burnet II. 303, 304.
[653] Above 328.
[654] See above 204–209.
[655] Longleat MSS. Coventry Papers xi. 363. Order of the king in
council, February 5, 1679.
[656] 7 State Trials 259, 287, 296.
[657] _Ibid._ 287–289, 292.
[658] So Bedloe swore 7 State Trials 271. Burnet (ii. 199) says that
Bedloe made use of Reading’s intrigue to cover his omission to swear
against the Jesuits in the previous December. But Reading never denied
the fact that Bedloe’s account of this part of the transaction was
correct.
[659] Presumably, from the absence of any Christian name, Mr. George
Speke of White Lackington, M.P. for Somersetshire, a more reputable
person than his sons Hugh and Charles. George Speke had been a royalist
and after the Restoration lived in retirement for many years, but,
following the example of his son-in-law, John Trenchard, turned against
the court and became a leader of the Whig interest in his part of the
country. In 1680 he entertained Monmouth during his western progress.
Fea, _King Monmouth_ 96.
[660] The date fixed first was March 28, and was afterwards altered. 7
State Trials 281.
[661] Evidence of Bedloe, Speke, and Wiggins. _Ibid._ 270–286.
[662] _Ibid._ 278, 279.
[663] 7 State Trials 310.
[664] Colonel Mansell’s _Exact and True Narrative of the late Popish
Intrigue_ 64.
[665] See Ralph i. 431. Echard 970, 971. Danby, _Memoirs_ 39, 40.
[666] 7 State Trials 763–812. An Exact and True Narrative of the Horrid
Conspiracy of Thomas Knox, William Osborne, and John Lane to invalidate
the testimonies of Dr. Oates and Mr. William Bedloe. London 1680.
[667] See below.
[668] Burnet ii. 200.
[669] 7 State Trials 881–926.
[670] This was contradicted and his reputation much debated at the
trial of Lord Stafford eighteen months later; but at the time it was
believed to be the fact.
[671] Thomas Whitebread, provincial; William Harcourt, rector of the
London province; John Fenwick, procurator for the college at St. Omers;
John Gavan, and Anthony Turner. 7 State Trials 311–418.
[672] _Ibid._ 340, 1455. This was so far confirmed that Dugdale was
proved to have spoken on Tuesday, October 15, 1678 of the death of a
justice of the peace in Westminster, which does not go far. Dugdale
also declared at Lord Stafford’s trial that on Coleman’s arrest the
Duke of York sent to Newgate to ask if he had made disclosures to
anybody, and when Coleman returned that he had done so only to Godfrey,
the duke gave orders to have Godfrey killed. 7 State Trials 1316–1319.
Burnet ii. 190, 191. And see above 153, n. Burnet says: “The Earl
of Essex told me he swore it on his first examination, December 24,
1678, but since it was only on hearsay from Evers, and so was nothing
in law, and yet would heighten the fury against the duke, the king
charged Dugdale to say nothing of it.” This is a mistake. Dugdale’s
first and second examinations, December 24 and 29, 1678. S.P. Dom.
Charles II 408: II. 49, 22. Dugdale did formally tell the story in his
information, but not until March 21, 1679. Fitzherbert MSS. 135.
[673] Dugdale’s evidence. 7 State Trials 334–342.
[674] 7 State Trials 343–349.
[675] _Ibid._ 119, 355. House of Lords MSS. 15.
[676] 7 State Trials, 350–357.
[677] 7 State Trials 359–378.
[678] “... Three of them, having been apprehended by Sir Will. Waller
at their first coming, told him they were come to be witnesses, and
being asked what they were to witness, they said they must know that
from their superiors.” Sidney, _Letters_ 101.
[679] Examination of Christopher Townley, April 28, 1679. Fitzherbert
MSS. 151, 152.
[680] 7 State Trials 371. At the trial of Langhorn another witness was
produced to explain this, but his testimony was unconvincing.
[681] _Ibid._ 361, 364, 366. Information was also given that Gifford
had admitted in conversation “that his Superior of the College at St.
Omers had sent him over to swear on behalf of the Lords, and that he
must obey, and would, right or wrong.” Examinations of Chamberlayne and
Gouddall. Fitzherbert MSS. 149.
[682] Examinations of Coulster and Townley. Fitzherbert MSS 151, 152.
[683] 7 State Trials 396–403. North, _Examen_ 239, 240. 10 State Trials
1183–1188. Smith, _Intrigues of the Popish Plot_. The evil reputation
of these men was unknown at the time of the trial. See Burnet ii. 226.
[684] 7 State Trials 404–418.
[685] At the time of the fire of London, Tillotson told Burnet a
story of Langhorn’s methods of business which is too ridiculous to be
believed. Burnet i. 412.
[686] _True Narrative_ lxxxi.
[687] 7 State Trials 463–465, 470.
[688] _Ibid._ 439.
[689] 7 State Trials 514.
[690] _Ibid._ 172, 173.
[691] Sidney, _Letters_ 124. “Wakeman’s trial is put off, as is
believed, to avoid the indecency of the discourses that would have been
made.”
[692] L.J. xiii. 388–392. C.J. November 28, 29, 1678. Ralph i. 397.
James (Or. Mem.) i. 529.
[693] Burnet ii. 231.
[694] 7 State Trials 602–618.
[695] _Ibid._ 619–623.
[696] _Ibid._ 624–641. Bedloe however gave no evidence against the
prisoner Rumley.
[697] 7 State Trials 644–651. Sir J. F. Stephen has strangely missed
the bearing of this evidence, and writes as if it had been decisive in
favour of the prisoners. _Hist. Crim. Law_ i. 391.
[698] The first serious acquittal at least, for the trial of Atkins,
after the conviction of Green, Berry, and Hill for the murder of
Godfrey, was hardly more than formal.
[699] 7 State Trials 651–653.
[700] Hatton Correspondence ii. 187. Charles Hatton to Lord Hatton,
July 10, 1679. “Mr. Pepys and Sir Anthony Deane was bailed yesterday,
and if my Lord Chief Justice hang five hundred Jesuits, he will not
regain the opinion he thereby lost with the populace, to court whom he
will not act against his conscience.” Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 74.
[701] Verney MSS. 474.
[702] Burnet ii. 232. _The Narrative of Segnior Francisco de Faria_,
1680, 17, 18.
[703] Deposition of F. de Faria, March 24, 1681. S.P. Dom. Charles II
415: 159. Verney MSS. 474. Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 17, 74.
[704] Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 19.
[705] 8 State Trials 163–174. Hatton Correspondence ii. 220.
[706] 7 State Trials 702–706.
[707] Hatton Correspondence ii. 191, 195, 207–210.
[708] C.J. ix. 661, 688–692. L.J. xiii. 736–739. Luttrell, _Brief
Relation_ i. 64.
[709] L.J. xiii. 752.
[710] Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 74, 75.
[711] See Burnet ii. 196. North, _Examen_ 567, 568. _Lives of the
Norths_, 195, 196. Hatton Correspondence, _passim_.
[712] Burnet ii. 196. North, _Examen_ 568.
[713] Reresby, _Memoirs_ 146. “Being with the king at the Duchess
of Portsmouth’s lodgings, my Lord Treasurer being also present, the
king told me he took it (Oates’ story) to be some artifice, and that
he did not believe one word of the Plot.” Reresby, though always
well-informed, was never at this time in possession of real secrets.
Barillon, October 1/10, 1678. “Le Roi de la Grande Bretagne m’a dit
qu’il ne croyait pas que cette accusation eût un veritable fondement.”
Shaftesbury, _The present state of the Kingdom at the opening of_ _the
Parliament_, March 6, 1679. “As concerning the plot and the murder of
Godfrey, the king’s discourses and managing are new and extraordinary.
No man can judge by them but that he is in the plot against his own
life; and no man doubts but he is so far in as concerns us all.”
Printed Christie ii. 309.
[714] Barillon, January 16/26, 1679. “Le Roi d’Angleterre ne me parle
plus comme il a parlé jusqu’à present. Il me dit hier que la déposition
d’un dernier témoin nommé Ducdale lui parassait si peu concertée et
si pleine de faits vraisemblables qu’il ne pouvait plus s’empêcher de
croire à une conspiration contre sa personne. Ce Prince me redit toutes
les raisons qui lui ont fait croire qu’Oats et Benloi sont des parjures
et des imposteurs, mais en même temps il me fit connaître que ce qu’ils
avaient dit de faux n’empêchait pas qu’il n’y eût quelque chose de vrai
qui servait pour fondement à tout ce qu’ils avaient pu inventer d’eux
mêmes.”
[715] See the trials of Andrew Bromwich, 7 State Trials 715–726, Lionel
Anderson and others, _ibid._ 729–750, Knox and Lane, _ibid._ 763–812,
Lord Castlemaine, _ibid._ 1067–1112.
[716] Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 34.
[717] See _e.g._ his summing up at Lord Castlemaine’s trial. 7 State
Trials 1408–1412.
[718] In spite of his own and his brother’s assertions there cannot be
the least doubt of this. North afterwards declared in his memoirs that
he never believed in the Popish Plot, a statement which is belied by
every action and word of his on the bench.
[719] 7 State Trials 218, at the trial of Green, Berry, and Hill.
[720] 7 State Trials 69.
[721] _Ibid._ 133, 134.
[722] _Ibid._ 218, 411, 642, 1102. 10 State Trials 1170. L.C.J.: “You
may assure yourselves, I will remember whatsoever has been said on the
one side and on t’other as well as I can; the gentlemen of the jury are
men of understanding, and I see they take notes, and I’ll give them
what assistance I can.” Instances might be multiplied. See Stephen i.
377, 566, 567.
[723] 6 State Trials 701–710. His trial was in 1665.
[724] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1088.
[725] 7 State Trials 134. _Absalom and Achitophel_ 120.
[726] 7 State Trials 678–680. This is another fair specimen. “Never
brag of your religion, for it is a foul one, and so contrary to Christ;
it is easier to believe anything than to believe that an understanding
man may be a papist.”
[727] These trials in their order of mention will be found:—7 State
Trials 1043. _Ibid._ 959. 8 State Trials 502. 7 State Trials 1162. 8
State Trials 447. 7 State Trials 1067. 8 State Trials 243.
[728] Reresby, _Memoirs_ 194.
[729] See Appendix E.
[730] The proceedings in Parliament against the five popish lords are
collected in 7 State Trials 1218–1292.
[731] Reresby, _Memoirs_ 193, 194, North, _Examen_ 218.
[732] Barillon, November 31/December 9, 1680. “Ce qui se passera dans
ce procès est de grande consequence. Si le comte de Stafford était
absous, la conjuration recevrait une grande atteinte, et quoique le
peuple soit prévenu, il est néantmoins assujetti aux règles et aux
lois, et ne s’en départ pas aisément.”
[733] _Secret Services of Charles II and James II_ 24.
[734] Barillon, December 6/16, 9/19, 1680. James i. 640.
[735] 7 State Trials 1298–1339.
[736] Dugdale’s evidence. 7 State Trials 1341–1347.
[737] Oates’ evidence. _Ibid._ 1347–1350.
[738] Turbervile’s evidence. _Ibid._ 1351–1355.
[739] _Ibid._ 1394, 1395.
[740] 7 State Trials 1397–1400.
[741] _Ibid._ 1388–1393.
[742] _Ibid._ 1396–1406.
[743] _Ibid._ 1407–1415.
[744] 7 State Trials 1415–1419.
[745] Stafford admitted afterwards that in recent years he had
constantly used a walking stick, “being lame with weariness.” _Ibid._
1478.
[746] _Ibid._ 1419–1434.
[747] 7 State Trials 1437–1447.
[748] _Ibid._ 1462, 1463.
[749] _Ibid._ 1485–1492.
[750] _Ibid._ 1486–1491.
[751] 6 State Trials 119.
[752] 7 State Trials 1519–1529.
[753] _Ibid._ 1493–1515.
[754] _Ibid._ 1544–1551.
[755] Reresby thought that he acquitted himself well, but James said
“it was always his misfortune to play his game worst when he had the
best cards.” James i. 637.
[756] Barillon, December 16/26 1680.
[757] Reresby, _Memoirs_ 194.
[758] Anglesey, _Memoirs_ 9.
[759] Barillon, November 21/December 1, 1680. “Ce Prince prend souvent
la liberté de se moquer la conjuration, et ne se constraint pas
d’appeller tout haut Oatz et Bedlow des coquins. Il a dit cependant
que les preuves contre le Vicomte de Stafford étaient fortes, et qu’il
pouvait bien n’être pas innocent.”
[760] Hatton Correspondence ii. 241.
[761] Barillon, December 9/19 1680.
[762] _Ibidem._
[763] The Earls of Carlisle, Berkshire, and Suffolk. The appearance of
Lord Howard of Escrick on the same side is of no importance on account
of his bad character.
[764] Anglesey, _Memoirs_ 9. James to Hyde. Clarendon Cor. i. 50. James
to Col. Legge, Dartmouth MSS. 54. Barillon, December 19/29, 1680.
[765] L.J. xiii. 724. C.J. December 23, 1680. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1261. 7
State Trials 1562.
[766] 7 State Trials 1544, 1440–1447, 1342, 1343.
[767] _Ibid._ 1564–1567.
[768] Echard 997. Lingard xiii. 247–249.
[769] Dispatch of Sarotti-Bignola, January 10, 1681. “Tanta è la
impressione de’ popoli della verità della congiura e della reità del
conte (Stafford), che da pochi è stato compatito e molti lo hanno
ingiurato con infami parole.” Quoted Brosch 451. Dispatch of Thun,
January 10, 1681. “Der Henker hat den kopf auf der Bühne herumgetragen
und dem Volke gezeigt, welches darüber ein unausprechliches Freuden-und
frohlockendes Geschrei hat erschallen lassen.” Quoted Klopp II 473,
app. XXII.
[770] 7 State Trials 1129–1162.
[771] _Ibid._ 1162.
[772] _Ibid._ 1133.
[773] _Ibid._ 1161.
[774] Evidence of Richmond and Bridges. _Ibid._ 1140, 1142.
[775] Evidence of Arnold. 7 State Trials 1135–1137.
[776] Evidence of Phillips. _Ibid._ 1138.
[777] Evidence of Philpot. _Ibid._ 1145, 1146.
[778] Evidence of Watkins, Richmond, and Powel. _Ibid._ 1139.
[779] Evidence of H. Jones and J. Jones. _Ibid._ 1146, 1147.
[780] Evidence of W. Richmond. 7 State Trials 1140, 1141, and evidence
for the defence. _Ibid._ 1148–1151.
[781] _Ibid._ 1152–1159.
[782] _Ibid._ 1160. Luttrell, _Brief Relation_ i. 53, 55. S.P. Dom.
Charles II 414: 79. Petition of John Giles. Read in Council, 6 August
1680.
[783] 7 State Trials 1138, 1146.
[784] It is evident that the writer was an agent employed by Jenkins
for the purpose. Otherwise the secretary would certainly have noted
from whom and the date on which he received the information. The style
of the report is also evidence of this.
[785] Stephen i. 393. Macaulay i. 234.
—————————————————— End of Book ——————————————————
Transcriber’s Note (continued)
When they occur in quoted text and their citations, inconsistencies in
spelling (particularly of names), accenting, hyphenation, abbreviation,
etc., have been left unchanged in this transcription. Minor
typographical errors in the author’s text have been corrected without
note while other changes to his text are as stated below.
Page xv - “efuge” changed to “refuge” (March 24 Danby takes refuge at
Whitehall.)
Page 59 - “has” changed to “have” (various ways of procuring success
for the Catholic religion have thus been considered)
Page 174 - “Monmonth” changed to “Monmouth” (Duke of Monmouth)
Page 181 - “Trelawney” changed to “Trelawny” (Sir Jonathan Trelawny)
Page 282 - “thay” changed to “they” (formerly they had feared
dismissal)
The 785 footnotes have been renumbered and moved from the bottom of
pages to a FOOTNOTES section at the end of the transcription.
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