red was received with as much faith as a true mussulman receives the alcoran. Many well-intentioned men were hurried along with the torrent of popular delusion, which was so violent that those who dared to assert any doubt of the reality of the plot were regarded with suspicion, and incurred the risque of being involved in the accusation. Under these circumstances trial and condemnation were nearly synonimous. Numbers of persons of the most estimable characters, and *"The wonderful intelligence, which Oates conveyed both to Godfrey and the council, and afterwards to the parliament, was to this purpose. The pope, he said, on examining the matter in the congregation de propaganda, had found himself entitled to the possession of England and Ireland, on account of the heresy of prince and people, and had accordingly assumed the sovereignty of these kingdoms. This supreme power he had thought proper to delegate to the society of Jesuits; and de Oliva, general of that order, in consequence of the papal grant, had exerted every act of regal authority, and particularly had sup. plied by commissions, under the seal of the society, all the chief offices, both civil and military. Lord Arundel was created chancellor, lord Powis treasurer, sir William Godolphin privy seal, Coleman secretary of state, Langhorne attorney-general, lord Bellasis general of the papal army, lord Peters lieutenant-general, lord Stafford paymaster: and inferior commissions, signed by the provincial of the Jesuits, were distributed all over England. All the dignities of the church were filled, and many of them with Spaniards and other foreigners. The provincial had held a consult of the Jesuits, under his authority, where the king, whom they opprobriously called the black bastard, was solemnly tried and condemned as a heretic; and a resolution taken to put him to death. Father Le Shee (for so this great plotter and informer called father La Chaise, the noted confessor of the French king) had consigned in London, ten thousand pounds, to be paid to any man who should merit it by this assassination. A Spanish provincial had expressed like liberality: the prior of the Benedictines,. was willing to go the length of six thousand: the Dominicans approved of the action, but pleaded poverty. Ten thousand pounds had been offered to sir George Wakeman, the queen's physician, who demanded fifteen thousand, as a reward for so great service: his demand was complied with; and five thousand had been paid him, by advance. Lest this means should fail, four Irish ruffians had been hired, by the Jesuits, at the rate of twenty guineas apiece, to stab the king at Windsor; and Coleman, secretary to the late dutchess of York, had given the messenger, who carried their orders, a guinea, to quicken his diligence. Grove and Pickering were also employed, to shoot the king with silver bullets: the former was to receive the sum of fifteen hundred pounds; the latter, being a pious man, was to be rewarded with thirty thousand masses, which, estimating masses at a shilling apiece, amounted to a like value! Pickering would have executed his purpose had not the flint at one time, dropped out of his pistol, at another time the priming. Coniers, the Jesuit, had bought a knife, at the price of ten shillings, which he thought was not dear, considering the purpose for which he intended it, to wit, stabbing the king. Letters of of the most immaculate loyalty, were immolated as victims to his perjury-among whom none was more sincerely regretted than ford subscription were circulated among the Catholics, all over England, to raise a sum for the same purpose. No less than fifty Jesuits had met, in May last, at the White-horse tavern, where it was unanimously agreed to put the king to death. This synod did, afterwards, for more convenience, divide themselves into many lesser cabals or companies and Oates was employed to carry notes and letters from one to another, all tending to the same end, of murdering the king. He even carried from one company to another, a paper, in which they formally expressed their resolution of executing that deed, and it was regularly subscribed by all of them. A wager of an hundred pounds was laid, and stakes made, that the king should eat no more Christmas pies. In short, it was determined, to use the expression of a Jesuit, that if he would not become R. C. (Roman Catholic) he should no longer be C. R. (Charles Rex.) "The great fire at London had been the work of the Jesuits, who had employed eighty or eighty-six persons, for that purpose, and had expended seven hundred fire balls; but they had a good return for their money, for they had been able to pilfer goods from the fire, to the amount of fourteen thousand pounds: the Jesuits had, also, raised another fire, on St. Margaret's Hill, whence they had stolen goods to the value of two thousand pounds; another at Southwark: and it was determined, in like manner, to burn all the chief cities in England. A paper model was already framed, for the firing of London; the stations were regularly marked out, where the several fires were to commence; and the whole plan of operations was SO concerted, that precautions were taken, by the Jesuits, to vary their measures, according to the variation of the wind. Fire balls were familiarly called among them Teuxbury_mustard pills, and were said to contain a notable biting sauce. In the great fire, it had been determined to murder the king; but he had displayed such diligence and humanity, in extinguishing the flames, that even the Jesuits relented, and spared his life. "Besides these assassinations and fires, insurrections, rebellions, and massacres, were projected, by that religious order, in all the three kingdoms. There were twenty thousand Catholics in London, who would rise, in four and twenty hours, or less; and Jennison, a Jesuit, said, that they might easily cut the throats of a hundred thousand Protestants. Eight thousand Catholics had agreed to take arms in Scotland. Ormond was to be murdered by four Jesuits; a general massacre of the Irish Protestants was concerted; and forty thousand black bills were already provided for that purpose. Coleman had remitted two hundred thousand pounds, to promote the rebellion in Ireland; and the French king was to land a great army in that island.-Poole, who wrote the Synopis, was particularly marked out for assassination, as was also Dr. Stillingfleet, a controversial writer against the papists." 603 Hume, IV. 313. Stafford, an aged and venerable nobleman, utterly incapable of the crime for which he suffered. The original depositions were taken before sir Edmondbury Godfrey, who, shortly afterwards, was found dead in a ditch, with his sword stuck in his body. The mode in which, and the persons by whom, he came to an untimely end, are still, I believe, involved in mystery. The odium, however, fell on the Roman Catholics, which wonderfully advanced the purposes of Shaftesbury and his precious partner in iniquity, and inflamed the passions of the great and little vulgar into the utmost ferocity against those obnoxious religionists. A very slight reflexion will satisfy any candid man, that it is utterly improbable, that they could have been the perpetrators of the nefarious act; as his death could not possibly answer any valuable purpose whatever for them: nor could his taking the examinations, which was an imperious duty, that he could not refuse, be with them a cause of complaint. Had Titus Oates been killed, suspicion might, not unreasonably, attach to them; as they might suppose his death would suppress the evidence against them. On the accession of James II. he was tried-found guilty of perjury on the evidence of sixty persons, nine of them Protestants-sentenced to be repeatedly pilloried-to lose his ears-and to be imprisoned for life.* When William came to the throne, "the house of lords, with the consent of the commons," to the eternal disgrace of both houses, “recommended him to the king for a pardon!!04 This was accorded, and, O shame where is thy blush? the wretch had a pension of 400l. per annum settled on him for life by William. Duly weighed in the scales of reason, this transaction is more flagitious, than the public acquiescence in his perjuries at the moment they were uttered; for all history proves that in times of great excitement, an epidemical and moral insanity too frequently prevails, which so far deprives even good men temporarily of their reason, as to lead them to do and to acquiesce in acts at which in their cooler moments they would shudder. But this pardon and this annuity were bestowed when all the effervescence had subsided, and when the turpitude of Oates's "The notorious Titus Oates was, soon after the accession of James, convicted of perjury, upon the evidence of above sixty reputable witnesses, of whom nine were protestants. He was sentenced to pay a fine of two thousand marks, to be stripped of his canonical hibit, to be whipped twice in three days by the common hangman, and to stand in the pillory at Westminster-hall gate, and at the royal exchange. He was moreover to be pilloried five times every year, and to be imprisoned during life. The hangman performed his office with uncommon rigour. The best thing James ever did, was punishing Oates for his perjury; and the greatest thing Oates ever did, was supporting himself under the most afflictive part of his punishment with the resolution and constancy of a martyr. A pension of 400l. a year was conferred upon this miscreant by king William!!!!960s 604 Hume, V. 37. 605 Granger, IV. 348. conduct had been exposed, naked, in the glare of day, in all its hideous deformity to the loathing and detestation of the upright of all nations. The stain, therefore, on parliament and king will never be effaced. The following cases fully prove that the English judiciary, though so extravagantly eulogized, was then in so deplorable a state,-so lost were the judges to every sense of honour and rectitude,-and so sealed was the fate of the miserable men brought-not to trial, but condemnation, that the evidence of the most notorious perjurers was received, in capital cases, and was allowed to hurry the victims to the gallows, "With all their sins and imperfections on their heads." In order to substantiate this charge against the English judiciary at that period of delusion, and the extent to which the violation of the first principles of justice was carried, when Roman Catholics were in question, the following case is given, although strictly speaking, somewhat foreign from the subject of this chapter. Seven priests were indicted together at the Old Bailey, in the year 1679, for treason, in exercising their sacerdotal functions in England, contrary to the statute, which declared this a capital offence. The principal evidence against them was Bedlow, whose evidence should not have been taken against a notorious felon. On the trial of Lionel Anderson, the first of the number, Bedlow was detected in open court, in a most manifest and flagrant perjury. He had sworn that Anderson was the son of a gentleman in Oxfordshire, and that HE KNEW HIM AND HIS FATHER WELL. The lord chief baron, who happened to be then in court, was acquainted with the accused, who immediately appealed to him to prove that he was the son of a gentleman in Lincolnshire; which the baron accordingly testified. The case-hardened Bedlow, no ways abashed, stated that he had his information, as to the place of Anderson's birth, FROM MY LORD PRIVY-SEAL'S NEPHEW! notwithstanding the atrocious villain had, a few minutes before, positively sworn that he knew him well!* "Bedlow. He is a priest and an Englishman, if his mother was honest, and he honestly born; for he is Mr. Anderson's son, of OXFORDSHIRE, a gentleman of two or three hundred pounds a year; I KNOW HIM AND HIS FATHER VERY WELL. "Anderson. My lord, could I but apprehend that I lay under so great a guilt, as to have been acquainted with so great a rogue as this fellow is, I would have been my own executioner, and not have expected my sentence at this bar. "L. C. J. Do you know him well? "Bedlow. Very well, both him and his father. His father is an Oxfordshire gentleman. Anderson. Now I think I shall prove the rogue perjured. Is my lord chief baron in the court? "Court. Yes, he is. This manifest perjury, for which, had not the chief justice been almost as wicked as the informer, Bedlow ought to have been immediately indicted, brought to the bar, tried, sentenced, and cropped, was disregarded. He received no rebuke from the complaisant court. His evidence, as if he had been one of the most immaculate men in existence, an Aristides or a Socrates, was received during the remainder of the trial of Anderson, and of Corker which followed. The unfortunate men were all found guilty, on the testimony of Bedlow, and other wretches, equally profligate: and, although the state trials make no mention of the final result, as to their fate, we have reason, from the temper of the times, to presume that they were hanged. Who can read this statement without horror? Who can regard otherwise than as a mere slaughter-house, a court of justice, where, on the trial of a number of men for their lives, merely for the worship of the Living God, the judge acts the part of the public accuser;* where the witnesses for the accused are almost torn to pieces by the mob;t and where the evidence is unhesitatingly received, of a wretch whose perjury is as clear as the noon-day sun; who is caught flagranti delicto; and whose confession of the hideous crime is made in open court? Never was human nature much more debased and degraded! Never did man make much nearer approaches to the demoniac character! Eternal infamy ought to attach to the court, the jury, and the blood-thirsty mob, great and small, high and low, by whom "Anderson. Why then my father has the honour of being well known to his lordship, who knows this to be false. "L. C. Baron. No, no, Mr. Bedlow: he is a gentleman's son of quality in LINCOLNSHIRE. "L. C. J. You are mistaken, you are mistaken; his father is a LINCOLNSHIRE gentleman. "Anderson. And yet this rogue is upon his oath; but indeed all his life is full of such mistakes. "Bedlow. I don't know. My lord privy-seal's nephew told me so!!!"606 "The chief justice gave sanction to all the narrow prejudices and bigoted fury of the populace. Instead of being counsel for the prisoners, as his office required, HE PLEADED THE CAUSE AGAINST THEM; browbeat their witnesses; and on every occasion represented their guilt as certain and uncontroverted."607 "When verdict was given against the prisoner, the spectators expressed their savage joy, by loud acclamations. The witnesses, on approaching the court, were almost torn in pieces by the rabble. One, in particular, was bruised to such a degree as to put his life in danger; and another, a woman, declared that, unless the court could afford her protection, she durst not give evidence. But as the judgesTM could" [would, more properly]"go no further than promise to punish such as should do her any injury, the prisoner himself had the humanity to waive her testimony."608 606 State Trials, VII. 839. 607 Hume, IV. 329. 608 Idem, 342. |
