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THE    POPISH    PLOT 


I 


THE 

POPISH   PLOT 


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  Achltophel. 

"  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  hust- 
ling us  in  another  sphere  j  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  Pere  la  Chaize ;  how  Gates  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. 


vn 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

TABLE   OF   SOME    EVENTS   OCCURRING   IN   THE   HISTORY  OF  THE 

POPISH  PLOT  xiii 


I.  DESIGNS  OF  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLICS 
CHAPTER  I 

TITUS  GATES 3 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  NATURE  OF  THE  DESIGNS          .         .         .         .         .  15 

CHAPTER  III 
GATES  AGAIN    . 70 

II.  SIR  EDMUND  BERRY  GODFREY 
CHAPTER  I 

GODFREY         ..........       83 

CHAPTER  II 
BEDLOE  AND  ATKINS 106 

CHAPTER  III 

BEDLOE  AND  PRANCE          .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .117 

ix 


x  The  Popish  Plot 

PAGE 

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 

i 

APPENDICES 

APPENDIX  A 375 


Contents  xi 

PAGE 

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. 
April 

October  30 
December  10     . 

1678.  April  24    . 
June  23 
June  27     . 
August  13 

August  14 

August  31 
September  2 
September  6 
September  27    . 
September  28     . 


September  29 


Titus   Gates   converted   to   the   Church   of 

Rome. 
Enters    the    English  Jesuit    college   at   Val- 

ladolid. 

Expelled  from  the  college  at  Valladolid. 
Enters    the    English    Jesuit    college    at    St. 

Omers. 

Jesuit  congregation  held  at  St.  James'  Palace. 
Gates  expelled  from  the  college  at  St.  Omers 
and  returns  to  London. 
Christopher  Kirkby  informs   the   king  of  a 

plot  against  his  life. 
Kirkby    and    Dr.   Tonge    examined    by   the 

Earl  of  Danby. 
The  king  goes  to  Windsor. 
The  forged  letters    sent   to   Bedingfield   at 

Windsor. 
Tonge   introduces   Gates    to    Kirkby   at   his 

lodgings  at  Vauxhall. 
Gates  swears  to  the  truth  of  his  information 

before  Sir  Edmund  Berry  Godfrey. 
Gates    and    Tonge    summoned    before    the 

Privy  Council. 
Gates  swears  again 

formation    before 

copy  with  him. 
Gates   examined  at  length   by  the   council. 

Search  for  Jesuits  begun  that  night. 
Edward    Coleman    pays    a    secret    visit    to 

Godfrey. 

Sir  George  Wakeman  before  the  council. 
Gates   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, 
xiii 


to  the   truth  of  his  in- 
Godfrey    and    leaves    a 


xiv          The   Popish  Plot 


1678.  September  30 


October  i. 


October  12 
October  15 
October  17 

October  1 8,  19 
October  20 

October  21 

October  23 
October  24 


October  25-31 


October  28 
October  30,  31 
November  I 


November  5 
November  7 


November  10,  18. 
November  12     . 
November  20     . 

November  21  . 
November  24  . 
November  26 


Coleman  surrenders  to  the  warrant  against 
him  and  is  placed  in  charge  of  an  officer. 
His  house  searched  and  his  papers  seized. 

Gates  examined  twice  by  the  council  and 
again  searches  for  Jesuits. 

The  king  goes  to  Newmarket. 

Coleman's  papers  examined  by  a  committee 
of  the  council. 

Coleman  committed  to  Newgate. 

Sir  Edmund  Berry  Godfrey  missing. 

News  of  his  disappearance  published. 

His  body  found  in  a  field  at  the  foot  of 
Primrose  Hill. 

An  inquest  held. 

Reward  of  .£500  offered  for  the  discovery  of 
Godfrey's  murderers. 

Meeting  of  Parliament  (seventeenth  session 
of  Charles  II's  second  or  Long  Parliament). 

Gates  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Assurance  of  protection  added  to  the  reward 
offered  for  the  discovery  of  Godfrey's 
murderers. 

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  Gates'  informa- 
tion, concerned  in  the  Plot. 

Test  Act  passes  the  Commons. 

Gates  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Lords. 

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. 

Bedloe  surrenders  himself  at  Bristol. 

Bedloe  comes  to  town  and  is  examined  by 
the  king  and  secretaries.  Examination  of 
Coleman  in  Newgate. 

Bedloe  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Commons 

and  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Lords. 

Test  Act  passed,  but  with  a  proviso  exempt- 
ing the  Duke  of  York. 

Trial  and  conviction  of  William  Staley  for 
high  treason. 

Gates  accuses  the  queen  in  examination  by 
Secretary  Coventry. 

Staley  executed  at  Tyburn,  denying  his  guilt. 


Table  of  Events 


xv 


1678.  November  27 
November  28 

November  30 

December  3 
December  5 
December  16 
December  17 

December  19 

December  21 
December  23 

December  28 
December  29 
December  30 

1679.  January  1 1 
January  24 

February  5 

February  8 
February  21 
February  28 
March  3    . 

March  4    . 
March  6    . 


March  13  , 
March  1 5  . 
March  21  . 

March  22, 

March  24 
March  25  . 
April  I 


Trial   and  conviction  of  Coleman  for  high 

treason.     Bedloe  accuses  the  queen. 
Gates   accuses  the  queen  at  the  bar  of  the 

House  of  Commons.     He  is  confined  by 

the  king  and  his  papers  are  seized. 
The    king  refuses   to  pass  the   Militia   bill, 

even  for  half  an  hour. 
Execution  of  Coleman. 
The  five  Popish  Lords  impeached. 
Supply  granted  for  disbanding  the  army. 
Trial  and  conviction  of  Ireland,  Pickering, 

and  Grove  for  high  treason. 
Montagu's    papers     seized.       He     produces 

Danby's  letters  to  the  Commons,  revealing 

the  secret  treaty  with  Louis  XIV. 
Miles    Prance    arrested    and    recognised   by 

Bedloe.     Impeachment  of  Danby. 
Prance  confesses  and  accuses  Green,  Berry, 

and  Hill  of  being  Godfrey's  murderers. 
Dugdale  comes  forward  as  a  witness. 
Prance  recants. 

Parliament  prorogued  till  February  4. 
Prance  retracts  his  recantation. 
Long  Parliament  dissolved. 
Ireland    and    Grove    executed ;     Pickering 

respited  till  May  25. 
Trial  and  conviction  of  Green,  Berry,  and 

Hill  for  Godfrey's  murder. 
Atkins  is  acquitted  of  the  same  murder. 
Execution  of  Green  and  Hill. 
Execution  of  Berry. 
The  king  declares  that  he  was  never  married 

to  any  woman  but  Queen  Catherine. 
The   Duke   of  York   leaves   for  Brussels  by 

command  of  the  king. 
The  king  repeats  his  declaration. 
The     third     Parliament     meets.       Edward 

Seymour  chosen  Speaker,  and  is  rejected 

by  the  king. 

Parliament  prorogued  for  two  days. 
Serjeant  Gregory  chosen  Speaker. 
Parliament    votes     the     Plot     to    be    read. 

Prance's  examination  read  to  the  Lords. 
The    Commons    resolve    to    proceed    with 

Danby's  impeachment. 
Danby  takes  refuge  at  Whitehall. 
Speech  on  Scotland  by  Shaftesbury. 
Bill  of  attainder  voted  against  Danby. 


xvi          The  Popish  Plot 


1679.  April  15 
April  1 6 


April  21  . 

April  24  . 

April  27  . 

April  30  . 
May  3 
May  1 1 

May  15  . 

May  23,  24 

May  26 


May  29 


June  i 
June 

June  13 


June  14 

June  15 
June  20 
June  22 

July  9 


July  14 
July  17 

July  1 8 


August 

AugUSt  22 

August  23 


Bill  of  attainder  passed. 

Danby  surrenders  himself  and  is  committed 

to  the  Tower. 
A  supply  voted  and  appropriated  for  the  dis- 

bandment  of  the  army. 
The  king  declares  a  new  privy  council,  devised 

by  Sir  William  Temple. 
Trial  and  conviction  of  Reading. 
Resolution  of  Parliament  against  the  Duke 

of  York. 

The  king's  speech  concerning  the  succession. 
Sharp,  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrews,  murdered. 
The  Exclusion  bill  voted  by  the  Commons. 
The  Exclusion  bill  read  for  the  first  time. 
The  Commons  attack  the   system  of  secret 

service  money. 
The    Habeas     Corpus    Act    passed.       The 

Parliament   prorogued  to  August   14,  and 

afterwards  dissolved  against  the  advice  of 

the  whole  council. 
Outbreak   of  the   Bothwell  Brigg  rebellion. 

The  Covenant  proclaimed  in  the  west  of 

Scotland. 

Claverhouse  defeated  at  Drumclog. 
Publication  of  "  An  Appeal  from  the  City  to 

the  Country." 
Trial  and  conviction  of  Whitebread,  Fenwick, 

Harcourt,   Gavan,  and   Turner    (the    five 

Jesuits)  for  high  treason. 
Trial   and  conviction  of  Richard   Langhorn 

for  high  treason. 

Monmouth  starts  to  suppress  the  rebellion. 
Execution  of  the  Five  Jesuits. 
The  Covenanters  routed   by  Monmouth  at 

Bothwell  Brigg. 
Samuel    Pepys  and   Sir  Anthony  Deane,  in 

prison  on  account  of  the  Plot,  admitted  to 

bail  by  Scroggs. 
Execution  of  Langhorn. 
Sir    Thomas    Gascoigne    committed    to   the 

Tower  on  a  charge  of  high  treason. 
Sir    George    Wakeman,    Marshall,   Romney, 

and    Corker    tried    for   high    treason    and 

acquitted. 
Executions   in   the    provinces   of  priests   on 

account  of  their  orders. 
The  king  ill  at  Windsor. 
The  Duke  of  York  summoned  from  Brussels. 


Table  of  Events         xvii 


1679.  August  29 

September  2 
September  12 

September  24 
September  27 
October  7 

October  15 
October  20 
October  27 

October  29 
November  9 
November  17 

November  19 

November  25 
November  27 
December  6 

December  9 


December  1 1 
1680.  January  6  . 
January  9  . 

January  21 
January  31 

February  5 

February  1 1 

February  24 
February  26 


March  8 


The  Duke  sets  out  from  Brussels 

and  reaches  Windsor. 

The  Duke  of  Monmouth  removed  from  his 

commission  of  Lord  General. 
Monmouth  leaves  for  Holland. 
James  leaves  for  Brussels,  thence  to  Scotland. 
The  new  Parliament,  meeting,  is  prorogued 

by  successive  stages  to  October  1680. 
Shaftesbury  dismissed  from  his  place  at  the 

council  board. 
Dangerfield  searches  Col.  Mansell's  lodgings 

and  is  arrested. 
Dangerfield  committed  to  prison  on  charge 

of  high  treason. 

Papers  found  in  Mrs.  Cellier's  meal  tub. 
Dangerfield  pardoned. 
First  great  Pope  Burning,  organised  by  the 

Green  Ribbon  Club. 
Laurence  Hyde  appointed  First  Commissioner 

of  the  Treasury. 

Trial  and  conviction  of  Knox  and  Lane. 
Monmouth  returns  to  England  without  leave. 
Archbishop  Plunket  committed  to  the  castle 

at  Dublin. 
Petition   of  seventeen   Whig  peers   for  the 

sitting  of  Parliament  marks  the  beginning 

of  the  practice  of  petitioning. 
Proclamation  against  petitioning. 
Mowbray  and  Bolron  pardoned. 
Mrs.  Cellier  accuses   Sir  Robert  Peyton  ot 

high  treason. 
Gates    and    Bedloe    exhibit    articles    against 

Lord  Chief  Justice  Scroggs. 
Lord   Russell,   Lord    Cavendish,  Sir    Henry 

Capel,  and  Mr.  Povvle  resign  their  places 

on  the  council. 
Benjamin   Harris  tried  and  convicted  for  a 

libel  in  publishing  "An  Appeal  from  the 

City  to  the  Country." 
Sir  Thomas  Gascoigne  tried  for  high  treason 

and  acquitted. 

The  Duke  of  York  returns  from  Scotland. 
Declaration  of  the  Scottish  Privy  Council  of 

their  abhorrence  of  tumultuous  petitions 

published  in  the  Gazette  marks  the  begin- 
ning of  the  "  abhorrers'  "  addresses. 
The  king  and  the  Duke  of  York  entertained 

at  a  banquet  by  the  Lord  Mayor. 


xviii        The  Popish   Plot 

1680.  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  II     .         .     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  1 5     .         .     "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  II.         .     Mrs.    Cellier    tried    for    high    treason    and 

acquitted. 
June  23     .         .     The  Earl  of  Castlemaine  tried  for^iigh  treason 

and  acquitted. 
June  26     .         .     Shaftesbury,  with  Titus  Gates  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  1 1     .     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  II     .     Third  reading  of  the  Exclusion  bill  in  the 

House  of  Commons. 


Table  of  Events 


xix 


1680.  November  15 
November  16 
November  17 

November  24 
November  30- 
December  15 

December  29 

1 68 1.  January  5  . 

January  7,  10 

January  10 
January  18 
January  25 

February  28 
March  14. 
March  17 . 
March  21  . 

March  25  . 
March  26 . 

March  28  . 
May 

May  3 
June  9       . 
July  I 


.     The  Exclusion   bill  rejected  by  the  House 

of  Lords  owing  to  Lord  Halifax. 
.     Halifax    proposes    the    banishment    of    the 

Duke  of  York. 
.     Second  great  Pope  Burning. 

The    House   of   Commons   proceed   against 

Halifax. 
.     The   Commons   vote    the    impeachment    of 

Lord  Chief  Justice  North. 
•December  7.  Trial     and     conviction     of    Lord 

Stafford  for  high  treason. 
.     Sir  Robert  Peyton  expelled  from  the  House 

of  Commons. 
.     Execution  of  Stafford. 
.     The   Commons   vote   the    impeachment    of 

Lord    Chief    Justice    Scroggs   and   other 

judges. 
.     The   Commons  pass  resolutions  against  the 

Duke  of  York,  against  such  as  shall  lend 

money  to  the  crown,  against  a  prorogation. 
Parliament  prorogued 
and  suddenly  dissolved. 
.     Sixteen  Whig  peers  present  a  petition  against 

a  parliament  being  held  at  Oxford. 
.     Edward    Fitzharris    arrested    for    writing    a 

treasonable  libel. 
.     The   king  concludes  a  secret  verbal  treaty 

with  Louis  XIV  and  sets  out  for  Oxford. 
.     Shaftesbury  and  other  Whig  leaders  set  out 

for  Oxford  with  an  armed  escort. 
.     Meeting    of    Charles    II's    fifth    and    last 

Parliament  at  Oxford. 
.     The  Commons  impeach  Fitzharris. 
.     The  Exclusion  bill  voted. 

The  Lords  refuse  to  proceed  on   Fitzharris' 

impeachment. 
.     The  Exclusion  bill  read  the  first  time  in  the 

House  of  Commons.     Parliament  suddenly 

dissolved. 

.     The    king's    declaration   justifying    the    dis- 
solution answered  by  "A  Just  and  Modest 

Vindication  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  two 

Last  Parliaments." 
.     Trial  and  conviction  of  Archbishop  Plunket 

for  high  treason. 
.     Trial  and  conviction  of  Fitzharris  for  high 

treason. 
.     Execution  of  Plunket  and  Fitzharris. 


DESIGNS   OF  THE  ROMAN   CATHOLICS 


CHAPTER   1 

TITUS    GATES 

TITUS  GATES  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  Gates'  roving  imagination.  To  the  connoisseur  of 
murder  the  mystery  of  Godfrey's  death  may  be  more 
exhilarating,  but  in  the  field  of  broad  humour  Gates  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  Gates  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 

3 


The  Popish  Plot 


misunderstood  his  character.  Tonge  was  a  necessary 
go-between,  but  Gates  the  supreme  mover  of  diabolical 
purpose. 

In  the  year  of  the  execution  of  King  Charles  the  First 
Titus  Gates  was  born  at  Oakham  in  the  county  of 
Rutland.  His  father,  Samuel  Gates,  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  Restora- 
tion 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  re- 
marked, "  the  plague  and  he  visited  Cambridge  at  the 
same  time." 

Gates  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, 
Gates'  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 

1  7  State  Trials   128.     Evidence  of  Sir  Denny  Ashburnham,  ibid* 
1097. 

2  Anthony  a  Wood,  Life  and  Times  ii.  417.     7  State  Trials  1094. 


Titus  Gates  5 

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  Gates.  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  Gates  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  Gates 
failed  to  achieve  the  required  measure  of  respectability. 
He  was  expelled  upon  the  same  grounds  as  he  had  formerly 
urged  against  the  fortunate  schoolmaster.1 

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  Gates,  and  on  Medburne's  intro- 
duction 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.2  Here  Gates  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 

1  Burnet  ii.  157. 

2  Smith,  Intrigues  of  the  Popish  Plot  4.     Gates,  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,  .^/<2fr'0»  iii.  179. 


6  The  Popish  Plot 

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  Gates  was  admitted  as 
chaplain  into  the  service  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk.1  Testi- 
mony 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  Gates  found 
himself  in  the  company  of  priests  of  the  forbidden  church. 
Conversation  turned  on  the  subject  of  religion,  and  Gates 
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  advan- 
tage. On  Ash  Wednesday  1677  ne  was  formally  recon- 
ciled to  the  Church  of  Rome.2  The  instrument  for  the 
salvation  of  the  strayed  lamb  was  one  Berry,  alias  Hut- 
chinson,  a  Jesuit  whom  Gates  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  Gates. 
He  soon  made  his  way  to  Father  Richard  Strange,  pro- 
vincial 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,  Gates  was  shipped  on  a  Bilboa  merchantman  with 
letters  to  the  English  Jesuit  seminary  at  Valladolid.3 

There  was  little  that  Gates  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 

1  Burnet  ii.  157.     7  State  Trials  1320. 

2  7  State  Trials  1320. 

3  Ibid.  1096,  1320,  1321.     Burnet  ii.  157.     Foley,  Records  v.  12. 


Titus  Gates  7 

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.  Gates'  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  gener- 
ally succeeded  in  giving  their  pupils  at  least  the  outward 
stamp  of  piety.  In  person  Gates  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 v  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.1 

This  was  the  tender  being  whom  the  Colegio  de  los 
Ingleses  took  to  nurse  into  a  Jesuit. 

1  Absalom  and  Achitophel  646-649.  Father  John  Warner  describes 
Gates  in  similar  terms  :  "  Mentis  in  eo  summa  stupiditas,  lingua  bal- 
huticns,  sermo  e  trivio,  vox  stridula  et  cautillans,  plorantis  quam 
loquen^is  similior.  Memoria  fallax,  prius  dicta  nunquam  fideliter 
reddens,  frons  contracta,  oculi  parvi  et  in  occiput  retracti,  facies  plana. 


8  The  Popish   Plot 

The  project  failed  of  its  mark.  Five  short  months 
completed  Gates'  stay  amid  the  new  surroundings.  On 
October  30,  1677  he  was  expelled  the  college  and  shipped 
home,  reaching  London  in  November.1  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  ;  - 

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.3  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.4  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,5  but  the  picture  of  his  daily  doings  may 

in  medio,  lancis  sive  disci  instar,  compressa,  prominentibus  hie  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. 

1  Lettre  ecrite  de  Mans  a  un  ami  a  Paris,  1 679.     7  State  Trials  1322. 

2  Absalom  and  Achitophel  657-659. 

3  Sir  William   Godolphin    to    Henry   Coventry,   on    information 
obtained  in  Spain,  November  6/16,  1678,  Longleat   MSS.  Coventry 
Papers  Ix.  264. 

4  7    State    Trials     358,     1322.     Burnet    ii.    158.      Florus  Anglo- 
Bavaricus  93. 

5  See  below  in  Trials  for  Treason. 


Titus  Gates  9 

be  taken  as  faithful.  Gates  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.1  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." 
Lurid  tales  of  Gates'  conduct  were  afterwards  published 
by  the  Jesuit  fathers.3  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  2yth  he  reached  London.4 

When  Oates  formed  his  alliance  with  Dr.  Ezrael 
Tonge,  rector  of  St.  Michael's  in  Wood  Street,  is  un- 
certain. 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 

1  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. 

2  7  State  Trials  360-375.     10  State  Trials  1097-1132. 
8  Florus  Anglo- Eavaricus  93,  94,  95. 

4  7   State   Trials  324,   1325.      Lett  re  ecrite  de  Mons  a   un  ami  a 
Paris.    Florus  Anglo- Bavaricus  95. 


io  The  Popish   Plot 

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  Gates,  at  another  from  his 
enemies,  Tonge  contradicted  himself  flatly,  urging  for  the 
informer  that  Gates  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  Gates  went  abroad.1  Judgment  must 
therefore  be  suspended  ;  but  it  is  notable  that  King 
Charles  thought  the  evidence  as  to  the  intrigue  between 
Gates  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.2  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  Gates.  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?  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 

1  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. 

2  S.P.  Dom.    Charles    II   414  :    185.     Sydney  Godolphin  to   Sir 
Leoline  Jenkins,  September  25,  1680. 

3  S.P.  Dom.  Charles  II  409  :  36. 


Titus  Gates  1 1 

wonder."  1  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  rev *engd  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  Gates.  For  Gates  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,  Gates'  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  Gates, 
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  success- 
ful 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  Corners  had  consecrated  a  knife  a  foot  in 

1  Evelyn,  Diary  January  25,  1665. 


ia  The   Popish   Plot 

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  confi- 
dential 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  un- 
necessary. 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. 


Titus   Gates  13 

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  n,  1678  Gates  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  follow- 
ing 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.1 

1  Simpson  Tonge's  Journal  S.P.  Dom.  Charles  II  409  :  39. 
Simpson  Tonge  to  the  King,  ibid.  414:  139.  Simpson  Tonge  to 
I/Estrange,  Brief  Hist.  i.  38.  Kirkby,  Compleat  and  True  Narrative 
i.  .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  Gates  and  the  revelation  of  the  Plot  I  have 
made  considerable  use  of  Mr.  Seccombe's  monograph  on  Titus  Gates 
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 
Gates  and  Dr.  Tonge  rests.  That  Tonge  was  a  fanatic  and  Gates  a 
villain  is  unquestioned ;  and  it  is  probably  as  just  to  call  Tonge 
villain  and  Gates  fanatic.  But  that  their  rascality  took  this  form  is 
not  proved.  Simpson  Tonge  was  also  a  rascal,  and  his  repeated  con- 
tradictions, 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  Gates  (Observator  i.  138)  to  prosecute  young  Tonge  for 


14  The  Popish  Plot 

defamation  of  character.  The  challenge  passed  unnoticed  ;  but  the 
fact  proves  nothing,  for  however  many  lies  Tonge  had  told,  Gates 
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. 


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.1  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 
Gates'  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  Gates  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.2  The  grounds  upon 

1  See,  for  instance,   La  Politique  du  Clerge  de  France,  by  Pierre 
Jurieu.     Arnauld,  Apologie  pour  les   Catholiques  Le    "Jesuite  secularise, 
and  La  Critique  du  Jesuite  secularise,  Cologne,  1683. 

2  Barillon,  January  16/26,  1680.    See  below  in  Trials  for  Treason. 

'5 


1 6  The  Popish   Plot 

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.1  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."2  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  dis- 
reputable French  actress.3  The  two  accounts  are  perhaps 
not  irreconcilable.  At  least  he  was  a  convert  and  had 
preached.  Thereupon  St.  Germain,  as  he  said,  threatened 

1  He  was  wrongly  said   to  be  the  Duchess's   confessor.     Sarotti, 
October  26/November  4,  1678.    Ven.  Arch.  Inghil.  65. 

2  Part.  Hist.  iv.  780,  781,  782.     C.J.,  November  8,  1675. 

3  Ibid.    Reresby,  Memoirs  98,  99.     Ralph  i.  292.     Verney  MSS. 
466.     Foley  i.   276  seq.     Lingard   xii.    278-282.     Antoine   Arnauld, 
CEuvres  xiv.  532,  533.      Foley  i.   276,  277.     Wood,  Fasti  Oxon.  (ed. 
Bliss  1815-20)  ii.  350. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    17 

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  pro- 
cure 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.1  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.2  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  vindica- 
tion 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.3  Evidently  St. 

1  Ralph  i.  292.     Verney  MSS.  466.     Burnet  ii.  104. 

2  Ruvigny,  November  7/17,  8/18,  1675. 

3  Fitzherbert  MSS.  112,  76  ;  St.  Germain  to  Coleman,  December 
3/13,  167,5  J  January  5/15,  1676. 

C 


1 8  The  Popish  Plot 

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.1 

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  justifica- 
tion 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,  how- 
ever 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 


1  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  gia  tre 
anni  in  circa  fuggl,  ritrandosi  a  Parigi  per  le  differenze  ch'  hebbe  con 
un  ministro  Calvinista  della  casa  del  Signer  di  Rouvigny,"  October 
26/November  4,  1678,  as  above. 


The  Nature  of  the   Designs    19 

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  disposi- 
tion, 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.1  Had  they  been  strictly  executed, 
the  Catholic  religion  must  have  been  crushed  out  of 
England ;  but  they  were  generally  allowed  to  remain 
1  See  Appendix  E. 


20  The  Popish   Plot 

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  in- 
feriority 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  prasmunire  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 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    21 

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  Pro- 
testants 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.1 

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  Presby- 
terians 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 

1  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  Rea/m,  1661.  Collection 
of  Treatises  on  the  Penal  Laws,  1675.  Continuation  of  Clarendon's  Life, 
by  himself,  140,  143. 


2,2,  The   Popish   Plot 

he  considered  inherent  in  the  crown.1  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,2  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.3 

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 

1  December  6,  1662.    Kennet,   Register   and   Chronicle  848-891. 
Baxter's  Life  ii.  429. 

2  February  27,  1663. 

3  July  25,    1663.     CJ.  Feb.  27,  28,   April    27,  May    30.     L.J. 
xi.  478,  482,  486,  491,  558,  578.     Clarendon  245-249.     James  i.  428. 


The  Nature  of  the   Designs    2,3 

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.1 

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  Presby- 
terians 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  arrange- 
ments and  did  not  replace  them  with  better.2  They 
desired  to  carry  the  Protestant  and  Parliamentary  system 
to  its  logical  end  in  controlling  the  King's  foreign  policy 

1  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. 

2  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. 


24  The  Popish  Plot 

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  con- 
solidation 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.1  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.2 

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 

1  Ruvigny,   January   17/27,   1675  :  "Que  les   finances  du  roi   ne 
pouvaient  pas  mieux  etre  employees  qu'a  la  destruction  d'un  puissant 
ennemi,  qui  soutenait  tous  les  autres." 

2  As  to  the  date  of  Charles'  conversion  see  Ranke  iv.  383,  384. 


The   Nature  of  the  Designs    25 

within  a  few  years  of  the  Restoration  a  serious  negotiation 
was  started  with  Pope  Alexander  VII.  In  1663  Sir 
Richard  Sellings  was  sent  on  a  mission  to  Rome  to  beg 
the  bestowal  of  a  cardinal's  hat  on  the  Abbe  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.1  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  ne  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  Abbe  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 

1  Ranke  iv.  384-386.  Gentleman's  Magazine,  January  1866.  Lord 
Acton,x"  Secret  History  of  Charles  II,"  Home  and  Foreign  Review  i.  146. 
Hallam  ii.  387. 


2,6  The  Popish  Plot 

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  pre- 
ferred 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. 


The  Nature  of  the   Designs    27 

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.1 

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.2  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  constitu- 
tion, 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  con- 
victions 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  I,  1670  "  le  Traite 
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  Keroualle.  Louis'  object  in  the 
treaty  was  to  break  the  Triple  Alliance  and  carry  the  war 

1  Acton,  op.  cit.     Gentleman's   Mag.  January   1866.     Boero,  Istoria 
della  Conversione  alia  Chiesa  Cattolica  de  Carlo  II.     Welwood,  Memoirs 
146. 

2  Brosch  420,  n.     Ranke  v.  88. 


2,8  The  Popish  Plot 

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."  l  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 
1  Lectures  on  Modern  History. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    29 

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  dis- 
senters. The  famous  Non-Resisting  Test  was  the  result.1 
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 

1  April  1675. 


30  The  Popish   Plot 

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  un- 
doubtedly 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.1  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.2 
But  despite  all  caution,  enough  suspicion  was  aroused  by 
James'  marriage  at  the  suggestion  of  the  French  court  with 

1  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. 

2  Cardinal   Howard   to    Coleman,  April   1 8,   1676.     Treby  i.  85. 
Courtin,  April  2,  1676. 


The  Nature  of  the   Designs    31 

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  contro- 
versialist 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  dis- 


32,  The  Popish  Plot 

charged  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.1  Altogether  Coleman  was  not  quite  the  innocent 
lamb  that  he  has  often  been  painted. 

1  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  iy 
1677  j  Mrs.  Coleman  to  Coleman,  January  I,  1677,  January  4,  1677  ; 
Coventry  Papers  xi.  245,  246,  247.  MS.  diary  of  Lord  Keeper 
Guildford,  Dalrymple  ii.  199,  200.  Par/,  hist.  iv.  1035.  Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  Rep.  i.  Ap.  56.  Florus  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,  divum 
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. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    33 

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  Pere 
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  achieve- 
ment to  be  counted  to  the  duke.1  Coleman  proceeded 
to  extend  his  connection  in  other  quarters.  Under  the 
assumed  name  of  Rice  the  Earl  of  Berkshire  was  in  com- 
munication with  him,  urging  with  doleful  foreboding  the 
overthrow  of  parliament  and  the  Protestant  party.2 
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  Cole- 
man's relations  with  Paris  had  undergone  a  change.  In 
May  1675  Sir  William  Throckmorton  died  disreputably 

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. 

1  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.  i,  3,  6,  109. 
Chantelauze,  Le  Pere  de  la  Chaize  4. 

2  Berkshire  to  Coleman,  March  24,  1675.    Treby  i.  103. 

D 


34  The  Popish  Plot 

of  a  wound  received  in  the  course  of  his  too  eager  court- 
ship of  a  certain  Lady  Brown,  while  his  wife  yet  lived,1 
and  in  December  St.  Germain,  banished  from  England, 
took  up  his  place.  More  important  was  the  death  of 
Pere  Ferrier  in  September  of  the  same  year,  for  Louis  XIV 
chose  as  his  confessor  Pere  de  la  Chaize,  the  famous  Jesuit 
whose  dealings  with  Coleman  subsequently  formed  the 
heaviest  part  of  the  proof  against  the  unlucky  intriguer.2 
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.3 

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  recon- 
struction 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.4  Parables  can  easily  be 
understood  after  the  events  to  the  arrangements  for  which 

1  Throckmorton  to  Coleman,  April  zj,  May  I,  1675.    Fitzherbert 
MSS.  70.    Burnet  ii.  103. 

2  Chantelauze,  Le  Pere  de  la  Chaize  4.     See  below  in  Trials  for 
Treason. 

3  In   1672  Howard  was  appointed  bishop-elect  of  England  with  a 
see    "inpartibus"     but  not  consecrated.     In    1675    he  was  created 
cardinal  by  Clement  X,  and  in  1679  was  nominated  by  Innocent  XI 
Cardinal  Protector  of  England  and  Scotland. 

4  Some  of  the  letters  could  not  be  deciphered  ;  see  for  instance 
Albani  to  Coleman,  January  12,  1675.     Treby  i.  121. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    35 

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  Cole- 
man  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  ex- 
posure sheds  light  whereby  to  read  their  letters.  What- 
ever 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  Pere 
de  la  Chaize  relating  in  some  detail  the  history  of  the 
intrigues  of  the  previous  years.1  Catholic  ascendency  in 
England  and  a  general  peace  in  favour  of  France  were  the 
objects  for  which  he  had  worked.  For  these  the  dissolu- 
tion 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.2  In  response  to  this 
beginning  Pere  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 

1  Treby  i.  109-116. 

2  Colbert,    November    10/20,    1673,    on   the    information   of  St. 
Evremonde.     Mignet,  Negotiations  iv.  236. 


36  The  Popish  Plot 

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  every- 
thing 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.1  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 

1  Treby  i.  no.  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  Gates'  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 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    37 

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.1 
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  u  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.2  At 
the  same  time  Sheldon  was  pressing  the  French  king's 
confessor.3  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 

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. 

1  Treby  i.  no,  ni,  112. 

2  Treby  i.   112.     Coleman  to  Throckmorton,  February   i,  1675. 
Treby  ii.  I.     Throckmorton  to  Coleman,  November  28,  December  I, 
1674.     Fitzherbert  MSS.  50,  51.     Same  to  same,  February  13,  1675. 
Treby  u  73. 

3  Sheldon  to  Coleman,  July  13,  1675.     Treby  i.  49. 


38  The  Popish  Plot 

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  Throck- 
morton  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.1 

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  moder- 
ately enthusiastic.  The  Emperor  commanded  him  to 
assure  the  Duke  of  York  of  the  passionate  zeal  he  enter- 
tained 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.2  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 

1  Trebyi.  112.    Throckmorton  to  Coleman,  December  8,  December 
22,  1674,  January  19,  1675.     Fitzherbert  MSS.  51,  62.     Treby  i.  66. 
Coleman  to  Throckmorton,  February  I,  1675.    Treby  ii.  I.     Sheldon 
to  Coleman,  July  13,  1675.     Treby  i.  45. 

2  Albani  to  Coleman,  August  4,  1674.    Coleman  to  Albani,  August 
21,  1674.     Treby  i.  21  :  7. 


The  Nature  of  the   Designs    39 

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.1  Coleman  continued  to  press,  even  to  the  point 
of  Albani's  annoyance.2  Repetition  of  the  same  argu- 
ments 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.8 

So  the  shuttlecock  was  beaten  backwards  and  forwards 
between  London,  Paris,  and  Brussels.  Writing  to  La 
Chaize  Coleman  naturally  made  no  mention  of  his  corre- 
spondence 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  ex- 
tremity 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  Fortu- 
natus'  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 

1  Albani  to  Coleman,  October  19,  1674.     Treby  i.  23. 

2  Coleman    to   Albani,  October    23,   1674.    Albani   to   Coleman, 
January  12,  1675.     Treby  i.  12,  25. 

8  Fitzherbert    MSS.   113.      Par/.  Hist.    iv.   1024,    1025.     Burnet 
ii.  104. 


40  The   Popish  Plot 

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  indul- 
gence, appoint  the  Duke  of  York  again  to  the  office  of 
Lord  High  Admiral,  and  leave  the  whole  management  of 
affairs  to  his  hands.1  In  the  course  of  the  next  year  a 
new  parliament  should  be  assembled,  bribed  to  support  the 

1  Coleman  to  Throckmorton,  February  I,  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.  I,  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  tne  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). 


The  Nature  of  the   Designs    41 

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  I675.1 

Although  Coleman  wrote  to  the  nuncio  that  the 
Catholics  had  never  before  had  so  favourable  an  oppor- 
tunity, the  design  was  shortly  modified  and  deferred.2  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.  jDanby,  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.3  The  effect  of  the 

1  Treby  ii.  21-25. 

2  Coleman  to  Albani,  October  2,  1674.     Treby  ii.  6. 

3  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.     Par!,  hist.  iv.  673, 
674.     Brosch  431,  432. 


42,  The  Popish   Plot 

proclamation  was  chiefly  moral  ;  but  the  worst  con- 
sequences 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.  For- 
tune 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.1  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  govern- 
ment, and  nobody  would  contend  with  him  further.  Then 

1  Ranke  v.  184,  185,  186.  Airy,  The  English  Restoration  235,  236, 
237.  Brosch  432.  Par/.  Hist.  iv.  715  seq.  Schwerin,  Briefe  aus 
England  24.  Andrew  Marvell,  Growth  of  Popery.  Treby  1.114. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs   43 

would  Catholics  be  at  rest  and  his  most  Christian  Majesty's 
interest  be  secured  with  us  in  England  beyond  all  appre- 
hensions 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.1  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."  2  La  Chaize  answered 
briefly,  promising  to  give  the  matter  consideration  and 
desiring  to  hear  more  from  his  correspondent.3  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 

1  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. 

2  Treby  i.  116.     See  also  Coleman  to  Albani,  February  12,  1675. 
Treby1  ii.  8. 

3  Treby  i.  117. 


44  The   Popish   Plot 

of  my  master  the  duke,  is  the  mighty  mind  of  his  most 
Christian  Majesty."  l 

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  dis- 
cuss 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.2 

1  Treby  i.  117,  118. 

2  Halifax,  Maxims  of  State  ; — 

xxm. — 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. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    45 

High  treason,  be  it  remarked,  is  the  only  crime  known 
to  the  law  in  which  the  intention  and  not  the  act  con- 
stitutes the  offence.  The  famous  statute  of  Edward  III 
had  defined  as  the  most  important  treasons  the  compass- 
ing 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.1  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  un- 
satisfactory. So  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth  the 

Barillon,  October  3/13  :  "On  trouve  dans  les  papiers  de  ceux  qui  ont 
etc  arrete"s  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  centre  la 
personne  du  Roi  de  la  Grande  Bretagne  n'a  aucun  veritable  fonde- 
ment.  Les  commissaires  du  conseil  qui  instruisent  1 'affaire  parlent  de 
la  meme  maniere  sur  cela,  mais  en  me'me  temps  ils  disent  qu'il  parait 
un  commerce  fort  dangereux  pour  1'Etat  avec  les  etrangers.  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  arretes  sont  criminels.  Ils  parlent  bien  plus 
affirmativement  du  Sieur  Coleman.  On  a  trouve  dans  ses  papiers  des 
minutes  de  toutes  les  lettres  qu'il  ecrivait  a  Rome,  en  France,  et 
ailleurs.  On  pretend  qu'il  y  a  quantites  de  projets  qui  tendent  a  la 
ruine  de  la  religion  protestante  en  Angleterre  et  a  1'etablissement 
d'une  autorite  souveraine  en  Angleterre  et  d'un  changement  de 
gouvernement  par  le  papisme." 

II  Nuntio  di  Vienna  al  Nuntio  in  Francia,  Nimega,  October 
18/28,  1678  :  "Al  Colman  oltre  1'  insufficient!  imputationi  de  com- 
plicita  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 
etre  Catholique."  February  n,  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. 

1  25  Edward  III  St.  5,  c.  i. 

I 


46  The  Popish   Plot 

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.1  Hale  held  con- 
spiracy, 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  tend- 
ing 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  inten- 
tion of  the  same.2  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."  3  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  com- 
bination and  assistance  of  foreign  power  ?  "  The  judges 
were  unanimous  in  their  opinion  that  it  was  treason.4 

1  Third  Institute  6,  12,  14. 

2  Hale,  P.C.  i.  109,  no. 

3  History  of  the  Criminal  Law  i.  268.     See  on  the  whole  subject 
Stephen  i.  241-281  and  Hale,  P.C.  i.  87-170. 

4  S.P.  Dom.  Charles  II  407  :  i.  128. 


The  Nature  of  the   Designs    47 

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.1 

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,2  to  give  the  sanction  of  authority  to  a  re- 
ligion which  was  banned  and  to  priests  who  were  under 
doom  of  high  treason.  And  the  most  favourable  inter- 
pretation 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.3  At  Coleman's  sub- 
sequent 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  "  ; 4  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 

1 XI2  State  Trials  646.  2  Par/.  Hist.  iv.  519. 

3  See  above.  4  7  State  Trials  60,  67. 


48  The  Popish  Plot 

him  by  force.1  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  con- 
stitutional 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 — 
1  Hale,  P.C.  i.  no. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs   49 

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  corre- 
spondence,1 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 
XlV'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.2  St.  Germain's  letters  also  show  that 
intrigues  were  being  ceaselessly  carried  on  in  the  French 
and  Jesuit  interest  throughout  the  year  1676  by  Cole- 
man 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  prob- 
ably did  not  accord  him  full  confidence.  St.  Germain's 
complaints  of  his  treatment  were  constant ;  and  he 

1  Evidence   of  Jerome    Boatman,   his   secretary,   House    of  Lords 
MSS.  8. 

2  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  I,  July  16,    August    1 1,  August    13,   1676. 
Pomporwie  to  Ruvigny,  April   I,   1676.     Both  Ruvigny  and  Courtin 
were  in  London  at  this  time. 

£ 


50  The  Popish   Plot 

was  always  in  want  of  money.1  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  adroit- 
ness. 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  con- 
sideration for  the  matter  were  all  that  could  be  obtained. 

1  St.  Germain  to  Coleman,  January  15,29,  February  I,  5,  8, 
March  1 8,  April  13,  November  18,  1676.  Fitzherbert  MSS.  76,  78, 
79,  96,  107.  Treby  i.  30,  32,35. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    51 

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.1  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  develop- 
ment 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  corre- 
spondence 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.2  Among  others  it  is  almost 
certain  that  he  continued  his  negotiation  with  Pere  de  la 
Chaize.3  The  subject  of  this  later  correspondence  is 
debatable.  It  may  have  been  concerned  with  a  design 

1  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  i,  1678.  Fitzherbert  MSS.  102,  103,  104, 
105.  Treby  i.  94,  95,  96.  Howard  to  Coleman,  March  i,  April  18, 
1676.  Treby  i.  8 1,  85.  Courtin,  March  13/23,  March  22/ April  I, 
April  3/13,  April  10/20,  July  6/16,  November  9/19,  November 
22/December  2,  November  3O/December  10,  1676.  Correspondence 
later  on  the  same  subject  March  29,  April  8,  1679;  tne  Duke  of 
York  to  the  Pope  ;  the  Duchess  to  the  Pope.  Vat.  Arch.  Epist. 
Princ.  1 06.  The  internuncio  at  Brussels  to  the  Pope.  Nunt.  di 
Fiandra,  66. 

2  See  below  in  Trials  for  Treason.  3  Above,  43. 


52  The   Popish   Plot 

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  inspira- 
tion 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."  l  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 

1  St.  Germain  to  Coleman,  January  29,  April   15,  July  25,  1676. 
Treby  i.  30,  43.     Fitzherbert  MSS.  80. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    53 

remarking  in  ridicule  that  he  had  even  been  accused  of 
intriguing  with  Pere  de  la  Chaize,  a  fact  the  truth  of 
which  was  perfectly  known  to  him.1  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  retalia- 
tion 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 
1  Memoir es  du  Marquis  de  Pomponne  i.  538. 


54  The  Popish  Plot 

it  no  shame  to  liberalise  belief  by  divorcing  it  from  state- 
craft, the  adherents  of  the  church  but  not  of  the  court  of 
Rome.1  The  Jesuits  had  already  once  in  the  reign  of 
Charles  II  interposed  to  prevent  Roman  Catholics  in 
England  from  bettering  their  position,  and  when  persecu- 
tion fell  on  these  in  the  evil  days  of  Gates'  grandeur,  they 
showed  to  the  astonishment  of  the  society  that  it  had 
earned  small  gratitude  from  them.2  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  Bene- 
dictines ;  Lord  Arundel,  and  for  a  time  the  Duke  of  York, 
stood  firm  in  refusal.3  The  division  between  the  Catholics 
was  purely  political  ;  it  marked  those  on  whose  loyalty 

1  This  distinction  was  widely  recognised,  see  7  State  Trials  475. 
Ralph  i.  91,  note.     Part.  Hist.  iv.  274.     It  corresponded  in  the  ideas 
of  the  time  to  the  difference  between  a  simple  Roman  Catholic  and 
"  a  Jesuited  Papist." 

2  Stafford's  statement  ;  House  of  Lords  MSS.  43.     Burnet  i.  346. 
Foley  v.  19. 

3  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""  si  compiaccia  de  aggiungere 
le  inchiuse  propositioni  del  Sign  Giovanni  Sargentio  alle  altre  sue  ; 
tutte  (come  V.  S.  Illma  vede)  sono  heretiche  o  almeno  inferiscono 
Theresia." 

Continual  references  to  the  same  subject  are  found  in  the  Papal 
despatches  of  the  time. 


The  Nature  of  the   Designs    55 

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.  "  Prosecu- 
tion 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."  l 

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  m  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  sub- 
stantial 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 
1  Maxims  of  State  Ixv. 


56  The  Popish   Plot 

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 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    57 

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.1  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 

1  See  D'Avrigny,  Memoires  four  servir  a  Phiitoire  de  F Europe  47,  48. 
Arnauld,  (Euvres  xiv.  410. 


5  8  The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  It  is  perhaps  to  this  time  that  the  abandonment 
of  the  second  scheme  sketched  by  Coleman  to  La  Chaize 
should  be  referred.2  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. 

1  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  etrangeres  a  Courtin,  April  l/il, 
1676.     Memoires  du  Marquis  de  Pomponne  i.  491.     Marchese  Cattaneo 
al  Duca  di  Modena,  April  20/30,  1676  :  "In  alcune  parti  d'Inghilterra 
si  e  cominciata  1'esecuzione  delle  legge  contro  i  Cattolici,  imprigionan- 
doli  e  confiscandogli  i  beni.  .  .  .  Delle  rincrudite  persecuzioni  verso 
i  Cattolici  e  accagionato  il  Duca  d'York  perche  non  ha  voluto  nella 
Pasqua  recarsi  alia  capella  Regia  (Protestante),"  in  Campana  de  Cavelli 
i.  171.     Longleat  MSS.  Proclamation  of  October  3,  1676.   Coventry 
Papers  xi.  154. 

2  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  i,  1677.  To  the  Lord  Castlemaine  at  Liege  :  "  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. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    59 

Since  the  year  1670  various  ways  of  procuring  success 
for  the  Catholic  religion  has  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  Parlia- 
ment 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 

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. 


60  The  Popish  Plot 

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  Throck- 
morton  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.1 
This  however  had  been  discarded  for  the  plans  submitted 
by  Coleman  to  Pere  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 

1  Throckmorton  to  Coleman,  January  9,  February  20,  1675.     Fitz- 
herbert  MSS.  60,  66.     Berkshire  to  Coleman,  n.d.     Treby  i.  102. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    61 

end  of  the  negotiations  in  either  case  was  a  coup  d'etat,  in 
whatever  degree,  a  revolutionary  measure. 

In  March  of  the  year  1679  tne  Earl  °f  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  Conde,  and  had  commanded  a 
troop  of  horse  in  the  French  service.1  Subsequent  events 
make  it  seem  likely  that  orders  for  the  Colonel's  appre- 
hension 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 

1  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. 


6z  The   Popish   Plot 

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  know- 
ledge 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  approach- 
ing 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.1  If  Colonel  Scott  spoke  truth,  then  the  fore- 
going 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  corre- 

1  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. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs  63 

spondence  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  Gates 
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  Gates  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.  x  He  never  came  forward  to  give  evidence  against 
those  condemned  for  the  Plot.  His  name  does  not  appear 


64  The   Popish  Plot 

in  the  list  of  secret  service  money,  doled  out  to  the 
shameless  witnesses  for  the  crown.  Nothing  more  is 
known  of  him.1  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  re- 
semblance to  his  tale  of  fire  and  massacre  is  certain,  but 
the  tale  was  not  wholly  devoid  of  truth.  His  vast  super- 
structure 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 

1  Scott  afterward  gave  evidence  before  the  House  of  Commons 
against  Pepys,  whom  he  charged  on  report  with  having  given  informa- 
tion of  the  state  of  the  navy  to  the  French  court ;  but  the  affair  was  never 
thoroughly  investigated.  Grey,  Debates  in  Parliament  vii.  303-309. 


The  Nature  of  the   Designs    65 

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.1 
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  Scot- 
land as  well.2  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  ;3  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.4  More  definite 

1  House   of  Lords  MSS.  43,  44.     Burnet  i.   345,   346  ;    ii.  276, 
277.     Airy,  The  English  Restoration  240. 

2  Longleat    MSS.    Coventry    Papers    xi.     310,    313,    317.      See 
Appendix  A. 

3  J.  P.  Oliva  Generale  dei  Gesuiti  al  Cardinale  Altieri,  September 
23/October    3,    1674.     Vat.   Arch.    Archivio    di     Propaganda    Fide. 
Ranke  v.  91. 

4  Dal  Sigr  Internuncio,  May  24/June  3,  1679.     Vat.  Arch.  Nunt. 
di    Fiandra    66.     Add.    MSS.    32095  :   196.     See   below  in    Politics 
of  the  Plot. 

F 


66  The  Popish  Plot 

information  can  be  obtained  from  the  case  of  Pere  de  Ja 
Colombiere.  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  Piquet  or  Figuere  and  Francois 
Verdier,  accused  him  to  the  House  of  Lords  of  extra- 
ordinary activity  in  spreading  the  Catholic  religion.  La 
Colombiere  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  Pere 
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.1 
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  dis- 
honourable was  alleged  against  La  Colombiere,  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  York- 
shire 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."  2  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,   Gates  was  studying    and    being 

1  LJ.     November     21,    1678.      Foley    v.    221,    222.      Longleat 
MSS.  Coventry  Papers  xi.  483,  a  version  of  Du  Piquet's  information 
in  French. 

2  7  State  Trials  1007. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    67 

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.1  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  com- 
munication 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.2  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.3  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 

1  Brusselles    Dal.    Sig*    Internuncio,    April     19/29,    1679.     Vat. 
Arch.  Nunt.  di  Fiandra  66. 

2  Longleat  MSS.  St.  Omers,  August  14,   1678.     Sam  Morgan  to 
his  father,  Coventry  Papers  xi.  204.     See  Appendix  A. 

3  Pepys,    Memoires    relating   to   the    State  of  the    Royal   Navy    in 
England  4,  5,  8. 


68  The  Popish  Plot 

French  service.  Many  of  their  officers  were  Irishmen, 
and  most  Catholics.1  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  pre- 
tended 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." 2  The  letter  seems  to  point  to 
hopes  of  early  aid  from  France,  since  disappointed.  In 
this  case  Pere  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.3  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. 

1  Longleat    MSS.    Letter    of    December    23,    1676.     Coventry 
Papers  xi.  171.     See  Appendix  A. 

2  Treby  i.  19.     September  18/28,  1678. 

3  L'Abbate  G.  B.  Lauri  a  S.  Em23,  November   22/December  2, 
1678.     Vat.  Arch..  Nunt.  di  Francia  332.     See  Appendix  A. 


The  Nature  of  the  Designs    69 

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,1  that  the  death  of  the  king  was 
talked  of  in  Jesuit  seminaries  on  the  continent,2  and  that 
James  was  not  above  tolerating,  if  he  did  not  direct,  an 
attempt  to  murder  the  husband  of  his  daughter.3 

1  Barillon,  October    21/31,   1680.     "II   (le   Due  d'York)    me   fit 
entendre.  .  .  .  qu'il  ne  comprenait  pas  que  le  Roi  son  frere  voulut 
mettre  tous  les  Catholiques  en  desespoir  et  les  persecuter  sans  aucunes 
mesures.     II  ajouta  a  cela  en  termes  pleines  de  colere  et  ressentiraent 
que  si  on  le  poursuit  a  bout  et  qu'il  se  voit  en  etat  d'etre  entierement 
ruine  par  ses  ennemis,  il  trouvera  le  moyen  de  les  en  faire  repentir  et 
se  vangera  d'eux.  .   .  .     M.  le  Due  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  debauche  un  peu 
libre  qu'il   ne  temoignat   beaucoup  d'aigreur   et   de   la   haine   meme 
contre  son  frere." 

2  Examinations  of  Saunders,  Coulster,  and  Towneley,  April   28, 
1679.     House  of  Lord  MSS.  149-152. 

3  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  frere  ne  m'a  point  voulu  faire  tuer,  ny  pas  un  de  vous  ne  le  croft." 
It  was  however  Charles'  constant  policy  to  uphold  the  Duke  of  York. 
See  top  Reresby,  Memoirs  146. 


CHAPTER   III 

GATES    AGAIN 

THUS  the  Popish  Plot  was  introduced  to  the  world,  "a 
transaction  which  had  its  root  in  hell  and  its  branches 
among  the  clouds." l  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.2  Gates 
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 

1  Ralph  i.  382. 

2  It  is  a  tribute  to  the  liveliness  of  Gates'  imagination  that  Pickering, 
said  to  be  an  agent  in  the  Jesuit  plot,  was  a  Benedictine  lay-brother. 

70 


Gates  Again  71 


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.1  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.2  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.3 
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 

1  Kirkby,  Compleat  and  True  Narrative  i.  Simpson  Tonge's 
Journal  38  ;  S.P.  Dom.  Charles  II  409. 

2x  Simpson  Tonge's  Journal  39. 

3  Kirkby,  Compleat  and  True  Narrative  2.  Simpson  Tonge's 
Journal  40,  41.  Impartial  State  of  the  Case  of  the  Earl  of  Danby  13,  14. 


72,  The   Popish   Plot 

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  secre- 
taries 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.1 
Meanwhile  Oates  was  consorting  with  his  Jesuit  acquaint- 
ances, and  even  obtained  supplies  from  them  ;  somewhat 
to  their  discredit,  seeing  that  he  had  twice  been  expelled 
from  Jesuit  colleges.2  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.  Some- 
thing 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 

1   Impartial  State  of  the  Case  14,  15. 
2  Florus  Anglo- Bavaricus  95. 


Gates  Again  73 

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  unfore- 
seen 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  Gates,  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  Gates  and  told  his 
confessor  of  the  accident.1  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  whomTonge'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, 

1  Impartial  State  of  the  Case  I  5.    Kirkby,  Compleat  and  True  Narrative 
2.     7  State  Trials  96,  328,  345.     Simpson  Tonge's  Journal  39,  59. 


74  The   Popish   Plot 

and  put  thoughts  of  killing  him  into  the  minds  of  people 
who  had  no  such  notions  before.1 

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  in- 
tercepted 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 

1  Impartial  State  of  the  Case  15. 


Gates  Again  75 


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. 
Gates  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.1 

At  this  moment  a  sudden  move  of  the  Duke  of  York 
threw  the  game  into  the  hands  of  Gates.  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  Gates  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.  Gates  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 

1  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. 


76  The  Popish  Plot 

would  have  been  better  pleased  had  the  inquiry  been  longer 
delayed  that  yet  more  of  the  plot  might  have  been  dis- 
covered. 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,  Gates  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  Gates'  appearance  at  the  council  board.1 

Dr.  Tonge  was  the  first  to  enter  and,  kneeling,  handed 
a  petition  for  pardon  for  himself  and  Gates,  together  with 
a  list  of  the  plotters  and  their  lodging.  He  was  asked 
who  Gates  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  Gates' 
information  was  read.  Gates  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. 
Gates  returned  to  the  council  on  the  morning  of  Sunday, 
being  Michaelmas  day,  to  continue  his  examination.  This 

1  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. 


Gates  Again  77 

time  the  king  was  present.  Gates  was  made  to  repeat  all 
he  had  said  the  day  before.  He  had  named  in  his  narra- 
tive 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,  Gates  replied  promptly. 
Charles  had  seen  Don  John  and  knew  him  to  be  short, 
fat,  and  dark.  Gates  said  that  he  had  seen  Pere  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  Gates  had  committed  himself,  for  there 
was  no  such  house  in  that  position.  The  letters  sent  to 
Bedingfield  at  Windsor  were  produced.  Gates  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. 
Gates  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.1 

Gates'  credit  was  rudely  shaken.  Nevertheless  the 
matter  could  not  be  dropped  without  further  investigation. 
The  informer  managed  to  cover  his  mistakes  by  the  sug- 
gestion that  he  had  himself  been  deceived.  He  had  mis- 
spelt 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 

1  $impson  Tonga's  Journal  152.  7  State  Trials  29.  James  (Or. 
Mem.)  i.  518-521.  Warner  MS.  history  26.  Floras  Anglo- Bavaricus 
98.  Foley  v.  16.  Burnet  ii.  160.  North,  Examen  58. 


78  The  Popish   Plot 

weight.  Gates  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 
Gates  was  sent  his  rounds  with  a  guard,  sleepless  and  defy- 
ing the  stormy  weather.  Before  dawn  most  of  the  Jesuits 
of  eminence  in  London  lay  in  gaol.  At  one  point  the 
party  encountered  a  check.  Gates  led  his  men  to  arrest 
Whitebread,  the  provincial,  at  the  residence  of  the  Spanish 
ambassador.  The  ambassador's  servants  resisted  the  in- 
trusion, 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  Gates  were  said  to 
have  been  drunk  and  were  punished.1  Of  greater  import- 
ance 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  even- 
ing. 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. 

1  Barillon,  September  3O/October  10,  1678.  7  State  Trials  656. 
Foley  v.  17,  18,  20,  21.  Schwerin,  Briefe  aus  England  330,  334, 
342. 


Gates  Again  79 


Coleman  surrendered  himself  on  Monday  morning,  and 
was  put  under  the  charge  of  a  messenger  with  only  Gates' 
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.1 

On  Monday,  September  30,  Gates  was  again  examined 
before  the  council,  and  again  coursed  London  for  Jesuits. 
The  town  was  by  this  time  thoroughly  alarmed.  Cole- 
man's  papers  were  regarded  by  the  council  as  of  high 
importance.  They  shewed  at  any  rate  that  Gates  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.2  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  great- 
ness whereof  none  but  an  eye-witness  could  conceive. 

1  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. 

2  if  Nuntio  di  Vienna   al  Nuntio  in  Francia.    Nimega,  October 
18/28,  1678.  Vat.  Arch.  Nunt.  di  Francia,  329. 


8o  The  Popish  Plot 

"  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." 
Gates  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  con- 
fusion the  king  left  for  the  races  at  Newmarket,  scandalis- 
ing 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.  Gates  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  conversa- 
tion to  ask  what  arguments  had  prevailed  upon  him  to 
join  the  Church  of  Rome.  Whereupon  Gates  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.1 
The  perjurer  might  well  triumph.  The  days  of  his  glory 
were  beginning.  On  October  2 1  Parliament  met.  Before 
that  time  Godfrey,  the  magistrate  before  whom  Gates  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. 

1  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.  I.  Halstead,  Succinct 
Genealogies  433.  Reresby,  Memoirs  145.  North,  Examen  177. 
Evelyn,  Diary  October  I,  1678.  Caveat  against  the  Whigs  ii.  42. 
Foley  v.  18.  Burnet  ii.  161,  162. 


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 
Gates,  to  give  currency  to  the  belief  in  the  Plot.  Sir 
James  Fitzjames  Stephen  hazards  that  Gates  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  pro- 
nounced 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 

83 


84  The  Popish  Plot 

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  Gates'  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  morn- 
ing. 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  mas- 
sacring 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.1 

Upon  the  death  of  a  London  magistrate  was  grounded 
the  firm  conviction  of  the  reality  of  the  Popish  Plot,  under 

1  Calamy,  Own  Life  i.  83,  84.  Christie,  Life  of  Shaftesbury  ii. 
309.  Burnet  ii.  165.  North,  Examen  206.  Luttrell,  Brief  Rela- 
tion i.  12,  21.  Schwerin,  Briefe  aut  England  336,  351,  November  1 8, 
1678. 


Godfrey  85 


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.1 
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.2  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. 

1  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 
Gates : — 

And  Corah  might  for  Agag's  murder  call 
In  terms  as  coarse  as  Samuel  used  to  Saul. 

Absalom  and  Achitophel,  676,  677. 

2  Sir    George    Sitwell   gives   a   most   instructive    and    entertaining 
description  of  these,  The  First  Whig,  chap.  vi. 


86  The  Popish  Plot 

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  incom- 
petence to  solve  the  riddle."  l  In  the  case  of  the  Gun- 
powder 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  ques- 
tion 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 

1   What  Gunpowder  Plot  was  13. 


Godfrey  87 

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.1  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.  Numer- 
ous 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."  The  king  was  not 

1  Tuke,  Memoirs  of  Godfrey  1-15.  Sidney  Lee,  Article  on  God- 
frey in  Diet,  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.  2  Tuke,  Memoirs  39-51. 


88  The  Popish  Plot 

slow  to  recognise  good  service,  especially  when  the  recog- 
nition was  not  expensive.  Charles  gave  Godfrey  a  knight- 
hood and  a  silver  tankard,  inscribed  with  an  eulogy  of  the 
service  which  he  had  done  during  the  plague  and  the  great 
fire.1  Three  years  later  Godfrey  roused  sentiments  of  a 
less  grateful  character  in  his  sovereign.  Sir  Alexander 

D  O 

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.2 

A  portrait  of  Godfrey  belongs  to  the  parish  of  St. 
Martin  in  the  Fields.3  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 

1  Sidney  Lee,  op.  fit.      Gazette  No.  88.     Ralph  i.  139. 

2  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. 

3  An  engraving  by  F.  H.  van  Hove  is  inserted  in  Tuke's  Memoirs. 


Godfrey  89 

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." 
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.2  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  Gates,  Dr.  Tonge,  and  Christopher 
Kirkby.  The  paper  contained  Gates'  famous  information 
drawn  up  in  forty-three  articles.  Gates  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.3  Gates 
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 

1  Tuke,  Memoirs  19,  20.     North,  Examen  199. 

2  Tuke,  Memoirs  52,  53. 
3  Kirkby,  C  ample  at  and  True  Narrative    2,  3. 


90  The   Popish   Plot 

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, 
Gates  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  Gates' 
oath  to  the  truth  of  their  contents.  One  Godfrey  retained 
in  his  possession,  the  other  was  taken  by  Oates  to  the  council 
at  Whitehall.1 

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  Gates' 
desire  to  act  in  a  straightforward  manner  and  frankly 

1  Kirkby,    Compleat   and    True   Narrative    3.      Simpson    Tonge's 
Journal  126,  135. 


Godfrey  9 1 


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  Gates  of  high  treason.1  The  intimacy  between 
the  two  men  exercised  a  profound  influence  upon  the 
course  of  after  events,  which  Gates  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.  Gates  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. 

1  Tuke,  Memoirs  22, 23, 29.    Burnetii.  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  exaggera- 
tion of  the  truth.  Warner  MS.  history  26,  "Nee  alius  in  eo  magistratu 
aut  Carolo  fidelior  aut  Catholicis,  etiam  Jesuitis,  quorum  multos 
familiarissime  noverat,  amicior." 


92  The  Popish  Plot 

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  dis- 
appearance at  a  crowded  funeral.1  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.2 

1  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  sup- 
posed 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.  2  Brief  Hist.  iii.  204,  205. 


Godfrey  93 


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."1  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  consider- 
able 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.2 
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  them- 

1  Brief  Hist.  iii.  205,  206.     Depositions  of  Pengry  and  Fall. 

2  Brief  Hist.  ii.  chap,  vi,  199,  iii.  195-201.     The  evidence  that  the 
news  of  Godfrey's  absence  was  known  before  Tuesday,  October  1 5,  is 
not    to   be    relied    on.     It    consists    wholly  of  depositions    taken  by 
L'Estrange  several  years  after.     Some  contain  such  ridiculous  state- 
ments as  that  before  3  P.M.  on  Saturday,  October  1 2,  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  de- 
tected.    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  appoint- 
ment 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  tOxdine  with  me  on  Saturday.     He  said  he  could  not  tell  whether 


94  The  Popish  Plot 

selves  ;  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  promin- 
ence 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  follow- 
ing 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.1  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 

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  Gates'  revelations,  and  had  access  to 
excellent  sources  of  information,  his  evidence  upon  the  Popish  Plot  is 
of  remarkable  value. 

1  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. 


Godfrey  95 


was  said,  was  not  spared.1  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.2 

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.3  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  touch- 

1  Burnet  ii.   164.      North,   Examen  202.     Diary  of  Lord  Keeper 
Guildford,  Dalrymple  ii.  321. 

2  John  Verney  to  Sir  Ralph  Verney,  Verney  MSS.  471. 

3  Lloyd    to    L'Estrange,    Brief   Hist.    iii.    87.       Burnet    ii.    164. 
Nc-th  says  the  body  was  found  upon  Wednesday,  October  16  (Exame?i 
202),  but  this  is  a  mistake. 


9  6  The  Popish  Plot 

ing  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.1 
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.2 

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.3  The  jury  sat  all  day,  and  as  the 

1  "  7    guineas,   4    broad   pieces,    ^4   in    silver."       The    coroner's 
evidence. 

2  Evidence  of  the  coroner  and  Rawson  before  the  Lords'  Com- 
mittee.    House  of  Lords'  MSS.  46,  47.      Evidence   of  Brown,    the 
constable,  at  the  inquest.      Brief  Hist.  iii.  212-215,  222- 

3  Deposition  of  White,  coroner  of  Westminster.    Brief  Hist.  iii.  224. 


Godfrey  97 

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  Edmund  bury  Godfrey,  then 
and  there,  feloniously,  wilfully,  and  of  their  malice  afore- 
thought, 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."  1  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.2  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.3  It  was  proved  that  on 

1  Quoted  from  the  printed  copy  published  by  Janeway  in  1682. 
Brief  Hist.  iii.  232. 

2  "  The  jury's  reasons  for  the  verdict  they  gave."     Brief  Hist.  iii. 
chap.  xii. 

8  Evidence  of  Collins,  Mason,  and  Radcliffe.  Brief  Hist.  iii.  252, 
300.  Some  not  very  good  evidence  was  collected  several  years  after- 
wards as  to  Godfrey's  movements  later  in  the  day.  It  cannot  be  con- 
sidered trustworthy.  8  State  Trials  1387,  1392,  1393.  Brief  Hist.  iii. 
'74,  W 

H 


9  8  The  Popish  Plot 

Tuesday  there  had  been  nothing  in  the  ditch  where 
Godfrey's  corpse  was  found  two  days  later.1  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  subpoenaed  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.2  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.3  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 

1  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. 

2  Deposition  of  Robert  Forset.     8  State  Trials  1394,  1395. 

3  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  Hand- 
book 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. 


Godfrey  99 

that  the  collar  had  been  fastened  over  it.1  The  neck  was 
dislocated.2  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.3  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 

1  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. 

2  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. 

3  Evidence  of  the  surgeons  Cambridge  and  Skillard  at  the  trial  of 
Green,  Berry,  and  Hill.     7  State  Trials  185,   1 86.     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. 


ioo         The   Popish   Plot 

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.1  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  inconsider- 
able. 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." 2  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.3  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.4  Apart  from  L'Estrange's  bare  word,  there  is 

1  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  trust- 
worthy.    Even  at  the  later  date  the  quantity  to  which  they  swore  was 
not  considerable. 

2  Brief  Hist.  iii.  271.     He  does  not  attempt  however  to  give  any 
evidence  for  his  statement. 

3  Brief  Hist.  iii.  230. 

*  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  haemorrhage  from  one  or 
other  of  the  external  wounds,  except  only  under  a  set  of  circumstances 


Godfrey  i  o  i 


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  1 2 
u  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 

which  could  be  present  only  by  the  rarest  chance  ;  the  haemorrhage, 
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  haemorrhage  if  the  sword  were  bent, 
twisteds  or  withdrawn  after  the  infliction  of  the  wound." 


102         The   Popish   Plot 

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  surround- 
ing 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.1  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  1 6  8 1 
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 

1  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. 


Godfrey  103 


been  less  than  theirs,  escaped  with  a  fine.1  None  but 
those  who  were  willing  to  accept  L'Estrange's  bad  testi- 
mony, 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.2  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.3 
The  rumours  which  had  before  connected  the  magis- 
trate's disappearance  with  the  Roman  Catholics  were  now 
redoubled  in  vigour.4  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.5  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 

1  8  State  Trials  1359-1389. 

2  Barillon,  October  21/31,  1678.     "  Ce  Godefroy  s'est  trouve  mort 
a  trois  milles  d'ici  sans  qu'on  sache  qui  1'a  tue.     Le  Roi  d'Angleterre 
et  M.  le  Due  d'York  m'ont  dit  que  c'etait  une  espece  de  fanatique  et 
qu'ils  croyent  qu'il  s'e"tait  tue  lui-me'me." 

8  Burnet  ii.  165.  Blencowe's  Sidney  Ixii.  Lady  Sunderland 
to  John  Evelyn,  December  25,  1678. 

4  See  the  letter  subscribed  T.  G.  to  Secretary  Coventry  and 
Coventry's  reply.  Longleat  MSS.  See  Appendix  B. 

6  John  Verney  to  Sir  Ralph  Verney,  Verney  MSS.  471.  This 
did  npt  take  place  till  November,  but  it  may  be  noted  at  this  point. 


104         The   Popish   Plot 

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.1  The  corpse  of  the  murdered 
magistrate  was  brought  to  London  in  state,  and  lay 
exposed  in  the  street  for  two  days.  A  continual  pro- 
cession 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."  2 
There  was  one  thing  still  lacking.  As  yet  no  evidence 
had  appeared  to  connect  any  one  with  the  crime.  On 
October  2 1  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.3 

1  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. 

2  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. 

8  Par  I.  Hist.  iv.  1022.     L.J.  xiii.  299.     House  of  Lords  MSS.  i. 


Godfrey  105 

The  secretaries  of  state  and  the  privy  council  were 
already  overwhelmed  with  work  which  the  investiga- 
tion 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  pro- 
tection 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  pro- 
clamations took  effect.  At  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
of  Friday,  November  i ,  Samuel  Atkins  was  arrested  at  the 
offices  of  the  Admiralty  in  Derby  House  for  being  con- 
cerned 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. l  Three  days 
later  he  made  the  same  relation  to  the  privy  council,  and 
on  Friday,  November  I,  swore  to  his  statement  before  Sir 
Philip  Howard,  justice  of  the  peace  for  the  county  of 

1  Longleat  MSS.  Coventry  Papers  xi.  232.  The  information  of 
October  27  is  practically  the  same  as  that  given  below  from  the  Lords' 
Journals. 

106 


Bedloe   and   Atkins       107 

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."  l  The  quarrel  between  Pepys  and  Godfrey,  he 
said  further,  was  occasioned  by  the  discovery  of  the  Popish 
Plot.2 

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.3 
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 

1  Examination  of  Charles  Atkins,  Esq.     6  State  Trials  1479.     L.J. 
November  12,  1678. 

2  Evidence  of  C.  Atkins  before  the  Lords'  Committee.    6  State 
Trials  1474.  3  6  State  Trials  1473-1492. 


io8         The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  But  after  full 
allowance  is  made  for  this,  the  statement  probably  repre- 
sents 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.2 

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,  Gates  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 

1  6  State  Trials  1484,  1491. 

2  There  is  unfortunately  a  gap  from  October  28  to  December  n 
in  the  minutes  of  the  committee  of  inquiry  of  the  House  of  Lords,  so 
that  it  is  impossible  to  check  Atkins'  statements  exactly. 


Bedloe  and   Atkins       109 

suspicious  manner.1  When  the  man  Child  was  produced 
he  did  not  know  Samuel  Atkins  by  sight,  and  was  unable 
to  say  anything  about  the  matter.2  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.3  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  ex- 
pand his  evidence  in  this  direction  whenever  it  seemed 
desirable.4  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  con- 
cerning 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.5  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  ex- 
amined in  the  presence  of  the  king  ;  on  the  8th  he  was 

1  See  6  State  Trials   1476,   1481. 

2  Ibid.  1474. 

3  Ibid.   1481. 

4  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. 

5  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. 


no         The   Popish   Plot 

examined  by  the  Lords'  committee  and  made  a  statement 
at  the  bar  of  the  House.1  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.2  " 
The  story  is  a  mere  fiction.  In  his  first  deposition  he 
"  acquainted  the  Lords  that  he  had  several  things  to  com- 
municate to  them  which  related  to  the  plot,  and  that  he 
was  able  to  confirm  several  passages  which  Mr.  Oates 
had  discovered  concerning  the  plot." 3  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.4 
As  far  as  Bedloe's  character  is  concerned  the  matter  is  im- 
material, 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  govern- 
ment, 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 

1  See  Appendix  B. 

2  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  misunder- 
stood the  king's  words,  unless,  which  is  quite  possible,  Charles  deceived 
him  intentionally. 

3  Add.  MSS.  II,  058  :   244.     See  Appendix  B. 

4  S.P.  Dom.  Charles  II  407  :  ii.  29.     See  Appendix  B. 


Bedloe  and  Atkins       1 1 1 

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."  l  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." 2  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.  Turn- 
ing 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."  3 

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.4 
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 

1  Deposition  of  November  8  before  the  Lords'  committee.     6  State 
Trials  1487. 

3  Ihid.  1489.  3  Ihid.  1484. 

4  7  State   Trials  347,   349.     Exam,  of  November  7.      S.P.    Dom. 
CharlesJI  407.     See  Appendix  B.     Care,  History  of  the  Plot  127. 


ii2         The   Popish   Plot 

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  Corn- 
wallis,  in  Spain  Lord  Gerard.1  When  he  was  examined 
before  the  House  of  Lords  he  denied  without  reservation 
that  he  knew  Titus  Gates.2  The  government  made  in- 
quiries 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.3  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  sup- 

1  Warner  MS.  history  36.i|Exam.  of  Mary  Bedloe  (see  below). 
Burnet  ii.  168.     Florus  Anglo- Bavaric us  127.     Lettre  ecrite  de  Mons  a 
un  ami  a  Paris,  1679.     L.J.  xiii.  392,     Reresby,  Memoirs  149. 

2  L.J.  xiii.  343,  November  12. 

3  Deposition  of  Alice  Tainton,  alias  Bedloe,  taken  this  I4th  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. 


Bedloe  and   Atkins       113 

ported  him  by  the  statement  that  he  had  been  acquainted 
with  Bedloe  in  Spain  under  the  name  of  Williams.1  The 
recovery  was  not  sufficient,  for  Bedloe  had  told  his  family 
that  he  had  known  Gates  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  Gates'  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  secre- 
taries 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, 

1  L.J.  November  24,  28  ;  xiii.  389,  391. 
I 


ii4         The   Popish  Plot 

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.1  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  mean- 
time 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  com- 
mitted enough  to  writing,  his  papers  were  seized,  and 
gave  to  the  prosecution  detailed  information  on  the  sub- 
ject.2 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  after- 
noon 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  gentle- 
men toasted  the  ladies,  and  the  ladies  toasted  the  gentle- 
men, till  night  had  fallen  and  the  clock  pointed  to  half- 

1  6  State   Trials    1489,    1490.      Sitwell,    First  Whig  51.     North, 
Examen  248. 

2  6  State  Trials  1490,  1491.     For  Staley's  case  see  below  in  Trials 
for  Treason.     North,  Examen  249. 


Bedloe  and   Atkins       115 

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  belong- 
ing 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." l  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  some- 
what 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  n,  1679  that  he  could 
obtain  a  trial.2  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. 

1  Evidence  of  Captain  Vittells  and  his  men  before  the  Lords'  com- 
mittee.    House  of  Lords  MSS.  49,  50,  51.     Evidence  of  Vittells  and 
Tribbett  at  Atkins'  trial.     7  State  Trials  248. 

2  6  State  Trials  1491,  1492. 


1 1 6         The   Popish  Plot 

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.1  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." 2  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.3  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.4  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.5  What  he  did  not  say,  and  what 
neither  he  nor  many  others  thought,  was  that  Bedloe 
might  equally  be  telling  the  grossest  falsehoods. 

1  7  State  Trials  238-240. 

2  Bedloe's  evidence.     Ibid.  242,  243. 

3  Ibid.  241,  245.  4  Ibid.  246-249. 

5  Ibid.  249.     North,   Examen   250,  251.     North's    account    is   as 
usual  highly  coloured,  and  contains  at  least  one  untrue  statement. 


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  1 1 ,  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  acci- 
dent 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  recog- 
nised 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  Prim- 
rose Hjll.  Bedloe  promised  to  return  at  eleven  o'clock  to 

"7 


u8         The  Popish  Plot 

assist,  but  went  away  intending  to  meddle  with  the  business 
no  more.  The  next  day  he  happened  to  meet  Lc  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.1 

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. 

1  Bedloe's  deposition  before  the  Lords'  committee.    LJ.  November 
12,  xiii.  350,  351. 


Bedloe  and   Prance        119 

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.1  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 

1  7  State  Trials  237. 


i2o         The   Popish  Plot 

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.1 
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  busi- 
ness 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." 2  Prance  was 
taken  before  the  committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  and 
strictly  examined.  He  denied  knowing  Walsh,  Pritchard, 

1  See  below  in  Trials  for  Treason, 

2  Burnet  ii.  191.     7  State  Trials  183.     True  Narrative  and  Dis- 
covery 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. 


Bedloe  and  Prance       12,1 

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.1  Prance  was  com- 
mitted 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.2  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.3  Prance 

1  House  of  Lords  MSS.  51. 

2  L.J.  xiii.   431.     Blencowe's    Sidney   Ixii.     Lady   Sunderland    to 
John  Evelyn,  December  25,  1678. 

3  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  male- 
factors, but  to  those  already  imprisoned  in  Newgate  on  account  of  the 
plot.     If  an  examination  of  Prance  was  taken  by  the  Commons'  com- 
mittee, 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. 


122         The   Popish   Plot 

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."  l  The  same  day  the  king 
ordered  the  Duke  of  Mon  mouth  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  night2  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, 

1  L.J.  xiii.  436. 

2  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. 


Bedloe  and  Prance       123 

Green,  and  Gerald  following  them.  Prance,  who  was  wait- 
ing 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  after- 
wards 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. 


12,4         The   Popish   Plot 

Without  hesitation  he  led  the  way  to  the  bench,  and  de- 
scribed 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."  l  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  con- 
firmed 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 

1  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. 


Bedloe  and   Prance        125 

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.1 

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.2  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  pres- 
ence 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 

1  XL.J.  xiii.  439.  2  House  of  Lords  MSS.  52. 


126         The   Popish  Plot 

false.1  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  II,  1679,  wnen  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 

1  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  ad- 
herence to  it  will  be  discussed  below. 


Bedloe  and   Prance        127 

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."  l 
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.2  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 
1  7 'State  Trials  167,  168,  169.  2  Ibid.  179-183. 


12,8         The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  Now  he  said  that  he 
could  not  be  certain  whether  it  was  Green  or  Hill  who 
went  to  Hartshorn  Lane.2  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  1 2 
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.3  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  P/ot,  he  simply  stated  in 
accordance  with  the  evidence  of  Curtis  that  it  was  Hill 
who  spoke  with  Godfrey  on  that  morning.4  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.1 
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. 

1  L.J.  xiii.  437.  2  7  State  Trials  169-173. 

3  Ibid.  1 8 6,  187.  4   True  Narrative  and  Discovery  12. 

5  7  State  Trials  169,  188,  189. 


Bedloe  and   Prance        129 

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.1  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.2  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. 

1  7  State  Trials  174.      True  Narrative  18. 

2  7  State  Trials  190. 

K 


130         The   Popish  Plot 

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.1  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.2  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.3  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.4  The  only  part  of  the  evidence  for  the  prisoners 
to  which  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  devoted  attention  in  his 

1  7  State  Trials  195-200. 

2  Ibid.  201,  202.  3  Ibid.  204,  205,  206. 

4  Ibid.  207,  208,  209. 


Bedloe  and   Prance       131 

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  delibera- 
tion 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  pro- 
nounced the  same  verdict,  and  the  spectators  in  court  met 
his  announcement  with  a  shout  of  applause.1 

On  February  1 1  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.2  It  was  after- 
wards 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.2 

1  7  State  Trials  213-221.         2  Ibid.  223-230.     Burnet  ii.  194,  195. 
3  Luttrell,  Brief  Relation  i.  9. 


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. 

132 


Prance  and   Bedloe       133 

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  more- 
over 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  un- 
like, 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.1  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 

1  7  State  Trials  228. 


134         The  Popish   Plot 

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.1 
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  manoeuvres  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  com- 
mittee 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 

1   Brief  Hist.  iii.  26,  27. 


Prance  and   Bedloe       135 

should  be  kept  in  irons  and  that  Dr.  Lloyd,  the  Dean  of 
Bangor,  should  be  asked  to  visit  and  converse  with  him.1 
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.2     Boyce  also  visited  him,  and  found  him  some- 
times 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."     Shaftes- 
bury'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 
1 1  told  Boyce  "  that  he  would  confess  all  if  he  were  sure 
of  his  pardon."3      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.4     Accordingly  on  the  evening 
of  January  1 1  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 

1  Brief  Hist.  iii.  66,  67. 

2  Ibid.  67,  68.     Cooper's  information  of  January  9  and  January  II. 

3  Ibid.  69,  75.     Informations  of  Boyce. 

4  Lloyd's  report  to  the  Council.      Brief  Hist.  iii.  69.     Lloyd  to 
L'Estrange.     Ibid.  82. 


136         The   Popish   Plot 

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  con- 
fession he  asked  to  be  lodged  in  a  warmer  room  and  to 
have  the  irons  knocked  off.1  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.2  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.3 

Prison  life  in  the  seventeenth  century  was  hard. 
Prisoners  were  treated  in  a  way  that  would  now  be  con- 
sidered 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 

1  Lloyd's  report   to  the  Council.     Fitzherbert  MSS.  154.     Brief 
Hist.  iii.  69,  71.     Lloyd  to  L'Estrange.      Ibid.  85. 

2  Burnet  ii.  193,  194. 

3  Burnet  ii.  194.     Brief  Hist,  iii.  85,  86. 


Prance  and   Bedloe        137 

real  provision.  But  there  is  no  evidence  that  Prance  was 
more  hardly  used  than  his  fellow  gaol-birds.  A  detest- 
able 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,  pub- 
lished 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  1 1  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  com- 
plicity in  Godfrey's  murder,  was  subjected  to  intolerably 
ill  treatment  and  active  torture  in  Newgate  in  order  to 
make  him  confess  his  guilt.1  The  charges  which  Mrs. 
Cellier  made  were  not  only  outrageous  but  ridiculous, 
and  were  so  improbable  as  not  to  deserve  detailed  discus- 
sion. 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 

1  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." 


138         The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  Another 
important  witness  proved  the  falsehood  of  many  state- 
ments 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.2  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.3  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  dis- 
believed the  gruesome  stories  which  were  industriously 
spread  abroad.4 

Whether  or  no  Prance  was  subjected  to  illegitimate 

1  7  State  Trials  1199,  1200,  1210-1212. 

2  Evidence  of  Fowler.     Ibid.  1194-1197,  1204-1209. 

3  The  improbability  does  not  lie  in  the  unlikelihood  of  the  appli- 
cation of  torture  to  witnesses  at  this  date  so  much  as  in  the  nature  of 
the  particular  facts  alleged,  which  cannot  be  believed.     Brief  Hist, 
in.  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. 

4  Brief  Hist.  iii.  84. 


Prance  and  Bedloe        139 

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  remark- 
able 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  Gates, 
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  remark- 
able points  of  difference.  Up  to  the  date  of  October 


140         The   Popish   Plot 

12  the  two  stories  run  in  different  lines  altogether.  Ac- 
cording 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." l  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.2  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.3  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."  4 
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 

1   True  Narrative  n.  2  7  State  Trials  180. 

3   True  Narrative  13,  14. 
4  7  State  Trials  172.      True  Narrative  15. 


Prance  and   Bedloe        141 

body  and  rode  with  it  to  Primrose  Hill.1  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.2  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  con- 
spirators 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.3  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." 4  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, 

1  7  State  Trials  173.     True  Narrative  16,  17. 
2  6  State  Trials  1487.     7  State  Trials  182. 
3  6  State  Trials  1488.  4  Ibid.  1487. 


142,         The   Popish   Plot 

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.1  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 
1  Prance  to  L'Estrange,  January  17,  1688.  Brief  Hist.  iii.  127. 


Prance  and   Bedloe       143 

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.1  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  in- 
formed 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  in- 
accurate. 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 

1  Brief  Hist.  ii.  52,  53. 


144        The  Popish  Plot 

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  sub- 
jected 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  care- 
ful 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  con- 
viction 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  oppor- 
tunity 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  some- 
thing 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 


Prance  and   Bedloe       145 

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  un- 
likely 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  consider- 
able 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  con- 
trary, 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  at- 
tempted 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 

L 


146         The   Popish   Plot 

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.1  From  this  it  is  a  sure  deduc- 

1  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. 


Prance  and   Bedloe        147 

tion  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 


148         The  Popish  Plot 

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  cor- 
roborate 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.1  It  was  constantly  said,  and  the  state- 
ment has  often  been  repeated,  that  when  Gates  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.2  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  Gates'  dis- 
covery to  him  for  nearly  a  whole  month  ;  this  was  the 
meaning  of  Godfrey's  enigmatical  expressions  of  apprehen- 
sion, and  his  fear,  combined  with  constitutional  melancholy, 
drove  him  to  take  his  own  life.3  Whether  or  no  he 

1  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. 

2  Warner    MS.  history    27:    "  Rem    totam    Eboracensi    detulit." 
Floras  Anglo- Bavaric us  97.    James  (Or.  Mem.)  i.  534.    North,  Examen 
174.     Lingard  xiii.  69.     Sitwell,  First  Whig  40. 

3  brief  Hist.  iii.  1 8 1  - 1 8  6. 

149 


150         The   Popish   Plot 

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  Gates'  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.1  As  for  the  fact  that  Godfrey  had  sent 
an  account  of  Gates'  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  un- 
important.2 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.3  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 
Bur  net  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.  "  Gates,"  he  said,  "  is  sworn  and  is  perjured." 4 

1  See  above,  89. 

2  James  (Or.  Mem.)  i.  517-519.     Impartial  State  of  the  Case  of  the 
Earl  of  Danby.     Lingard  xiii.  68. 

3  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. 

4  7  State  Trials  168.     House  of  Lords  MSS.  47.     Brief  Hist.  iii. 
187.     Burnet  ii.  163. 


The  Secret  151 


Clearly  Godfrey  was  labouring  under  an  apprehension  of 
quite  definite  character.  He  was  in  possession  of  secret 
information  concerning  Gates'  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  Gates'  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." l  Such  a 
conversation  in  fact  took  place,  though  it  was  earlier 
than  Burnet  thought.  Coleman  surrendered  to  the 
warrant  against  him  on  Monday,  September  3<D.2  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."3  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  what  these 
papers  were.  The  date  was  Saturday,  September  28,  the 
day  on  which  Godfrey  had  taken  Gates'  deposition. 
In  that  Gates  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  Gates'  information. 

1  Burnet,  ibid.  2  7  State  Trials  29. 

8  Welden's   evidence    before   the    Lords'  committee.     House   of 
Lords  "MSB.  48. 


152,         The   Popish   Plot 

"  Gates,"  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  impli- 
cation 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  Gates' 
perjury  might  be  very  dangerous  indeed.  No  doubt 
Coleman  pointed  out  Gates'  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  Gates'  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  Gates  came 
forward  to  give  evidence  to  this  point.  It  was  of  the 
first  importance.  Gates'  statement  was  false.  No  con- 
gregation 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.1  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  Gates  would 
have  fallen  would  have  been  of  little  moment  compared 
to  the  extent  of  the  gain  to  the  Whig  and  Protestant 

1  Reresby,  Memoirs  325.  Warner  MS.  history  27.  "Ad  con- 
gregationem  provincialem  ubi  ventum  est,  cui  se  interfuisse  mentitus 
predicat  Gates,  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  con- 
venisse ;  cujus  tamen  rei  nee  Carolus  nee  ullus  alius  Catholicorum 
apologista  mentionem  fecit  donee  persecutio  plane  desaevisset,  ne 
augeretur  inde  in  Eboracensem  invidia." 


The  Secret  153 

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  Ex- 
clusion 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  Gates.  Still  less  is  it 
credible  that  Coleman  failed  to  point  out  Gates'  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.1 

1  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  congrega- 
tion was  held  at  St.  James';  and  he  was  certainly  ignorant  of  this. 
Burnetxtells,  on  the  authority  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  that  the  king  pre- 


154         The   Popish  Plot 

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  Gates'  discovery,  and  to  reveal  his  news  was  probably 
the  only  way  of  exposing  Gates'  perjury.  Nor  did 
Godfrey  underestimate  the  danger  into  which  this  know- 
ledge brought  him.  He  feared  that  he  would  be  assassi- 
nated. 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  govern- 
ment 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 

vailed  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. 


The  Secret  155 

death  rather  than  prove  their  innocence  and  purchase  life 
by  telling  the  facts.1  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  assas- 
sinated. His  murder  was,  like  Charles  the  First's  execu- 
tion, 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  recog- 
nised 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.2  Strictly,  it  is  only  a  matter 
of  conjecture  that  these  men  undertook  the  deed,  but  it  is 
supported  by  considerable  probability.  They  were  singu- 
larly 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, 

1  See   below  (in   materials   for    the   history  of  the  Popish   Plot), 
Foley's  note  on  Warner's  MS.  history. 

2  Slip  appended  to  examination  of  November  7.     Longleat  MSS. 
Coventry  Papers  xi.  276. 


156         The   Popish  Plot 

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  com- 
mitted 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.1  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.2  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.3  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.4  On  Wednesday  night  the  body 

1  7  State  Trials  168.     Burnet  ii.  163. 

2  James   (Or.    Mem.)   i.    527,   528.     Burnet    ii.   174.      House   of 
Lords  MSS.  52.     7  State  Trials  154.     L.J.  xiii.  353. 

3  7  State  Trials  172,  192. 

4  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 


The  Secret  157 

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.1  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  coad- 
jutor, 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.2  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.3  From  this  quarter  Bedloe's  information  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. 

1  Evidence  of  the  coroner  before  the  Lords'  committee,  House  of 
Lords  MSS.  46. 

2  Examination   of  Charles   Atkins,   October  27,  1678.     Slip  ap- 
pended 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." 

3  LJ.   xiii.    353.     Evidence    of  Diana   Salvin,  Elizabeth    Salvin, 
John  launders,  Alexander  Oldis. 


158         The  Popish  Plot 

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  dis- 
cover 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  sug- 
gested the  idea  of  implicating  Pepys'  clerk.  Samuel 
Atkins  was  well  known  to  his  namesake  and  had  in  times 
past  given  him  considerable  assistance.3  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  pre- 
vented. So  Prance  determined  to  pose  as  the  repentant 
1  6  State  Trials  1475-1477. 


The  Secret  159 

convert  and  to  shield  the  real  culprits  by  bringing  to 
death  men  whom  he  knew  to  be  innocent.  His  know- 
ledge 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  suc- 
cessful. 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."1  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 

1  Par  I.  Hist.  iv.  1113.     Secret  Services  of  Charles  II  and  James 
II,  payment  to  Prance  22. 


160         The   Popish   Plot 

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.1  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.2 

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." 3  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.*  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 

1  L.J.  November  15,  1678.     Ralph  i.  398. 

2  For  example  the  libel,  "  A  copy  of  a  letter  dropped  in  the  ex- 
change," 1679. 

3  See  above  and  Appendix  B.  4  See  above,  122. 


The  Secret  161 

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.1  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  excite- 
ment 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.2  He  now  proceeded 
to  spin  out  a  string  of  utterly  ridiculous  stories  about  the 

1  James   (Or.    Mem.)    i.    528.     Schwerin,    November    22,    1678. 
"  Bedloo  hat  in   Somerset  House  das  Gemach  gewiesen  in  welchem 
ihm  der  todte  Korper  gezeigt  worden  ist ;  allein  weil  er  in  derselben 
Kammer  eine  Thiire  angab,  die   sich  nicht   daselbst  vorfand, — iiber- 
dem  die  Konigin  damal  in  diesem  Gemache  wohnte, — und  der  Ort, 
an  welchem    ihm    der   todte    Korper   gezeigt  worden    sein   soil,  ein 
steter  Durchgang  und  Aufenthalt  aller  Domesticken  der  Konigin  ist, 
so  wird  die  Angabe  von  vielen  fur  verdachtig  gehalten."     Briefe  von 
England  352. 

2  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. 

M 


1 62         The  Popish  Plot 

Jesuits  and  other  Roman  Catholics.  All  that  was  im- 
portant in  his  evidence  was  hearsay  or  directed  against 
men  who  had  already  to  contend  against  weightier  accusa- 
tions. He  declared  that  Fenwick,  Ireland,  and  Grove  had 
told  him  that  four  of  the  five  Popish  lords  were  "  to 
command  the  army." l  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  pro- 
duced 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.2 
These  stories  were  again  retailed  at  the  trials  of  Langhorn 
and  Wakeman.3  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."  4  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 

1  House  of  Lords  MSS.  52.  2  7  State  Trials  34.3. 

3  Ibid.  425,  612,  613.  4  Ibid.  1320. 


The  Secret  163 

secular  priests,  among  whom  he  had  at  the  time  two 
brothers.1  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  in- 
formation.2 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.3  And  Warner, 
the  Jesuit  provincial,  characterised  Prance's  later  evidence 
as  of  little  scope  and  less  weight.4 

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."  5  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  appreci- 
ated. 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  Gates,  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 

1  Lloyd  to  the  council,  January  1 1,  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. 

2  Lloyd  to  L'Estrange,  April  16,  1686.     Brief  Hist.  iii.  83. 

3  Burnet  ii.  195. 

4  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.  Face.),    ipsa    maledicentiae 
magnitudine  fidem  sibi  detrahens  :  quam  apud  paucissimos  invenit." 

5  Floras  Anglo- Bavaric us  103,  128. 


164         The  Popish  Plot 

whipped  from  Newgate  to  Tyburn.  The  last  and  heaviest 
part  of  the  punishment,  the  flogging,  under  which  Gates' 
iron  frame  had  nearly  sunk,  was  remitted  by  the  king's 
command.1  There  is  considerable  reason  to  believe  that 
the  trial  was  collusive  and  the  result  prearranged.  That 
Prance  should  confess  himself  perjured  is  easy  to  under- 
stand :  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. 
Gates  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  Gates  and  Dangerfield  seemed  to 
have  completely  vanished  when  the  turn  came  to  Prance. 
Prance  had  certainly  diverted  the  investigation  from  James' 
personal  neighbourhood  ;  but  Gates  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 

1  7  State  Trials  228.     House  of  Lords  MSS.  1689-1690,  61. 


The  Secret  165 

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.1  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  incon- 
siderable. Prance's  conduct  too  was  remarkable.  Why 
should  he  fly  from  the  Revolution  ?  True,  he  had  con- 
fessed 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  pros- 
perity. Away  from  England,  surrounded  by  those  whom 
he  had  wronged,  the  future  before  him  was  hopeless. 

The  supposition  cannot  be  supported.     Prance's  posi- 
1  House  of  Lords  MSS.  1689-1690,  61.     Foley  v.  285,  286. 


1 66         The  Popish  Plot 

tion  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,1  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  con- 
tinued 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.  There- 
after the  place  went  by  the  name  of  Godfrey  Hall.2 

1  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. 

2  Luttrell,  Brief  Relation  i.  8. 


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  Gates  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  ; l  but  the  Commons  were  of  another  mind. 

1  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  considera- 
tion 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. 

169 


170         The   Popish   Plot 

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  bar- 
barously 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.1  Parlia- 
ment 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  Paraliament, 
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. 
Gates  and  Bedloe  were  heard  with  their  expansive  tales  at 
the  bars  of  both  houses,  and  on  the  ist  of  November  a 

1  A  narrative  of  proceedings  in  the  House  of  Commons.     Harl. 
MSS.  6284:  35,  36. 


The  Government         171 

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."  l 

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  con- 
tained 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.2  Beyond  Westminster 
the  terror  ran  no  less  high.  A  report  came  to  town  that 

1  Par/.  Hist.  iv.  1021-1026. 

2  House  of  Lords  MSS.  16,  17.    Lady  Sunderland  to  John  Evelyn, 
October  28,  1678.     Correspondence  of  John  Evelyn,  1852,  251. 


172,         The  Popish  Plot 

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  fire- 
wood 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.1 

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 
£  8 00,000,  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. 

1  W.  Harrington  to  George  Treby,  February  1679.  Fitzherbert 
MSS.  14.  John  Verney  to  Sir  Ralph  Verney,  November  n,  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. 


The  Government         173 

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.1  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.2  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 

1  Sir   W.   Godolphin    to    Henry   Thynne,    August    14/24,    1679. 
Longleat  MSS.  Coventry  Papers  Ix.  275.     S.P.  Dom.  Charles  II  408  : 
i.  119,  120  ;  ii.  70,  79. 

2  Earl  of  Conway  to  Sir  L.  Jenkins,  September  26,  1 68 1.     S.P. 
Dom. 'Charles  II  416  :  30. 


174         The  P°pish  Plot 

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  Restora- 
tion onwards  alarms  had  been  frequent  and  a  spirit  of 
revolt,  even  of  revolution,  in  the  air.  Venner's  insurrec- 
tion 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  tne  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  Monmonth  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.1 
Other  problems  trod  upon  the  heels  of  this  in  quick  succes- 
sion. Throughout  the  years  1675  anc^  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 

1  Longleat    MSS.     Coventry    Papers     xi.     17-54.     Narrative    of 
Edmund  Everard  1679. 


The  Government         175 

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  congrega- 
tions rose  to  over  four  thousand  souls.1 

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.2 
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 

1  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  Con- 
venticles.    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  Demo- 
cratic Ideas  in  the  Seventeenth  Century  326. 

2  Longleat  MSS.  Coventry  Papers  xi.   117,   120,   122,   124,   126, 
132- 


176         The  Popish  Plot 

of  the  working  underground.1  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  sus- 
pected that  the  number  of  those  to  be  suppressed  ex- 
ceeded 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  re- 
mainder 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  Canter- 
bury 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.2  Though 
he  did  not  lose  sight  of  Catholic  movements  and  provided 
himself  with  detailed  accounts  of  their  less  known  leaders 
in  London,3  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 

1  "  Memd.  of  his  Majesty's  directions  for  interrupting  Coleman's 
letters."  December  10,  1676.  Henry  Coventry  to  Col.  Whitely, 
December  n,  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. 

2  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.  8  Leeds  MSS.  17. 


The  Government         177 

increase  of  the  army,  the  other  of  stifling  it  to  save  the 
Duke  of  York,  his  former  patron.1  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.2  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  ; 3  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  hand- 
writing 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 

1  Foley  v.  1 1,  12,  13.    Diary  of  Lord  Keeper  Guildford,  Dalrymple, 
ii.  200,   320.     Articles  of  Impeachment  against  the  Earl  of  Danby  iv. 
Par/.  Hist.  iv.  1068. 

2  See  above  78. 

3  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  \otal  conquest."  Add.  MSS.  28042  :  17. 

N 


178         The  Popish  Plot 

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  re- 
membered 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  atmo- 
sphere 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  im- 
prisoned 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 


The  Government         179 

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  over- 
whelmed with  business  that  he  hardly  had  time  to  review 
the  situation  in  his  mind  and  consider  the  best  course  to 
pursue.1 

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  immedi- 
ate 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  know- 
ledge. 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  sub- 
servience 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 

1  Earl  of  Danby  to  Sir  W.  Temple,  November  19,  1678.  Add. 
MSS.  28054:  196.  Burnet  ii.  97,  note,  151,  152.  See  also  Lindsay 
MSS.  359.  Forneron,  Louise  de  K'eroualle  153.  Harris,  Life  ef 
Charles  II  226  seq. 


i8o         The  Popish  Plot 

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  sup- 
port 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.1  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  de- 
fended 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 

1  Memoranda  by  Danby.     Add.  MSS.  28042  :   53. 

"  The  three  points  to  be  considered  by  the  committee  of  trade  every  Thursday  : — 
(i)  A  treaty  marine  with  France. 

(z)  What  should  be  proposed  to  the  king  to  be  done  by  his  example  in  not  per- 
mitting 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  o  o 

In  1679  [?8]  339.735  °  ° 

In  1679  before  the  25th  March  47,957  o  o 

£477,692     o     o 

£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. 


The  Government         181 

letters,  he  took  occasion  to  prove  himself  no  less  unscrupu- 
lous 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."  Mean- 
while his  opponents  triumphed,  and  Montagu  was  even 
successful  in  obtaining  from  the  French  king  as  much  as 
half  the  reward  promised  for  his  perfidy.1 

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  Trelawney,  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  oppo- 
nents the  government  was  successful,  and  the  saving 

1  Webster  MSS.  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  Rep.  iii.  421.  Article  by  Mr. 
Sidney  Lee  on  Osborne  (Thomas)  in  the  Diet,  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. 


1 8  2,         The  Popish  Plot 

clause  passed  by  a  majority  of  two  votes.  The  French 
ambassador  thought  that  James  could  have  hardly  escaped 
from  a  greater  danger.1  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  ? 2  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  Parlia- 
ment 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.3  On  the  other  side  the  Whig 

1  Par/.  Hist.  iv.  1039-1045,  1052.    Burnet  ii.  176,  178.     Barillon, 
November  25/December  5,  1678.     Ferguson,   Growth  of  Popery,  Part 
II.  219. 

2  Par/.  Hist.  iv.  1034.     Sitwell,  First  Whig  63. 

3  Reresby,  Memoirs  149.     Par/.  Hist.  iv.  1035.     Barillon,  October 
17/27,  1678.     Ranke  v.  236. 


The  Government         183 

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  resist- 
ance 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  dis- 
solved 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  every- 
where notorious.  At  Norwich  "  a  strange  consump- 
tion 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  govern- 
ment could  rely  upon  a  mere  handful  of  twenty  or  thirty 


184         The  Popish  Plot 

votes  in  the  new  parliament  as  against  a  hundred  and  fifty 
in  the  old.1 

Notwithstanding  the  disastrous  complexion  of  affairs 
Charles  began  the  session  on  March  6,  1679  with  con- 
siderable success.  Outside  the  circle  of  politicians  the 
chief  cause  of  alarm  to  the  nation  was  the  continued  exist- 
ence 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  parlia- 
ment. On  April  16  a  supply  of  over  ^206,000  was  voted 
and  appropriated  for  the  purpose,  and  the  disbandment 
began  at  once.2  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 

1  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. 

2  Barillon,  December  30,  i678/January  9,  1679,  January  3o/Feb- 
ruary    9,     May    12/22,  June  2/12,   1679.     John    Verney    to    Sir    R. 
Verney,   May  22,   1679.     Verney  MSS.  472.     Par/.  Hist.  iv.  1086, 

II2I. 


The  Government         185 

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  employ- 
ment for  him,  and  sent  Seymour  and  the  rest  of  the 
Commons  back  to  choose  another.  High  was  the  indig- 
nation of  the  House,  which  sat  for  a  whole  week  headless, 
combative,  and  remonstrating.  One  ardent  member  de- 
clared :  "  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,  pro- 
testing 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.1  Though  the 
Commons  professed  to  be  satisfied,  since  they  had  estab- 
lished 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.  Innumer- 
able cabals,  intriguing  one  against  another,  troubled  the 
surface  of  politics  and  clouded  the  depths.  No  one  could 

1  Part.  Hist.  \v.  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. 


1 86         The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  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  feeble- 
ness and  irresolution,  the  government  had  marshalled  its 
strength  with  some  adroitness.  Dan  by  was  in  the  Tower. 
The  army  was  in  the  act  of  being  disbanded.  The  trea- 
sury 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  com- 
missioner. 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.2 
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 

1  See  Reresby,  Memoirs  170,  171.     Temple  i.  396-414. 

2  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. 


The  Government         187 

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  composi- 
tion would  give  confidence  even  to  the  most  hostile  parlia- 
ment. 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  con- 
sidered 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  char- 
acteristic touch.  He  consented  to  the  inclusion  of  Halifax 
in  the  new  council  only  after  some  pressure,  for  he  disliked 


1 88         The  Popish  Plot 

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  ambas- 
sador 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.1 

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.2  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 

1  Temple    i.  414-419,    473-477.       Barillon,   April    7/17,   April 
2l/May   I,  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. 

2  Burnet  ii.  209. 


The  Government         189 

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  form- 
ing 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  inten- 
tions. 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. 


190         The   Popish   Plot 

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.1 

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  encourage- 
ment 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  1 1 ,  when  daylight  had  gone  out  with  talk,  a  resolu- 
tion 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 

1  Barillon,  February  5/15,  1680.  Luttrell,  Erief  Relation  i.  19,  33. 
Burnet  ii.  246,  248,  249.  Temple  i.  419,  420,  441-444.  Ailes- 
bury,  Memoirs  i.  35.  Foxcroft,  Life  of  Halifax  i.  173-178,  192. 
Christie,  Life  of  Sbaftesbury  ii.  357.  Airy,  Charles  II  240. 


The  Government         191 

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.  Shaftes- 
bury  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.1  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.2 

Neither  Parliament  nor  the  privy  council  as  a  whole 
can  properly  be  said  at  this  time  to  have  been  the  govern- 
ment of  the  country.  Under  the  old  system  the  council 

1  Barillon,  May  z6/June  5,  1675.  Par/.  Hist.  iv.  1125-1149. 
Temple  i.  424,  429-432.  Burnet  ii.  210-215.  Reresby,  Memoirs 
173.  North,  Examen  506.  Ralph  i.  453,  454,  455. 

2X  Burnet  ii.  263,  264.  House  of  Lords  MSS.  136.  And  see 
Ferguson,  Growth  of  Popery,  Part  II.  246. 


192,         The  Popish  Plot 

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  govern- 
ment a  policy  framed  in  the  country  and  strongly  dis- 
approved 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  appear- 
ance. 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 


The  Government         193 

government,  the  class  from  whom  now  its  keen  opponents 
were  drawn  ;  religious  dissenters  ;  high -principled  re- 
publicans ;  malcontents  of  every  kind  ;  the  squirearchy, 
the  magistracy,  the  Church  of  England.1  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  Gates' 
revelations  a  perpetual  stream  of  reports,  warnings,  infor- 
mations 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, 

1  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. 

O 


194         The   Popish   Plot 

denoting  no  good  intentions.  An  English  doctor  wrote 
from  Amsterdam  telling  how  he  had  overheard  con- 
spirators planning  the  king's  destruction  for  the  month 
of  April,  and  had  barely  escaped  being  murdered  for 
his  indiscretion.1  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." 2  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.3  London 
alone,  apart  from  the  turmoil  caused  by  Godfrey's  death, 
provided  heavy  work.  Order  had  to  be  taken  for  safe- 
guarding 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 

1  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  ;  41 1  :   69. 

2  Add.  MSS.  32095  :   160.     S.P.  Dom.  Charles  II  408  :  i.  36. 

3  Longleat    MSS.    Coventry   Papers    xx.   120-130.     S.P.    Ireland 
339.     Carte,  Life  of  Ormonde  477-481. 


The  Government         195 

Portsmouth.1  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  strong- 
hold 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.2 

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. 

1  S.P.  Dom.  Charles  II  407  :  i.  268.     Par!.  Hist.  iv.  1034.     Jonn 
Vcrney  to    Sir   R.    Verney,   June    12,    1679.      Verney    MSS.   472. 
Barillon,  April  ig/May  I,  June  12/22,  1679.       And  see  Klopp  ii.  193. 

2  Burner  ii.  179.     Add.  MSS.  28042  :   19.     See  Appendix  C. 


. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE    CATHOLICS 

OF  the  five  hundred  Cavalier  gentlemen  who^fell  in  the 

Civil  War   more  than  one-third  were    Catholics.1     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.2     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  English- 

1  Klopp  i.  26.  2  Foley  v.  95,  96. 

196 


The  Catholics  197 

men  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.1  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  them- 
selves 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.2  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 

1  Ranke    v.    233.      Das    papistische    Complot    crscheint    als    ein 
Symptom  der  zwischen  den  Bekenntnissen  wieder  angeregten  heftigen 
Antipathien. 

Schwerin,  Briefs  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  neoem  erbittert  wird. 

2  L.J.  xiii.  408.     Airy,  Charles  II  70. 


198         The  Popish  Plot 

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."  l 

1  Warner  MS.  hist.  29  from  Gazette  de  Hollands,  November  22, 1678. 
Schwerin,  Briefs  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 — "1'odio  de'  Protestanti,  gli  amatori  di  novita,  e 
li  nemici  della  casa  Reale."  October  3O/November  9,  1678.  Vat. 
Arch.  Nunt.  di  Fiandra  66. 


The  Catholics  199 

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  Gates.  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.1  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 
1  7  State  Trials  995. 


200         The   Popish   Plot 

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.1 

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  in- 
trigues 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.2  It  was  perhaps  not 

1  7  State  Trials  959-1043,  1162-1183.     C.J.  December   16,  1680. 
Narrative  of  Lawrence   Motobray   1680.     Narrative  of  Robert  Bolron 
1680.     Depositions  from  York  Castle,  Surtees  Society  xl.  1861.     Foley 
v.  759-767.      The  Month  xviii.  393. 

2  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. 


The  Catholics  201 

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.1  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.2 

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  teach- 
ing on  the  oath  of  allegiance.3  With  the  prosecution  of 
the  Popish  Plot  the  movement  in  favour  of  the  oath 
naturally  grew  in  strength  among  moderate  Catholics  ; 

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  cvertet. 

1  Brosch  432. 

2  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. 

3  See  above  53. 


The   Popish   Plot 

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.1  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.2  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  circula- 
tion. The  spectacle  of  two  priests  informing  against  a 
brother  in  orders  was  calculated  to  afford  grave  scandal 
to  Catholics  and  equal  satisfaction  to  Protestants.  Con- 
siderable pains  were  taken  by  the  Jesuits  to  upset  the 
credit  of  the  story,  and  the  rector  of  the  college  at  Liege 
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.3  The  division  in  the 

1  Di  Brusselles  dal  Sigr  Internuncio,   March  20/30,   1680.     Vat. 
Arch.  Nunt.  di  Fiandra  66.     S.P.  Dom.  Charles  II  4 1 3  :  252.     Order  in 
Council  for  a  passport  for  Henry,  Duke  of  Norfolk,  May  26,  1680. 

2  7  State  Trials  496.     Foley  v.  460. 

3  Sidney's  diary  in  Sidney's  Charles  Hi.  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 


The  Catholics  203 

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.1  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 

Gavan  was  a  different  person  from  the  eminent  controversialist  of  the 
same  name  (see  his  life  in  Diet,  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  Sigr  Duca  d'Jorch, 
excitandolo  ad  opporsi  ad  ogni  tentative  che  potesse  tentarsi  dal  Frate 
Valesio,  e  delli  Dottori  Sergeant  e  Mauritio  accioche  non  si  proponga 
a  Cattci  il  giuramento  di  Fedelta,  gia  censurato  dalla  S.  Sede,  b  non  se 
ne  inventi  nuova  formula  che  non  sia  precedentemente  approvata  da 
S.  Bne  quale  ho  assicurato  esser  per  mostrarsi  sempre  propenso  verso 
le  convenienze  di  S.  A.  Reale.  Vat.  Arch.  Nunt.  di  Fiandra  66. 

1  Di  Brusselles  del  Sigr  Internuncio,  April  28/June  8,  1680. 
Circa  il  giuramento  di  fedelta  condannato  altre  volte  dalla  S.  Sede, 
e  pur  troppo  vero  che  il  Sigr  Duca  di  Jorch  lo  presto  anni  sono,  sedotto 
dall'  esempio  di  molti  allevati  nella  Religion  Cattca  e  non  informato 
che  lo  stesso  fosse  stato  prescritto  da  Sommi  Pontifici.  Vat.  Arch. 
Nunt.  di  Fiandra  66. 


204         The   Popish   Plot 

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.1 

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  Gates, 
had  a  brother  in  the  Society  of  Jesus,  who  lay  dying  in 
Newgate,  and  was  thought  to  be  a  wealthy  country  gentle- 
man 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.2  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  voung  man  °f  infamous  character 
who  went  by  the  name  sometimes  of  Willoughby,  some- 
times of  Dangerfield,  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  pro- 

1  Di  Brusselles  dal  Sigr  Internuncio,  August  16/26,  August  22/Sep- 
tember  2,  1679.     Vat.  Arch.  Nunt.  di  Fiandra  66. 

2  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. 


The  Catholics  205 


ceeded  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  Gates'  character.1  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  inten- 
tions. 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 
1  See  below  in  Trials  for  Treason. 


206         The   Popish   Plot 

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.1 

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.2  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.  Danger- 
field'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  Presby- 
terian Unmasked,"  "The  Ballad  of  the  Popish  Plot," 
"  The  Danby  Reflections,"  and  an  edition  of  the  Five 
Jesuits'  dying  speeches,  all  launched  against  the  Presby- 
terians. 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.3  The  result  was  most  satisfactory.  Lists  of  names 

1  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. 

2  Dangerfield's  Narrative  8.      Malice  Defeated  13,  39.     Mansell's 
Narrative  39,  47,  60,  69. 

8  Mansell's   Narrative  43,  53,   54,  69.     Malice    Defeated  13,    14. 
Dangerfield's  Case  ^.     North,  Ex  amen  268. 


The  Catholics  207 


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.1 

1  Dangerfield's    Narrative  30-36.     Malice  Defeated  14.    Mansell's 
Narrative  57,  58,  62.     North,  Examen  267. 


ao8         The  Popish   Plot 

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  Danger- 
field'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  ex- 
amined, an  officer  of  the  Mint  happened  to  pass  and,  recog- 
nising 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  Danger- 
field  was  committed  to  Newgate.  He  had  in  the  mean- 
time 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 


The  Catholics  209 

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.  Fear- 
ing 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,  de- 
clared afterwards  that  her  fear  was  lest  Dangerfield  should 
falsely  use  their  connection  to  his  own  advantage.  What- 
ever 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.1 

In  the  tangle  of  accusations  and  informations  which 
followed    and  were    laboriously  examined  at   the  council 

1  Dangerfield's   Narrative  37-49.     Dangerfield's  Information  1680. 
Malice  Defeated  14-18.     Mansell's  Narrative  18-40. 

P 


210         The   Popish   Plot 

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.1 
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  Presby- 
terian 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 

1  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. 


The   Catholics  211 

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  be- 
tween 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  incrimi- 
nating notes  himself,  he  gave  them  to  Mrs.  Cellier  to  dis- 
pose 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.1  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 

1   Malice   Defeated  15.      Examination    of  Anne    Blake,   Mansell's 
Narrative  41. 


2,12         The   Popish  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.1  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.2 

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.3  Another  fact  is  of  import- 
ance. To  strengthen  his  story  in  the  eyes  of  the  secretary 
of  state,  Dangerfield  produced  two  letters  belonging  to 
Lord  Shaftesbury.4  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 

1  Malice  Defeated  15. 

2  Barillon,  November  zy/December  7,  1679. 

8  See  below  in  Shaftesbury  and  Charles.    Dangerfield's  Narrative  30. 
4  Dangerfield's  Narrative  39. 


The  Catholics  213 

excuses  he  alleged  for  failure.1  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  riot  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.2  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."  3 
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 

1  Traill  shews  the  absurdity  neatly,  though  he  makes  the  mistake 
of  joining  Mrs.  Cellier  with  Dangerfield.      Shaftesbury  154. 
3*7  State  Trials   1043-1111. 
3  Mansell's  Narrative  40. 


214         The   Popish  Plot 

leave  off  tampering."  a  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.2  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 

1  Barillon,    November  zy/December    7,    1679.     Sidney's     Diary, 
October  7,  October  14,  in  Sidney's  Charles  II  i.  181,  185. 

2  Parl.  Hist.  iv.  1029,  1030. 


The  Catholics  215 


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.1  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.2  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 

1  Dartmouth  MSS.  36. 

2  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.  li.  467-471.     Brusselles  Dal.  Sigr  Internuncio,  March  8/18,  1679. 
Vat.  Arch.  Nunt.  di  Fiandra  66. 


2i  6         The  Popish   Plot 

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.1  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."  2 

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.  Ulti- 
mate 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 

1  Barillon,  July  19/29,  October  4/14,  14/24,  21/31,  1680. 

2  James  to  Col.  Legge,  December  II,  1679,  January  25,  December 
14,  1680.     Dartmouth  MSS.  40,  47,  55.     James  i.  657. 


The  Catholics  217 

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."  l  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.2  Only 
positive  commands  and  elaborate  assurances,  to  which 
even  then  he  attached  little  weight,3  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  inter- 
fering and  making  unwise  suggestions.  Absent,  he  did 
not  cease  pressing  for  his  recall.4  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."  5  This  was 
of  a  piece  with  all  his  advice.  All  things,  he  thought, 

1  James  i.  550,  551.  2  Temple  i.  382. 

3  Barillon,  October  21/31,  1680. 

4  James  i.  554,  556,  574,  659,  660.     Dartmouth  MSS.  35,  36,  39, 
41,  4*5,  47,  58.     Savile  Foljambe  MSS.  134,  135. 

5  James  to  Col.  Legge,  May  28,  1679.     Dartmouth  MSS.  33,  34. 


2i 8         The  Popish  Plot 

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." l  Five 
months,  six  months,  a  year  later  the  same  counsel  was 
being  reiterated.2  While  Charles  remained  cool  and  un- 
dismayed in  the  midst  of  pressing  danger,  every  fresh 
event  abashed  the  mind  of  James.8  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.4  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 

1  James  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  May   14,  May  29,  June  I,  1679. 
Savile  Foljambe  MSS.  129-131.      To  Col.  Legge,  July  22,  Dartmouth 
MSS.  36.     And  see  James  (Or.  Mem.)  i.  551. 

2  E.g.  Dartmouth  MSS.  38,  42,  46,  54. 

3  Barillon,  July  i/li,  July  24/August  3,  October  21/31,  1680. 

4  Campana  de  Cavelli  i.  302,  304. 


The  Catholics  219 

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.1  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  participa- 
tion. 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.2 

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 

1  Vat.  Arch.  L'Abbe  G.  B.  Lauri  a  S.  Em.3a>  October  23/Decem- 
ber  2,  1678.     Nunt.  di  Francia  332.     Di  Brusselles  dal   Sigr  Inter- 
nuncio,  May  24; June  3,   1679.     Nunt.  di  Fiandra  66.     Add.  MSS. 
32095  :  196.     See  Appendix  C. 

2  Barillon,  August  9/19,  September  20/30,  October  21/31,  1680. 


22O         The  Popish  Plot 

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  gratify- 
ing assurance  that  he  would  make  it  his  first  care  to 
propagate  the  true  faith  by  every  means  at  his  disposal.1 
How  James  fulfilled  that  promise  is  well  known.  How- 
ever 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.2  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 

1  Vat.    Arch.    Di    Brussells    dal    Sigr    Internuncio,    June    7/17, 
September  6/1 6,  October  18/28,  November  15/25,  1679.     Nunt.  di 
Fiandra  66. 

Ibid.  July  3O/September  9.  La  sera  pero  di  detto  giorno  fattomi 
introdurre  nel  suo  gabinetto  (del  Duca  d'Yorch),  m'incarico  di  dar 
parte  del  successo  a  S.  Bne,  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  sara  in  suo  potere. 

2  Foley  v.  152,  157. 


The  Catholics  221 

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.1 

The  lines  are  a  witness  against  the  two  great  parties  whose 
intrigues  were  woven  to  menace  the  security  of  the  English 
state.  Gates'  false  oaths  ruined  the  hopes  of  the  Roman 
Catholics :  the  designs  of  the  English  Whigs  were 
grounded  on  them. 

1  Absalom  and  Achitophel  114-117,  134-141. 
222 


Shaftesbury  and   Charles   223 

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  poli- 
tician 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  govern- 
ment found  its  keenest  supporter.  To  this  course  Shaftes- 
bury 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 


22,4         The   Popish   Plot 

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  con- 
tracted an  alliance  with  a  cabal  consisting  of  four  lords, 
Buckingham,  Wharton,  Ogle  and,  chief  among  them, 
Shaftesbury.1  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  oppo- 
sition.2 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  suprem- 
acy, 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 

1  Ranke  v.  186. 

2  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. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles   225 

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  Marvel),  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.1  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  con- 
clusion. Well-informed  persons  believed  that  the  leaders 
of  the  opposition  were  about  to  confess  their  defeat  and 
bid  farewell  to  politics.2  Eight  months  later  an  auspicious 
wind  blew  Titus  Gates  on  to  the  scene,  and  the  aspect  of 
affairs  was  completely  changed. 

There  have  not  been  wanting  either  among  his  con- 
temporaries or  in  later  times  some  to  assert  that  Gates 

1  Ranke  v.  201,  220.     Par/.  Hist.  iv.  861-863.    C.J.  April  4,  1677. 
RalpfTi.  310-314,  318.     Andrew  Marvell,  Growth  of  Popery,  Part  I.  149. 

2  Burnet  ii.  155. 

Q 


22,6         The   Popish   Plot 

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  Shaftes- 
bury 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.1  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 
malhonnete  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.  Circum- 
stance 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 

1  Burnet  ii.  179.    Barillon,  September  jo/October  10,  1678. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    227 

with  Dr.  Tonge  in  Whitehall.1  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  Gates  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  ^ooo.2  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, 

1  Sir  Edward  Carteret  provided  his  rooms  at  the  rent  of  £60  a 
year. 

2  Secret  Services  of  Charles  II  and  James  7/3-15.     I  do  not  know 
if  the  very  comic  accounts  said  to  have  been  presented  by  Gates  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. 


228         The   Popish  Plot 

feted,  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." l  Gates  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  Gates'  appearance,  it  cannot 
be  supposed  that  the  informer's  subsequent  steps  were 
without  his  knowledge  and  approval.  At  his  first 
examination  by  the  council  Gates  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,  Gates  had  somewhat 
to  swear  against  no  less  a  person  than  the  queen.  The 
royal  leave  was  granted.  On  November  25  therefore 
Gates  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 

1  State  Trials  vii.  796,  ix.  489,  490,  x.  134,  136,  137,  1275, 
1299.  Reresby,  Memoirs  196.  Evelyn,  Diary  October  i,  November 
15,  1678.  Smith,  Intrigues  of  the  Popish  Plot.  Luttrell,  Brief  Relation 
i.  112.  North,  Examen  223.  Lives  of  the  Norths  ii.  180.  Hatton  Corre- 
spondence 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." 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    229 

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  Gates.  When  they  asked  what  the  two  had 
meant  by  keeping  back  their  information,  Gates  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  Gates  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.1 

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  revolu- 
tion. Mrs.  Elliot,  wife  of  Elliot  of  the  bedchamber, 
had  been  the  agent  who  took  Gates'  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 

1  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  Gates'  examination,  November  25.  Add.  MSS. 
23043:  5.  James  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  November  26,  1678.  Fol- 
jambe  MSS.  125.  See  too  House  of  Lords  MSS.  66.  Lord  Ossory 
to  th.e  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. 


230         The   Popish   Plot 

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  Gates  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.1  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, 

1  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. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    231 

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 "  ; l  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.2 
Further,  Charles  was  determined  to  Jet  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  Gates  line 
enough.  It  was  the  secret  of  the  king's  whole  policy 

1  Sarotti   describes   him   as  "  un   cadavere   spirante."      December 

12/22,    1679. 

2  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 
1 5,   1*679  :    "  The   Queen»  wno  is   now   a   mistress,   the   passion  her 
spouse  has  for  her  is  so  great.  .  .  ."     Sidney's  Charles  II  i.  86. 


232         The   Popish   Plot 

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  over- 
come 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.1  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  sub- 
mitted 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 

1  Pepys,  Diary  December  24,  31,  1662.     Burnet  i.  469,  470. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    233 

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  Holies.1  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  ex- 
clusion 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 

1  Barillon,  April  z8/May  8,  May  5/15,  1679.  Temple  1.421,423, 
426,429.  MS.  diary  of  Lord  Keeper  Guildford,  Dalrymple  ii.  322. 
Burnet  ii.  233.  Foxcroft,  Life  of  Halifax  i.  173-178.  Hatton  Corre- 
spondence v.  192. 


234         The   Popish   Plot 

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  success- 
fully 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."  l 

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."  2 
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 

1  Sidney,  Letters  52,  53. 
2  Ibid. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    235 

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  communica- 
tion with  the  rebels,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  had 
let  it  be  known  on  which  side  their  sympathies  lay.1  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."  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 

1  Ralph  i.  434.     North,  Examen  86.     Sidney,  Letters  52,  90. 

2  Burnet    ii.    235.     Par/.    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. 


236         The   Popish   Plot 

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  con- 
sented 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  com- 
mission 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.1 

1  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.  Sunder- 
land  to  Essex,  July  1679,  262.  Essex  to  the  King,  July  21,  1679. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles     237 

The  copies  of  Shaftesbury's  speech  intended  for  such 
fatal  use  in  Scotland  were  said  to  have  been  made  in  the 
Green  Ribbon  Club.1  That  famous  society,  founded  in 
the  year  1675,  nac^  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  Gates  were  yearly  sustained 
and  the  worst  passions  of  the  London  mob,  a  word,  it  may 
be  noted,  itself  derived  from  the  club,  systematically 
inflamed.  Gates  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 
1  Sitwell,  First  Whig  70. 


2,38         The  Popish  Plot 

activity  was  unparalleled.  Tracts  poured  into  the  con- 
stituencies. Industrious  agents  attacked  the  character  of 
the  court  candidates  and  firmly  organised  the  national 
opposition.  It  was  the  Green  Ribbon  Club  which  in- 
troduced 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  Mon- 
mouth,  Buckingham,  Ireton,  Slingsby  Bethel,  Sir  William 
Waller,  the  Spekes,  the  Trenchards,  Howard  of  Escrick, 
Sir  Robert  Peyton,  Russell,  Holies,  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  rebel- 
lion, 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  dme  damnee^ 

1  MS.  diary  of  Lord  Keeper  Guildford,  Dalrymple  ii.  322,  323." 
North,  Examen  571-575.  Par/.  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." 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    239 

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  Dry  den.  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  be- 
came lieutenant-colonel  of  dragoons  and  gentleman  of  the 
horse  to  the  king.  Gates  was  pilloried  and  pensioned. 
Speake,  Ayloffe,  Rouse,  Nelthrop,  and  Bettiscomb  were 
hanged.1 

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  over- 
whelming 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 
/rights  me  out  of  my  wits.  God  bless  you  and  deliver  us 
all  from  that  damnable  curse."  2  There  were  indeed  good 

1  Sitwell,  First  Whig,  87,  88. 

2  Barillon,  September  4/14,  1679.     Temple  i.  433.     Countess  of 
Sunderland  to  Henry  Sidney,  September  2.     Henry  Savile  to  Henry 
Sidney,*   September    n,    1679.      Sidney's    Charles    II   i.    122,    140. 
Sidney,  Letters  143.     Ralph  i.  477. 


240         The   Popish   Plot 

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  Cove- 
nanters.    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  under- 
stood 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  Crom- 
wellian    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    Ports- 
mouth, and  to  arrest  the  Lord  Mayor   and  those  privy 
councillors  who   should   offer  to   proclaim   the   Duke  of» 
York  king.1 

1  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.  Par/.  Hist. 
iv.  1233.  Le  Fleming  MSS.  174. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    241 

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  con- 
tinually 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  Sunder- 
land. 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, 

R 


242*         The   Popish   Plot 

was  banished   from   the    king's  presence  and    court  for 
ever.1 

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.2  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  Keroualle,  who  was  thought  to  have  intentions 
on  the  queen's  throne  for  herself,  had  done  the  same, 
and  displayed  the  lions  of  England  without  diminu- 

1  Burnet  ii.  242.     Carte,  Life  of  Ormonde  ii.  493.     Barillon,  Sep- 
tember 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,   Septem- 
ber   ii,   1679.      Airy,  Charles  II  245.     James  (Or.  Mem.)  i.    566, 
570-580. 

2  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  i/n,  1679. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    243 

tion.1  The  king  was  incensed,  refused  to  'see  the  pre- 
tender, 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.2 
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  cor- 
porations, the  court  began  to  gain  in  many  small  boroughs.3 
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  appear- 
ing 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  summon- 
ing 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. 

1  Dal.    Sigr.   Internuncio    Brusselles,  June   8,    1679.     Vat.  Arch. 
Nunt.  di  Fiandra  66.     Ferguson,  Growth  of  Popery,  Part  II.  276. 

2  Barillon,    December    i/il,    8/18,    1679.     Sidney,    Letters    165. 
Charles  Hatton  to  Lord  Hatton,  November  29,  1679.    Hatton  Corre- 
sponde^nce  i.  203.     Ralph  i.  484,  497. 

3  Sidney,  Letters  143,  144. 


244         The   Popish   Plot 

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  deal- 
ing 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.1 
In  this  clamorous  contest  the  king  gained  an  undeniable 
success.  But  success  did  not  bring  repose.  Watchful- 
ness was  more  severely  needed  than  ever.  To  calm  sus- 
picion 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  possi- 
bilities. There  was  talk  of  threatening  Shaftesbury  with  a 
prosecution.2 

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 

1  Temple  i.  441.     Ralph  i.  490-494.      Le   Fleming   MSS.    165. 
North,  Examen  541-548.     Defoe,  Review  vii.  296. 

2  Barillon,  December  11/21,  15/25,  18/28,  1679.     James  i.  581. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    245 

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  Holies  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.  Holies  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  Edin- 
burgh 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  sup- 
posed to  feel.1  Shaftesbury  might  well  harbour  resent- 
ment 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 

1  Barillon,  January  8/18,  12/22,  15/25,  19/29,  January  29/Feb- 
ruary  8,  March  11/21,  1680.  James  (Or.  Mem.)  i.  587.  Ralph  i. 
494. 


246         The   Popish   Plot 

wife,  Queen  Catherine,  then  living.1  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  Mon mouth.  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.2  The  whole  account  of  the  black 
box,  affirmed  the  letter,  was  a  mere  romance,  an  ingeni- 
ous device  of  the  Duke  of  York  to  sham  and  ridicule  the 
marriage,  which  indeed  had  no  relation  to  it,  for  with  the 

1  The  declaration  was  made  twice,  on  January  6  and  March  3, 
1679. 

2  The  author  was  probably  Ferguson.     See  Sprat's  History  of  the 
Ryekouse  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. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    247 

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  pro- 
nouncement. The  result  was  a  second  "  Letter  to  a 
Person  of  Honour,"  in  which  Charles'  word  was  contra- 
dicted and  his  motives  traduced.  All  the  former  state- 
ments were  repeated,  some  arguments  added,  and  the 
pamphlet  ended  by  the  modest  proposals,  "That  Parlia- 
ment, 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.1  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  Gates,  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 

1  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. 


248         The  Popish  Plot 

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  niger- 
rimus  sit."  1 

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 

1  Barillon,  June  28/July  8,  July  l/il,  8/18,  1680.     8  State  Trials 
179.     Burnet  ii.  300. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    249 

place.1  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.2 
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  them- 
selves 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 

1  S.P.  Dom.  Charles  II  413  :  75,  Lord  Massareen  to  Lord  Con- 
way.     76,  Francis  Gwyn  to  same,  March  23,  1680.     Barillon,  March 
25/April  4,  May  17/27,  20/30,  July   i/n.      Countess  of  Sunderland 
to  H.  Sidney,  May  18,  1680.     Sidney's  Charles  II  ii.  60.      Luttrell, 
Brief  Relation  i.  38. 

2  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. 


250         The   Popish  Plot 

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  Shaftes- 
bury,  found  small  credence  except  from  the  London  mob, 
and  even  in  London  the  busy  merchants  who  feared  dis- 
order 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.1 

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  in- 
wardly 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.2  The  session  opened 

1  Barillon,  December  i/n,  11/2 1,  1679,  January  5/15,  April  5/15, 
July  i/i  i,  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. 

2  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. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    251 

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  conies  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  ? x 

On    November   4    the   Exclusion    bill    was    introduced, 

1  Par/.  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- 


252,         The   Popish   Plot 

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  1 1  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.1  It  was  a  memorable 
victory. 

The  fury  of  the  Commons  exceeded  all  bounds. 
Supplies  were  refused.  Votes  and  addresses  were  passed 

1  Par!.  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. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    253 

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.1 

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.2  London  had 
always  armed  the  Whigs  with  the  possibility  of  support 

1  Par/.   Hist.  iv.  1215-1295.     Reresby,  Memoirs  191.     Groen  van 
Prinsterer  v.  444. 

2  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. 


254         The   Popish  Plot 

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."  l 
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.2 
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  repre- 
sentatives.    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  accom- 
panied   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 

1  Charles'  actual  words  are  in  doubt,  but  it  is  certain  that  he  re- 
ceived the  deputation  coldly  and  sent  it  away  unsatisfied. 

2  "  Instructions  for  members  of  Parliament  summoned  for  March 
21,  1 68 1,  and  to  be  held  at  Oxford." 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    2,55 

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  accord- 
ingly. 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."  l  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  Parlia- 
ment. 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.2  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 

1  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.  t  And  see  the  trial  of  Stephen  Colledge  8  State  Trials  549-724. 

2  Barillon,  January  13/23,  1679. 


256         The   Popish   Plot 

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  advertise- 
ment 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  agree- 
ment 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, 
Bar i lion  again  broached  the  subject.  The  king  hung 
back  until  just  before  the  dissolution  of  the  last  parlia- 
ment 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.1  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 

1  Barillon,  passim.     There  was  however  talk  of  the  negotiations  in 
diplomatic  circles.     Brosch  452. 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    257 

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  2 1 ,  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.     Shaftes- 
bury 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  declara- 
tion xof  war.     On    March    26    the   Exclusion   bill   was 


2,58         The  Popish  Plot 

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,  con- 
gratulated 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 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    259 

to  where  his  own  was  waiting.     That  night  he  was  in 
Windsor.1 

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.2 
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 

1  North,  Examtn  104,  105.  Barillon  March  zS/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." 

2  Lord  Grey's  confession  12,  13,  14.     North,  Examen  105. 


260         The   Popish   Plot 

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  misunder- 
stood, achieved  it.1  He  restored  the  crown  to  its  ancient 

1  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.  Baril- 
lon,  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  : 
II  est  fort  difficile  de  penetrer  quel  est  dans  le  fonds  son  veritable 


Shaftesbury  and  Charles    261 

place  in  the  state,  whence  his  father  and  his  grandfather 
had  let  it  fall.  He  gave  Parliament  just  enough  rope  to 
hang  itself. 

dessein.  Again  on  September  9/19  of  the  same  year  :  Le  Roi  de  la 
Grande  Bretagne  a  une  conduite  si  cachee  et  si  difficile  a  penetrer 
que  les  plus  habiles  y  sont  trompe"s.  And  again  on  January  13/23, 
1 68 1  :  Je  ne  puis  encore  expliquer  aver  certitude  a  V.M.  1'etat  des 
affaires  de  ce  pays-ci.  Ceux  qui  approchent  de  plus  pres  du  Roi 
d'Angleterre  ne  penetrent  point  le  fonds  de  ses  intentions.  See  too 
Burnet  II  409  n.  3,  467  n. 


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  three1 
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  opposi- 

1  If  Pemberton  is  counted. 
265 


2,66         The  Popish  Plot 

tion  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, 
ten1  armed  rebellions,  two  great  civil  wars,  and  plots 

1  Pilgrimage  of  Grace ;  Insurrection  in  West ;  Kent ;  Wyatt ; 
Rising  in  North;  Essex;  Penruddock ;  Booth,  1659;  Venner;  Mon- 
mouth. 


Magistrates  and  Judges    267 

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  righting 
machine.  In  this  light  it  was  regarded  by  all  men.  Where 
government  is  now  looked  on  as  a  means  of  getting  neces- 
sary 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  com- 
mission 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  diffi- 
culties 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  peace- 
able man  from  the  revolutionary.  To  be  "  counted  to  be 
a  very  pernicious  man  against  the  government " l  was 
sufficient  to  weigh  against  the  credibility  of  a  witness 

1  See  the  evidence  of  Lord  Ferrers  against  Southall  at  the  trial  of 
Lord  Stafford.     7  State  Trials  1485. 


2.68         The  Popish  Plot 

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  indi- 
viduals 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  display- 
ing 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  char- 
acter of  Dogberry.  About  the  same  time  the  parish  con- 
stables were  distinguished  for  being  "  often  absent  from 
their  houses,  being  for  the  most  part  husbandmen,  and  so 
most  of  the  day  in  the  fields."1  As  late  as  1796  the 
watchmen  of  London  were  recruited  by  the  various  authori- 
ties 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.2  Without  an 
excessive  strain  on  the  imagination  it  may  be  conjectured 
that  in  the  intervening  period  the  police  system  did  not 

1  Dalton,   Justice,  quoted  Stephen,  History  of  the  Criminal  Law, 
i.  195.    Temp.  James  I. 

2  Colquhoun,    Treatise    on    the    Police    of   the    Metropolis,    quoted 
Stephen  i.  195. 


Magistrates  and  Judges   2,69 

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.1 
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  stand- 
ing 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  cap- 
ture, 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  i66^..2 
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 

lx  Ralph  i.  399.  See  also  the  Statutes:  13  C.  II  c.  6,  14  C.  II 
c.  3,  15  C.  II  0.4.  2  6  State  Trials  566-630. 


270         The   Popish   Plot 

colonel  to  a  shop  in  the  Minories,  where  he  was  found  in 
possession  of  money  suspected  to   be  part  of  the   stolen 
property.1     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  sur- 
render, 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  manoeuvres  in    considerable 
detail  and  with  the  greatest  composure.2     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,3  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.4     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 

1  j£iooo  was  stolen  in  cash,  and  over  £2000  in  jewelry. 

2  6  State  Trials  572-575. 

3  By  two  Germans  and  a  Pole,  acting,  it  was  said,  under  orders 
from  Count  Konigsmark,  who  had  been  courting  Mr.  Thynne's  bride. 

4  Reresby,  Memoirs  235,  236. 


Magistrates  and  Judges   271 

them  again  and  extorted  confessions  of  considerable  im- 
portance, which  he  was  then  able  to  forward  to  the  secre- 
tary in  company  with  the  prisoners.1 

Instances  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  these  more  than 
magisterial  duties  might  easily  be  multiplied.  The  agita- 
tion 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,2  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." 3  The  same  magistrate  also  would 
have  assisted  in  the  work  of  obtaining  Dugdale's  con- 
fession, had  he  not  been  absent  in  London  at  the  time.4 

To  Henry  Gilbert,  justice  of  the  peace  for  Derby- 
shire, belonged  the  merit  of  tracking,  arresting,  and 
obtaining  the  conviction  of  George  Busby,  Jesuit,  for 
being  a  Romish  priest,  at  the  Derby  Assizes  of  i68i.5 
The  evidence  which  Gilbert  gave  is  very  instructive  as  to 
the  scope  of  a  magistrate's  duty.6  As  early  as  January 
1679  ^r  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 

1rReresby,  Memoirs  281,  282. 

2  This  was  the  recognised  appellation  of  a  J.P.  in  the  seventeenth 
century. 

3  House  of  Lords  MSS.  39,  under  date  May  29,  1679. 

4  7  State  Trials  1471.  5  8  State  Trials  525-550. 
6*  Gilbert's  evidence,  ibid.  531-534. 


272,         The  Popish   Plot 

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  vest- 
ments, an  altar,  "  a  box  of  wafers,  mass-books,  and  divers 
other  popish  things.1     This  was  on  March  i,  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  manoeuvre.     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.2     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  1 6 
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 
1  8  State  Trials  531.  2  Ibid.  532. 


Magistrates  and  Judges   273 

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  govern- 
ment 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.1  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.2  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.3  He  made  friends  with  the  missioners  and  then 

1  Foley  v.  891.     House  of  Lords  MSS.  89.     See  also  Fitzherbert 
MSS.  1 8,  19. 

2  Foley  v.  34.     House  of  Lords  MSS.  89. 

3  'Foley  v.  883. 

T 


274         The   Popish  Plot 

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 
Gates  had  named  as  prospective  Bishop  of  Llandaff 
triumphantly  into  Monmouth  at  the  head  of  a  dozen 
horsemen.1  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.2 
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,  i6j^.5  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." 4  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,5  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.6  One  more,  and  this  again  a 

1  "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. 

2  Foley  v.  885.     7  State  Trials  249,  252. 

3  Foley  v.  96.     Catalogue  of  those  who  suffered  in  Gates'  Plot  and 
on  account  of  their  priesthood,  taken  from  Dodd  and  Challoner. 

4  7  State  Trials  1131. 

5  Ralph  i.  570. 

6  See  Appendix   D,  where   Giles'   trial    is   discussed.     Lawrence 
Hyde  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  April  1 6,  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  watch- 


Magistrates  and  Judges   275 

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.1  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.2  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  trans- 
acted 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.3  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  be- 
haviour 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 

fulness  can  prevent  the  folly  and  wickedness  of  men  that  are  so  given 

to  it."     Groen  van  Prinsterer  v.  395. 

1  See  Stephen  i.  228.  2  7  State  Trials  1397-1399- 

3  Southall's  evidence.     7  State  Trials  1467-1471. 


276         The   Popish   Plot 

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  evil- 
doer, 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.1 
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, 

1  For  the  following  paragraph  I  have  used  Gardiner's  History  of 
England  iii.  1-27. 


Magistrates  and  Judges   277 

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  accord- 
ance 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  com- 
pare 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  them- 
selves very  circumspectly  not  to  "  check  or  oppose  any 
points  of  sovereignty." l  Of  their  regularity  in  this 
course  there  can  be  no  doubt,  for  if  any  lapsed  into  for- 
bidden ways,  a  judge  he  speedily  ceased  to  be.  His 
appointment  was  durante  beneplacito  2  and  revocable  at  the 

1  Essay  of  Judicature. 

2  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. 


278         The  Popish   Plot 

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.1 

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  posses- 
sion 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." 2  To  the 
thorough  supporter  of  the  administration  the  matter 
appeared  in  a  different  light.  When  the  two  dissenting 

1  Gneist,  Constitutional  History  of  England  (trans.  Ashworth)  550. 
2  Clarendon,  Hist.  Reb.  (Oxford,  1826)  i.  123,  124. 


Magistrates  and  Judges   279 

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.1 

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  Pro- 
tectorate, 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  Parlia- 
ment, 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 

1  Gneist  552  n.     See  Gardiner  viii.  208. 


28 o         The  Popish  Plot 

formally  concluded  in  his  absence.  At  the  same  time 
proceedings  were  commenced  against  six  other  judges 
who  had  sat  at  Hampden's  trial.1  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.2  Not  only  was  their  conduct  in  delivering 
this  extra-judicial  opinion  decidedly  irregular,3  but  their 
decision  was  in  flagrant  opposition  to  the  clearest  dictates 
of  justice  and  rules  of  law,  for  the  accusations  against 
Straffbrd  cannot  be  regarded  as  tantamount,  or  even 
approaching,  to  a  substantial  charge  of  treason.4  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 

1  Gardiner  ix.  246,  247.     Gneist  555. 

2  LJ.  May  6,  1641.     Par/.  Hist.  ii.  757. 

3  In  a  somewhat  similar  case  the  judges  under  Charles  JI  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.    Gates  ? "     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. 

4  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. 


Magistrates  and  Judges   281 

was  that  formerly  thay  had  feared  dismissal  from  the 
service  of  an  angry  sovereign  as  the  result  of  an  in- 
dependent 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  a^  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  suffi- 
cient. 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.1  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.2  Moreover  the  new  appoint- 
ments 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.3  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 

1  Gneist  570  n.  (2)  2  4  State  Trials  445-450. 

3  Foss,  Judges  of  England  vii.  109,  no.  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. 


z82,         The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  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.2 

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  Jay  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 

1  North,  Life  of  Lord  Keeper  Guildford  1 19.    Dryden,  Prose  Works 
(ed.  Malone)  iv.  156.  2  Gneist  600  n.  (2). 


Magistrates  and  Judges    283 

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  consti- 
tution, 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  ob- 
noxious 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.1  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  ac- 
cording to  the  dictates  of  conscience,  and  not  only  were  the 

1  6  State  Trials  951-1013. 


284         The  Popish  Plot 

jurymen  discharged  from  custody  without  paying  the  fine, 
but  no  attempt  has  ever  been  made  since  to  contest  the 
principle  thus  established.1 

One  further  instance  may  be  noted.  In  1675  a  con~ 
sultation  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.2  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  fore- 
runner of  a  sectarian  revolt,  it  is  evident  that  the  decision 
of  the  judges  meant  considerable  annoyance,  if  not  an 
actual  rebuff,  to  the  government.3 

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.4  Before  the  trial  of  the  regicides  they 
had  held  a  conference  with  the  king's  counsel,  Attorney, 

1  See  also  Hallara  iii.  8.     Stephen  i.  373-375. 

2  Hale,  P.C.  i.  143-146. 

3  Compare  the  attempt  to  create  a  riot  among  the  apprentices  in 
July  1679,  immediately  after  the  trial  of  the  Five  Jesuits. 

4  Par/.  Hist.  iv.  803.     Ralph  i.  297.     North,  Examen  139. 


Magistrates  and  Judges    285 

and  Solicitor -General  to  resolve  debatable  points  which 
were  likely  to  arise  in  the  course  of  the  trials.1  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"  ;2 
and  their  preaching  was  put  into  practice  before  many 
months  had  elapsed  at  the  trials  of  Harris 3  and  Carr,4  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  regime  the  sentence  pronounced  by  Chief-Justice 
Hyde  upon  Twyn,  the  printer,  had  fully  sustained  the 
traditions  of  the  trials  of  Prynne,  Bastwick,  and  Lilburn.5 
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  edify- 
ing 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.6 

The  advantage  of  lectures  thus  delivered  in  court  on 
general  politics  and  the  duties  of  a  good  subject  was  of 

1  Amos,  The  English  Constitution  in  the  Reign  of  Charles  II  302. 

2  Gazette,  May  5,  1680. 

3  7  State  Trials  926-931.  4  Ibid.  1111-1130. 

5  Twyn  and  two  other  printers  were  sentenced  to  the  pillory,  im- 
prisonment, 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. 

6  April    30    to    November    28,    1684.     Luttrell,    Diary,    printed 
10  State  Trials  125-129. 


286        The  Popish  Plot 

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."  l  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 "  ; 2  and  it  was  said  that  Sir 
Robert  Atkyns  was  dismissed  from  the  bench  for  contra- 
dicting a  dictum  of  the  Chief  Justice  while  on  circuit, 
"  that  the  presentation  of  a  petition  for  the  summoning  of 
Parliament  was  high  treason." 3  Similar  behaviour  was 
also  made  the  subject  of  complaint  against  Mr.  Justice 
Jones.4  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.5  But  most  of  all  the  influ- 
ence 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 

1  Clarendon  Correspondence  i.  2. 
2  8  State  Trials  193,  i.e.  as  resembling  the  opinions  of  1641. 

3  Gneist  600  n. 
4  8  State  Trials  194.  5  7  State  Trials  1556-1567. 


Magistrates  and  Judges    287 

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  con- 
vince them.  In  his  guilt  their  belief  was  already  strong. 
They  can  scarcely  have  refrained  from  regarding  them- 
selves 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  pre- 
ponderant. 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  sur- 
rounded, 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  develop- 
ments which  led  to  its  state  at  the  time  of  the  trials  for  the 
Popish  Plot.1 

1  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. 


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  neces- 
sary 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  his- 
torical documents  in  the  English  language.  From  that 
date  too  the  history  of  criminal  procedure  in  modern 
England  may  be  said  to  begin.  Throughout  the  seven- 
teenth 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  indis- 
pensable 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  under- 
stand because  it  is  witnessed  by  few  great  landmarks  in  the 

288 


Criminal   Procedure       289 

history  of  the  administration  of  justice,  and  owes  its  exist- 
ence 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."  l  As  a  rule  he  did  fail.  The  privy  councillors 
were  not  apt  to  waste  their  time  on  persons  who  were 
1  History  of  England  i.  125. 
U 


290         The   Popish  Plot 

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  com- 
mitted 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  prosecu- 
tion the  only  point  in  which  the  prisoner  was  at  a  dis- 
advantage, 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.1  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  possi- 
bility 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 

1  See  the  trial  of  Ireland,  Pickering,  and  Grove.     7  State  Trials 
126-129,  and  10  State  Trials  1087. 


Criminal   Procedure       29 1 

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.1 

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  I5542  Sir  Nicolas  Throck- 
morton  maintained  for  close  upon  six  hours  a  wordy  con- 
flict with  Sergeant  Stamford  and  the  Attorney-General, 
and  acquitted  himself  so  well  that  the  jury  after  deliberat- 
ing for  two  hours  returned  a  verdict  of  not  guilty.3  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.4 

1  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. 

2  i  State  Trials  869. 

3  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. 

4  i  State  Trials  957-1042. 


292         The   Popish   Plot 

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  promi- 
nent 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  over- 
looked, were  occasionally  interposed  from  the  bench.1 

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.2 

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.3  Evidence  of  a  still  more  remarkable  character 

1   Stephen  i.  326.  2   Ibid.  336,  350. 

3  2  State  Trials  25. 


Criminal   Procedure       293 

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  un- 
connected 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.  " a 
All  this  was  allowed  as  good  evidence  to  raise  a  presump- 
tion 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. 2 
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,3  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.4 

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 

lx  4  State  Trials  354-356.  2  5  State  Trials  1 185-1 195. 

3  6  State  Trials  932-936.  4  7^.938. 


294         The  Popish   Plot 

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.1  It  was  a  state  of  things,  due 
to  lack  of  experience  and  of  scientific  vision,  which  pre- 
vailed 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  Pro- 
tectorate several  modifications  were  introduced.  An 
apparently  spontaneous  change,  inaugurated  by  no  legis- 
lative 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  dis- 
appearing. 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 

1  6  State  Trials  697. 


Criminal  Procedure       295 

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.1  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.2  The  prisoner  moreover  could,  if  he 
wished,  refuse  to  answer  questions  put  to  him.3 

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.4  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 

1  6  State  Trials  605-610. 

2  7  State  Trials  591-688.     And  see  below  93  seq. 

8  See  Lilburn's  Trial.     4  State  Trials  1 342. 

4  Stephen  i.  358. 


296         The   Popish   Plot 

alone.1  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.2  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.3  Theoretically,  the  court  was  "  of 
counsel  for  the  prisoner  "  in  matters  of  law  ; 4  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.5  Honestly  enough,  no  doubt, 

1  Trial  of  Hulet,  who  was  said  to  have  been  the  actual  executioner 
of  Charles  I.     5  State  Trials  1 185-1 195.     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. 

2  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. 

3  At  the  trial  of  Colledge  : — Sergeant  Maynard  :  "  It  is  Mr.  Gates' 
saying  ;  it  is  Mr.  Turbervile's  oath."     8  State  Trials  638. 

4  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  j 
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. 

5  See  e.g.  Coleman's  trial.       7  State  Trials   14.     L.C.J.:    "The 


Criminal   Procedure       297 

this  was  the  theory  ;  but  in  practice  the  slightest  com- 
plication 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.1  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.2 

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,  with- 
out necessarily  indulging  the  rare  vice  of  spontaneous  in- 
humanity 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 

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. 

1  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." 

2  8  State  Trials  579. 


2,98         The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  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."  2  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  pro- 
duce or  point  to  them.  As  this  was  naturally  impossible, 
nothing  could  be  done.3 

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 

1  See    Burnet    ii.    196,    291.       Pepys,    Diary  January    21,    1667. 
North,  Life  of  Guildford  195,  196,  291. 

2  6  State  Trials  570.  3  7  State  Trials  463. 


Criminal   Procedure       299 

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.1 
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.2  Without  being  in  the  least  abashed  he 
pursued  his  speech  and  finally  carried  the  point  triumph- 
antly.3 A  similar  violation  of  the  maxim  De  vita  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  prose- 
cuting counsel.  "  Mr.  Attorney,  why  may  not  this  trial 

1  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. 

2  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  dox  not  ask  your  consent." 

3  7  State  Trials  1371-1373. 


300         The   Popish  Plot 

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.1 

The  old  criminal  trial  of  the  English  courts  had  been 
conducted  strictly  on  the  inquisitorial  method  of  pro- 
cedure, 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  adminis- 
trative methods  of  continental  nations  odious  to  the 
English  mind.  But  in  its  place  nothing  so  complete  or 
logical  remained.  The  changes  which  were  then  intro- 
duced, 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.2  Not  until  greater  knowledge  of  the  principles 

1  7  State  Trials  1544. 

2  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 


Criminal   Procedure       301 

of  judicial  administration  was  gained  by  a  long  and  harsh 
experience,  and  until  a  more  stable  state  of  society  pro- 
duced 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.  What- 
ever doubt  may  exist  is  counted  to  the  benefit  of  the 
accused.  He  is  treated  throughout  with  studied  con- 
sideration. 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  a  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 

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  prose- 
cutor that  he  could  clearly  prove  the  perjury.  6  State  Trials  922-952. 


302         The   Popish  Plot 

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.1  All  the 
papers  which  he  wrote  in  prison  were  taken  from  him.2 
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,3  a  precaution  which 
was  justified  by  the  fact  that,  when  all  possible  care  had  been 
taken,  prisoners  still  found  means  underhand  to  receive  com- 
munications which  would  have  been  prizes  of  considerable 
value  to  the  government  if  they  had  been  intercepted.4 

1  Sometimes  this  gave  rise  to  great  hardship,  as  in  Gates'  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. 

2  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. 

3  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. 

4  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  infor- 
mation 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  conversa- 
tion.    Information  of  Lewis    the    spy,   May   30,    1 68 1.      S.P.  Dom. 
Charles  II  415  :  334. 


Criminal   Procedure       303 

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  suc- 
cessive 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.1 

1  Principles  of  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy  ii.  310. 


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  de- 
pended 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,1  and  had  they  not 
secured  his  conviction,  the  Jesuits,  Mr.  Langhorn,  Lord 
Stafford,  and  Archbishop  Plunket  would  have  gone  uncon- 
victed  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 

1  That  this  was  recognised  at  the  time  is  evident  from  the  atten- 
tion 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.  104.4.  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.. 

304 


Trials  for  the  Plot       305 

with  "  M.  la  Chaise,  then  servant  and  confessor  to  the 
French  king."  l     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  accusa- 
tion 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.2     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  Pere  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."  3     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 

,     i  7  State  Trials  6.  2  Ibid.  3,  4. 

3  Ibid.  7-13. 
x 


306         The  Popish   Plot 

character.1  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."  2 

The  case  for  the  prosecution  was  opened  by  the 
evidence  of  Titus  Gates.  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  Pere  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  ; 3  that  Coleman  had  in  his  hearing  expressed 
approval  when  he  was  told  that  the  Jesuits  had  determined 
to  kill  the  king  ; 4  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.5  In 
the  medley  of  wild  accusations  against  the  Jesuits  and 
other  Roman  Catholics,  which  Gates  mingled  with  this 
evidence  against  Coleman,  the  main  point,  as  in  his  previ- 
ous 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 

1  See  above  45-48.          2  7  State  Trials  70.  3  Ibid.  16,  17. 

4  Ibid.  1 8.  5  Ibid.  22. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       307 

to  Gates,  given  his  formal  approval  to  the  project.  Later, 
in  a  letter  which  Gates  professed  to  have  seen,  he  had 
expressed  the  desire  "  that  the  duke  might  be  trepanned 
into  this  plot  to  murder  the  king."  l  Bedloe's  evidence, 
which  followed,  was  of  the  same  nature,  though  not  so  wide 
in  scope  or  so  decisive  in  character.2  He  swore  to  treason- 
able 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  Tich- 
bourn  bore  out  Gates'  statement  that  Coleman  had  received 
a  patent  to  be  secretary  of  state  under  the  new  Jesuit 
regime  in  England.3  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  Gates  that  his  testimony  was  entirely 
untrustworthy.  At  the  examination  before  the  privy 
council,  Gates  had  neither  known  nor  accused  him  person- 
ally ;  yet  now  he  pretended  to  be  his  intimate  and  con- 
versant with  all  his  plans.4  Gates  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  Gates'  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.5  There  must  have  been  signs  of 
something  perhaps  almost  unnatural  about  them,  which 

1  7  State  Trials  18,  19.  2  Ibid.  30-33. 

3  Ibid.  23,  31.  4  Ibid.  25. 

5  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." 


308         The  Popish  Plot 

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  Gates  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.1  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  ?  Gates  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  ?  "  2  Gates'  answers  were  the  reverse  of  satisfactory. 
He  became  loud  in  protestation,  swore  that  he  had  been 

1  7  State  Trials  25.  2  Ibid.  25-27. 


Trials  for  the  Plot       309 

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  experi- 
ence, Coleman  reverted  to  the  incident  of  the  candles  and 
Gates'  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  acquaint- 
ance 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.1  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.2  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 

1  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)." 

2  7  State  Trials  29,  30. 


310         The   Popish   Plot 

a  sum  for  such  a  great  work,  and  had  advised  that  Sir 
George  Wakeman  should  be  paid  half  as  much  again.1 
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.2  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 

1  7  State  Trials  21. 

2  Gates'  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  con- 
fronted 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  dis- 
missed 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  Wake- 
man'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. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       311 

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  Gates'  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.  Writ- 
ing 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."  l  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.2  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 

1  Hist.  Crim.  Law  i.  385. 

2  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. 


312         The   Popish  Plot 

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,"  l  were  state- 
ments 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.2  The  evidence  of  accom- 
plices 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.  Fen  wick 
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 

1  7  State  Trials  21,  32. 
2  As  in  the  case  of  Dangerfieid.     7  State  Trials  I  no. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       313 

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." l  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,2  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 

1  7  State  Trials  359,  411.  2  See  above  293. 


314         The   Popish   Plot 

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."  l  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,2  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  note- 
worthy 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  anc^  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 

1  Fox,  History  of  the  Early  Parr  of  the  Reign  of  James  II  34. 
2  Gardiner,  History  of  England  vii.  323-326. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       315 

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.' " l  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,  "  im- 
possible 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,2  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.  Where- 
upon 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."3 

When  it  is  .considered  that  the  former  of  these  trials 

1  6  State  Trials  693. 

2  One  of  the  women  supposed  to  be  bewitched. 
3  8  State  Trials  1021.     Lives  of  the  Norths  u  167. 


316         The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  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."2 

1  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. 

2  History  of  his  own  Time.     London,  1727,  386. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       317 

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  corre- 
spondence with  Roman  Catholics  abroad  were  read  at 
length,1  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 
Gates  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."2  Chief 
among  the  correspondence  read  were  three  letters  to 
and  one  from  Pere  de  la  Chaize  and  the  declaration 
which  Coleman  had  drawn  up  to  justify  the  prospective 
dissolution  of  Parliament.3  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 

.      l  Ralph  i.  412.  2  7  State  Trials  13. 

3  Ibid.  35-53. 


318         The  Popish  Plot 

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  in- 
consequential 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  "  ; l  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.2 

Concerning  Coleman's  letters  a  curious  point  arose  at 
the  trial.     In  opening  the  evidence  for  the  crown  Sergeant 

1  7  State  Trials  59,  60. 

2  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. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       319 

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  i678."x  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,  kft  °ff  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  corre- 
sponding. 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."  2  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.3 
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 

1%  7  State  Trials  8.  2  Ibid.  15.  3  Ibid.  76. 


32,0         The   Popish  Plot 

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  i,  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."  l  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-General2 
that  the  latter  should  have  been  entirely  ignorant  of  its 
existence.3 

1  House  of  Lords  MSS.  8,  November  6,  1678. 

2  House  of  Lords  MSS.  14. 

3  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   sus- 
picious, as  for  instance  in  the  suppression  of  the  forged  letters  sent 
by  Gates  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  supposi- 
tion cannot  be  maintained.     It  was  suggested  at   the  time  that,  if  the 
letters  of  the  years  1673,  1674,  1675  contained  such  dangerous  matter 


Trials  for  the   Plot       321 

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  2ist  day  of  August.1 
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  I  oth  of  August  until  the  last  day  of 
the  month.2  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.8  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 

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  person- 
ality 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  manoeuvre 
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.). 

1  See  above  312.     7  State  Trials  59.  2  Ibid.  65. 

3  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. 

Y 


322         The   Popish  Plot 

proved  a  perjury  against  Gates  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,1  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.2  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."  8  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.4 

Coleman  was  not  the  first  man  to  suffer  for  the  Popish 

1  7  State  Trials  71. 

2  Ibid.  66-68.     Besides  this  he  said  several  other  things,  of  which 
mention  will  be  made  later. 

3  Ibid.  70. 

4  Ibid.  78.      Luttrell,   Brief 'Relation  i.  4.     Burnet  ii.  178. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       323 

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  Car- 
stairs,  who  had  eked  out  a  precarious  livelihood  by  acting 
as  a  government  spy  on  conventicles  in  Scotland.1  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.'  " 2  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  his- 
torians 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.3  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,4  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 
gefanglich  eingezogen  worden,  weil  er  bei  einem  Gelage — 

1  Burnet  ii.  113. 

2  Evidence  of  Carstairs,  6  State  Trials  1503. 

3  Macaulay,  Hist,  of  England  i.  237.     Lingard  xiii.  107,  108. 

4  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." 


32,4         The   Popish   Plot 

wiewohl  in  trunkenem  Zustande — Reden  gefuhrt  hat  :  die 
Conspiration  sei  noch  nicht  ganz  entdeckt,  so  habe  er  noch 
Hande  den  KOnig  zu  ermorden."]  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."2  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.3 

To  hold  that  the  words  attributed  to  Staley  by  the 
witnesses  at  the  trial  were  spoken  "  advisedly  and  mali- 
ciously "  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 

1  Schwerin,    Briefe   aus   England   356.     On    December    ^    (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  iiberzeugt,  dass  er  gesagt, 
dass  der  Konig  in  England  sei  der  grosste  Ketzer  und  Schelm  in  der 
Welt.     Darauf  hat  er  mit  der  Hand  auf  die  Brust  geschlagen,  mit  den 
Fiissen  ftinf  bis  sechsmal  auf  die  Erde  gestampft,  und  mit  ausgestrecktem 
Arm  gesagt,  Dies  ist  die  Hand,  die  ihn  hatte  umbringen  sollen,  der  Konig 
und  das  Parlament  glaubten,  das  alles  gethan  und  vorbei  sei,  allein  die 
Schelme  waren   betrogen."      Ibid.   362.      Barillon's  testimony  is  on 
the  same  side :  "  Le  temoin,  sur  la  foi  duquel  Staley,  fils  d'un  orrevre, 
a  etc  condamne,  a  accuse  le   Due   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. 

2  House  of  Lords  MSS.  77,  78. 

3  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. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       32,5 

called  the  king  a  rogue  and  a  heretic.1  His  only  explana- 
tion 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-meme  and  Je  me  tuerais  moi-meme  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.2  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 

1  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. 

2  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  cT  Angleterre,  which 
was   published  in    1681    and   is   now   extremely  rare,   are   quoted   by 
Arnauld,  (Euvres  xiv.  515-535.     Arnauld  says  in  a  note  :  "C'est  M. 
Rocole,  ancien  chanoine  de  S.  Benoit  a  Paris,  qui  en  est  1'auteur  ;  mais 
1'avertissement  qui  le  fait  paraitre  Protestant,  n'est  pas  de  lui."     There 
is  among  the  State  Papers  an  order  in  council  for  the  arrest  of  Bar- 
tholeme^w  Fermin  for  high  treason  on  account  of  the  Popish  Plot,  but 
without  date.     S.P.  Dom.  Charles  II  408  :  i.  no. 


326         The  Popish  Plot 

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  2Qth  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  conse- 
quence 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.1 

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  i6y8.2 
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.3  Fenwick,  less  well  known  by 
his  real  name  Caldwell,  was  ten  years  his  junior.  He  had 
joined  the  English  mission  from  Flanders  in  1675,  anc^ 
was  now  the  London  agent  for  the  college  at  St.  Omers. 
Both  were  noted  in  the  society  for  their  success  in  the 
missionary  field.4  Ireland,  alias  Ironmonger,  had  come 
into  England  in  1677  as  procurator  of  the  province.5  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 

1  6  State  Trials  1511,  1512.  2  Foley  v.  233,  234. 

8  Ibid.v.  12.     Lingard  xiii.  64.  True  Narrative  of  the  Horrid  Plot 
and  Conspiracy ,  Ixxvii. 

4  Foley  v.  233,  244,  245.  5  Ibid.  223. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       327 

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  pro- 
moting the  Catholic  religion."1  To  all  this  there  was  little 
to  be  said.  The  prisoners  put  some  questions  to  Gates, 
and  were  in  turn  slightly  questioned  by  the  court.  All 
that  appeared  was  that  Grove  had  known  Gates  more 
intimately  than  he  wished  to  represent,  and  that  the  wit- 
ness had  borrowed  from  both  Grove  and  Fenwick  money 
which  had  naturally  never  been  repaid.2  Fenwick  how- 
ever offered  to  bring  a  document  from  St.  Omers,  under 
the  seal  of  the  college  and  attested  by  unimpeachable  wit- 
nesses, that  Gates  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.3  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. 

x  l  7  State  Trials  91-101.  2  Hid.  101-104. 

3  Ibid.  105. 


318         The  Popish  Plot 

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,1  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.2 

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.3 
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  con- 
fessed that  this  was  a  lie.4  There  he  explained  that  he 
would  have  borne  witness  before  against  the  two  Jesuits 
had  not  Reading  been  intriguing  with  him  at  the  time, 

1  7  State  Trials  105.     L.CJ.  :  "You  must  be  tried  by  the  laws  of 
England,  which  sends  no  piece  of  fact  out  of  the  country  to  be  tried." 

2  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  Gates'  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. 

3  7  State  Trials  106-108. 

4  On  April  16,  1679.     I  bid.  259-310,  and  see  below. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       329 

and  that  he  kept  back  his  evidence  in  order  to  lead  the 
attorney  deeper  into  the  business.1  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  Fen- 
wick  hardly  made  any  objection  to  his  credibility  upon 
this  ground.2 

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  manoeuvre, 
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."  3 

It  was  now  apparent  that  the  crown  had  only  one  wit- 
ness 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.4  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 

1  7  State  Trials  272,  295.  2  Ibid.  392. 

3  Ibia.   117,  1 1 8.     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." 

4  7  State  Trials  120. 


330         The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  Afterwards  this  decision  was  held  up  to  scorn, 
and  has  since  often  been  condemned  ;  2  but  it  was  grounded 
upon  good  authority  and  supported  by  the  general  practice 
of  the  courts.3 

The  three  remaining  prisoners  proceeded  to  make  their 
defence.  Beyond  repeated  assertions  of  their  innocence 
this  amounted,  as  far  as  Pickering  and  Grove  were  con- 
cerned, to  little.  Ireland  made  a  better  effort.  Gates  had 
sworn  that  he  was  in  London  in  August  of  the  year  1678 
and  present  at  a  treasonable  meeting  in  Harcourt's  rooms.4 
The  prisoner  now  called  evidence  to  contradict  this.  His 
mother  and  his  sister  testified  that  he  had  left  town 

1  7  State  Trials  315-317. 

2  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. 

3  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  accord- 
ingly 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.   I   Q.B.   289),  when  it   appeared, 
from    many    authorities,    that    the    practice    had    fluctuated."     Hist. 
Grim.  Law  i.  397. 

4  7  State  Trials  98. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       331 

• 

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 
yth  and  the  9th  of  September.1  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  I3th  of  the  month.2  Oates  again 
took  the  opportunity  to  swear  that  Ireland  was  in  town 
on  the  ist  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.3  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  "  ; 4  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 

1  7  State  Trials  122-126.  2   Ibid.  121,  122. 

3  Ibid.  124.  4  7  Ibid.  128. 


332,         The  Popish  Plot 

on  every  day  but  one  between  August  3  and  September 
14,  1678,  the  dates  when  he  left  and  when  he  returned  to 
London.1  Five  months  after  Ireland's  execution,White- 
bread,  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.2  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  Gates  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,3  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,4 
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,5 
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.6  More  than  a  month  later  Ireland  and 
Grove  were  executed  at  Tyburn.  Had  Ireland's  execu- 
tion been  postponed,  an  insurrection  was  feared.  Pickering 
was  respited  by  the  king  for  so  long  that  the  indignant  Com- 
mons on  April  27,  1679  petitioned  urgently  that  the  law 

1   10  State  Trials  1243-1281.  2  7  State  Trials  388-391. 

3  Ibid.  132.  4  Ibid.  133-135. 

5  Stephen  i.  399.  6  7  State  Trials  138-141. 


Trials  for  the  Plot       333 

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.1 
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.2 
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  confirma- 
tion 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.  " 3  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." 4  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 

1  7  State  Trials  142-144.    Klopp  II.  464,  app.  IV.       2  Foley  v.  58. 

3  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. 

4  Burnet  ii.  201. 


334         The   Popish  Plot 

have  made  men  die  with  lies  in  their  mouths."  x  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."  2  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.3 
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.4  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 

1  Sidney,  Letters  123,    124.     The  opinion  of  Ranke,  who  in  his 
writings  was   neither  Catholic  nor   Protestant,  lies  midway  between 
these  views  :  "  Grasslich  ist  die  lange  Reihe  von  Hinrichtungen  Solcher, 
die  nichts  bekannten,"  v.  235. 

2  "  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. 

3  See  Russell's  written  Speech,  printed  at  length,  Ralph  i.  755-757. 

4  Sitwell,  First  Whig  153-158.     And  see  Stephen  i.  408,  409. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       335 

motive  for  telling  the  truth  can  a  man  possibly  have  when 
he  is  at  the  point  of  death  ?  "  1 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  the  trial  of  Read- 
ing.2 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,3  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  Gates  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.4 
The  incident  was  kept  secret  and  produced  no  con- 
sequences. 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  Jiving  in  London  and  enjoying  a  fair  practice. 

1  Stephen  i.  449.     And  see  Burnet  II.  303,  304. 

2  Above  328.  8  See  above  204-209. 

4  Longleat  MSS.  Coventry  Papers  zi.   363.     Order  of  the  king 
in  council,  February  5,  1679. 


336         The   Popish  Plot 

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.1 
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  negotia- 
tions for  them  he  had  become  acquainted  with  Gates  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.2 
In  public  Reading  exhorted  Bedloe  to  reveal  all  his  know- 
ledge and  bring  the  guilty  to  justice,  but  in  private  con- 
versation 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.3  At  the  same 
time  he  carried  the  news  of  the  intrigue  to  the  committee 
of  secrecy.  Prince  Rupert,  the  Earl  of  Essex,  and  Mr. 
Speke4  were  informed  of  the  business,  and  Bedloe  was 

1  7  State  Trials  259,  287,  296.  2  Ibid.  287-289,  292. 

3  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  trans- 
action was  correct. 

4  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. 


Trials  for  the  Plot       337 

advised  to  continue  his  negotiation  in  the  hope  of  extract- 
ing something  of  importance.  Reading  had  in  the  mean- 
time 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.1  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.2  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.3 

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  him- 
self in  holding  back  evidence  at  the  trial  of  Whitebread, 

1  The  date  fixed  first  was  March  28,  and  was  afterwards  altered. 
7  State  Trials  281. 

2  Evidence  of  Bedloe,  Speke,  and  Wiggins.     Ibid.  270-286. 

3  Ibid.  278,  279. 

Z 


338         The  Popish  Plot 

Fenwick,  and  Ireland,  but  on  account  of  treasonable 
practices,  which  were  covered  by  his  pardon.  He  pro- 
tested 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  say- 
ing 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.1 

The  case  of  Knox  and  Lane  was  a  still  more  disreput- 
able 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  Gates.  These 
two  were  discharged  by  Gates  in  April  1679,  an(^  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.2  At  Dangerfield's 
suggestion  they  approached  Knox  on  the  subject  of  the 
charges  which  Gates  had  made  against  the  Lord  Treasurer.3 
Knox  agreed  to  their  suggestion,  and  together  they 
arranged  the  details  of  the  scheme.  Osborne  and  Knox 
lodged  information  that  Gates  had  conspired  with  Bedloe 
to  bring  false  accusations  against  Lord  Danby,  while  Lane 
charged  his  master  with  using  obscene  language  concern- 
ing 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. 

1  7  State  Trials  310. 

2  Colonel  Mansell's  Exact  and  True  Narrative  of  the  late  Popish 
Intrigue  64. 

3  See  Ralph  i.  431.     Echard  970,  971.     Danby,  Memoirs  39,  40. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       339 

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  an  indictment  was  brought 
against  Gates  "  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."  l 

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  White- 
bread,  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 

1  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. 


34°         The   Popish   Plot 

the  trial  of  the  five  Jesuits l  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  house- 
hold.2 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.3  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.4  Although  he  had  laid  informa- 

1  See  below.  2  Burnet  ii.  200.  3  7  State  Trials  881-926. 

4  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. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       341 

tion  before  the  privy  council  as  early  as  December  1678, 
it  was  not  until  the  trial  of  the  Five  Jesuits l  on  June  1 3 
of  the  year  following  that  he  appeared  in  court.  The 
case  for  the  prosecution  was  opened,  as  usual,  with  the 
evidence  of  Gates.  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  treason- 
able 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  con- 
taining the  words  "  This  night  Sir  Edmond  Bury  Godfrey 
is  dispatched."  2  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." 3  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 

1  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. 

2  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. 

3  Dugdale's  evidence.     7  State  Trials  334-342. 


The  Popish   Plot 

closed  the  first  part  of  the  case  for  the  crown.1  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  con- 
gregation 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  dis- 
cover 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  Gates  was  examined  by  the 
privy  council.2  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.3 

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 

1  7  State  Trials  343-349. 

2  Ibid.  119,  355.     House  of  Lords  MSS.  15. 

3  7  State  Trials,  350-357. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       343 

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 
Gates,  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  alto- 
gether 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  com- 
pelled 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.1  A 
rumour  was  spread  abroad  that  witnesses  had  been  tutored, 
and  was  repeated  by  Algernon  Sidney  in  a  letter  to  Paris.2 
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 

1  7  State  Trials  359-378. 

2  "...  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. 


344         The   Popish  Plot 

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  in- 
structions 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."  l  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.2  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.3  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.4  No  doubt  can 
exist  on  the  subject  of  Oates'  repeated  and  astounding 

1  Examination  of  Christopher  Townley,  April   28,    1679.     Fitz- 
herbert  MSS.  151,  152. 

2  7  State  Trials  371.     At  the  trial  of  Langhorn  another  witness 
was  produced  to  explain  this,  but  his  testimony  was  unconvincing. 

8  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. 

4  Examinations  of  Coulstcr  and  Townley.  Fitzherbert  MSS 
151,  152. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       345 

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  indigna- 
tion with  which  it  was  denounced  by  the  Jesuits,  at  the 
very  moment  when  they  were  employing  means  as  un- 
hallowed 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  Gates  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.1 

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.2 

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.3 
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 

1  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. 

2  7  State  Trials  404-418. 

3  At  the  time  of  the  fire  of  London,  Tillotson  told  Burnet  a  story  of 
Langhbrn's  methods  of  business  which  is  too  ridiculous  to  be  believed. 
Burnet  i.  412. 


346         The  Popish  Plot 

advocate-general  under  the  new  government.1  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  import- 
ance alone  occurred.  To  Gates'  great  alarm  the  hostess 
of  the  White  Horse  Tavern  in  the  Strand  was  called  by 
the  defence.  Gates  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  per- 
sons 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.2 

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.3  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, 

1  True  Narrative  Ixxxi. 
-  7  State  Trials  463-465,  470.  3  Ibid.  439. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       347 

and  that  I  never  had  at  any  time  any  desk  in  my 
study." l  This  was  supported  by  other  evidence. 
When  Gates  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." 

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.3 
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.4  The  queen  was  now  implicated  with 

1  7  State  Trials  514.  2  Ibid.  172,  173. 

3  Sidney,  Letters  124.     "  Wakeman's  trial  is  put  off,  as  is  believed, 
to  avoid  the  indecency  of  the  discourses  that  would  have  been  made." 

4  L.J.  xiii.   388-392.     C.J.   November  28,    29,    1678.     Ralph   i. 
397.     James  (Or.  Mem.)  i.  529. 


348         The  Popish  Plot 

Wakeman,  and  the  trial  was  regarded  as  the  prelude  to  an 
attack  on  herself.1 

Before  the  crown  lawyers  opened  the  direct  attack,  wit- 
nesses 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.2  The  prosecu- 
tion then  came  to  the  prisoners.  Gates  told  again  the 
story  how  he  had  heard  the  queen  at  a  meeting  at  Somer- 
set 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.3  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.4  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  Gates  had  given 
an  entirely  inaccurate  account  of  the  prescription,  which 
was  so  far  from  ordering  a  milk  diet,  as  Gates  had  sworn 

1  Burner  ii.  231.  2  7  State  Trials  602-618. 

3  Ibid.  619-623. 

4  Ibid.  624-641.     Bedloe  however  gave  no  evidence  against  the 
prisoner  Rumley. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       349 

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  Gates 
had  meant  that  the  milk  diet  was  prescribed  for  Ashby 
before  he  went  to  Bath,  and  was  therefore  not  at  all  in- 
consistent 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  Gates  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." l  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  Gates  and  produced  the 
first  acquittal  in  the  trials  for  the  Popish  Plot.2  Sir  Philip 
Lloyd,  clerk  to  the  privy  council,  was  asked  to  state  with 

1  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. 

2  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. 


35°         The  Popish  Plot 

what  Gates  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  3ist  of 
September,"  he  stated  ;  "  Mr.  Gates  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  Cole- 
man.  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. 
Gates  again,  and  my  Lord  Chancellor  desired  Mr.  Gates 
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  indict- 
ment ;  Mr.  Gates,  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  for- 
bid that  I  should  say  anything  against  Sir  George  Wake- 
man, 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,  march- 
ing 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." 
Gates  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 


Trials  for  the   Plot      351 

to  answer  anything.  "  What,"  returned  Scroggs,  "  must 
we  be  amused  with  I  know  not  what  for  being  up  but 
two  nights?  .  .  .  What,  was  Mr.  Gates  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  him- 
self 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  per- 
jured 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.  Gates  did  not  open  his  mouth  again  during 
the  rest  of  the  trial.1 

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  Gates  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  Gates'  testimony.  As 
1  7  State  Trials  651-653. 


3  5  2,         The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  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.2 
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  Tears  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.3  It  was  immedi- 
ately 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 

1  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. 

2  Verney  MSS.  474. 

3  Burnet  ii.   232.      The  Narrative  of  Segnior  Francisco  de  Faria, 
1680,  17,  1 8. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       353 

never  summoned,  and  a  set  of  rascals  was  chosen  in  its 
place.1  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.2  Early  in  the  year 
following  Gates  and  Bedloe  exhibited  thirteen  articles 
against  the  Chief  Justice  before  the  privy  council,  and 
Gates  declared  that  "he  believed  he  should  be  able  to 
prove  that  my  Lord  Chief  Justice  danced  naked."  On 
January  2 1  Scroggs  justified  himself  in  a  set  reply  of  great 
skill  and  wit,  and  the  informers  met  with  a  severe  rebuff.3 
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,  distinc- 
tion, 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.'*4 
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.5  In  January 
1 68 1  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 

1  Deposition  of  F.  de  Faria,  March  24,  1681.     S.P.  Dom.  Charles 
II  415  :   159.     Verney  MSS.  474.     Luttrell,  Brief  Relation  i.  17,  74. 

2  Luttrell,  Brief  Relation  i.  19. 

3  S^State  Trials  163-174.     Hatton  Correspondence  ii.  220. 

4  7*State  Trials  702-706. 

5  Hatton  Correspondence  ii.  191,  195,  207-210. 

2  A 


354         The  Popish  Plot 

Hilary  term,  and  did  not  take  his  place  upon  the  bench 
during  the  rest  of  the  term.1  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.2  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  impeach- 
ment 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."  3 

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.4  The  promi- 

1  C.J.   ix.   66 1,    688-692.     L.J.    xiii.    736-739.      Luttrell,    Brief 
Relation  i.  64. 

2  L.J.  xiii.  752.  3  Luttrell,  Brief  Relation  i.  74,  75. 

4  See    Burnet  ii.    196.     North,   Examen  567,   568.     Lives  of  the 
Norths  i.  195,  196.     Hatton  Correspondence,  passim. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       355 

nent  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.1  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  arc  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.2  It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that 

1  Burnet  ii.  196.     North,  Examen  568. 

2  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  (Gates'  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  l/io,  1678.  "Le  Roi  de  la  Grande  Bretagne 

m'a  dit^  qu'il  ne  croyait  pas  que  cette  accusation  cut  un  veritable 
fondement." 

Shaftesbury,   The  present   state  of  the   Kingdom  at  the  opening  of 


356         The   Popish  Plot 

Scroggs  was  ignorant  of  the  fact.  If  anything,  Charles 
was  rather  more  inclined  to  believe  in  the  Plot  in  the 
spring  of  1679  tnan  on  Oates'  first  revelations.1  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.2  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."  3 
Nevertheless  he  treated  their  evidence  quite  fairly.  The 
rule  was  that  only  a  conviction  of  perjury  could  disqualify 

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. 

1  Barillon,  January   16/26,  1679.     "Le  Roi  d'Angleterre  ne  me 
parle  plus  comme  il  a  parle  jusqu'a  present.     II  me  dit  hier  que  la 
deposition  d'un  dernier  temoin  nomme  Ducdale  lui  parassait  si  peu 
concertee  et  si  pleine  de  faits  vraisemblables  qu'il  ne  pouvait  plus 
s'empecher  de    croire   a   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  meme  temps  il  me 
fit  connaitre  que  ce  qu'ils  avaient  dit  de  faux  n'empechait  pas  qu'il 
n'y  cut  quelque  chose  de  vrai  qui  servait  pour  fondement  a  tout  ce 
qu'ils  avaient  pu  inventer  d'eux  memes." 

2  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. 

8  Luttrell,  Brief  Relation  i.  34. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       357 

a  witness,  and  Scroggs  enforced  it  without  prejudice.1 
Throughout  he  had  the  entire  support  of  the  other 
judges,  and  not  least  that  of  Chief  Justice  North.2  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." 3  He  told  Coleman, 
"  No  man  of  understanding,  but  for  by-ends,  would  have 
left  his  religion  to  be  a  papist.  .  .  .  Such  are  the  wicked 

1  See  e.g.  his  summing  up  at  Lord  Castlemaine's  trial.     7  State 
Trials  1408-1412. 

2  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  ev£ry  action  and  word  of  his  on  the  bench. 

3  7  State  Trials  218,  at  the  trial  of  Green,  Berry,  and  Hill. 


358         The  Popish   Plot 

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  ?  "  l  The  onslaught  on  Ireland,  Picker- 
ing, 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." 2 
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 
1 603.  One  fact  in  judicial  procedure  exercised  an  immense 
influence  on  the  nature  of  speeches  from  the  bench. 
The  judges  took  no  notes.3  In  summing  up  the  evidence 
they  relied  solely  upon  memories  developed  for  this 

1  7  State  Trials  69.  2  Ibid.  133,  134. 

3  /£/</.  218,  411,  642,  1 102.  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. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       359 

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  venom- 
ous book,  wherein  are  contained  damnable  positions  contrary 
to  the  book  of  common  prayer."  l  At  his  speech  at  the 
opening  of  Parliament  in  1679  Lord  Chancellor  Finch 
likened  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  and  their  pupils  to 
a  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." l 
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  : 

1  6  State  Trials  701-710.     His  trial  was  in  1665. 
2  Par/.  Hist.  iv.  1088. 


360         The   Popish   Plot 

"  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  ; l 

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  in- 
fluence 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.2 
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.3  But  the  trial  of  Lord 
Stafford  calls  for  more  lengthy  notice.  It  was  the 

1  7  State  Trials  134.     Absalom  and  Achitophel  120. 

2  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." 

8  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. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       361 

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." 1 
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.2 
With  the  same  object  Lord  Stafford  was  brought  to 
trial.  His  imprisonment  had  already  lasted  for  two 
years  and  two  months.3  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.4  On  all  sides  the  case  was  regarded  as  of  the 

1  Reresby,  Memoirs  194. 

2  See  Appendix  E. 

3  The  proceedings  in  Parliament  against  the  five  popish  lords  are 
collected  in  7  State  Trials  1218-1292. 

4  Reresby,  Memoirs  193,  194.     North,  Examen  218. 


362         The   Popish  Plot 

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.1  cvaroi-, 

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.2  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.3  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 

1  Barillon,  November  31 /December  9,  1680.     "Ce  qui  se  passera 
dans  ce  proces  est  de  grande  consequence.     Si  le  comte  de  Stafford 
etait  absous,  la  conjuration  recevrait  une  grande  atteinte,  et  quoique  le 
peuple  soit  prevenu,  il  est  neantmoins  assujetti  aux  regies  et  aux  lois, 
et  ne  s'en  depart  pas  aisement." 

2  Secret  Services  of  Charles  II  and  James  II  24. 

3  Barillon,  December  6/16,  9/19,  1680.     James  i.  640. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       363 

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.1  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.2 
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  con- 
versation 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."  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.4  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.5  The  last  was  con- 

1  7  State  Trials  1298-1339. 

2x  Dugdale's  evidence.     7  State  Trials  1341-1347. 

3  Gates'  evidence.     Ibid.  1347-1350. 

4  Turbervile's evidence.    Ibid.  1351-1355.  5  Ibid.  1394,  1395. 


364         The  Popish  Plot 

firmed  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.1  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.2  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.8 

Of  Gates'  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.4 

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  govern- 
ment 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 

1  7  State  Trials  1397-1400.  2  Ibid.  1388-1393. 

3  Ibid.  1396-1406.  4  Ibid.  1407-1415. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       365 

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.1 

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.2  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.3 

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 

1  7  State  Trials  1415-1419. 

2»  Stafford  admitted   afterwards  that  in  recent  years  he  had  con- 
stantly used  a  walking  stick,  "  being  lame  with  weariness."     Ibid.  1478. 
3  Ibid.  1419-1434. 


366         The  Popish  Plot 

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  Gates  himself  was 
flustered  and  had  to  be  restrained  by  the  managers  from 
breaking  into  excesses.1 

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.2 
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.3 

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.4  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,6  but  now  with  remarkable 

1  7  State  Trials  1437-1447.  2  Ibid.  14.62,  1463. 

8   Ibid.  1485-1492.         4  Ibid.  1486-1491.         5  6  State  Trials  119. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       367 

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.1 

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  de- 
manded 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."  2  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.8 

At  eleven  o'clock  on  the  next  morning  the  votes  were 
taken.  Thirty-one  peers  pronounced  Lord  Stafford  inno- 
cent, fifty-five  guilty.  The  verdict  was  not  unexpected. 
Stafford  had  conducted  his  defence  so  feebly  as  to  make  his 
acquittal  improbable.4  Physical  weakness  accounted  largely 
for  this  ;  but  he  had  made  the  mistake  of  speaking  as 

1  7  State  Trials  1519-1529.  2  Ibid.  1493-1515. 

8  Ibid.  1544-1551. 

4  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. 


368         The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  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.2  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." 3 
Even  Charles,  although  he  knew  that  Gates  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  ; 4  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."  5  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.6 
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.7  The  peers  gave 
judgment  on  what  seemed  to  them  the  merits  of  the  case. 
Three  eminent  members  of  Lord  Stafford's  family  voted  for 

1  Barillon,  December  16/26  1680. 

2  Reresby,  Memoirs  194.  3  Anglesey,  Memoirs  9. 

4  Barillon,  November  21 /December   I,   1680.     "Ce  Prince  prend 
souvent  la  liberte  de  se  moquer  la  conjuration,  et  ne  se  constraint  pas 
d'appeller  tout  haut  Oatz  et  Bedlow  des  coquins.     II  a  dit  cependant 
que  les  preuves  centre  le  Vicomte  de  Stafford  etaienc  fortes,  et  qu'il 
pouvait  bien  n'etre  pas  innocent." 

5  Hatton  Correspondence  ii.  241. 

6  Barillon,  December  9/19  1680.  7  Ibidem. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       369 

the  death.1  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  Holies,  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  Gates'  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.2 

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 

1  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. 

2  Anglesey,  Memoirs  9.     James  to  Hyde.     Clarendon  Cor.   i.   50. 
James  ta  Col.  Legge,  Dartmouth  MSS.  54.     Barillon,  December  19/29, 
1680. 

2  B 


370         The   Popish   Plot 

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."  1  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.2  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.3  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." 4  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.5  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. 

1  L.J.  xiii.  724.     C.J.  December  23,   1680.     Par/.  Hist.  iv.  1261. 
7  State  Trials  1562. 

2  7  State  Trials  1544,  1440-1447,  1342,  1343. 

3  Ibid.  1564-1567. 

4  Echard  997.     Lingard  xiii.  247-249. 

5  Dispatch  of   Sarotti-Bignola,   January    10,    1681.     "Tanta    e    la 
impressione   de'   popoli   della  verita  della  congiura   e   della    reita    del 
conte    (Stafford),   che   da  pochi  e   stato   compatito   e   mold   lo   hanno 
ingiurato   con   infami   parole."      Quoted    Brosch    451.       Dispatch    of 
Thun,  January  10,  1681.     "Der  Henker  hat  den  kopf  auf  der  Biihne 
herumgetragen  und  dem  Volke  gezeigt,  welches  daruber  ein  unausprech- 
liches  Freuden-   und    frohlockendes   Geschrei  hat  erschallen  lassen." 
Quoted  Klopp  II  473,  app.  XXII. 


Trials  for  the   Plot       371 

Shaftesbury  and  his  party  indeed  gained  a  temporary 
victory,  but  the  ultimate  triumph  was  to  the  king.  His 
steadiness,  restraint,  and  readiness  for  compromise  con- 
trasted 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  examina- 
tion 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  Ld.  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. 

375 


376         The   Popish   Plot 

COVENTRY  PAPERS  xi.  397 

Undated.  Paper  headed  :  An  account  of  what  the  Earl  of 
Barkeshire  desired  Colonel  John  Scot  to  communicate  to 
His  MaT.  with  what  passed  before  the  discourse.  (En- 
dorsed 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  allegi- 
ance 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 


Appendix  A  377 

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  covet- 
ousness  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  regi- 
ments, 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 


378         The  Popish  Plot 

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  con- 
trived 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  2ist  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 


Appendix  A  379 

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.  1 


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  when- 
ever 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 a  Monsieur  Patric 

Roch    a    la    place   au    ble    a    Dublin.      (Endorsed    in 
Coventry's  hand) :  Mr.  Burke. 

[Of  the  same  nature  as  the  last  two,  and  in  the  same  hand- 
writing.] 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  particukrs  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. 


380         The  Popish  Plot 


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*.  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. 


Appendix  A  381 


P.R.O.  ROMAN  TRANSCRIPTS.     VAT.  ARCH.  NUNT. 

DI  FRANCIA  332 
December  2,  1678.     L'Abte  G.  B.  Lauri  a  S.  Em". 

Ancor  che  lo  stato  presente  d'Inghilterra,  e  la  risposta  datami 
la  settimania  passata  dal  Sigr  di  Pomponne  non  mi  facessero  sperare 
cos'  alcuna  di  buono  intorno  all'  assistenza  richiesta  a  favore  del 
Sigr  Duca  di  Yorch  ;  nondimeno  a  proporzione  della  premura  di 
N.S.  e  dell'  importanza  dell'  affare,  ne  rimovai  le  instanze  al 
suddetto  ministro  Martedi  passato,  nel  qual  giorno  per  questi  e  per 
altri  negozii  pendenti  mi  portai  a  Varsaglia  ;  egli  soggiunsi  che 
il  credito  talvolta  e  1'assistenza  del  Re  di  Francia  avrebbe  potuto 
ristabilire  il  partito  del  Sigr  Duca  di  Yorch  e  de'  Catholici  di  quel 
regno,  quando  S.  Mta  si  fosse  dichiarata  per  loro.  Rispose  tuttevia 
il  Sigr  di  Pomponne  che  tutti  i  Catholici  d'Inghilterra  b  erano 
imprigionati  b  erano  stati  discacciati  di  Londra.  II  medmo  Sigr 
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  accres- 
cergli  le  persecuzioni,  e  finir  di  ruinare  il  partito  Catholico  di  quel 
regno  ;  per  queste  ragioni  avere  stimato  S.  Mta  che  non  sia  tempo 
di  prestar  1'assistenza  richiesta,  mentre  il  cambiamento  delle  cose 
faceva  ogni  conoscere  che  tal  consiglio  non  era  piu  utile,  come 
ragionevolmente  avra  per  altro  potuto  stimarsi  prima  che  succedes- 
sero  le  mutazioni  accennati.  lo  dunque  essendo  cosi  cambiate  di 
faccia  le  cose  d'Inghilterra,  ed  incontrando  que  le  scritte  difficolta, 
tralasciero  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  1 5th,  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  dis- 
cover, he  would  tell  him.  Whereupon  he  did  make  all  the  impre- 
cations 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 

382 


Appendix  B  383 

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  White- 
friars  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  dis- 
cover some  persons  near  the  Strand  Bridge  that  were  agitators  in 
the  Plot,  upon  which  Sir  E.  Godfrey  showed  great  readiness,  but 


384         The  Popish  Plot 

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.  Gates  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  barbar- 
ously, kneeling  upon  his  breast  till  they  thought  he  was  dead  j 
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  2Om  men. 


Appendix  B  385 

Mr.  Thimbleby  in  Lincoln  :  under  Lord  Bellasis  was  to  have 
2Om  men.  2Om  religious  men  were  to  meet  at  Sl-  Jago  to  come 
over  into  Wales  from  the  Groin,  and  meet  Lord  Powis  and  the 
aforesaid  gentlemen  in  arms. 

2Om  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  20m  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 

2  C 


386         The  Popish  Plot 

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. 


Appendix  B  387 

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  White- 
hall 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  c  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 
4  that  the  Lord  Bellasis  employed  them  in  this  business.' " 

He  said  further  "  That  Walsh  and  Le  Fere  informed  him 
c  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 


388         The  Popish  Plot 

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  Gates,  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  Q  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 


Appendix  B  389 

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  j£ioo  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  5Om  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™  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  iom  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  drink- 
ing with  him  in  his  own  house  the  night  before  Pickering  was 
taken,  etc. 


S 


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  oft,  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) 
Memd-  (7f.) 

To  put  forth  a  declaration.    To  examine  the  present  state  of  the 
revenue  :  to  consider  about  stop  of  payment  and  when  :  what  is 

390 


Appendix  C  391 


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  dis- 
solution 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  qe  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  en- 
couragement:  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.  O.  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  ap- 
peared of  late  and  what  reasonable  cause  of  danger  to  the  govern- 
ment from  them.  Parliament  to  be  called  to  some  other  place  : 
the  King  to  reside  out  of  London  :  Tower  to  be  well  secured  : 
Ld  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  sup- 
press them  and  to  have  something  writ  to  satisfy  the  people. 


The   Popish  Plot 


BRIT.  Mus.  A^DD.  MSS.  32095  :   196 

(Paper  endorsed)  Popish  Plot.     This  paper  was   presented 
to  the  King  by  the  D.  of  York,  Oct.  2Oth  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  Fitz- 
patrick 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  intern  uncio'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  Fitz- 
patrick 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  Sigr  Internuncio,  May  24/June  3,  1679. 

In  Ibernia,  dove  il  numero  de'  Cattolici  e  molto  maggiore 
che  quello  de'  Protestanti,  ha  gran  seguito  e  autorita  il  Colonello 
Fitzpatrice,  onde  il  Duca  d'Jorch  a  mostrato  haverlo  veduto  mal- 
volontieri  venire  a  Brusselles,  per  dubbio  che  il  Parlamento  pigli- 
ando  gelosia  del  ricorso  di  lui  a  S.  A.  Reale  prenda  motivo  di 
maggiormente  inasprirsi  contro  la  medesima,  contro  di  essa,  e 
contro  il  Duca  d'Ormond.  N'e  percio  egli  partito  per  Olanda  a 
titolo  di  veder  quel  paese,  ma  precedentemente  ha  tenuta  una 
segreta  conferenza  col  Sigr  Duca  d'Jorch,  dopo  la  quale  mi  ha 
lasciato  intendere  sofFrirsi  troppo  patientemente  da  S.  A.  Reale 
1'audacia  de'  Parlamentarii,  e  doversi  di  gia  pensare  almeno  a  modi 
di  respingerla  quando  la  temerita  loro  e  la  debolezza  del  Re 
d'Inghilterra  passasse  a  porre  in  esecutione  il  projetto  della  sua 
diseredatione.  Toccante  1'Ibernia  ha  detto  chiaramente  essere 
insofferibile  il  giogo  sotto  1'oppressione  del  quale  gemono  quei 
Cattolici,  e  ha  aggiunto  che  apprendendosi  per  massima  naturale 


Appendix  C  393 

il  difendersi  in  qualsivoglia  maniera,  non  dubita  egli  che  non 
fussero  per  commoversi  tutti  concordemente,  non  solo  se  il  Sigr 
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  a  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.1 

Arnold's  character  for  activity  against  the  Roman  Catholics 
has  already  been  mentioned.  The  way  in  which  this  trial  is  re- 
garded 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.2  They  were  both  ordered  to  appear 
before  the  privy  council  on  April  16,  i68o.3  On  the  day  before 
that  date  it  was  alleged  that  Giles,  who  was  a  friend  of  Herbert,4 
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,5  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 

1  7  State  Trials  1129-1162.  2  Ibid.  1162. 

*  Ibid.  1133.  4  Ibid.  1161. 

5  Evidence  of  Richmond  and  Bridges.     Ibid.  1140,  1142. 

394 


Appendix  D  395 

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." l 

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."2  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.3  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."4  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  fight- 
ing with  the  devil  ?  "  so  far  from  speaking  the  words  alleged,  he 
had  answered,  "No,  for  I  never  met  with  Arnold."5  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  im- 
possible to  know  certainly  whether  Giles  was,  as  the  prosecution 

1  Evidence  of  Arnold.     7  State  Trials  1135-1137. 
»  2  Evidence  of  Phillips.     Ibid.  1138. 

3  Evidence  of  Philpot.     Ibid.  1145,1146. 

4  Evidence  of  Watkins,  Richmond,  and  Powel.     Ibid.  1139. 

5  Evidence  of  H.  Jones  and  J.  Jones.     Hid.  1146,  1147. 


396         The  Popish  Plot 

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.1  According  to  the 
evidence  therefore,  which  Jeffreys  summed  up  at  length  and  with 
moderation,2  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.3 

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  with- 
out running  too  great  a  risk  of  detection.4  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."  6 

"  i.  Mr.  Arnold  was  found  near  two  at  night  April  I5th, 
1680  sitting  in  the  dirt,  wounded,  leaning  his  head  against  the 

1  Evidence  of  W.  Richmond.     7  State  Trials    1140,  1141,  and  evidence  for  the 
defence.     Ibid.  1 148-1 151. 

2  Ibid.  1152-1159. 

3  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. 

4  7  State  Trials  1138,  1146. 

5  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. 


Appendix  D  397 


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,  hear- 
ing 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. 

"  1 1.  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 


398        The  Popish  Plot 

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  inquietude,  il  voit  bien  par  ce  qu'il  s'est  fait  sur  le 
pretendu  assassinat  de  Arnold  que  ses  ennemis  ne  se  rebuttent  pas 
et  qu'ils  veulent  de  temps  a  temps  faire  renaitre  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  com- 
movisse  plebem  quam  Godefridae  eirenarchae  caedes.  Tentandam 
alterius  caedem  visum,  eundem  ad  finem  et  aptus  visus  Arnoldus 
.  .  .  qui  personam  in  ista  tragicomica  fabula  sustineret,  et  Londini 
turn  versabatur.  Omnibus  ad  earn  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  j  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  ;  nee  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.  Hie  tentatae  caedis  arcessitur  coram  consilio  regio 
inde  ad  Arnoldum  deducitur.  Sed  cum  hie  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  queri- 
moniae  cum  risu  transmissae." 

Strangely  enough,  Warner  seems  to  have  known  nothing  about 


Appendix  D  399 

the  arrest  and  trial  of  Giles.  Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen,  judg- 
ing 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.1  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  Gates  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. 

1  Stephen  i.  393.     Macaulay  i.  234. 


APPENDIX   E 

PENAL  LAWS  IN  FORCE  AGAINST  ROMAN  CATHOLICS,  1678 

1.  i  Eliz.  cap.  i  (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 
Praemunire  (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.  i,  1562. 

None  shall  maintain  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  within  the  Queen's  dominions  under  penalty  of 
Praemunire. 

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  Praemunire  for  the  first  and  high  treason 
for  the  second  offence  of  refusal. 

3.  13  Eliz.  cap.  i,  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  Praemunire.  All  bringing  into  the 
Queen's  dominions  crosses,  beads,  etc.,  shall  be  guilty  of 
Praemunire. 

400 


Appendix  E  401 


4.  23  Eliz.  cap.  i,  1581. 

All  persons  pretending  to  have  power  to  absolve  the 
Queen's  subjects  from  their  natural  obedience  and  con- 
verting 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 
i  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  pro- 
clamation 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  for- 
feited 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. 
2  D 


402         The  Popish  Plot 


All  married  women  shall  be  bound  by  this  act,  save  only 
in  the  case  of  abjuration. 

8.  I  Jac.  7,  cap.  4,  1603. 

All  statutes  of  Queen  Elizabeth  confirmed  and  ap- 
pointed 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.  i. 

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.  7,  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  con- 
victed or  indicted  for  recusancy. 

Penalty  for  refusal  to  take  the  oath,  Praemunire. 

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.  7,  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 


Appendix  E  403 

commonwealth  unless  he  educates  his  children  as  Pro- 
testants and  takes  them  to  church. 

A  married  woman,  being  a  Popish  recusant,  must  con- 
form 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  church- 
yard, on  pain  of  a  fine  of  twenty  pounds  from  the  executors. 

Popish  recusants  are  disabled  from  presenting  to  bene- 
fices, 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,  Prae- 
munire  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.  /,  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  pro- 
secuting any  suit  at  law. 

2  D  2 


404         The  Popish   Plot 


13.  1 6    Car.   77,  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  con- 
venticles. 

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  j£ioo. 

14.  17  Car.  77,  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.  77,  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  I,  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  /Jsoo. 

16.  30  Car.  77,  cap.  i,  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  7^500. 

Provided  that  this  does  not  extend  to  the  Duke  of  York. 


MATERIALS  FOR  THE  HISTORY  OF 
THE  POPISH  PLOT 

I.  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. 
Had.  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.  Ix.  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. 

405 


406         The  Popish  Plot 


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  IIdo  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  con- 
tained 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*° 
[j/V].  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,  act.  64.  He  was  a  very  learned  man  and  wrote 
several  controversial  works.  HENRY  FOLEY. 


Materials  for  History    407 

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  con- 
temporary 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  ist 
Report  (Lefroy  MSS.) ;  4th  Report  (Bath  MSS.)  ;  ;th 
Report,  Part  II.  (Verney  MSS.);  nth  Report,  Part  II. 
(House  of  Lords  MSS.  1678-1688)  ;  i  ith  Report,  Part  V. 
(Dartmouth  MSS.)  ;  i2th  Report,  Part  VII.  (Le  Fleming 
MSS.);  i2th  Report,  Part  IX.  (Beaufort  MSS.);  I4th 
Report,  Part  VI.  (Fitzherbert  MSS.)  ;  I4th  Report,  Part 
IX.  (LindseyMSS.) ;  1 5th Report,  Part  II.  (Elliot  Hodgkin 
MSS.)  ;  1 5th  Report,  Part  V.  (Savile  Foljambe  MSS.). 

Ailesbury  (Thomas,  Earl  of)  :  Memoirs.  Written  by  him- 
self. Ed.  W.  E.  Buckley.  Roxburgh  Club.  1890. 

Arnauld  (Antoine)  :  CEuvres,  42  tomes.  T.  xiv.  Apologie 
pour  les  Catholiques.  Paris  et  Lausanne.  1775-1783. 

Avrigny  (Hyacinthe  Robillard  d'),  de  la  campagnie  de  Jesus  : 
Memoires  pour  servir  a  1'histoire  universelle  de  1'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  a 
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. 


40  8        The  Popish  Plot 


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.     1 769. 

Florus  Anglo- Bavaricus.     Liege.     1685. 
Groen   van    Prinsterer :    Archives    de  la   Maison   d'Orange 

Nasau.     2nd  serie.     T.  v.     Utrecht.     1861. 
Hale  (Sir  Matthew)  :  Historia  Placitorum  Coronae.   London. 

1736. 
Halstead      (Robert):      Succintes     Genealogies.       London. 

1685. 

Hatton  Correspondence.     Camden  Society.    Ed.  M.  Thomp- 
son.    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. 

Gates   (Titus)  :    True  Narrative  of  the  Horrid   Plot  and 

Conspiracy.      London.      1679. 
Orleans  (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.  I,  1666]  :  The 

Catholique  Apology,  with  a  reply  to  the  answer.  .  .  . 

By  a  person  of  honour.     3rd  Edition,  much  augmented. 

1674. 
Parliamentary  History  iv.     London.     1808. 


Materials  for  History     409 

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  iiber  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  a)  :  Life  and  Times.     Oxford.     1892. 

3.  Histories  and  Biographies^  etc. 

Acton  (Lord)  :  The  Secret  History  of  Charles  II.     Home 

and  Foreign  Review  i.  146. 
Airy  (Osmund) :  The  English  Restoration  and  Louis  XIV. 

London.      1888. 

Charles  II.     London.     1901. 

Boero   (Giuseppe)  :    Istoria    della    Conversione   alia    Chiesa 

Catholica  di  Carlo  II,  Re  d'Inghilterra.  Roma.  1863. 
Brosch  (Moritz)  :  Geschichte  von  England.  Gotha.  1892. 
Burnet  (Gilbert)  :  History  of  My  Own  Time.  Ed.  Airy. 

Part  I.     Oxford.     1897,  19QO- 
Campbell  (Lord)  :  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors  of  England. 

London.     1856-1857. 
Lives  of  the  Chief  Justices  of  England.      London. 

1849-1857. 
Carte  (Thomas)  :   An  History  of  the  Life  of  James,  Duke  of 

Ormond.     London.     1736. 
Chantelauze   (Regis   de) :    Le   Pere  de  la  Chaize.      Paris. 

1859- 


410         The  Popish   Plot 


Christie  (W.  D.)  :   Life  of  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper,  Earl  of 

Shaftesbury.     London.      1871. 

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  literaire 

de  la  compagnie  de  Jesus.     Paris.      1844. 
Douglas  (R.  K.)  :  Article  on  Titus  Gates  in  Blackwood's 

Magazine.     February.      1889. 
Echard     (Laurence)  :      History     of     England.       London. 

1707. 
Foley  (Henry) :    Records  of  the  English   Province  of  the 

Society  of  Jesus.     London.     1879. 

Forneron  (H.)  :  Louise   de   Keroualle,  Duchesse  de  Ports- 
mouth.    Paris.     1886. 
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    1 866.      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.  Ashworth.     London.      1891. 
Hallam    (Henry)  :     Constitutional     History    of    England. 

London.      1884. 
Hargrave  (Francis)  :   Opinion  and  Argument  in  support  of 

Lady  A.   S.    Howard's    right    to    the    new    Barony   of 

Stafford.      1807. 
Harris  (Dr.  William)  :   Historical  and  Critical  Account  of 

the  Life  of  Charles  II.     London.      1814. 
Irving  (H.  B.)  :   Life  of  Judge  Jeffreys.     London.     1898. 
Jesse  (J.  H.)  :   The   Court  of  England  under  the  Stuarts. 

London.      1855. 
Kennet   (Dr.  White)  :    A  Complete   History  of  England. 

London.      1706. 
Klopp(Onno):  Der  Fall  des  Hauses  Stuart.    Wien.     1875- 

1888. 

Lingard  (John)  :   History  of  England.     London.      1831. 
Macpherson  (James)  :   History  of  Great  Britain.     London. 

J775- 

Macaulay  (Lord)  :   History  of  England.     London.      1849. 
Madden    (R.    R.) :     History    of  the    Penal    Laws    enacted 

against  Roman  Catholics.     London.      1847. 


Materials  for  History     411 

Oldmixon  (John)  :   History  of  England  during  the  Reigns  of 

the  House  of  Stuart.     London.      1730. 
Parker   (Samuel) :    History  of  his   Own  Time.      London. 

1727. 
Parkinson  (Father) :   The  Yorkshire  Branch  of  the  Popish 

Plot.     The  Month  xviii.  393. 

Ralph  (James ):   History  of  England.     London.     1736. 
Rapin  Thoyras  (Paul  de)  :   Histoire  d'Angleterre.    La  Haye. 

1724-1736. 

Ranke  (L.  von) :  Englische  Geschichte.     Leipzig.     1877. 
Russell    (Lord    John)  :    Life    of   William   Lord    Russell. 

London.      1853. 
Shaw  (W.   A.) :    The  Beginnings  of  the  National  Debt. 

Owens   College,   Manchester,   Historical    Essays.     Ed. 

J.  F.  Tout  and  J.  Tait.     London.     1902. 
Sitwell  (Sir  George  Reresby)  :  The  First  Whig.     Privately 

printed.      1894. 
Seccombe  (T.)  :  Titus  Oates  in  Twelve  Bad  Men.    London. 

1894. 
Spillmann  (Joseph)  S.  J. :  Die  Blutzeugen  aus  den  Tagen 

der  Titus  Oates-Verschworung.     Freiburg  i.  B.     1901. 
Stephen    (Sir   J.    F.) :     History  of  the    Criminal    Law    in 

England.     London.     1883. 
Traill  (H.  D.)  :  Shaftesbury.     London.      1888. 
Wilson   (Walter) :    Life   and   Times    of   Defoe.       London. 

1830. 


INDEX 


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 

Amndel  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,  Abb6  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,  34',  347,  353,  356  i  his 

character,  in,  113 
Bellasis,  Lord,  12,  62,  67,  77,  in,   122, 

205,  328 

Sellings,  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,  in,  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,  205-21 3 /WMW, 

24°,  338»  344,  36° 
Chaize,  Pere  de  la,  S.J.,  34,  35,  39,  42,  51, 

68,  77,  3°S,  3°6,  3 17 

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  i  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 


415 


The  Popish  Plot 


Colcman,  Edward,  n,  12,  17,  32  and  note, 

38»  39»  59-6o»  6r>  62,  68>  78, 327,  346  ; 

his  trial,  91,   120,  149,  151,  170,  304- 

322  fassim,  363 
Colledge,  trial  of,  297 
Colombiere,  Pere  de  la,  S.J.,  66 
Compton,  Bishop  of  London,  174 
Con  way,  Earl  of,  173 
Cooper,  Charles,  134-135 
Corral,  Francis,  137 
Cotton,  Sir  John,  171 
Courtin,  31,51 
Coventry,  Henry,  106,  109,  169  and  note, 

I73»  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   fassim,   186, 

190, 195,215,224,225,  253;  his  policy, 

41,42 
Dangerfield,  Thomas  (Willoughby),  164, 

204,  21 3  fassim,  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, 

*33»  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,  Pere,  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,  n,  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,  n 

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, 

31? 

Henrietta  of  Orleans,  27 

High  Treason,  45-48 

Hill,  Lawrence,   122,   123-126,   131-132 

140 
Hobson,  George,  363,  364 


Index 


Holies,  Lord,  233,  238,  245,  369 
Howard,  Cardinal  (Norfolk),  34  and  note, 

5<>>  5»>  3°S»  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 
effreyi,  Sir  George,  3,  7,  304,  332,  351, 

352 

Jenkins,  Sir  Leoline,  173,  250 
[ennison,  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>  3°5»  362,  367,  37° 
Justices  of  the  peace,  269-287 

Kelly,  Father,  124,  140 

Keynes,  John,  S.J.,  140,  220 

Kirkby,  Christopher,  12,  13,  70-75 /><MM», 

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, 

IOO,  IO2  note,  121  note,  133,   134,  147, 

149 
Le  Fevre,  Father,  S.J.,  117-119,  127,  140, 

M-i.  155.  157.  IS8 
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,  2I° 
Marshal,  O.S.B.,  351,  360 
Mar  veil,  Andrew,  225 
Maynard,  Sergeant,  305,  319,  362 


Mazarin,  Duchesse,  198 

Meal  Tub  Plot,  204  seyf.,  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 

Gates,  Titus,  3-13  passim,  63,  64,  66,  70- 
80  passim,  89-91,  112,  150,  151,  164, 
170,  225-231  passim,  237,  239,  247, 
306-3 14 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 

ief  Justice, 
300,  354 


Pemberton,  Chie 


102,  298,  299, 


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 


4i 8          The  Popish  Plot 


Pracid,  John,  S.J.,  66 

Prance,  Miles,  120-148  passim,  155,  158- 

166  fassim,  348 
Preston,  Lord,  47 
Price,  Anne,  335,  339-34° 
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  "^  notei  69 

Scroggs,  Chief  Justice,  286, 298,  309,  317- 
319,  321,  322,  328,  329,  332,  342,  345, 

347,  349,  352-359  /«"«* 
Sergeant,  Dr.  John,  53,  201,  202  note 
Seymour,  Edward,  184 
Shad  well,  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,  29 1 
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,  27i,  343 
Walsh,  Charles,  S.J.,  117,  140,  141,  155, 

157,  158 
Walters,  Lucy,  246,  247 


Index 


419 


Warcup,  Justice,  271 

Warner,  John,  S.J.,  164,  165,  198 

Warner,  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  j  his  trial,  326- 

330,  340-345 


Williamson,  Sir  Joseph,  1 6,  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. 


POLLOCK,    JOHN  DA 

u* 

.P64 
The   Popish  plot