CHAPTER I.
We resume the thread of our History, and return to notice the progress of the anti-Popish excitement.
1678.
Perhaps, in the history of the civilized world, there never occurred a period when the passions of men were more deeply moved, than in the autumn of the year 1678, when England was startled from side to side by the following extraordinary story. The Jesuits had formed a project for the conversion of Great Britain to the Roman Catholic faith; and £10,000 had been procured to assist in carrying out their plans. With this project was blended a conspiracy to assassinate the King, who was to be poisoned by the Queen’s physician; failing which, he was to be shot with bullets; and, if that did not succeed, he was to be stabbed with a large knife. With a feeble attempt at wit it was said, if he would not become R.C., a Roman Catholic, he should be no longer C.R., Charles Rex. Twenty thousand Catholics in London were to rise within twenty-four hours, and cut the throats of the Protestant inhabitants; eight thousand were to take up arms in Scotland; and, of course, in Ireland the professors of the ancient religion, possessed of enormous influence, meant to have it all their own way. The Crown was to be offered to the Duke of York, upon certain conditions; and if James refused, then, it was elegantly said, “to pot he must go also.” Amongst other means certain Jesuits were instructed to “carry themselves like Nonconformist ministers, and to preach to the disaffected Scots, the necessity of taking up the sword for the defence of liberty of conscience.” Seditious preachers and catechists were to be sent out, and directed when and what to preach in private and public conventicles, and field meetings. The Society in London intended to knock on the head Dr. Stillingfleet and Matthew Pool, for writing against them; and Croft, Bishop of Hereford, was doomed to death as an apostate. A second conflagration in the City of London formed an element in this scheme of wholesale destruction; and, in anticipation of the success of the design, the Pope had prepared a list of the priests to succeed the Bishops and other dignitaries, who were to be so speedily swept away. The author of this intelligence was the notorious Titus Oates, who professed to have picked it up at St. Omer’s, at Valladolid, at Burgos, and at a tavern in the Strand, where, owing to his pretended conversion and zeal in the Catholic service, the Jesuits had entrusted him with their deepest secrets.
The first communication of the story staggered everybody. The King did not know what to make of it. Danby, though inclined to use anything he could for party purposes, hardly credited this amazing revelation. Yet, incredible as it may appear, no means seem to have been used at the outset to sift the matter to the bottom.[1] Therefore the tale came to be looked at as credible, and, when Oates, on Michaelmas Eve, came before the Council, and began his unprecedented story, he found ready listeners. The items which he specified, with names and dates minutely mentioned, certainly wore a plausible appearance; and, presently, two circumstances occurred, which, at the time, obtained for his reports all but universal credence.
POPISH PLOT.
The first of these circumstances was the sudden death of a magistrate, Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, to whom Oates had made some of his statements before divulging the whole to the Council. This magistrate was found dead in a ditch near Primrose Hill, with a sword plunged in his body, and marks of strangulation on his neck. A cry instantly rose, and ran through London and the country, that Sir Edmondbury, who was famed for his Protestant zeal, had been murdered by the Papists on account of his receiving Oates’ deposition. The plot, it was argued, must be real, or such a deed would not have been committed by the Roman Catholics. What could the object of the murder be, but to take revenge on the exposers of the conspiracy? The next circumstance which aided the prevalent belief is found in the discovery of certain letters, in the handwriting of one Coleman, addressed to Père la Chaise—the famous Jesuit, who has given his name to the Cemetery at Paris—in which letters, unmistakable allusions occur to designs for overthrowing Protestantism in this country; and Coleman’s plans were at once identified with the plot related by Titus Oates.[2]
1678.
POPISH PLOT.
Believed by Parliament, not only by the Country party, but by the Court party as well, believed also by the Ministers of State, and by the dignitaries of the Church, the plot came to be regarded by almost everybody as an unquestionable fact. The higher circles would not tolerate any doubt of Oates’ veracity; even Burnet, with all his Protestantism, inasmuch as he hesitated to accept Oates’ evidence, raised against himself “a great clamour:” and the Earl of Shaftesbury, who threw himself with all his energy and eloquence into the prosecution, declared “that all those who undermined the credit of the witnesses were to be looked on as public enemies.”[3] In the lower circles a conviction of the truthfulness of the accuser, and of the guilt of the accused, prevailed to the last degree; and the narrative related to the Council and the House of Commons, circulated amongst eager and credulous groups, in thousands of chimney corners during those autumn evenings. The King and the Duke of York seemed not to believe what other people admitted. Yet the former felt obliged to act as if he did. The reader who remembers the agitation attending the Popish aggression more than twenty years ago, must not take even that as a measure of the feeling awakened in 1678: perhaps nothing we have ever seen could be a parallel to what our fathers experienced at that time. Even the heavens were imagined to sympathize in the abounding alarm: a fog, after Godfrey’s death, gave to the day on which it occurred the name of Black Sunday; and a respectable Nonconformist speaks of it growing so dark, all on a sudden, about eleven in the forenoon, that ministers could not read their notes in their pulpits without the help of candles,—no uncommon occurrence, one would think, in the month of November. Not a house, he informs us, could be found unfurnished with arms, nor did anybody go to bed without apprehensions of something tragical which might happen before the next morning.[4] People gave the martyred magistrate—for so they considered Godfrey—a public funeral, after having for two days publicly exhibited his wounded remains in his own house. An immense crowd followed him to the grave, the corpse being preceded by seventy-two clergymen in their robes; and, on its arrival at the church of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, the Incumbent, Dr. Lloyd, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, delivered a sermon in honour of the slain confessor. A Protestant festival had long been kept on the 17th of November, Queen Elizabeth’s birthday; and this year an effigy of the Pope with the Devil whispering in his ear—and models of Godfrey’s dead body, and of Romish Bishops and priests in mitres and copes—were carried through the streets, to inflame to the highest pitch the prevalent indignation against the Church of Rome. Daniel Defoe was then a mere boy, and looked with wonder upon what passed before him; and, in after years, told how old City blunderbusses were burnished anew; how hats and feathers, and shoulder belts, and other military gear, came into fashion again; how the City train-bands appeared rampant, and how soldiers disturbed meeting-houses, even murdering people, under pretence that they would not stand at their command.[5] Justice, or injustice, showed itself swift in apprehending Roman Catholics. Two thousand suspected persons are said to have been imprisoned, the houses of Roman Catholics were searched for arms, and it is computed that as many as 30,000 recusants were driven to a distance of ten miles from Whitehall. Within little more than two months of the first whisper of the conspiracy, Stayley, a banker, accused of sharing in it, died on the gallows at Tyburn, and Coleman perished on the scaffold about a week afterwards.[6] Three more victims followed the next month, all of them to the last declaring their innocence. Oates at the same time went about dressed in gown and cassock, wearing a large hat with a silk band and rose, and attended by guards to secure him from Popish violence. Lodgings at Whitehall were assigned for his use; he received a pension of £1,200 per annum, and was welcomed at the houses of the rich and great.[7] A large number of pamphlets containing accounts of the plot issued from the press, whilst pulpits rung with impassioned declamation against Popery and rebellion.
1678.
Amongst papers belonging to the Secretary of State at that period are memoranda of strange rumours—one that the progress in rebuilding St. Paul’s Cathedral was suspended, from fear lest it should become a Popish Church. There is also a note, that the Prince of Orange should be written to, or that some communication should be made to him, through the Ambassador at his Court, or through Sir W. Temple, to prevent the publication in Holland of a remonstrance, and of a hellish libel, “destructive to the Royal authority, and the fundamental laws of the nation.” The same Collection includes a letter to the Bishop of London from some zealous Protestant, proposing an attack on the City of Rome, “on that side where the Vatican Palace stands, and bringing away the library.”[8]
POPISH PLOT.
Reviewing the whole of this history, I may remark, that Titus Oates was an utterly worthless character, and that his statements are not entitled to the smallest belief. He had been an Anabaptist under Cromwell, had become an orthodox clergyman at the Restoration, had professed himself a Catholic on the Continent, had been admitted to Jesuit colleges, and had then abjured Popery on his return to England. All this while he conducted himself in so abominable a manner as repeatedly to incur expulsion from the positions in which he was placed. His tale was as absurd and incredible as his conduct was infamous; yet, notwithstanding this circumstance, it is by no means surprising that at the time, the story with its most improbable details should be believed—for Englishmen were filled with alarm at the Romanism of the Royal family, at the manifest signs of revived activity in this island by the Jesuits, at the obvious alliance between spiritual and political despotism, and at the then suspected, and to us, well-known intrigues which were being carried on to overthrow the Protestantism of this country,—and they were therefore prepared to be the dupes of Protestant credulity. An excitement of many years’ accumulation now existed, and rumours and lies of all sorts were as sparks sprinkled over heaps of gunpowder. As we criticize the evidence of the plot, it will not stand for a single second. Yet, however we may at first smile or sneer at the matter, on second thoughts, we shall see that people only did what, probably, we should have done under the influence of strong Protestant convictions, sharpened by terrible memories, and goaded by equally terrible apprehensions. It would be monstrous enough for us now to behave as did our ancestors, but we must judge of their character in that emergency by the standard of their own age, and according to the conditions of their own circumstances.
1678.
Godfrey’s death is one of those mysteries permitted by Providence to baffle our investigation, and to remain inscrutable secrets to the end of time, stimulating a belief in the revelations and judgments of eternity. Whichever hypothesis be adopted—that of murder or that of suicide—grave exceptions to it may be taken. The supposition of his having destroyed himself may be shown to be ridiculous, and also no sufficient motive for a Papist to murder him can be assigned: the argument, that the drops of melted wax found on the clothes of the dead man must have been dropped by Papists, because they are so notorious for using wax candles, is ridiculous enough; yet, as in the case of the plot, so in the case of the death brought into connection with it, we do not wonder at the prevalent idea. All the circumstances and antecedents of the time, the whole spirit of the age, together with the tendencies of human nature, the readiness of men under a pressing excitement to rush to conclusions, to interpret suspicious incidents as demonstrations of guilt, must be taken into account as we reflect upon the common opinion found at that period. Believing Oates’ tale, and knowing both the Protestant zeal of Godfrey, and the consequences to the Catholics of the explosion of the plot, zealots of the day consistently attributed the crime of murder to the same persons to whom they attributed the crime of treason.[9]
POPISH PLOT.
After all, there was a plot, not indeed to murder the King, but to restore Popery. Coleman’s letters render this a fact beyond all question, when we find him declaring “We have here a mighty work upon our hands, no less than 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 never was such hopes of success since the death of Queen Mary, as now in our days.”[10] The designs and intrigues brought to light in this correspondence harmonize with the purpose and spirit of the treaty between Charles and Louis; and, therefore, we cannot wonder at the reluctance of Charles and his brother to enter upon an inquiry into the business, since however false might be the charge of contemplated regicide, they knew too much, not to be aware that awkward facts respecting French, Papal, and Jesuit schemes could be brought into broad daylight, by searching to the bottom of this business. And it is not unlikely that Oates might have heard at St. Omer’s, and at other places, things uttered by some disciples of Ignatius Loyola, indicating dark designs upon English religion and upon English liberty, which he exaggerated immensely, and dressed up in the most frightful colours for purposes of his own.
1678.
Leaving this plot with its mysteries, falsehoods, and alarms, and turning once more to the proceedings of Parliament, we find that the sixteenth session opened on the 21st of October, just at the crisis when the storm raised by Oates had reached its height. The King’s speech touched lightly on the subject. Lord Chancellor Finch noticed it with guarded phraseology, but the House of Commons at once resolved upon an address for removing Popish recusants from the Metropolis, and having appointed a Committee to inquire into Godfrey’s murder, they also agreed with the Lords to request His Majesty to proclaim a national fast.
In 1673 an Act had been passed excluding Roman Catholics from all places of profit and trust; now a Bill was introduced to exclude them from Parliament and from the Councils of the Sovereign.[11] By help of the existing panic, the Bill made its way with ease; and what is remarkable, in this measure the obligation to receive the sacrament is not mentioned—an omission doubtless intended for the benefit of Dissenters, whose sympathy and assistance were just then valued by persons who had been accustomed before to treat them with violence—but a strong declaration to the effect that Romish worship is idolatrous was imposed, together with the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy. When this Bill reached the House of Lords, Gunning, Bishop of Ely, objected to the description and treatment of Romish worship as idolatrous; yet his arguments on this point being met by Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, Gunning—although he said he could not himself adopt the new declaration—after it became law, followed the example of his brethren.[12]
PARLIAMENT.
The Lords looked with little favour upon a Bill which, by disqualifying Papists from sitting in Parliament, would deprive some of their own order of hereditary rights; notwithstanding goaded by the Commons, and encouraged by the King, they at last without opposition passed the measure, providing in it an exception on behalf of the Duke of York. This exception displeased the Commons, who, above all things, desired to remove a Roman Catholic prince from the government of the country; and, therefore, when the Bill returned to them with its amendments, it had to meet the most strenuous opposition from the Country party. High words were followed not only, as in the Long Parliament, by storms of outcries and by menaces of violence, but by actual blows; and after a singularly angry debate, the proviso passed only by a majority of two, and the Royal assent was given to the whole Bill with very great reluctance.[13]