Dangerfield was, next to Oates and Bedloe, the worst of the informers. He also was brought to trial. He was condemned to be put in the pillory and whipped. On July 4, 1685, he was being brought back from Tyburn, having been whipped on the road thither, when a Mr. Francis jeered at him, as he sat in the coach. Dangerfield replied by an insult, and Francis struck at him with a cane, the point of which entered Dangerfield’s eye. Of the wound he died the next day. For this, Francis was tried, found guilty of murder, and executed at Tyburn, he being carried thither in a coach.[198]
Miles Prance, a third informer, was also brought to trial. He had been dragged into the business of informing by Bedloe, and, in fear of his life, concocted a story of Godfrey’s murder. He confessed his perjuries, and was, in consequence, let off with standing in the pillory, a fine and a whipping being remitted.
To return to Oates. In sentencing him the judge remarked upon the inadequacy of the punishment allotted by the law to a perjurer whose false testimony had shed innocent blood. Indeed, if the punishment of death was ever due to any man, it was due to Oates. The whipping was so severe that none but Oates could have survived it. That he did survive was hailed by his partisans as a miracle.
Luttrell records that in September, 1688, “Oates stood in the pillory over against the Royal Exchange, according to annual custom.” This was his last appearance in the pillory prior to his re-establishment as Protestant champion by the following resolution of the House of Commons:—
1689. June 11. Resolved that the Prosecution of Titus Oates, upon Two Indictments for Perjury in the Court of King’s Bench, was a design to stifle the Popish Plot: And that the Verdicts given thereupon were corrupt: And that the Judgments given thereupon were cruel and illegal.
A heated contest arose between Lords and Commons on the subject. The sentence was illegal,[199] and finally Oates received a pardon and was set at liberty. But it was not alone a passion for justice which animated those who insisted on the illegality of the sentence. Oates was by many regarded as one who had rendered inestimable services to the cause of liberty and religion.
Paul may plant, Apollos may water: the labour of each supposes that of the other. Shaftesbury, Burnet, Oates—to which of the three are we to award the palm? It is certain that but for Oates there would have been no Popish Plot; it is arguable that but for the Popish Plot there would have been no Glorious Revolution.
Oates’s services were rewarded with a considerable pension.
To recur to the executions on account of the Popish Plot. Most unfairly Charles has been blamed for these executions. Never once, says Fox, did he exercise his glorious prerogative of mercy. At the outset Charles was warned from the bench that the two Houses would interpose if he attempted to exercise this prerogative. Had he done this, it would probably have led to a general massacre of Catholics. Grave crimes are with justice laid to the charge of both Charles I. and Charles II., but against these crimes must be set the fact that each did what in him lay to prevent the shedding of innocent Catholic blood. We have seen how Charles I. resisted the importunities of the Commons, thirsting for the blood of priests against whom was no charge but that of being priests. Charles II. strove in vain against the mad fury of the times. Here is a revolting account, recently published, showing the influences brought to bear on Charles when he scrupled to order the execution of men whom he believed to be innocent, as we now know they were:—
Mr. Speaker told him frankly how universal an expectation was fixed upon the execution of Ireland, Grove, and Pickering, who are condemned. But His Majesty did, on the other side, manifest wonderful reluctance thereunto—that he had no manner of satisfaction in the truth of the evidence, but rather of its falsehood.… Most of the Board did labour with His Majesty to show … the ill-grounded scruple His Majesty had taken, and that the evidence and trial were much fairer than His Majesty had been told, and that he could not be answerable for any wrong done or innocent blood shed, but it lay upon the witnesses and jury, if such a thing could be thought of in this case. None laboured herein more vigorously than the Lord Treasurer, Lord Chancellor, and the Lord Lauderdale, who, it seems, had in private done their uttermost before. At last it was ordered that when the Judges come on Friday, so many of them as sat upon that trial are to inform His Majesty how the proofs appeared. And the Bishops that are of the Board are then to be present, and to assist His Majesty as to the point of conscience in this matter.[200]