“The next and last act of this tragedy was the funeral of this poor gentleman; and if it had been possible the rout could have been more formidable than at the exposition of him, it must now have appeared. For as about other party concerns, so here the time and place of the assemblation was generally notified, as also what learned divine was to preach the sermon. The crowd was prodigious, both at the procession and in and about the church; and so heated, that any thing called Papist had gone to pieces in an instant. The Catholics all kept close in their houses and lodgings, thinking it a good composition to be safe there; so far were they from acting violently at that time. But there was all this time upheld among the common people an artificial fright, so as almost every one fancied a Popish knife just at his throat. And at the sermon, besides the preacher, two other thumping divines stood upright in the pulpit, one on each side of him, to guard him from being killed while he was preaching, by the Papists. I did not see this spectacle, but was credibly told by some that affirmed they did see it; and though I have often mentioned it, as now, with precaution, yet I never met with any that contradicted it. A most portentous spectacle sure! Three parsons in one pulpit! Enough of itself, on a less occasion, to strike a terror into the audience.”[117]
This might perhaps be considered as party spleen: but the testimony of Calamy, one of the most learned and amiable dissenting clergymen of his day, and a believer in much, though not in all the details of the plot, to the extravagancies committed, is unexceptionable.
“Though I was at that time but young (he was about nine years of age), yet can I not forget how much I was affected with seeing several that were condemned for this plot, go to be executed at Tyburn, and at the pageantry of the mock processions on the 17th of November.[118] Roger L’Estrange (who used to be called Oliver’s Fiddler), formerly in danger of being hanged for a spy, and about this time the admired buffoon of high–church, called them ‘hobby–horsing processions.’
“In one of them, in the midst of vast crowds of spectators, who made great acclamations and showed abundance of satisfaction, there were carried in pageants upon men’s shoulders through the chief streets of the city, the effigies of the Pope, with the representation of the devil behind him, whispering in his ear, and wonderfully soothing and caressing him (though he afterwards deserted him, and left him to shift for himself, before he was committed to the flames), together with the likeness of the dead body of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, carried before him by one that rode on horseback, designed to remind the people of his execrable murder. And a great number of dignitaries in their copes, with crosses; monks, friars, and Jesuits; Popish bishops in their mitres, with all their trinkets and appurtenances. Such things as these very discernibly heightened and inflamed the general aversion of the nation from Popery; but it is to be feared, on the other hand, they put some people, by way of revulsion, upon such desperate expedients as brought us even within an ace of ruin.”[119]
A few days after these events the parliament met. “All Oates’s evidence was now so well believed, that it was not safe for any man to seem to doubt of any part of it. He thought he had the nation in his hands, and was swelled up to the highest pitch of vanity and insolence. And now he made a new edition of his discovery before the bar of the House of Commons.”[120] He now said that the Pope, having declared himself entitled to the possession of England, in virtue of the heresy of prince and people, had delegated the supreme power to the order of Jesuits, and that in consequence commissions had been issued by the general of that order, to various noblemen and gentlemen, investing them with all the great offices of the state. He swore that Coleman, and Sir George Wakeman, the Queen’s physician, were in the plot, and that for 15,000l. the latter had engaged to poison the King. Success emboldened him to soar still higher; and after declaring to the House of Lords, that he had named all the persons of rank involved in the plot, he had the effrontery to accuse the Queen of being concerned in it, under circumstances the most improbable: besides that the charge was discountenanced by the whole tenour of her life.
“It was plain, that postnate to the narrative of Oates, there was a design formed for cutting off the Queen by a false accusation, and thereupon this evidence was given, and Bedloe, another evidence for the plot, chimed in. It seems the not venturing so high in Oates’s narrative was thought to be an error to be retrieved by additional swearing. It was not a cabal of ordinary authority could encourage Oates to come to the bar of the House of Commons, and say, ‘Aye, Taitus Oates, accause Catherine Quean of England of haigh traison.’ Upon which the King immediately confined him, and it might have been worse, if some people had not taken his part, who were considerable enough to give umbrage that it would be more prudent to set him at liberty again, which was done accordingly. The King was pleased to say, ‘They think I have a mind to a new wife; but for all that I will not see an innocent woman abused.’ This passage ought to be remembered to the honour of the King’s justice: certainly if his Majesty had given way, the Queen had been very ill used.”[121]
Oates’s exaltation was a tempting bait, and other witnesses of infamous character began to appear. In November Coleman was tried, convicted, and executed on the joint evidence of Oates and Bedloe. There was sufficient disagreement between the statements made by the former upon the trial and before the council, to cause them to be received with much suspicion; but Chief Justice Scroggs, after manifesting throughout a most scandalous bias against the prisoner, charged the jury in a style of which this is a specimen: “The things the prisoner is accused of are of two sorts: the one is to subvert the Protestant religion, and to introduce Popery; the other was to destroy and kill the king. The evidence likewise was of two sorts; the one by letters of his own handwriting, and the other by witnesses viva voce. The former he seems to confess, the other totally to deny.... You are to examine what these letters import in themselves, and what consequences are naturally to be deduced from them. That which is plainly intended is to bring in the Roman Catholic, and subvert the Protestant religion. That which is by consequence intended, is the killing the king, as being the most likely means to introduce that which as it is apparent from his letters, was designed to be brought in.”[122] It would be a waste of words to point out the monstrous wickedness of this inference. The nature of the letters has been already described; that they contained schemes hostile to the constitution there is no doubt, though not, it should seem, such as bore out a charge of treason, least of all against the life of the king. And it is worthy of observation, that after dwelling at length upon the letters, Scroggs says not one word concerning the evidence of the witnesses. Justice Jones worthily seconded his principal: “You must find the prisoner guilty, or bring in two persons perjured.”
The next act of the tragedy was the trial of Ireland, Fenwick, and Whitebread, three Jesuits; and Grove and Pickering, two servants in the queen’s chapel. Oates and Dugdale swore that the priests had conspired the death of the king, and at their instigation the latter had agreed to shoot him, which they attempted three several times; but that on one occasion the flint of their pistol was loose; on another there was no priming; and on the third no powder in the barrel: with other circumstances equally childish and improbable. Scroggs acknowledged that the case had broken down against Whitebread and Fenwick, and in defiance of all principles of justice, remanded them that further evidence might be procured.[123] The other three were condemned and executed. Whitebread, Fenwick, and three other Jesuits, afterwards underwent the same fate.
In July Wakeman and others were tried. “Scroggs summed up very favourably for the prisoners; far contrary to his former practice. The truth is, that this was looked upon as the Queen’s trial, as well as Wakeman’s. The prisoners were acquitted, and now the witnesses saw they were blasted; and they were enraged on it, which they vented with much spite against Scroggs.”[124]