“This I pronounce to be the judgment of the court upon you for your offences. And I must tell you plainly that if it had been in my power to have carried it further, I should not have been unwilling to have given sentence of death upon you, for I am sure you deserve it.”[135]
Burnet says, “But now the sitting of the parliament of England came on. And as a preparative to it, Oates was convicted of perjury upon the evidence of the witnesses from St. Omers, who had been brought over before to discredit his testimony. Now juries were so prepared as to believe more easily than formerly. So he was condemned to have his priestly habit taken from him, to be a prisoner for life, to be set in the pillory in all the public places through the city, and ever after that set in the pillory four times a–year, and to be whipped by the common hangman from Aldgate to Newgate one day, and the next from Newgate to Tyburn, which was executed with so much rigour that his back appeared to be all over flead. This was thought too little if he were guilty, and too much if he were innocent; and was illegal in all the parts of it. For as the secular court, could not order the ecclesiastical habit to be taken from him, so to condemn a man to perpetual imprisonment was not in the power of the court. And the extreme rigour of such whipping was without a precedent. Yet he, who was an original in all things, bore this with a constancy that amazed all those who saw it. So that this treatment did rather raise his reputation than sink it.”[136]
So soon as the heat of the plot was over, Charles reduced his pension one–half, and ultimately deprived him of it altogether. After the Revolution he was pardoned, “redintegrated at court, and admitted to a pension of 400l. per annum, at which he was very wroth, for Charles gave him 600l., ‘and sure,’ he said, ‘William will give me more.’ He sought by Act of Parliament to have his judgment for perjury reversed, but he could never obtain a swearing capacity again. The Earl of Danby (then Leeds) knew the danger of that, and would indeed have his sentence reversed, that is, having been whipped from Newgate to Tyburn, would fain have had him whipped back from Tyburn to Newgate. The power of swearing is formidable to great and small, and his lordship was within an ace of being put in the plot for Godfrey’s murder.”[137] Here ends his public life; he died in 1705, having once more changed his religion, and entered into the communion of the Baptists. To the last many persons adhered to him, and considered him a martyr to the Protestant cause. In conclusion, we subjoin his character, as drawn by Calamy, whose temper and opinions alike free his testimony from suspicion.
“Dr. Oates was a man of invincible courage and resolution, and endured what would have killed a great many others. He occasioned a strange turn in the nation, after a general lethargy, that had been of some years’ continuance. By awakening us out of sleep he was an instrument in the hand of God for our preservation. Yet after all, he was but a sorry foul–mouthed wretch, as I can testify from what I once heard from him in company.
Medal of Oates. The reverse represents the pretended scheme to shoot Charles II. walking in St. James’s Park. Legend: The Popish Plott discovered by mee, T. Oates, D.D.
“I have been informed at Westminster that Dr. Oates was a frequent auditor of my predecessor, Mr. Alsop, and moved for leave to come to the Lord’s table with his society, but that an honest man of the congregation upon that occasion spoke freely against him, as one so irregular in his life as to be very unfit for church communion. The doctor afterwards meeting Mr. Alsop, told him that man had sadly abused him, and upon that account he vehemently complained as one that was injuriously dealt with. Mr. Alsop cried out, ‘Prove him a liar, doctor! prove him a liar!’ which it would have been well for him if he could have done. But he really bore an indifferent character at Westminster, and notwithstanding all the service he had done, there were so many things concurring to lessen his credit, as makes it very hard to distinguish between what was true and what was false in his depositions. For which reason I must own that I am the less surprised, that the parliament after the Revolution should leave him under a brand, and incapacitate him for being a witness for the future.”[138]
We may conclude the chapter with a short reference to that most remarkable transaction, the mutilation of the Hermæ, which occurred B.C. 415, just before the Sicilian expedition, and in its consequences bears a striking analogy to the passage in history which we have just related. The Hermæ were square pillars, surmounted by a head of the god, Hermes, or Mercury, which, in compliance with an ancient custom, were placed at the entrances of temples and houses. Most of these throughout Athens were defaced in the course of one night. A great sensation was excited in the city; for the circumstance was held to be of evil omen to the important enterprise just about to be commenced, and moreover to indicate the existence of a plot to overthrow the democracy. Alcibiades was accused among others, but no evidence could be obtained to bring home the offence to any one: the excitement passed off for a time, and he was ordered with the army to Sicily. But men’s minds were unsettled, and agitated by terrors of they knew not what, aggravated by designing persons for party ends. “From the affair of the Mercuries, a plot was inferred for the establishment of oligarchy or tyranny, and the irritation was cherished by continual discourses of what Athens had suffered through the Pisistratidæ. On the slightest suspicion, on the most discreditable evidence, men, the most respected, were imprisoned; alarm increased with the number of accusations, and each found readier credit than the last. At length Andocides, one of the imprisoned, seeing no other hope of escape, and hoping by the sacrifice of a few to save the rest, and to tranquillize the city, confessed the crime, and accused some others, whether truly or falsely is not known. The people received the information with joy; and setting free the informer, and those whom he had cleared, tried and executed the others. The proof was very inadequate, and the condemnation most unjust; but the panic was in great measure abated.”[139]