Popular panic.
Oates, however, perjured himself up to the hilt, bringing forward accusations against all the leading English Romanists, and hinting that even Queen Catherine herself was privy to a plot to murder her husband. Many minor informers also sprang up to corroborate the venomous tale of Oates. The nation was seriously alarmed. A perfect outburst of frenzy followed, and every Romanist in England was denounced as a disciple of Guy Fawkes. Charles, to his shame, pretended to take the story seriously, though none knew better than he its folly.
The Exclusion Bill.—The Habeas Corpus Act.
A new Parliament met in March, 1679; it was elected in the full flood of indignation against the "Plot," and Shaftesbury found that he could command a clear majority of its votes. He used his power to bring in a bill excluding the Duke of York, as an avowed Romanist, from the throne. To save his brother's rights, Charles dissolved the Commons before they could pass it. The only work that this Parliament had succeeded in carrying through was the Habeas Corpus Act, a very important enactment prohibiting arbitrary imprisonment without a trial. No man was to be kept in gaol untried, and penalties were imposed on the gaoler who should detain him, and the judge who should refuse to hear him plead. This principle required to be explicitly reasserted under the later Stuarts, though it is found formulated in Magna Carta itself.
Pretensions of the Duke of Monmouth.
The second Parliament of 1679 was, to the king's disgust, almost as much under the influence of Shaftesbury and the alarmists as the first. The nation was still in a ferment; month after month prominent Catholics were imprisoned on the evidence of Oates and his gang, tried, and condemned to death. So great was the fear felt of the Romanist Duke of York, that a preposterous plan was formed by Shaftesbury and his friends to replace him as heir to the throne by the Duke of Monmouth, the eldest of the natural sons of King Charles. This was a manifest injustice to the Princess Mary, the Protestant daughter of Duke James. Her father's religion could not vitiate her rights. But Monmouth was a popular youth, of fair parts and abilities. He had won some military reputation by putting down a dangerous rebellion of the Scottish Covenanters, who had murdered the Archbishop of St. Andrews, risen in arms, and got possession of the Western Lowlands. After routing them at Bothwell Brig (June, 1679), Monmouth was saluted as a conquering hero, and rumours were put about that his mother, Lucy Walters, had been secretly married to the king. Charles himself hastened to deny this lie, but it had its effect, and a serious effort was made to substitute Monmouth for his uncle.
Shaftesbury loses ground.
All through 1680 the struggle was at its height, though Shaftesbury was gradually losing ground, owing to the unwise violence of his conduct, and the growing disrepute of his tool, Titus Oates, whose reckless falsehoods were beginning to be detected by sober men. The contest turned on the fate of the Exclusion Bill, which declared James incapable of reigning, and transferred his rights to his daughter Mary, the Princess of Orange, though many suspected that Shaftesbury intended to substitute Monmouth for the princess.
"Petitioners and Abhorrers."—Whigs and Tories.