'Twas worse than plotting to suspect his plot.
The discovery of Coleman's letters, however irreconcileable with the tale of the witnesses, above all, the murder of Godfrey, gave such a bloody confirmation, that the people swallowed all that could be told them about the horrors of the conspiracy; and, to use the warm expression of the author of the "Examen," one might have denied his Redeemer with less contest than attainted the veracity of Oates.
This popular ferment began to abate after the execution of Lord Stafford; and, as the witnesses sunk in reputation, the king began by degrees to discountenance Oates. He expelled him from Whitehall, withdrew his guards, and reduced his pension to L.600. Upon this Oates altered his dress, assumed a sword, and associated with the more desperate of the popular faction, such as Rumbold, Colledge, and Fergusson. In the reign of James II., his fortunes suffered a yet more melancholy reverse; for, being most satisfactorily convicted of perjury, by upwards of eighty witnesses, he was sentenced to two fines of 1000 merks each; to be whipped, on two different days, from Aldgate to Newgate, and from Newgate to Tyburn; to be imprisoned for life, and to be pilloried five times every year. James had the imprudence to exult in this cruel punishment. He told Sir John Reresby, that the Popish plot was now dead; and, when that courtier obsequiously answered, "and buried, please your majesty," he thought the jest worth repeating, which his brother would hardly have done. It is true, no punishment could be bad enough for the author of so many legal murders; but the severity of the sentence was an injury to the law of the land, though done through the person of so vile a criminal. The man's impudence supported him under the conviction; and his fortitude under the punishment was the means of regaining a share of his fallen credit. After the Revolution, he was pardoned, and received a pension of L.400, with the amount of which he was much dissatisfied, as well as with the refusal of the Parliament to reverse his sentence, and restore his capacity for his old trade of bearing evidence.
Even Absalom———
Perceives the plot, too foul to be excused,
To aid designs, no less pernicious, used.—P. [323.]
North, and other Tory writers, have affected to consider Shaftesbury as the original author of the Popish plot. Of this there is no proof whatever; and the internal evidence derived from the account of the plot itself, is altogether inconsistent with the very idea. Shaftesbury could never have given birth to such a heap of inconsistent fables; a plan which he had forged would have been ingenious, consistent with itself, accommodated to the circumstances of parties, and the times, and therefore, in all probability, being less suited to the vulgar palate, would not have made half the impression on the public. But we can easily believe the truth of what he is alleged to have said, "that whoever started the game, he had the full advantage of the chase." In fact, this wonderful tale, probably at first invented by two or three obscure knaves, with the sordid view of profiting by the credulity of the English nation, would have fallen to the ground, had it not been fostered and cherished by Shaftesbury, who very soon perceived it could be made the means of turning out Lord Danby, and driving matters to extremity against the Catholic faction. He might well indeed exult in his management in the former particular, since Danby was the first to introduce into the House of Commons that very discussion about the plot, to which, as Shaftesbury managed it, he himself fell a sacrifice.[411] But it was chiefly as a means of bringing forward the Bill of Exclusion, and of crushing for ever the hopes of his mortal foe the Duke of York,[412] that Shaftesbury became the patron of all investigations connected with the plot, pushed them on with vigour and vehemence, and dipped himself deep in the blood of the innocent persons who fell sacrifices to the popular clamour he had excited, and to evidence, which much less than Shaftesbury's abilities might easily have discovered to be inconsistent and fabulous.
A humorous pamphlet, already quoted, represents Shaftesbury as abandoning his pretensions to the crown of Poland, for the purpose of following up the discovery of the Popish plot. "In the very height of all this expectation, one night as his majesty elect lay musing upon his bed, restless with the thoughts and expectation of the approaching empire, there appeared to him, by the light of a lamp that was burning in his chamber, a dreadful and most monstrous vision. The shape and figure of it was very confused and irregular: sometimes it looked like the whore of Babylon, naked, and of immense privities; presently, in the twinkling of an eye, the form was changed, and it appeared like a justice of the peace, strangled by a crew of ruffians, who afterwards ran him through the body with his own sword, that it might be thought he hanged himself; on a sudden it was altered again, and seemed a troop of pilgrims, armed with black bills, that came the Lord knows whence, landed the Lord knows where, and are gone the Lord knows whither. His majesty seeing it vary so often, and so terribly, calling up all the faith he had to his assistance, boldly demanded 'In the name of, &c. what art thou?' Instantly, after a terrible clap of thunder, accompanied with several flashes of lightning, it contracted itself into the shape of a doctor of Salamanca, and, in a hideous tone, cried out, 'I am a Plot. Woe to England! farewell till 78;' and vanished. No sooner was it gone, but a stupid amazement seized upon the majesty of Poland, and cast him into a deep sleep, where he lay till morning, when, awakening, he found himself stript of all the high and aspiring thoughts that before had filled his mind; pity and compassion towards his native country utterly cooled his ambition, and from that moment he laid by all thoughts of converting the Turk, and resolved to stay at home for confounding the pope.
"Thus has this good man, (for he is no more his majesty,) again refused the highest promotion that perhaps any subject of England was ever raised to, merely to stand in a gap here, and slay the plague that was coming upon us."[413]