Here certainly was treason enough concocted, if one could believe the witnesses, to have hung a hundred men. No less than seven men had engaged to kill the king; all of whom, through some strange infelicity, did not find an opportunity even to make the attempt. Not satisfied with this number of assassins, Coleman would have had the Duke of York brought into the Plot, and made the murderer of his brother. Could human folly frame a set of lies more gross and palpable?
Beside Coleman’s general knowledge of the Plot, Oates mentioned several circumstances showing the special interest that he had taken in it; that he had written letters which the witness had carried to St. Omers, in which were these ‘expressions of the king, calling him tyrant, and that the marriage between the Prince of Orange and the Lady Mary, the Duke of York’s eldest daughter, would prove the traitor’s and tyrant’s ruin;’ that ‘this letter was written in plain English words at length;’ that he had sent another letter in which he promised ‘that the ten thousand pounds’ (sent by the Jesuits,) ‘should be employed for no other intent or purpose but to cut off the King of England;’ and that he had given money that ‘the four Irish ruffians,’ who were to kill the king at Windsor, might be speedy in their business.
In all these trials there is nothing that more strikingly shows the infamous manner in which these witnesses were allowed to testify, than the withholding of such parts of their evidence as they pretended it was improper at that time to bring forward. Thus they protected themselves; for no one durst accuse them lest he himself should be charged as a party to the conspiracy. At this trial Oates said, without a word of dissent from the Chief Justice, ‘I could give other evidence but will not, because of other things which are not fit to be known yet.’
It is impossible that the Chief Justice, or the other judges, should have believed such a story as this even for a moment. We make all necessary allowance for the influence of great popular excitement. We know that judges are but men, and are not exempt more than other men from the contagion of those occasional outbursts of frenzy, which seem to destroy all individual independence, and all sense of individual responsibility; and which for a time makes a nation like a herd of maddened buffaloes, ignorant whither it is going, but unable to stop in its furious career. Yet by their position judges are, of all classes of men, the farthest removed from popular influences of this nature. Their habits of legal investigation, fit them in an eminent degree to weigh with scrupulous accuracy the characters of witnesses; to detect improbabilities and contradictions. Stories that may deceive even intelligent men unacquainted with the laws of evidence, and the bearings of testimony, stand revealed at first glance to the practised eye of the judge as a tissue of falsehoods. Here the judges could not have been deceived. Who could believe that the Jesuits, a body of men not less celebrated for their profound knowledge of the politics of every kingdom in Christendom, than for the wisdom with which they adapted their plans of proselytism to the changing circumstances of the times, should have formed a plan to restore popery in England by massacre and conquest? The thing is too preposterous to merit a moment’s attention.
Still more ridiculous are the details of the Plot as disclosed by Oates. Would the Jesuits, even if they had formed such plans, confide them to a penniless, friendless vagabond; a man of notoriously bad character, who was, while at St. Omers, the butt and laughing stock of the whole college? Such secrets are not usually revealed to any but tried men, and the Jesuits were the last of all conspirators to bestow their confidence rashly. Yet here was a conspiracy whose disclosure would have brought a certain and speedy death to every one engaged in it, known we know not to how many hundreds, and many of these too found in the lowest ranks of the populace. The manner of its execution is of a piece with all the rest. First, two men were employed to kill the king. For two years they could find no opportunity to do it. Then four Irish ruffians were employed. Who they were, or what became of them, no one knew. Then the physician of the queen was hired to poison him. To this horrible plan of assassination, were consenting not only the highest dignitaries of the Romish church, but some of the noblest peers of England and of France. But we have neither time nor patience to proceed farther with such miserable fabrications. We say then that the judges never could have believed in the existence of such a Plot, and that the prisoners tried before them were immolated upon the altar of their own personal popularity. Rather than resist the current of popular feeling, and dare to award justice and uphold the supremacy of impartial law, they chose to swim with the tide, and sacrifice men whom they knew in their hearts to be innocent. It is this that adds tenfold guilt to the brutality of their conduct. We cannot forget that they were dishonest in their very cruelty; that they insulted their victims, browbeat the witnesses, trampled on judicial forms to gain the favor of an infuriated mob, whose madness they laughed at and derided.
At the commencement of the trial, Coleman thus alluded to the law of England, forbidding counsel to prisoners accused of criminal offences, and to the prejudice that then prevailed against those of his religion: ‘I hope, my lord, if there be any point of law that I am not skilled in, that your lordships will be pleased not to take the advantage over me. Another thing seems most dreadful, that is, the violent prejudice that seems to be against every man in England that is confessed to be a Roman Catholic. It is possible that a Roman Catholic may be very innocent of these crimes. If one of those innocent Roman Catholics should come to this bar, he lies under such disadvantages already, and his prejudices so greatly biasseth human nature, that unless your lordships will lean extremely much on the other side, justice will hardly stand upright and lie upon a level.’
L. C. J. ‘You need not make any preparations for us in this matter; you shall have a fair, just and legal trial; if condemned it will be apparent you ought to be so; and without a fair proof there shall be no condemnation. Therefore you shall find we will not do to you as you do to us, blow up at adventure, kill people because they are not of your persuasion: our religion teacheth us another doctrine, and you shall find it clearly to your advantage.’
This was fairness and impartiality in the eyes of the Chief Justice!
Coleman did not conduct his defence with so much ability as his reputation might lead us to expect. He seems to have been dismayed at the dangers that threatened him, and hopeless of a fair trial, bowed before the storm. An attempted alibi was feebly supported, although Oates was so indefinite in regard to time that to attempt to convict him of falsehood was of little avail. The chief points of his defence were the improbability of the whole story, and the fact that Oates on his examination before the council had said that he did not know him. Oates thus excused himself: ‘My lord, when Mr. Coleman was upon his examination before the council board, he saith I said that I never saw him before in my life; I then said that I would not swear that I had seen him before in my life, because my sight was bad by candle-light, and candle-light alters the sight much; but when I heard him speak, I could have sworn it was he, but it was not then my business. I cannot see a great way by candle-light.’
Being asked why he had not accused Coleman at the same time when he accused Wakeman and the Jesuits, he pretended that it was ‘for want of memory. Being disturbed and wearied in sitting up two nights, I could not give that good account of Mr. Coleman, which I did afterwards when I consulted my papers;’ as if in giving the names of many meaner persons, he should from forgetfulness overlook one so considerable as Coleman. The testimony of Oates was confirmed by Bedlow, who did not hesitate to swear to any thing that the more inventive genius of his fellow-witness had devised.