CAMEO I.

Covenanters' Meetings. 1666.

Catholics, almost savages, were let loose to live at free quarters in these counties. It was thought that this was done on purpose to drive the people into open rebellion, so that they might be exterminated, but they kept quiet, and the Duke of Hamilton headed a deputation to lay the matter before the King. Charles allowed that much evil had been done, but not, he said, contrary to his interests. However, the Highland host was recalled, carrying off a huge amount of spoil: horses, cattle, webs of linen and woollen cloth, bed-clothes, pots, pans, gridirons, silver plate, and all sorts of pillage. Yet so unresisting had been the people that only one life was lost!

Yet the meetings went on in the moorlands, though broken up by the soldiery whenever detected. The Covenanters considered the beautiful green plovers or lapwings their great enemy, for no doubt considering them as bent on disturbing their nests, they swept round uttering their wild cry-Pease weep in Scotch, Pee wit in English— and thus attracted the soldiers, or the Royalist gentry.

Mrs. Smythe of Methven, or as she was termed, Leddy Methven, broke up one of these meetings, riding herself at the head of sixty horse, and providing arms and cannon in case they should besiege her.

Other ladies however attended the conventicles with enthusiasm, though much cannot be said for Mrs. Baillie, the lady whose horse the Life Guardsman, Captain Creichton, saved, and who in her gratitude, when he restored it at sight of her tears, betrayed the names of her neighbours who were present at the preaching, so that they had to make up a purse of hush money to the officers, to prevent fine and confiscation.

Creichton and his friend Grant lived for a year on the proceeds, and do not appear to have felt any scruples as to thus cheating the Government. Nor did such things greatly concern those in higher quarters, though they kept in favour with the King. Sharpe however was made to retire from the Court of High Commission to his own see of St. Andrews, but Rothes received a Dukedom and retired. Lauderdale also became a Duke, and was made Lord High Commissioner. He was a large, bloated-looking man, very well read and clever, but spelling in the most extraordinary manner even for that time, irreverent, coarse and profane; and his wife, a daughter of that Murray who had picked Charles I.'s pockets of his papers, was an extravagant, rapacious woman, on the look-out for fines and exactions. At the time Lauderdale and Rothes were assisting the King in bringing about a marriage between his son, Monmouth, and Anne, the heiress of the Scotts of Buccleuch, the great Border family.

On the whole, for the ten years after the Pentland rising, things were quiet, though there was a smouldering flame beneath. Sharpe however continued to be haunted by the face of the man who had shot at him, and after six years, in 1674, he identified this person as one Mitchell who kept a small shop, not far from the door of the palace. The

Primate's brother, Sir William, seized the man, and found two loaded pistols in his possession. He was brought before the Council, and promised his life, when he admitted that he had fired the shot; but he accused no accomplice and no witness could be found, so that the trial did not take place till 1677. Then, one of the Judges, passing near him in going into Court, whispered, "Confess nothing, unless you are sure of your limbs as well as your life.”

Mitchell would not repeat his confession, upon which the Privy Council withdrew their protection, and Lauderdale and Rothes declared that they had heard no assurance of life given to him, though the records of the Privy Council at that date distinctly describe the confession on assurance of life.

Sir George Lockhart, an able advocate, did his best in defence of Mitchell, whose mind had become affected, but no defence availed. It was decided to put him to the torture in hopes of unravelling some plot. He received the threat with dignity. "By that torture you may cause me to blaspheme God, as Paul did compel the saints. You may by that torture cause me to speak amiss of your Lordships, to call myself a thief, a murderer or warlock, and what not, and then panel me upon it. But if ye shall, my Lords, put me to it, I here protest that nothing extorted from me by torture shall be made use of against me in judgment, nor have any force against me in law, nor any other person whomsoever."

Mitchell pre

The torture was applied, but nothing was extracted. served firmness enough not to utter anything that could accuse others. Probably his act had been entirely one of personal fanaticism, but the assurance, so shamefully disowned, was not permitted to avail him, and he was executed in January, 1678. The greater part of Southern Scotland was tranquil with either Episcopal or Indulged ministers, whose places as they died out would be supplied with ordained ones. The Liturgy was used in few places, in most only the Lord's Prayer, the Doxology and the Creed at Baptism, and good men, like Bishop Leighton, hoped gradually to bring their people back to the Church. The Highlands-except Argyll's country-were almost all Roman Catholic, and the earnest Covenanters were chiefly confined to the south-western hills, and were sternly repressed, but only so as to make the smothered heat more fierce.

CAMEO

1.

Trial of Mitchell. 1677.

CAMEO II.

THE POPISH PLOT.

1678-1680.

France.

CAMEO 11.

Tonge and Oates. 1677.

England.

1660. Charles II.

1643. Louis XIV.

Germany.

1658. Leopold I.

Spain.
1650. Charles II.
Pope.

1670. Clement X.

DURING the 16th and 17th centuries, there had been numerous plots and conspiracies, and even more imaginary ones, and no doubt this was the cause of the strange deception and the still stranger hallucination now to be recounted.

There was a certain Dr. Tonge, Rector of St. Michael's, Wood Street, who was haunted, like many men before and since, with imaginations of Jesuits in disguise carrying on nefarious schemes, and who saw with despair the heir of the Crown a professed Romanist. To him repaired one Titus Oates, son to an Anabaptist ribbon weaver, who had held a cure during the commonwealth, but had conformed, and had been ordained after the Restoration. Titus had been educated at Cambridge, was in Holy Orders, and had been a curate in several parishes, and afterwards chaplain on board of a man-of-war, but had lost each situation through misconduct, and had further been shown to be guilty of perjury. In distress, he applied to Dr. Tonge, and agreed with him to lend himself to the detection of the Jesuitical designs in which the Rector believed. For this purpose he feigned conversion to Romanism, and, in 1677, was reconciled by a priest named Berry, and obtained admission to an English theological seminary at Valladolid; but he was a vulgar, licentious man, and in five months was ignominiously expelled. He feigned repentance, was forgiven, and received at St. Omer, where again he offended, and came home in disgrace, but without any intelligence except that he had picked up a report of a meeting of Jesuits in London. It was in fact their ordinary triennial congregation, numbering the thirty-nine eldest members, with their provincial, and had been held with much secrecy in the Duke of York's house, simply for the regular business concerns of the Order. That

Jesuits could meet without meaning mischief to the State no doubt appeared impossible to the Rector, and between the two a statement was worked up of a meeting in an inn in the Strand of all the Jesuits whose names Oates could think of, and for the purpose of murdering the King and overthrowing the English Church. Titus Oates wrote the narrative in Greek letters, Tonge copied it in English, and they then called in one Kirkby, who had assisted the King in chemical experiments.

Charles was just setting forth for his usual walk in St. James's Park when Kirkby came forward and entreated him to abstain, as his life would be in danger. Charles however had plenty of nonchalant courage, and proceeded on his way as if nothing had happened; but in the evening he sent for the man to the house of one of his boon companions, named Chiffinch, who brought Tonge with his narrative in a huge roll of paper, divided into forty-three articles. The King referred him to the Lord Treasurer, Danby, to whose interrogations Tonge replied that the paper had been thrust under his chamber door! Nevertheless Tonge appeared again after a day or two, and said he had ascertained who were the intending assassins, and could point them out in the street or the park.

Danby wanted to have them arrested; but Charles, who did not believe a word of the story, said that they should be let alone, since a stir was useless, and might only put the notion of murdering him into some foolish fellow's brain.

This coolness and incredulity only stimulated the accusers, and Tonge called upon the Lord Treasurer with the news that some terrible letters to Bedingfield, the Duke of York's confessor, were in the postoffice. Danby made haste to intercept them; but the post had been too quick for him; Bedingfield had received the letters, and perceiving them to be forgeries, had shown them to the Duke, who brought them to the King. On comparison with the "narrative," they were proved to have been written by the same hand, words were misspelt in the same manner in each, and that they were a malicious forgery was doubted by none of the Council. Still the Duke wished to have the authors of the plot detected; and, on their side, Tonge and his abettors declared to their dupes that the Jesuits had been so sharp as to withdraw the dangerous letters, and give the Duke these bad forgeries.

Kirkby haunted the Court, but no attention was paid to him, so the next step was to obtain publicity; and with this purpose Titus Oates himself appeared before a justice of the peace-Sir Edmondbury Godfrey-and made his affidavit of the truth of his articles, now swelled to eighty-one. Godfrey probably was as incredulous as every other man of sense, and on examining the list of the accused, he found on it that of Coleman, an agent of the Duke and a friend of his own, and accordingly gave the man warning.

On the story coming up again in another quarter, James was convinced that it had been hatched with a view to his exclusion from the

CAMEO II.

Kirkby.

1678.

Oates's

evidence.

CAMEO II. throne, and insisted on its being sifted to the bottom. So Titus Oates was summoned before the Council, and was fitted out with a gown and cassock by Tonge for the occasion. He had a peculiar provincial drawl, making all vowels sound like "a-a"; but he appeared perfectly self-possessed as he proceeded to detail his story. He said—

1678.

Ist. The Jesuits had undertaken to restore Romanism by rebellion and bloodshed.

2nd. They were raising the Irish to rebellion. Disguised as Presbyterian ministers, they were inciting the Scotch Covenanters. As French partizans, they were stirring the Dutch against the Prince of Orange; and in England they were plotting the murder not only of the King, but of the Duke of York if he would not join them.

3rd. That they had large sums of money paid them by Père la Chaise, the King of France's confessor, and promised by Spain.

4th. That a man called Honest William, together with Pickering, a lay brother, had been commissioned to shoot the King on the 4th of March, and for failing had been well flogged.

5th. That a grand meeting of Jesuits had been held at the White Horse Tavern in the Strand, when various assassins had been selected, and a bribe offered to Sir George Wakeman, the Queen's physician, to bring about the matter quietly.

6th. That he himself had been the bearer of letters containing all these plots between the Jesuits of St. Omer and Valladolid, and had actually met Don John of Austria at Madrid.

7th. That the Jesuits had caused the Fire of London, and were about to burn Wapping and Westminster.

8th. That the Pope had nominated a whole hierarchy of Archbishops and Bishops to take possession of the Church as soon as the King was dead.

The Council listened to this monstrous tissue in utter amazement, and the Duke of York at once called it an utter falsehood and slander ; but Danby and Shaftesbury, though they could not possibly have believed in it, saw in it a means of annoying their enemies. Oates was asked for proofs, but he had not a single paper to produce. However he promised plenty of evidence if he might have warrants to seize the persons and papers of those whom he accused.

The next day he was again examined, and in presence of the King, who desired him to describe Don John of Austria.

Oates made a typical Spaniard of him, saying he was tall, lean, and swarthy; at which the royal brothers laughed, for the Duke had been under his command in Flanders, and well knew him to be short, fat, and of light complexion.

"Pray, sir," asked the King, "where did you see La Chaise pay the £10,000?"

"At the house of the Jesuits, close to the Louvre, please your Majesty." "Man!" exclaimed Charles, "the Jesuits have no house within a mile of the Louvre."