These blunders might, it would seem, have utterly discredited Oates; but some of the Council thought fit to lodge him at Whitehall, as he pretended to be in fear of his life; and moreover Coleman, who had fled on Sir Edmondbury Godfrey's warning, had actually left behind him letters from Père la Chaise on the restoration of Romanism, though not by such truculent measures.

The King went off to Newmarket Races, and all would probably have died away save for a strange and inexplicable event. Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, the Westminster magistrate, who had taken Oates' depositions and believed in them, was a prosperous merchant, but he was of a melancholy disposition, and had been alarmed and depressed by the stories he had listened to. On the 12th of October, he set off from his own house on foot for the City, and never returned, though several persons met him walking about in the streets apparently noticing no one. Reports went about on the one hand that he had run away from creditors; on the other, that he had been murdered by the Papists. Search was made by his brothers in vain, till the sixth day, when on Primrose Hill, not far from old St. Pancras Church, his body was found among some stunted bushes in a dry ditch. It was lying on the left side, his own sword had been thrust through his heart so violently that the point protruded at the back, his gloves lay on the bank, his rings and his money were untouched, and his cane was stuck into the ground upright. This looked like suicide; but, on the other hand, there was no blood on the clothes, the shoes did not look as if he had taken an October walk to that distance, and there were spots of white wax such as he did not use himself upon his breeches. On undressing him, a purple crease, as though he had been strangled, was found round his neck, which was broken, and there were bruises on his breast. Blood followed when the sword was drawn out; and the two surgeons who examined the corpse gave evidence that they believed him to have been first strangled, then carried to this spot, and stabbed with his own weapon. Some persons wished for further medical evidence, thinking that the mark on the neck might have been caused by his collar after he had thrown himself upon his sword; but there was nothing so much dreaded by families as a verdict of felo de se, as besides the shameful burial, it involved forfeiture of property to the Crown; and the Godfreys would not consent to further examination, nor does it appear how long since the death was thought to have taken place. After two days, during which hundreds of persons had gazed on the body as that of a martyr to the Papists, a verdict of wilful murder against person or persons unknown was returned, and thereupon a fit of frenzy set in on the nation. The white wax, which, as Bishop Burnet remarks, was only used by priests and persons of quality, was held as a conclusive sign that he had been a prisoner to some such persons; and when he was buried, there was a huge procession, headed by seventytwo clergymen in full canonicals; and a funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Lloyd, with another divine, or a man dressed like one, on either

CAMEO II.

Murder of
Godfrey.

1678.

side of him to prevent his being murdered in the pulpit by any remarkably adventurous Papist! His text was, As a man fell before

the wicked, so fellest thou!"

Guards were set on all the public places, lest they should be blown up, and medals were struck commemorating the poor gentleman in a very original manner, walking with his head in his hand, like St. Clement, or tied behind a murderer on horseback. Nothing has ever cleared up the mystery. The Roman Catholics assuredly did not murder him; and as every one of their accusers, except Titus Oates, was more or less deceived, it is not likely that they could have been guilty of such an atrocity for the sake of giving colour to the supposed plot. Nor could Oates well have accomplished the deed. Though he was ready to swear away hosts of innocent lives, the actual murder of a man with his own sword is most improbable. Suicide is far more likely, and as the medical authority was-even for the time-ignorant and insufficient, and there was a taint of insanity in the family, this is really the most reasonable idea. Indeed if Oates or any of his closer associates were the first to discover the fact, they were quite capable of producing the appearances on the body for the sake of confirming their allegations.

The effect was decidedly all that they could desire. The Ministers, Danby and Shaftesbury, saw their advantage in promoting the panic, and vied with one another in suggesting defences for the City. Indeed, after a conversation with Shaftesbury, Sir Thomas Player, the Chamberlain, is reported to have said that but for their guards, the Protestant citizens of London might all rise some morning with their throats cut!

Parliament was meeting, as it usually did, for an autumn session, and the King, in his opening speech, only slightly alluded to the Popish plot, saying that any offenders should be dealt with in course of law. He much advised his Ministers to abstain from bringing the matter forward in Parliament, telling them, "You will find you have given the Parliament a handle to ruin yourself as well as to disturb all my affairs, and you will surely live to repent it." Indeed Shaftesbury said, "Let the Lord Treasurer cry as loud as he pleases, and put himself at the head of the plot, I will cry a note louder and soon take his place."

Danby brought on the matter in the House of Lords, so as to be beforehand with Shaftesbury; but that abler person at once took it out of his hands, and induced the House to appoint a Committee of Enquiry, before whom Oates and Tonge appeared, telling the former story, with the notable additions, for it grew every time, that Oliver, the General of the Jesuits, had, with the Pope's authority, appointed the Roman Catholic gentlemen, Lords Arundel, Powys, and Belasys, Sir William Godolphin, Mr. Coleman, and Sir Francis Radcliffe to the great offices of State; and General Lambert to the command of the army.

Several of these persons were of such an age, and others so unquali

fied, that no one would have dreamt of selecting them for these offices; but in the state of the public mind this made no difference, and Arundel, Powys, Belasys, together with Lords Stafford and Castlemaine, were all committed to the Tower, even the peers being either too much infected by the panic or too much intimidated to insist on their privilege.

At the same time, Shaftesbury brought in a bill for extending to the Lords the Test Act, which forbade the sitting in Parliament of any one who would not take the Oath of Supremacy, abjuring the Pope, and receive the Holy Communion after the English ritual. As the Roman Catholic Lords were highly respected gentlemen, who had shown themselves loyal cavaliers, there was some demur; but Titus Oates was produced again, and his startling depositions bore down all opposition. Charles gave way to the popular movement, removed his brother from the Council, and undertook to do anything needful to prevent Popery, except to interfere with the course of the succession to the Crown. Titus Oates was called the saviour of the nation, and voted a pension of £1,200 a year; and the London prisons were filled with Romanists, while those who were so fortunate as not to be arrested were banished from the City. All over the country they were summoned before the magistrates and disarmed, and in London chains were prepared to fling across the streets, and all the trained bands called out.

Then the trials began, the most disgraceful that ever took place in English Courts of Law. An advertisement promising pardon and £500 to any one who should reveal the murderer of Godfrey had been issued, and on the Ist of November a letter was received from Newbury, requesting that the writer, William Bedloe, might be taken into custody in the city of Bristol, and be brought to London.

This was done on the understanding that he had important disclosures to make quite independent of those of Oates. He had been a servant of Lord Belasys, and afterwards of various other gentlemen, with whom he had travelled on the Continent; but he had been dismissed from one service after another for dishonesty, and had just come out of Newgate when the proclamation and reward stimulated his invention.

He was examined before the King in Council, and there had the effrontery to declare that though he knew nothing of the plot, yet in Somerset House, where Queen Katharine resided, he had seen the dead body of poor Sir Edmondbury. The English public credited the astute Jesuits with a singular choice of confidants, for Bedloe was believed when he declared that Father Le Fevre had confessed that he and another Father, named Walsh, with the assistance of Lord Belasys' gentleman, and an attendant in the Queen's chapel, had smothered the victim between two pillows, and that the body had lain on Her Majesty's back-stairs for two whole days, that two thousand guineas had been offered him to remove it, but that it was finally taken away by some of the Queen's people.

CAMEO II.

The Test
Act.

1678.

CAMEO II.

The next day, before the House of Lords, he repeated much of this, Bedloe's de- but contrary to what he had said previously, he declared that Le Fevre had told him of the offices to which the Popish Lords had been appointed.

position.

1678.

"The man has had a fresh lesson within the last twenty-four hours," observed the King.

Another lesson must have been suggested that the inquest had decided that Godfrey had not been smothered but strangled; for four days later, Bedloe proceeded to depose that the unfortunate man had been decoyed into the Court at Somerset House at five o'clock in the afternoon, and that the murder was committed soon after by strangling with a linen cravat, and that the body was removed at eleven o'clock on the Monday night. Four thousand pounds had, he said, been offered to him early in October to commit a murder! He added that he could show the very room in Somerset House where he had seen the four murderers standing round the corpse, together with Atkins, clerk to Mr. Pepys at the Admiralty.

The Duke of Monmouth, as the Protestant favourite, went with him to see the room; when the one he pitched upon was the waitingroom of the Queen's footmen, a thoroughfare frequented by every one, never empty throughout the day; and the hour he selected, 5 P.M. on the 12th, happened to be the very time when the King was making a visit to the Queen, with a company of foot-guards in attendance and a sentry at every door.

This might have been enough to discredit the whole ridiculous story, and Charles plainly pronounced Bedloe to be a mere rogue; but the nation was frantic. Shaftesbury encouraged the panic for his own purposes, and the King chose to be passive, and let the madness have its course, rather than excite suspicion of his own Romish inclinations.

So, on the 12th of November, Bedloe, who had begun by never having heard of the plot, came forward with disclosures of having met on his travels all manner of English ecclesiastics, who, as usual, had confided their schemes to him. The King was to be shut up in a monastery and then killed. "Another person, to be disposed of in like manner, unless he would hold the Crown from the Pope, after the example of King John; 10,000 men were to land at Bridlington, to be commanded by Lord Belasys; 20,000 or 30,000 friars and pilgrims from Coruña were to arrive at Milford Haven, to be under the command of Lords Pepys and Petre. Moreover the Dukes of Monmouth, Ormond, and Buckingham, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and Lord. Ossory (Ormond's son) were to be assassinated, and 40,000 men were ready to fall on the citizens of London.

All this was swallowed by the terrified Londoners; and the wretched conclave of slanderers took a further step, in which a woman was put forward. Mrs. Elliot, wife to a gentleman of the bedchamber, requested the King to have a private interview with Dr. Oates, who

had something important to communicate. Seeing that the King had no mind for such a tête-à-tête, she proceeded to tell him that the doctor would bring the Queen into the plot. The King showing himself much displeased, the impudent woman said she thought His Majesty would be glad to be rid of the Queen on any terms. To which Charles answered, "I never will suffer an innocent lady to be oppressed."

On the first token of the spite of the informers turning against his neglected wife, he had brought her back from Somerset House to his own residence at Whitehall.

However the crew who met at the King's Head in Fleet Street did not believe him; for his previous neglect of his wife spoke more plainly than words; and while the world was ignorant of the King's Romish proclivities, Catharine's devotion was manifest in her two chapels. She was supposed to have converted the Duke of York, and in Portuguese chronicles she is praised for this, though she really had nothing to do with it. So Oates proceeded to depose before the King and Council that he had seen a letter from her physician saying that she had consented to her husband's death; and that in August he had been taken to Somerset House, and waited in an ante-chamber with the door ajar, and had heard a conference between the Queen, Lord Belasys, Coleman, and two French priests. He heard a female voice exclaim: "I will no longer suffer such indignities, I am content to join in procuring his death and the propagation of the Catholic faith," and then followed a promise to assist in poisoning the King. He added as corroboration that he had begged to see the Queen, and had not only received a gracious smile, but had heard her ask Father Harcourt if he had received the last ten thousand pounds, and it was the same voice he had heard in the ante-room!

Charles insisted on a close description of the place; and again this proved a confutation, as Oates only described one of the public rooms, in which he could hardly have heard the Queen in her closet, even if she had screamed in a manner only consistent with a stage aside. However Bedloe came with a similar story, of standing below the gallery of the chapel at Somerset House, and hearing the plan concerted by the same company above, and adding that Coleman told him that the Queen had at first wept on hearing of the intended murder of her husband, but had yielded to the arguments of the French priests. He went on to name the bribes offered to Sir George Wakeman, the physician who was to prepare the potion for the Queen to administer.

He was asked why he had not mentioned all this before. He said he had forgotten; but in spite of the King's evident incredulity and indignation, on the very next day, the 20th of November, this recreant clergyman advanced to the bar of the House of Commons, and in his strange pronunciation declared-"I, Titus Oates, a-acuse Caathaarine, Queen of England, of haigh traisun.”

There was a thrill either at his effrontery or the magnitude of the crime, and actually, in the Commons, a request was voted that the

CAMEO II.

Accusation of the Queen. 1678.