336 THE POPISH PLOT. [1678. trampled under foot the liberty of that very city they were raised to defend. They were made engines of oppression and disorder, disturbed meetinghouses, possessed the Guildhall, chose sheriffs, got drunk upon guard, abused the citizens upon their rounds, and their prodigal drunken sentinels murdered several people upon pretence they would not stand at their command. In a populous city, it was impossible but innocent people, either ignorant or perhaps in drink, might run themselves into danger, not imagining they had to do with brutes that would kill their fellow-citizens for such trifles, with the same severity as if in an enemy's country, or on the frontiers." As there was nothing in the terrors of massacres and invasions; of burnings of London and of the shipping in the Thames; of Jesuits about to rule the land under the seal of the Pope,-too absurd for the multitude to credit; so there was no eminent person, however loyal and peaceable, who might not become a victim to the accusations of those men who had brought a whole nation into a condition of senseless panic. "All Oates' evidence," says Burnet, "was now so well believed that it was not safe for any man to doubt any part of it." He named peers to whom the Pope had sent over his commissions. He accused Wakeman, the queen's physician, of a project to poison his sovereign. Bedloe, a man of notorious evil life, surrendered himself at Bristol, pretending that he was cognisant of the murder of Godfrey, and could point out the murderers and instigators; and he then came forward in support of the accusations of Oates against certain peers who had been apprehended on Oates's charges. The consummation of the impudence of Oates was his attempt to involve the harmless queen in a charge of having concerted the murder of her husband. He told a story that the queen had sent for some Jesuits to Somerset House; that he went with them, and standing behind a door, heard one in a woman's voice, there being no other woman in the room than the queen, assure them that she would assist in taking off the king. North relates that Oates, at the bar of the House of Commons, said, Aye, Taitus Oates, accause Catherine, Quean of England, of Haigh Traison." * Burnet has a curious relation of his own conversation with the king on this delicate subject. The good bishop's relations have been considered, though perhaps unjustly, a little open to doubt; but we are not entitled to question what he relates of his personal knowledge. "The king spoke much to me concerning Oates's accusing the queen, and acquainted me with the whole progress of it. He said she was a weak woman, and had some disagreeable humours; but was not capable of a wicked thing; and, considering his faultiness towards her in other things, he thought it a horrid thing to abandon her. He said he looked on falsehood and cruelty as the greatest crimes in the sight of God; he knew he had led a bad life, of which he spoke with some sense; but he was breaking himself of all his faults; and he would never do a base and a wicked thing. I spoke on all these subjects which I thought became me, which he took well; and I encouraged him much in his resolution of not exposing the queen to perish by false swearing." We have thus shown some ludicrous aspects of this famous Plot. The Scott, from this hint, has given Cates his peculiar dialect in "Peveril of the Peak." 1678.] THE POPISH PLOT. 337 The horrible realities connected with it present a fearful example of the atrocities that may be committed under the excitement of religious animosity. trials of the accused persons commenced in November. Stayley, a Catholic banker, was first sacrificed, upon a ridiculous accusation brought forward by Carstairs, a Scotchman, who saw that the trade of false witness was prosperous. He swore that he heard the banker say, in French, that the king was a rogue, and that he himself would kill him, if nobody else would. Burnet gave offence by showing that Carstairs was an infamous character; and Shaftesbury, as the bishop relates, told him "that all those who undermined the credit of the witnesses were public enemies." The poor banker was tried and was hanged. Coleman was next brought to trial upon charges made against him by Oates and Bedloe. The evidence was very inconclusive; but his letters were against him, although he maintained that he had no idea of bringing in the Catholic religion, but by a general toleration. He was convicted of high treason, and executed. Three Jesuits, Ireland, Grove. and Pickering, were the next victims. Green and Hill, two Papists, and Berry, a Protestant, were then convicted of the murder of sir Edmondbury Godfrey, upon the testimony of Bedloe, and the pretended confession of Prance, a silversmith. The prisons were filled with hundreds of suspected traitors. Five peers were confined in the Tower under impeachment. Scroggs, the Chief Justice, conducted himself, in all the trials, with the most ferocious determination to procure a verdict against the prisoners. Oates in a few months was at the height of his greatness. "He walked about," says North, "with his guards assigned for fear of the Papists murdering him. He had lodgings in Whitehall, and 12007. per annum pension: And no wonder, after he had the impudence to say to the House of Lords, in plain terms, that, if they would not help him to more money, he must be forced to help himself. He put on an episcopal garb, except the lawn sleeves; silk gown and cassock, great hat, satin hatband and rose, long scarf, and was called, or most blasphemously called himself, the Saviour of the Nation. Whoever he pointed at was taken up and committed; so that many people got out of his way, as from a blast, and glad they could prove their two last years' conversation. The very breath of him was pestilential, and if it brought not imprisonment, or death, over such on whom it fell, it surely poisoned reputation, and left good protestants arrant papists, and something worse than that, in danger of being put in the plot as traitors." "'* We have dwelt at some length upon this Popish Plot; and in their order of time we shall have to give a few other detals. It may be thought that such an occurrence might be more briefly related; but it is not only strikingly illustrative of the temper of the people, but was really pregnant with important consequences. Dr. Wellwood, who wrote his Memoirs' some twenty years after these events, has expressed, with tolerable impartiality, the view in which they were regarded after the Revolution :-" A great part of the Popish Plot, as it was then sworn to, will in all human probability lie among the darkest scenes of our English history. However, this is certain: the discovery of the Popish Plot had great and various effects upon the • "Examen." 338 THE POPISH PLOT. [1678. nation; and it's from this remarkable period of time we may justly reckon a new era in the English account. In the first place, it awakened the nation ont of a deep lethargy they had been in for nineteen years together; and alarmed them with fears and jealousies that have been found to our sad experience but too well grounded. In the next, it gave the rise to, at least settled, that unhappy distinction of Whig and Tory among the people of England, that has since occasioned so many mischiefs. And lastly, the discovery of the Popish Plot began that open struggle between King Charles and his people, that occasioned him not only to dissolve his first favourite parliament, ard the three others that succeeded; but likewise to call no inore during the rest of his reign. All which made for bringing in question the Charters of London, and other Corporations, with a great many dismal effects that followed."* "Memoirs of the most material Transactions," &c. 1736, p. 111. Discovery of the intrigues of the king with France-Impeachment of Danby-Dissolution of Parliament-Elections-The duke of York goes abroad-Pretensions of Monmouth to legitimacy-The king's declaration as to his marriage-The New Council upon Temple's plan-The Exclusion Bill passed in the Commons-The Habeas Corpus Act-Continued trials for the Popish Plot-Analysis of Payments to the Witnesses-Persecutions of Covenanters in Scotland-Murder of archbishop Sharp-Claverhouse defeated at Drumclog-Monmouth sent to Scotland as General-Battle of Bothwell Bridge-Whig and Tory-York and Monmouth rivals for the Succession-Proclamation against Petitions -Abhorrers. THE political excitement of the Christmas time of 1678 had not been equalled since the early days of the Long Parliament. In the very height of the fever of the Popish Plot a discovery was made of the intrigues of the king with France, which very soon led to the ruin of the Lord Treasurer, Danby. In the secret treaty between Charles and Louis in May, 1678, it was agreed that the English army should be disbanded. The French ambassador, Barillon, pressed its reduction to 8000 men; which Charles as constantly evaded; and he is said to have exclaimed, "God's fish! are all the king of France's promises to make me master of my subjects come to this? or does he think that a matter to be done with 8000 men?" Louis was out of humour with Charles, who appeared disposed to set up for a despot without his brother despot's aid; and he urged Ralph Montague, the English minister at Paris, to betray the secrets of their intrigues. Montague was 340 IMPEACHMENT OF DANBY. [1678. also out of humour with his own government. He came home, and was elected a member of parliament. The Lord Treasurer dreaded Montague's disclosures; and ordered his papers to be seized, under pretence that he had held private conferences with the Pope's nuncio. A royal message to this effect was sent to the Commons. "But Montague," says Burnet, "understood the arts of a Court too well to be easily catched." He had put a box, in which certain letters were, "in sure hands, out of the way." The object in endeavouring to obtain possession of these papers was to destroy the evidence of the transactions of May, 1678. Montague, in his place in the House said, "I believe that the seizing my cabinets and papers was to get into their hands some papers of great consequence, that I have to produce, of the designs of a great minister of state." The box containing these was opened in the House; and Montague read two letters, one of which, signed Danby, empowered him to stipulate for a payment to the king of six hundred thousand livres annually for three years, as the price of his neutrality. At the bottom of the letter were these words: "This letter is writ by my order, C.R." Mr. Hallam has forcibly observed of the conduct of the king, as indicated by this letter, that it "bears date five days after an Act had absolutely passed to raise money for carrying on the war; a circumstance worthy of particular attention, as it both puts an end to every pretext or apology which the least scrupulous could venture to urge in behalf of this negotiation, and justifies the Whig party of England in an invincible distrust, an inexpiable hatred, of so perfidious a cozener." There was a passage in this letter of instructions to Montague, which gave dire offence to those in the House of Commons who felt as Englishmen. Charles asked for the pension," because it will be two or three years before he can hope to find his Parliament in humour to give him supplies, after your having made any peace with France." One member, Mr. Bennet, exclaimed, "I wonder the House sits so silent when they see themselves sold for six millions of livres to the French." Another, Mr. Harbord, said, "I hope now gentlemen's eyes are open, by the design on foot to destroy the government and our liberties." Sir Henry Capel, calling upon the House to impeach Danby of treason, said, "This minister has let the French king grow upon us, and let our king take money from him, to lay aside his people." + From this time the unity which the Lord Chancellor Finch so earnestly implored was impossible. The arts of the Court were met by counter-arts of the Opposition; the craft of the despot was resisted by the turbulence of the demagogue; the same foreign hand which had bribed the king to degrade his country now bribed the Parliament to contend against the king. It is a sickening spectacle. The only consolation is that ultimate good came out of the instant evil. Danby was impeached of high treason. He had reluctantly written this letter at the command of his unworthy master; but the penalty constitutionally fell upon the minister. He defended himself upon the plea that upon the matter of peace and war the king was the sole judge, and that he ought to be obeyed by his ministers of state, as by all his subjects. It is now well understood that the commands of the sovereign furnish no justification for evil measures of the Crown; that the minister must have the responsibility. Danby, "Constitutional History," chap. xiii. "Pari. Hist." vol. iv. |