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High on her deck the royal lovers stand,
Our crimes to pardon e'er they touch'd our land.
Welcome to Israel and to David's breast!
Here all your toils, here all your sufferings rest.
This year did Ziloah* rule Jerusalem,
And boldly all sedition's syrtest stem,
Howe'er encumber'd with a viler pair
Than Ziph or Shimei,‡ to assist the chair;
Yet Ziloah's royal labours so prevail'd,
That faction, at the next election, fail'd;
When even the common cry did justice sound,
And merit by the multitude was crown'd;

With David then was Israel's

peace restored, Crowds mourn'd their error, and obey'd their lord.

* Sir John Moore, Lord Mayor of London.-Note XXXIV. + First edit. Syrges.

Mr Pilkington and Mr Shute, Sheriffs.-Note XXXV.

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NOTES

ON

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

PART II,

Note I.

That arts of foreign sway he did affect,
And guilty Jebusites from law protect,

Whose very chiefs, convict, were never freed;

Nay, we have seen their sacrificers bleed.-P. 320.

It is certain, that, whatever the private wishes of Charles may have been, he neither did or durst interfere, by his royal prerogative, to prevent the execution of Stafford, Coleman, Langhorne, Plunket, and other Catholics of rank, who were condemned on account of the Popish Plot. Ireland, Fenwic, Gavan, Turner, and Harcourt, jesuits, with Whitebread, the provincial of the order, were all tried, sentenced, and executed for the same conspiracy; persisting, to their last breath, in the most solemn and deliberate asseverations of innocence: But their dying testimonies only irritated the populace the more against a religion, which taught its votaries to go down to the grave with a manifest lie, as they supposed, in their right hand.

Note II.

Mere truth was dull, nor suited with the port
Of pamper'd Corah, when advanced to court.

Meanwhile a guard on modest Corah wait,
If not for safety, needful yet for state.-P. 320.

The Parliament, before whom Oates was examined, did not confine themselves to simple approbation of his conduct. He was treated in a manner suitable to the sense they had of his merit and importance. The charge of his personal safety was recommended by the House of Commons to the Lord General, the care of his lodgings and accommodation to the Lord Chamberlain, and that of supplying him with money to the Lord High Treasurer of England.

The state of Oates, in his splendour, is very well described by North: "He was now in his trine exaltation; his plot in full force, efficacy, and virtue; he walked about with his guards, assigned for fear of the Papists' murdering him. He had lodgings at Whitehall, and L.1200 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, sattin hatband and rose, long scarf, and was called, or 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 last two 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 into the plot as traitors." -Examen, p. 205.

-

Note III.

To have told his knowledge of the intrigue in gross,
Had been, alas! to our deponent's loss.-P. 322.

Oates never would say he had told all he knew, but always reserved some part of his evidence to be changed or altered with the shifting wind of faction or popularity. According to his first narrative, the plot was laid against the persons of the King and Duke of York; and their assassination was to take place during the fire of London. But he had the impudence to say, in his picture of King James, that both his brother and he were in that very plot

for firing the city, a secret which, he alleges, he could not discover at the time, on account of a promise to Prince Rupert; and is pleased to add, that the prince heartily repented of giving, and he of taking, that counsel. When he was asked, in the House of Commons, whether he had told all he knew of the conspiracy? this cautious witness, who was determined to have the whole credit of saving the kingdom his own way, instead of entrusting the House with the secret, told them a parable of a fox, who, having occasion to cross a frozen stream with a goose, and being unwilling to hazard his spoil, first carried over a stone of equal weight with the goose, to see if the ice would bear it. In short, neither he, nor any of his imitators, would say more, than that their immediate evidence was all which they as yet thought meet to declare. This would have been tolerated no where but in England, and during that period of terror, suspicion, and infatuation, when these perjured caitiffs were as dear to the people as those who tell stories of Rawhead and Bloody-bones are to their nursery audience. The author has said, and with much truth,

'Twas worse than plotting to suspect his plot.

The discovery of Coleman's letters, however irreconcilable 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

Note IV.

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 Shaftes bury 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 proba bility, 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 too 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.* But it was chiefly as a

* "An excellent new Ballad between Tom the Tory, and Toney the Whig. (Danby and Shaftesbury.) Scene, the Tower."

Toney. Thou wants not wickedness, but wit,
To turn it to thy profit;

Who but a sot would hatch a plot,
And then make nothing of it?
"Twas I was fain to rear thy barn,
And bring it to perfection;

I made the frighted nation sue
To me for my protection.

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