Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/295

 ligion, and chiefly to cut off the king of England. Then followed details of 'consults' with the Jesuits in May 1678 (N. S.) Arrangements had been made to assassinate the king.' This resolve of the Jesuits was communicated to Mr. Coleman in my hearing at Wild House.' Then Oates told of a consultation in August at the Savoy, with Coleman present, arranging to poison the Duke of Ormonde and to rise in rebellion. Four Irish ruffians had been sent to Windsor, and 80l. for their payment was ordered to be carried by a messenger, to whom Coleman gave a guinea. Ten thousand pounds were to be offered to Sir George Wakeman, physician, to poison the king; instructions had been seen and read by Coleman, by him copied out and sent to other conspirators. Coleman had been appointed a principal secretary of state by commission from Father D'Oliva, general of the society of Jesuits. In cross-examination Oates shuffled and excused himself in a way that should have been conclusive. Bedloe [q. v.] was examined concerning packets of letters from Coleman to Father La Chaise in 1675, and money received. Bedloe had carried the warrant to apprehend Coleman and search for his papers. The finding of the letters having been certified, and the handwriting identified as Coleman's, they were put in evidence,' as good as a hundred witnesses to condemn him,' the attorney-general said. No doubt they carried weight, as proving the zealous desire of Coleman for the dissolution of parliament. He plainly advocated foreign bribery of the king to insure such a dissolution, and used some strong phrases as to the catholic hopes of suppressing heresy. There was not the smallest proof of connivance with any plot for assassination or rebellion except the testimony of Oates and Bedloe. The jury found Coleman guilty. Scroggs replied to his solemn declarations of innocence,'Mr. Coleman, your own papers are enough to condemn you.' Next morning sentence of death and confiscation of property was pronounced, and on Tuesday, 3 Dec., he was executed, avowing his faith and declaring his innocence. Several street ballads were immediately circulated. Three of these have been reprinted by the Rev. J. W. Ebsworth for the Ballad Society: 1. In 'Bagford Ballads,' p. 698, 'The Plotter's Ballad: being Jack Ketch's Incomparable Receipt for the cure of Trayterous Recusants, or wholesome physick for a Popish Contagion.' This has a most interesting woodcut, containing the only trustworthy portrait of Coleman; also one of Jack Ketch, agreeing with those in the Algernon Sidney woodcuts. 2. 'The Plotter executed,' Roxb. Coll. iii. 32 (c. 20, f. 9), and 'Roxburghe Ballads,' iv. 125. 3. 'A Looking-Glass for Traytors,' reprinted in 'Roxburghe Ballads,' iv. 130, from Wood's collection of broadsides at the Bodleian (E. 25, fol. 33). Printed copies of the trial, and of the letters to Père la Chaise, were extensively circulated. Henry Nevill, a priest, wrote an elegy on Coleman, found in Nevill's pocket when he was apprehended at Westminster in December 1678. It was addressed 'to the glorious martyr, Edward Coleman, Esq.' It was probably printed, for there is preserved at the British Museum (Press-mark, 1872, a, art. 27) 'An Answer of Coleman's Ghost to H. N.'s Poetick Offering,' beginning, 'Rise, Nevil, rise!' This is reprinted, with the elegy, in 'Roxburghe Ballads,' vol. vi.

[The Whole Tryal of Edward Coleman, gent.; A Plea for Succession, in Opposition to Exclusion, 1682; Tracts; North's Examen; The Compendium, or A Short View of the Late Tryals, 1679; A Vindication of the English Catholiks from the Pretended Conspiracy, 2nd ed. 1681; Oates's Narrative of the Popish Plot vindicated, by J. P., gent. (John Phillips, Milton's nephew), 1680; An Historical Narrative of the Horrid Plot and Conspiracy of Titus Gates, 1816, 8vo; Cobbett's Parliamentary History, June 1808 ed., iv. 1024, 1025, &c.; Coleman's Ghost, Roxburghe Ballads, vol. vi. 1887; Luttrell's Hist. Relation, i. 1, 4; Evelyn's Diary, ed. 1879, ii. 345, 377; Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, ed. 1875, pp. 147, 169; Cobbett's State Trials, vii. 76; where it is mentioned that 'he had been made to believe that he should have a pardon, which he depended on with so much assurance that a little before he was turned off, finding himself deceived, he was heard to say, "There is no faith in man !" ' the Trial of Coleman was printed by order of the House of Commons, 1678, and authorised to Robert Paulet by Lord-chief-justice W. Scroggs; Sam. Smith's Account of the Behaviour of the Fourteen late Popish Malefactors while in Newgate, 1679, gives a few words about Coleman, whom Smith maliciously declared to have had an arrogant opinion of his own abilities, and, 'out of an hope to be canonised for a saint, despised and rejected any assistance from me, either by discourse or prayer;' Foley's Records of the Engl. Prov. of Soc. Jesus, 1879, v. 107, 752 n., where Coleman is mentioned as ' a zealous convert to the catholic faith.']  COLEMAN, THOMAS (1598–1647), divine, a native of Oxford, entered Magdalen Hall in 1615, graduated B.A. in 1618, M.A. in 1621, took holy orders, and acquired such a reputation for profound knowledge of Hebrew that he went by the sobriquet of 'Rabbi Coleman.' He held for a time the rectory of Blyton in Lincolnshire, which he exchanged in 1642 for that of St. Peter's, Cornhill. He