Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/304

 queen's physician, had been paid 8,000l. down, in earnest of 15,000l., to poison the king. Four Irish ruffians had been hired by Dr. Fogarty to stab the king at Windsor; and, thirdly, two jesuits, named Grove and Pickering, were to be paid 1,500l. to shoot the king with silver bullets. The assassination of the king was to be followed by that of his councillors, by a French invasion of Ireland, and a general massacre of protestants, after which the Duke of York was to be offered the crown and a jesuit government established (, True Narrative of the Horrid Plot). This had all been settled, according to Oates, at a ‘general consult’ held by the jesuits on 24 April 1678, at the White Horse tavern in Fleet Street; and he stated that he had received a patent from the general of the order to be of the ‘consult.’ It was true that the usual triennial congregation of the society of Jesus was held in London on that day, but it was not held at the White Horse tavern; and it was quite impossible that Oates, not being a member of the order, could have been admitted to it (, Memoirs, 1875, p. 325; Concerning the Congregation of Jesuits … which Mr. Oates calls a Consult, 1679, 4to; cf., Life of James II, 1816).

The result of his inflammatory disclosures, however, fully justified Oates's calculations. On 28 Sept. he was summoned before the privy council, and repeated his story to them, with many embellishments and with extraordinary volubility and assurance. His story leaked out into the town, and its extravagance commended it to the bigoted credulity of the mob. At the council-board the only sceptic was the king, who detected the informer in several glaring misstatements (ib. 1816, i. 520). To the majority, any inconsistencies in Oates's tale seemed more than counterbalanced by the mass of circumstantial, and often quite irrelevant, detail which he had woven with no little ingenuity into his narrative. He had doubtless while living among the Roman catholics picked up many little facts which they and their friends would have preferred to conceal. Thus Symon Patrick relates how, in the early days of the plot, a certain Father Dupuis was brought before Oates, who looked earnestly upon him and said: ‘This is Father du Puis, who was to write the king's life after they killed him. Now Dupuis had a good Latin pen, and when they searched him they found an almanac in his pocket which set down every day that year what pranks the king had played—that such a night he was drunk, how he had this or that woman, and what discourse he had against religion’ (Account of Patrick's Life, 1839, p. 96). The possession of a few such facts, combined with his inventive audacity, rendered Oates for a brief period almost omnipotent in the capital. The night following his examination by the council he spent in going about London making arrests, followed by pursuivants bearing torches. A number of the persons whom he denounced, including Wakeman, Grove, Pickering, and Fogarthy, were promptly committed to Newgate. Oates was next assigned lodgings in Whitehall, with a guard for his better security, and a monthly salary of 40l.

In October 1678 Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey [q. v.] was found dead under mysterious circumstances, and the catholics were popularly credited with having murdered him by way of revenging themselves on him for taking Oates's depositions. It is possible that Oates was himself responsible for Godfrey's assassination. At any rate, the incident completely assured Oates's success. A panic followed, and the proscription of the priests and other Roman catholics against whom Oates had testified was loudly demanded by the public. ‘People's passions,’ wrote Roger North, ‘would not allow them to attend to any reason or deliberation on the matter’ (Examen, 1740, p. 177;, Cat. of Satiric Prints and Drawings, i. 632 sq.).

In the meantime, on 21 Oct., the House of Commons had assembled and called Oates before them. On 31 Oct. the commons resolved, nemine contradicente, ‘that upon the evidence that hath already appeared, this House is of opinion that there is and hath been a damnable and hellish plot contriv'd and carried on by Popish recusants for assassinating and murdering the king, for subverting the government and rooting out and destroying the Protestant religion.’ With this vote the House of Lords concurred. A general fast day was appointed for 13 Nov. The popish recusants were ordered out of London, and a proclamation was subsequently issued offering a reward of 20l. to any one who should discover and apprehend a Romish priest or jesuit (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. i. 17). Naturally, among the lower classes (see, Life, 1829, i. 83), everything that Oates affirmed, as Evelyn remarked, was now ‘taken for gospel.’ Before October was out warrants were sealed for the apprehension of twenty-six additional persons, including the catholic Lords Powis, Stafford, Petre, Bellasis, and Arundel. Early in November a scoundrel named William Bedloe [q. v.] came forward to corroborate Oates's depositions. The first prisoner to be tried was Edward Coleman [q. v.], who had been one of the earliest to be arrested as a prime mover