Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/305

 of the plot, and he was indicted at the king's bench on 27 Nov. for compassing the death of the king. Oates was the chief witness. The jury convicted Coleman, and he was executed on 3 Dec. A proclamation issued on the day of the trial promising pardon to the evidence and a reward of 200l. for further disclosures evoked a crop of tortuous and mendacious testimony against the catholics; but no serious rival to Oates and Bedloe was forthcoming. That Oates was perjuring himself was more transparent at the next trial, that of Ireland, Grove, and Pickering, on 17 Dec. 1678. He swore that he had seen Ireland at the White Horse on 24 April, and in Fleet Street again in August, when he had heard him discussing, with the other prisoners, the assassination not only of the king, but of the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Shaftesbury. It was proved by abundant evidence that on the first of these dates Oates himself was at St. Omer, and that on the second Ireland was in Staffordshire. Scroggs, in summing up, treated the jury to a violent harangue against papists, and the three men were executed on 3 Feb. 1679.

In February 1679 Oates's position was so well established that he confidently submitted to the commons a bill of 678l. 12s. 6d. for expenses incurred in bringing the truth to light, and the amount was paid over and above his weekly salary. Among these fictitious expenses he had the effrontery to include the item 50l. for a manuscript of the Alexandrian version of the Septuagint which he said he gave to the jesuits at St. Omer (, Brief History, p. 130; cf., Hist. of England, vol. ix. App.) Oates still further raised himself in the estimation of the house by some damaging statements concerning Danby, and another resolution was passed expressing their confidence in the plot and its discoverer. In April 1679 was published, by order of the House of Lords, his ‘True Narrative of the Horrid Plot and Conspiracy of the Popish Party against the Life of his Sacred Majesty, the Government, and the Protestant Religion, with a list of such Noblemen, Gentlemen, and others, as were the Conspirators; and the Head Officers, both civil and military, that were to effect it,’ London, fol. It occupies sixty-eight pages, but Oates calls it his short narrative or ‘minutes’ of the plot pending his ‘journal,’ in which the whole hellish mystery was to be laid open. He complains of unauthorised issues of the narrative, and, indeed, since he furnished the model by his depositions before Godfrey, as many as twenty different narratives of the plot had found their way into circulation. In June his old evidence was repeated against Whitbread, Harcourt, Fenwick, Gawen, and Turner, and the respectable Roman catholic lawyer, Richard Langhorne [q. v.], all of whom were executed. On 18 July followed the important trial of Sir George Wakeman; his condemnation would have involved that of the queen, whom Oates had the audacity to accuse before the council of being privy to the design to kill the king. But here Oates had overshot the mark (see Bagford Ballads, ii. 692). Although he was supported by Bedloe, Jennison, and Dugdale, he lost his presence of mind under a searching interrogatory to which the prisoner submitted him, and asked leave to retire on the score of feeling unwell. Scroggs, in summing up, disparaged the evidence, and Wakeman was declared not guilty. The acquittal was a severe blow to Oates and to the prosperity of his plot. Immediately afterwards Titus edited two scurrilous little books, ‘The Pope's Warehouse; or the Merchandise of the Whore of Rome,’ London, 1679, 4to, ‘published for the common good,’ and dedicated to the Earl of Shaftesbury; and ‘The Witch of Endor; or the Witchcrafts of the Roman Jezebel, in which you have an account of the Exorcisms or Conjurations of the Papists, as they be set forth in their Agends, Benedictionals, Manuals, Missals, Journals, Portasses. … Proposed and offered to the consideration of all sober Protestants,’ London, 1679, fol. In October 1679 he paid a visit to Oxford, where he was fêted by the townspeople and entertained by Lord Lovelace [see, third ], though the vice-chancellor had the strength of mind to refuse him the degree of D.D. He returned to London before the end of the month, accused a number of the officers of the court by name to the king, and witnessed with satisfaction (25 Nov.) the conviction of two of his discarded servants, Knox and Lane, for attempting to defame his character. In January 1680, in conjunction with Bedloe, he sought to avenge himself on Scroggs for Wakeman's acquittal by exhibiting against him before the king and council thirteen articles respecting his public and private life (, Correspondence, Camd. Soc. i. 220). Scroggs defended himself in person, and completely turned the tables upon his opponents.

The drooping credit of the plot was somewhat revived by Dangerfield's pretended disclosure of the meal-tub plot and by Bedloe's dying affirmation of the truth of the plot and the complicity of the Duke of York. Nevertheless, Lord Castlemaine, who was brought to trial in June 1680, was acquitted. Oates