The recent Irish State Trials seem to have been conducted on the part of
the government with something of the same violence and partiality that
dishonor the ancient records of Great Britain's criminal jurisprudence.
The exclusion of Roman Catholics from the jury was an arbitrary and
unwarrantable act; unjust in itself, disrespectful to the larger portion
of the Irish people, and calculated to destroy the moral effect of the
verdict, by producing the impression on the public mind that the prisoners
did not have a fair trial. We would not be understood as complaining of
the verdict. We do not see how, with a strict adherence to the law and to
the evidence, the jury could well have decided otherwise. It is the
eagerness to convict the prisoners manifested on the part of the
law-officers of the crown that is the object of just reprehension.
Trials for offences against the State have happily been almost unknown in
this country, and we therefore find it difficult to conceive of the
dangers to which a prisoner is exposed, when the whole power of the
government is arrayed against him. But to one familiar with the iniquitous
manner in which they were conducted in Great Britain during the
seventeenth, and the earlier part of the eighteenth century, the
proceedings against O'Connell and his associates seem almost models of
judicial fairness and impartiality. To one not thus familiar, it is
difficult to convey an adequate idea of the extent to which legal
tribunals prostituted their functions to purposes of oppression and
revenge. The judges holding their offices by the slight tenure of royal
favor, and generally owing their elevation to the zeal they had shown to
defend the royal prerogatives, were, with a few honorable exceptions,
willing instruments in the hands of power. The interpreters of the law,
who, like the prophets of old, were bound to curse, or to bless, in
obedience to higher impulses than their own wills, became the mere
mouth-pieces of the government; the injustice of the decisions imperfectly
concealed by the sanctity of the office. Justice, and the favor of the
court were identical. The law and the royal pleasure were inseparably
associated in the mind of the judge.
We would not be understood as meaning that the English judges were unjust,
or partial in the trials between private citizens. In these cases it was
not often that there was any obstacle interposed to the administration of
even-handed justice. It was when the government came in as a party; when
political offenders were to be tried, that they too often proved false to
their trust. The temptations of office; the love of ease, wealth, and
distinction; the fear of ministerial enmity, of royal disgrace, were too
powerful for poor Honesty. The hour in which their aid was most needed by
the friendless prisoner, was that in which it was withdrawn; for surely if
men ever need an upright, able, and impartial administration of the law,
it is when they contend single-handed against the influences of flattery,
bribery, and intimidation, which those in authority are ever able to
employ. The odds are fearful in such a contest. The prejudices of juries,
the subservience of lawyers, the servility of judges, gave scarce a hope
that justice would not be wrested to serve the purposes of the crown; that
considerations of state policy would not prove stronger than any abstract
belief of the prisoner's innocence or guilt. That we have not
misrepresented the degraded condition of the English tribunals during the
period we have mentioned, a referencé to the state trials _passim_, will
abundantly prove. Nor is it at all strange that such should have been the
case. During the dynasty of the Tudors, and the reign of the first of the
Stuarts, the duty alike of the courts, and of parliament was simply to
register the royal edicts. If the formalities of law were observed, it was
rather through the good-nature of the sovereign, than from any
consciousness of his inability to break through their restraints. But
after the rebellion, and especially after the revolution, when the limits
of prerogative became marked out with some degree of precision, and
monarchs could no longer effect their purposes by open violence, then more
subtle means were resorted to, but scarcely less dangerous, to destroy
those who were so unfortunate as to become the objects of royal or
ministerial enmity. The king, if he could not make the law, could still
appoint the judges of the law; and the right of interpretation was hardly
less powerful than the power of legislation. Even when, after a lapse of
time, the judges became in a great measure independent of the crown, still
it was not until many years later, when the voice of an outraged people
became more terrible to them than the frowns of kings or ministers, that
those accused of political offence could hope for justice at their hands.
The reign of Charles the Second, in every respect the most disgraceful in
English history, is that period to which we wish now particularly to ask
the reader's attention. During the latter part of it, the chief justice's
seat was filled first by Scroggs, and afterwards by Jeffries; the former
came to the bench a little before the disclosures that took place
respecting the Popish Plot, and presided at the trials that took place in
consequence of that event. It is to these trials that we shall now confine
ourselves; only premising certain facts necessary to the perfect
understanding of the extracts which we are about to make.
It is unnecessary to go minutely into the details of the Popish Plot. A
general outline will answer our present purpose. The first who pretended
any knowledge of it, or made any disclosure respecting it, was Titus
Oates. He, when examined before the council in October, 1678, stated that
at a consult held by the Jesuits on the 24th of April preceding, at the
White Horse Tavern in London, resolutions had been adopted to kill the
king, overthrow the established church, and restore popery. Upon this many
arrests were made, and among others was Coleman, who had been secretary to
the late Duchess of York. His papers were seized, and there was found a
correspondence he had carried on several years before with the confessor
of Louis XIV., having reference mainly to the restoration of the Catholic
religion in England. These letters, although in no way confirmatory of the
alleged Plot, except so far as they indicated an anxious desire on the
part of the members of that church to regain their lost ascendency in
Great Britain, and their intention to use every effort for that purpose,
things already well known, yet produced great excitement, and were
regarded by many as conclusive proof of the truth of Oates' statements.
Another event, which happened about the same time, raised the excitement
to its highest pitch. Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, a London magistrate, before
whom Oates had made his depositions, was found murdered, and under such
circumstances as precluded the idea of suicide. Suspicion now deepened
into certainty. No one longer dared to doubt the reality of the plot. To
doubt, was to confess one's self an accomplice. Nothing was talked of but
the Plot. The wildest rumors were caught up and repeated, and soon grew
into well-authenticated facts. The name Papist, or Roman Catholic, became
synonymous with assassin. Many, not content with carrying arms, clothed
themselves in armor. At the funeral of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, says North,
in his Examen, 'the crowd was prodigious, both at the procession, and in
and about the church, and so heated, that any thing called Papist, were it
a cat or a dog, had probably gone to pieces in a moment. The Catholics all
kept close in their houses and lodgings, thinking it a good compensation
to be safe there, so far were they from acting violently at that time. But
there was all that which upheld among the common people an artificial
fright, so that every one almost fancied a popish knife just at his
throat; and at the sermon, beside the preacher, two thumping divines stood
upright in the pulpit, to guard him from being killed while he was
preaching, by the Papists.'
Oates immediately became a man of great consequence. He was called the
saviour of the nation, had lodgings given him at Whitehall, and a pension
from parliament of £1200 a year. But the more cool and circumspect could
not forget the notorious infamy of his character, or implicitly rely on
the word of a man who openly confessed that he had gone among the Jesuits,
and declared himself a convert to their faith merely to betray them. But
with the populace his credit was unbounded. The more incredible his
fictions, the better they suited the vulgar appetite. In this sort of
narrative, as Hume truly remarks, a fool was more likely to succeed than a
wise man. Accompanied by his guards, for being supposed to be a special
object of popish enmity, guards had been assigned him, he walked about in
great dignity, attired as a priest, and '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.'[1]
[1] North's 'Examen.'
Parliament was opened three days after Godfrey's murder, and immediately
voted that it was of opinion that there had been, and was 'a damnable and
hellish plot;' and every day, both forenoon and afternoon, a session was
held at which the whole matter was discussed. The arrests were numerous,
and among others were several papist lords, and Sir George Wakeman, the
physician to the queen. Even the Duke of York and the Queen herself were
accused by Oates as traitors and accomplices. These stories meeting such
general credence, and rewards being heaped upon the author, others, as
might have been expected, soon followed his example. The most notorious of
these minor perjurers was one Bedlow, who pretended to know the secret of
Godfrey's murder. When first examined he knew nothing of the Plot, but
told a ridiculous story about forty thousand men who were coming over to
England from Spain. The next day, however, his knowledge was greatly
increased, and he pretended to be as fully informed of all the particulars
of the Plot as Oates himself. As we shall see by and by, whatever the
bolder villain swore to, his subordinate confirmed.
Such was the state of things when the first victim of this extraordinary
popular delusion were brought to trial. The earliest trial, although the
accused was not charged with being concerned in the plot, was that of
Stayley, a goldsmith or broker, on the 21st of November, 1678. The charge
against him was that he had called the king a heretic, and threatened to
kill him. The chief witness against him was one Castars. Bishop Burnet,
who was well acquainted with him, says, that when he heard who the
witnesses were, he thought he was bound to do what he could to stop it:
'so I sent both to the lord chancellor and the attorney general to let
them know what profligate wretches these witnesses were. Jones, the
attorney general, took it ill of me that I should disparage the king's
evidence. Duke Lauderdale, having heard how I had moved in this matter,
railed at me with open mouth. He said I had studied to save Stayley for
the liking I had to any one that would murder the king.' The trial
proceeded, and one of the witnesses testified to the following words as
spoken by the prisoner: 'The King of England is the greatest heretic, and
the greatest rogue in the world; here's the heart and here's the hand that
would kill him; I myself.'
PRISONER. 'Here's the hand, and here's the heart that would kill myself;
not would kill him myself.'
L. C. J. 'What Jesuit taught you this trick? It is like one of them. It is
the art and interest of a Jesuit so to do.'
In this, as in all the subsequent trials, the existence of the Plot was
taken for granted as an incontestable fact. Another fact was also assumed,
most improperly indeed, but not without some show of reason, that it was
an admitted doctrine of the Romish church, that however sinful an act
might be in itself, it lost its sinfulness if the interests of the church
demanded its performance. Therefore it was argued, to kill a heretic-king,
to swear falsely, to deceive an enemy, is to do nothing wrong in the eyes
of a Papist, if the pope or the bishops command it. Such a man it is
proper for us to regard as an enemy, for his principles would lead him to
employ any means for the destruction of those whom he was taught to regard
as the enemies of his church.
It is unnecessary for us to stop to point out the fallacy of this mode of
reasoning. Our business at present is only to show the effect it had upon
the minds both of the court and the jury. Thus the Chief Justice reasoned
in his charge at the trial: 'You, and we all, are sensible of the great
difficulties and hazards that is now both against the king's person, and
against all Protestants, and our religion too; which will hardly maintain
itself, when they have destroyed the men; but let 'em know that many
thousands will lose their religion with their lives, for we will not be
Papists, let the Jesuits press what they will, (who are the foundations of
all this mischief,) in making proselytes by telling them, Do what
wickedness you will, it's no sin, but we can save you; and if you omit
what we command, we can damn you. Excuse if I am a little warm, when
perils are so many, their murders so secret, that we cannot discover the
murder of that gentleman whom we all knew so well, when things are
transacted so closely, and our king in so great danger, and our religion
at stake. 'Tis better to be warm here than in Smithfield. When a Papist
once hath made a man a heretic, there is no scruple to murder him. Whoever
is not of their persuasion are heretics, and whoever are heretics may be
murdered if the pope commands it; for which they may become saints in
heaven; this is that they have practised. If there had been nothing of
this in this kingdom, or other parts of the world, it would be a hard
thing to impose it upon them; but they ought not to complain when so many
instances are against them. Therefore discharge your consciences as you
ought to do; if guilty, let him take the reward of his crime, and you
shall do well to begin with this man, for perchance it may be a terror to
the rest. Unless they think they can be saved by dying in the Roman faith,
though with such pernicious and traitorous words and designs as these are,
let such go to Heaven by themselves. I hope I shall never go to that
Heaven, where men are made saints for killing kings.'
The flimsy logic and cool-blooded cruelty of this charge are too obvious
to require mention. According to the chief justice, no Papist could
complain that he was hanged for treason because some members of his church
had massacred the Protestants on Bartholomew's day. The recommendation 'to
begin with this man, that it may be a terror to the rest,' marks well the
character of the judge, and the temper of the jury that could advance or
approve such a detestable doctrine.
Stayley was convicted and thus sentenced: 'You shall return to prison,
from thence shall be drawn to the place of execution, where you shall be
hanged by the neck, cut down alive, your quarters shall be severed, and be
disposed of as the king shall think fit, and your bowels burnt, and so the
Lord have mercy on your soul.'
This sentence was executed five days after.
The next victim was Coleman. The evidence against him was of a twofold
nature; his own letters, and the testimony of Oates and Bedlow. As to the
first, they disclose clearly enough the existence of a Plot, but a Plot in
which Charles himself was the chief conspirator; a Plot not only to
restore popery, but to destroy English liberty. This Plot was of an early
date, and began indeed almost at the restoration of the king. The monarch
of France and the Duke of York were his accomplices. Coleman's part in it
seems to have been merely that of an ambitious, intriguing, bigotted
partizan, pleased with being entrusted with the secrets of the great; and
much disposed to magnify the importance and value of his services. His
letters, that were produced on his trial, related to the years 1674 and
'5. If there was any correspondence of a later date, it was never
discovered. In fine, we may say of these letters that if there was enough
in them to convict Coleman of high treason, the king, the duke, and
several of the most prominent statesmen of that period were equally
guilty.
The testimony of Oates was so strange and improbable, that it never could
have obtained credence for a moment, except at a time when men had 'lost
their reason.' The basis of his whole narration, was his statement
relating to the consult of the Jesuits in April, which we give in his own
words. 'They were ordered to meet by virtue of a brief from Rome, sent by
the father general of the society. They went on to these resolves: That
Pickering and Grove should go on, and continue in attempting to
assassinate the king's person by shooting, or other means. Grove was to
have fifteen hundred pounds. Pickering being a religious man, was to have
thirty thousand masses, which at twelvepence a mass amounted to much that
money. This resolve of the Jesuits was communicated to Mr. Coleman in my
hearing at Wild House. My lord, this was not only so, but in several
letters he did mention it, and in one letter, (I think I was gone a few
miles out of London,) he sent to me by a messenger, and did desire the
duke might be trepaned into this Plot to murder the king.'
But one consult of fifty Jesuits, all eager to carry their diabolical
plans of assassination and murder into execution, was not enough for Dr.
Oates, and he went on to relate the proceedings that took place at
another, held at the Savoy in the month of August, when the Benedictine
monks were present with the Jesuits. 'In this letter,' (one written by
Archbishop Talbot, the titular archbishop of Dublin,) 'there were four
Jesuits had contrived to despatch the Duke of Ormond. (These were his
words.) To find the most expedient way for his death Fogarthy was to be
sent to do it by poison, if these four good fathers did not hit of their
design. My lord, Fogarthy was present. And when the consult was almost at
a period, Mr. Coleman came to the Savoy to the consult, and was mighty
forward to have father Fogarthy sent to Ireland to despatch the duke by
poison. This letter did specify they were then ready to rise in rebellion
against the king for the pope.'