'There were forty thousand black bills; I am not so skilful in arms to
know what they meant, (military men know what they are,) that were
provided to be sent into Ireland for the use of the Catholic party.'
In addition to the forty thousand black bills, Oates stated that there had
been £200,000 contributed by the Catholics, and that he heard Coleman say
'that he had found a way to transmit it for the carrying on of the
rebellion in Ireland.'
Here certainly was treason enough concocted, if one could believe the
witnesses, to have hung a hundred men. No less than seven men had engaged
to kill the king; all of whom, through some strange infelicity, did not
find an opportunity even to make the attempt. Not satisfied with this
number of assassins, Coleman would have had the Duke of York brought into
the Plot, and made the murderer of his brother. Could human folly frame a
set of lies more gross and palpable?
Beside Coleman's general knowledge of the Plot, Oates mentioned several
circumstances showing the special interest that he had taken in it; that
he had written letters which the witness had carried to St. Omers, in
which were these 'expressions of the king, calling him tyrant, and that
the marriage between the Prince of Orange and the Lady Mary, the Duke of
York's eldest daughter, would prove the traitor's and tyrant's ruin;' that
'this letter was written in plain English words at length;' that he had
sent another letter in which he promised 'that the ten thousand pounds'
(sent by the Jesuits,) 'should be employed for no other intent or purpose
but to cut off the King of England;' and that he had given money that 'the
four Irish ruffians,' who were to kill the king at Windsor, might be
speedy in their business.
In all these trials there is nothing that more strikingly shows the
infamous manner in which these witnesses were allowed to testify, than the
withholding of such parts of their evidence as they pretended it was
improper at that time to bring forward. Thus they protected themselves;
for no one durst accuse them lest he himself should be charged as a party
to the conspiracy. At this trial Oates said, without a word of dissent
from the Chief Justice, 'I could give other evidence but will not, because
of other things which are not fit to be known yet.'
It is impossible that the Chief Justice, or the other judges, should have
believed such a story as this even for a moment. We make all necessary
allowance for the influence of great popular excitement. We know that
judges are but men, and are not exempt more than other men from the
contagion of those occasional outbursts of frenzy, which seem to destroy
all individual independence, and all sense of individual responsibility;
and which for a time makes a nation like a herd of maddened buffaloes,
ignorant whither it is going, but unable to stop in its furious career.
Yet by their position judges are, of all classes of men, the farthest
removed from popular influences of this nature. Their habits of legal
investigation, fit them in an eminent degree to weigh with scrupulous
accuracy the characters of witnesses; to detect improbabilities and
contradictions. Stories that may deceive even intelligent men unacquainted
with the laws of evidence, and the bearings of testimony, stand revealed
at first glance to the practised eye of the judge as a tissue of
falsehoods. Here the judges could not have been deceived. Who could
believe that the Jesuits, a body of men not less celebrated for their
profound knowledge of the politics of every kingdom in Christendom, than
for the wisdom with which they adapted their plans of proselytism to the
changing circumstances of the times, should have formed a plan to restore
popery in England by massacre and conquest? The thing is too preposterous
to merit a moment's attention.
Still more ridiculous are the details of the Plot as disclosed by Oates.
Would the Jesuits, even if they had formed such plans, confide them to a
penniless, friendless vagabond; a man of notoriously bad character, who
was, while at St. Omers, the butt and laughing stock of the whole college?
Such secrets are not usually revealed to any but tried men, and the
Jesuits were the last of all conspirators to bestow their confidence
rashly. Yet here was a conspiracy whose disclosure would have brought a
certain and speedy death to every one engaged in it, known we know not to
how many hundreds, and many of these too found in the lowest ranks of the
populace. The manner of its execution is of a piece with all the rest.
First, two men were employed to kill the king. For two years they could
find no opportunity to do it. Then four Irish ruffians were employed. Who
they were, or what became of them, no one knew. Then the physician of the
queen was hired to poison him. To this horrible plan of assassination,
were consenting not only the highest dignitaries of the Romish church, but
some of the noblest peers of England and of France. But we have neither
time nor patience to proceed farther with such miserable fabrications. We
say then that the judges never could have believed in the existence of
such a Plot, and that the prisoners tried before them were immolated upon
the altar of their own personal popularity. Rather than resist the current
of popular feeling, and dare to award justice and uphold the supremacy of
impartial law, they chose to swim with the tide, and sacrifice men whom
they knew in their hearts to be innocent. It is this that adds tenfold
guilt to the brutality of their conduct. We cannot forget that they were
dishonest in their very cruelty; that they insulted their victims,
browbeat the witnesses, trampled on judicial forms to gain the favor of an
infuriated mob, whose madness they laughed at and derided.
At the commencement of the trial, Coleman thus alluded to the law of
England, forbidding counsel to prisoners accused of criminal offences, and
to the prejudice that then prevailed against those of his religion: 'I
hope, my lord, if there be any point of law that I am not skilled in, that
your lordships will be pleased not to take the advantage over me. Another
thing seems most dreadful, that is, the violent prejudice that seems to be
against every man in England that is confessed to be a Roman Catholic. It
is possible that a Roman Catholic may be very innocent of these crimes. If
one of those innocent Roman Catholics should come to this bar, he lies
under such disadvantages already, and his prejudices so greatly biasseth
human nature, that unless your lordships will lean extremely much on the
other side, justice will hardly stand upright and lie upon a level.'
L. C. J. 'You need not make any preparations for us in this matter; you
shall have a fair, just and legal trial; if condemned it will be apparent
you ought to be so; and without a fair proof there shall be no
condemnation. Therefore you shall find we will not do to you as you do to
us, blow up at adventure, kill people because they are not of your
persuasion: our religion teacheth us another doctrine, and you shall find
it clearly to your advantage.'
This was fairness and impartiality in the eyes of the Chief Justice!
Coleman did not conduct his defence with so much ability as his reputation
might lead us to expect. He seems to have been dismayed at the dangers
that threatened him, and hopeless of a fair trial, bowed before the storm.
An attempted alibi was feebly supported, although Oates was so indefinite
in regard to time that to attempt to convict him of falsehood was of
little avail. The chief points of his defence were the improbability of
the whole story, and the fact that Oates on his examination before the
council had said that he did not know him. Oates thus excused himself: 'My
lord, when Mr. Coleman was upon his examination before the council board,
he saith I said that I never saw him before in my life; I then said that I
would not swear that I had seen him before in my life, because my sight
was bad by candle-light, and candle-light alters the sight much; but when
I heard him speak, I could have sworn it was he, but it was not then my
business. I cannot see a great way by candle-light.'
Being asked why he had not accused Coleman at the same time when he
accused Wakeman and the Jesuits, he pretended that it was 'for want of
memory. Being disturbed and wearied in sitting up two nights, I could not
give that good account of Mr. Coleman, which I did afterwards when I
consulted my papers;' as if in giving the names of many meaner persons, he
should from forgetfulness overlook one so considerable as Coleman. The
testimony of Oates was confirmed by Bedlow, who did not hesitate to swear
to any thing that the more inventive genius of his fellow-witness had
devised.
In summing up, the Chief Justice animadverted with considerable force upon
the nature of the letters that had been read as proof of a design to
restore popery in England; this he most unjustifiably argued, could not be
effected by peaceable means: 'Therefore,' he says, 'there must be more in
it, for he that was so earnest in that religion would not have stuck at
any violence to bring it in; he would not have stuck at blood. For we know
their doctrines and their practises, and we know well with what zeal the
priests push them forward to venture their own lives, and take away other
men's that differ from them, to bring in their religion and to set up
themselves.'
After speaking of the general ignorance of the Papists, and the general
diffusion of knowledge among the Protestants, 'insomuch that scarce a
cobbler but is able to baffle any Roman priest that ever I saw or met
with,' he goes on; 'and after this I wonder that a man who hath been bred
up in the Protestant religion, (as I have reason to believe that you, Mr.
Coleman, have been, for if I am not misinformed your father was a minister
in Suffolk,) for such a one to depart from it, is an evidence against you
to prove the indictment. I must make a difference between us and those who
have been always educated that way. No man of understanding, but for
by-ends, would have left his religion to be a Papist. And for you, Mr.
Coleman, who are a man of reason and subtilty, I must tell you, (to bring
this to yourself,) upon this account, that it could not be conscience; I
cannot think it to be conscience. Your pension was your conscience, and
your secretary's place your bait. I do acknowledge many of the popish
priests formerly were learned men, and may be so still beyond the seas;
but I could never yet meet with any here, that had any other learning or
ability but artificial, only to delude weak women and weaker men.
'They have indeed ways of conversion and conviction by enlightening our
understandings with a faggot, and by the powerful and irresistible
arguments of a dagger. But these are such wicked solecisms in their
religion, that they seem to have left them neither natural sense nor
natural conscience. Not natural sense, by their absurdity in so
unreasonable a belief as of the wine turned into blood: not natural
conscience, by their cruelty, who make the Protestant's blood as wine, and
these priests thirst after it. _Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum._
'Mr. Coleman, in one of his letters, speaks of rooting out our religion
and our party; and he is in the right, for they can never root out the
Protestant religion but they must kill the Protestants. But let him and
them know, if ever they shall endeavor to bring popery in by destroying of
the king, they shall find that the Papists will thereby bring destruction
upon themselves, so that not a man of them would escape.
'Ne catulus quidem relinquendus.'
'Our execution shall be as quick as their gunpowder, but more effectual.
And so, gentlemen, I shall leave it to you to consider what his letters
prove him guilty of directly, and what by consequence what he plainly
would have done, and then how he would have done it, and whether you think
his _fiery zeal_ had so much _cold blood_ in it as to spare any others.
'For the other part of the evidence, which is by the testimony of the
present witnesses, you have heard them: I will not detain you longer now;
the day is going out.'
MR. JUSTICE JONES. 'You must find the prisoner guilty, or bring in two
persons perjured.'
The verdict was what might have been anticipated from such a charge.
Coleman was found guilty, and the next day sentenced. After sentence had
been pronounced, he protested his innocence, but was brutally interrupted
by the Chief Justice: 'I am sorry, Mr. Coleman, that I have not charity
enough to believe the words of a dying man.'
In answer to Coleman's request that his wife might visit him in prison, he
at first seemed disposed to deny it, and said: 'You say well, and it is a
hard case to deny it; but I tell you what hardens my heart: the
insolencies of your party, (the Roman Catholics I mean,) that they every
day offer, which is indeed a proof of their Plot, that they are so bold
and impudent, and such secret murders committed by them as would harden
any man's heart to do the common favors of justice and charity that to
mankind are usually done. They are so bold and insolent that I think it is
not to be endured in a Protestant kingdom.'
His request however was granted. He was executed the third of December
following.
We have dwelt with some particularity upon this trial, not because it is
by any means the most flagrant for the contemptuous disregard shown by the
judges, not only to the legal rights, but to the feelings of the prisoner,
but because it came first in the order of time, and serves in a good
measure to explain all the trials that follow it. Comment upon it is
needless. Such a mockery of justice would disgrace the tribunals of
savages. Whatever seems unfavorable to the prisoner is pressed home by the
Chief Justice, most strongly against him. Whatever makes for him is kept
out of sight. To have been born a Roman Catholic is a crime; to have
deliberately adopted that faith, is a damnable sin; one for which there is
no expiation. The absurd fictions of Oates and Bedlow are commended to the
jury as worthy of implicit credence. The whole weight of judicial
authority and influence is thrown into the scale of condemnation.
On the seventeenth of the same December, Whitebread, Fenwick, Ireland,
Pickering and Grove, were brought to trial. The chief witnesses against
them were Oates and Bedlow. The counsel for the crown thus opened the
case: 'May it please your lordships, and you gentlemen of the jury, the
persons here before you stand indicted of high treason; they are five in
number; three of them are Jesuits, one is a priest, the fifth is a layman;
persons fitly prepared for the work in hand.' After a few other
observations, he proceeds to institute a comparison between this Plot and
the famous Gunpowder Plot. The second and third points of resemblance in
the two, he thus states: 'Secondly, the great actors in the design were
priests and Jesuits, that came from Valladolid in Spain, and other places
beyond the seas. And the great actors in this Plot are priests and Jesuits
that are come from St. Omers and other places beyond the seas, nearer home
than Spain.
'Thirdly, that Plot was chiefly guided and managed by Henry Garnet,
superior and provincial of the Jesuits then in England; and the great
actor in this design is Mr. Whitebread, superior and provincial of the
Jesuits now in England.'
The evidence of Oates was the same in substance that he gave at Coleman's
trial, but with such additional particulars as he judged necessary to keep
the popular excitement alive. Thus, in answering the question, what he
knew of any attempts to kill the king at St. James' park, he said: 'I saw
Pickering and Grove several times walking in the park together, with their
secured pistols, which were longer than ordinary pistols, and shorter than
some carbines. They had silver bullets to shoot with, and Grove would have
had the bullets to be champt for fear that if he should shoot, if the
bullets were round, the wound that might be given might be cured.'
ATT. GEN. 'Do you know any thing of Pickering's doing penance, and for
what?'
'Yes, my lord. In the month of March last, (for these persons have
followed the king several years;) but he at that time had not looked to
the flint of his pistol, but it was loose, and he durst not venture to
give fire. He had a fair opportunity, as Whitebread said; and because he
missed it through his own negligence he underwent penance, and had twenty
or thirty strokes of discipline, and Grove was chidden for his
carelessness.'
Of the 'four Irish ruffians' that went to Windsor to kill the king, Oates
could give no account. How he could reconcile it with his duty to His
Majesty to let these assassins lie in wait from August to October, without
notifying any one of their murderous intentions, he did not see fit to
explain, and of course the attorney general and the judges forgot to ask
him.
Not the least wonderful part of his evidence is that which he speaks of
the ill usage he received from Whitebread in September, who charged him
with having betrayed them: 'So, my lord, I did profess a great deal of
innocency, because I had not then been with the king, but he gave me very
ill language, and abused me, and I was afraid of a worse mischief from
them. And though, my lord, they could not prove that I had discovered it,
yet upon the bare suspicion, I was beaten and affronted, and reviled, and
commanded to go beyond sea again; nay, my lord, I had my lodgings
assaulted to have murdered me if they could.'
This is certainly the strangest way to conciliate a disaffected
conspirator, that we ever heard of! Most men would have preferred to use
bribes and caresses; but the Jesuits, it seems, knew their man, and chose
to beat him into secrecy and submission!
Bedlow's evidence, as usual, was mainly confirmatory of the statements of
Oates, embellished by such new incidents as his feebler powers of
invention could frame. He was, however, not quite satisfied with this
subordinate part; and therefore at the close of his evidence pretends to
recollect that he had omitted one thing very material: 'At the same time
that there was a discourse about these three gentleman being to destroy
the king at New-Market, there was a discourse of a design to kill several
noble persons, and the several parts assigned to every one. Knight was to
kill the Earl of Shaftsbury, Pritchard, the Duke of Buckingham, Oniel, the
Earl of Ossory, Obrian, the Duke of Ormond,' An assassination of noblemen
on a truly magnificent scale!
Nothing appearing in Bedlow's evidence to implicate Fenwick and
Whitebread, and two witnesses being necessary to prove the charge, they
were sent back to prison. When they were subsequently brought up for trial
for the same offence, and pleaded that they could not a second time be
tried, their plea was overruled, although founded on one of the commonest
principles of law, and sanctioned by a thousand precedents. The reasoning
of Scroggs and North, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, is so curious
that it is worth quoting. Whitebread, after objecting that he is informed
that no man can be put in jeopardy of his life the second time for the
same cause: 'I speak it not for my sake only, but for the sake of the
whole nation; no man should be tried twice for the same cause; by the same
reason a man may be tried twenty or one hundred times.'
SCROGGS. 'You say well, it is observed, Mr. Whitebread; but you must know
that you were not put in jeopardy of your life for the same thing, for
first the jury were discharged of you; it is true, it was supposed when
you were indicted that there would be two witnesses against you, but that
fell out otherwise, and the law of the land requiring two witnesses to
prove you guilty of treason, it was thought reasonable that you should not
be put upon the jury at all, but you were discharged, and then you were in
no jeopardy of your life.'
'Under favor, my lord, I was in jeopardy, for I was given in charge to the
jury; and 'tis the case in Seyer, 31 Eliz., he was indicted for a burglary
committed the 31st of August, and pleaded to it, and afterward another
indictment was preferred, and all the judges did declare that he could not
be indicted the second time for the same fact, because he was in jeopardy
of his life again.'
C. J. NORTH. 'The oath the jury take is, _that they shall well and truly
try, and true deliverance make_ of such prisoners as they shall have in
charge; the charge of the jury is not full 'till the court give them a a
charge at last, after evidence had; and because there was a mistake in
your case, that the evidence was not so full as might be, the jury before
they ever considered concerning you at all they were discharged, and so
you were not in jeopardy; and, I in my experience, know it to be often
done, and 'tis the course of law.'
In this opinion all the judges coincided. Sad indeed was the condition of
things in poor England when all her judges could resort to such miserable
quibbles; or worse than this, could deliberately falsify the law, to
condemn to an ignominious death two defenceless prisoners!
To return from this digression. The three remaining prisoners were found
guilty. The Chief Justice in charging the jury was even more violent
against the Papists than in his charge at Coleman's trial: 'Some hold that
the pope in council is infallible; and ask any Popish Jesuit of them all
and he will say the pope is himself infallible in council or he is no true
Jesuit; and if so, whatever they command is to be justified by their
authority; so that if they give a dispensation to kill a king, that king
is well killed. They indulge all sorts of sins, and no human bonds can
hold them.
'They have some parts of the foundation 'tis true, but they are
adulterated and mixed with horrid principles and impious practises. They
eat their God, they kill their king, and saint the murderer. This is a
religion that quite unhinges all piety, all morality, all conversation,
and to be abominated by all mankind.
'I return now to the fact which is proved by two witnesses, and by the
concurrent evidence of the letter and the maid; and the matter is as plain
and notorious as can be, that there was an intention of bringing in popery
by a cruel and bloody way; for I believe they never could have prayed us
into their religion. I leave it therefore for you to consider whether you
have not as much evidence from these two men as can be expected in a case
of this nature; and whether Mr. Oates be not rather justified by the
testimony offered against him, than discredited. Let prudence and
conscience direct your verdict, and you will be too hard for their art and
cunning.
'Gentlemen, if you think you shall be in long we will adjourn the court
till the afternoon and take your verdict then.'