In 1678 a fantasist and charlatan, Titus Oates, made a series of wild and dramatic accusations of a Catholic plot to assasinate the king. A series of extraordinary co-incidences seemed to confirm his accusations,  and the public mood became hysterical. The fevered atmosphere gave wings to a new political objective – to exclude James from the succession.

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Transcript

 

On 17^th October, a couple of blokes came into the White Horse Tavern in Primrose hill, which was then a village just north of London, and told the Landlord there was something dodgy in the hedges outside his establishment – they’d seen a stick and a pair of white gloves. So they all went to have a look together. Before or after they’d had a few to fortify themselves, history does not relate.

Well, they fought through the mud and the bushes and they found the owner of the nice white gloves – and he was not in the best of nick. They knew that. Mainly because of the sword sticking out of his chest. Though oddly, the sword had competition for the cause of death because of the strangle marks round his neck. Ooh, and he had a broken neck, did I mention that? Either way – he was definitely dead. The Constable was sent for – before or after they’d had a few more to fortify themselves, history does not relate. And although they didn’t know it, the troubled times in which they lived were about to burst into flames.

 

Hello everyone and welcome back to the History of England episode ***

Now, at this time, England was experiencing a general calming of all sorts of crime, but even so the death of Edmund Godfrey, for he was the stick and glove owner, would not have done more than raise an eyebrow, even though he was a magistrate. As it was though, it helped turn a molehill into a mountain, a sparkler into a 48 shot mortar delivering fireworks designed for a royal funeral. If you have that sort of thing at a funeral.

There were some very odd aspects to Godfrey’s death; why the double killing? Why did he have clean shoes, even though it was super muddy back there? It looked for all the world as though the body had been moved there after death. But never mind, the Coroner didn’t want to spend any time going into the detail and all that malarky, so he just said death by misadventure, and got back to his side of roast beef and glass of claret, while the rest of England drew a sharp breath and mutters ‘Catholics!’. Because this seemed to confirm everything Titus Oates and Israel Tonge had been warning us about. Some people might think they were raving nutters who would be better off in Bedlam than a court of law. But more and more people were beginning to believe them.

Who, I hear you ask, are Titus Oates and Israel Tonge? Well, I know you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover, and don’t want to be accused on body shaming but contemporaries noted that his mouth seems oddly in the middle of his face, and cartoon woodcuts tended to emphasise the chin. I mean we are not talking Habsburg level, but he’s got a significant chin game goin’ on, and a dour expression on what Dryden called a ‘Moses face;’. Which we take to mean dour and plain, but someone once told me Moses liked to kick back on a Thursday night and collected jokey seaside cartoons, so we may be doing Moses a disservice. But Oates was noted for a harsh, loud voice and a

“strange, broad accent and a nasal drawl”

Really not sure why I am telling you this, when what I should be telling you is that Oates was either a fantasist or a chancer or almost certainly both, but there was something charismatic about him that made him horribly convincing – plus of course, his timing was spookily lucky slash unlucky depending who you are. He had been expelled from his school, but became an Anglican minister – on the basis of lying that he held a Ba. But he was chucked out by his congregation for being a permanent drunk. He tried to take revenge by accusing the schoolmaster of sexually abusing the boys, but no one believed him, and he was instead convicted of perjury. If only he had been greeted with such scepticism in 1678.

Anyway, he fled to the navy, was chucked out for sodomy, converted to Catholicism and attended a Jesuit training college in Spain got, you guessed it, chucked out pulled some strings, got to another one at St Omer, where they hated him. One of them broke a pan over his head, and when asked ‘why?’ could only come up with the word ’recreation’. So by 1678 this ne’er do well was back in England. Where sadly, he met one Israel Tonge at his Dad’s house. And when they met, they got talking, about the meeting Oates had been at, recently, which, he whispered conspiratorially, was a

secret conclave of the Jesuits held at the White Horse Tavern in London on 24^th April

No way said Tonge

Way

Said Oates,

and they were plotting treason, a papist military uprising to kill and remove Kings Charles from the throne

Queue Sharp intake of breath from Tonge, eyes wide, nostrils flared. The sound of a chin hitting knee caps.

And There’s more

Nooooo

There’s this clerk, Edward Coleman; in the office of James Duke of York’s household. And he’s been sending letters to Louis about the plot

Noo? Louis who?

Well it’s not Louis that runs the chip shop down the Fulham road is it Tonge you idiot! Louis, XIV. You know – Sun King, Papist absolutist and tyrant Louis

 

By ‘eck, Oatesy, that means James the king’s Brother might be in on it! Shock, horror

I’ll stop this bit of vaudeville now, but it just so happens Tonge was a mad and fanatical anti Catholic who ranted to all and sundry about every disaster being the direct result of Catholics – I mean the Great Fire of 1666, obviously; but you might be surprised and amused to know that the Execution of Charles I was not the result of the Commonwealth – it were the caffolics wot got ‘im, guv’ on yer honour mi lud.

Well, it wouldn’t happen these days, but Charles, just like Cromwell, was in the habit of taking an early morning constitutional around St James Park, and by hanging around waiting, in August 1678, barking Oates and bonkers Tonge managed to contrive a meeting with the King of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and tell their tale.

Charles would be a tough nut to crack, endowed with plenty of good common sense, and he was sceptical, but he decided he couldn’t ignore threats to his life, so he involved Danby and the PC, to arrange a meeting.

Before said meeting, Oates wanted to make himself as believable as possible, and so he gave himself some gravitas and auctoritas by taking himself off to a magistrate, and took an oath in front of said magistrate that he was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God. The magistrate concerned was called Sir Edmund Godfrey. Remember him? Way back at the start?

Anywho, the PC met, and Charles asked Oates to describe some of the people he’d mentioned. Charles secretly also knew them from those horrid days when the English people had cast him out. Oates was confident, and described them with a flourish. Charles drove a coach and horses through each of his descriptions, but Oates had done the job on the rest of the PC with the blizzard of plots, subplots, master plots and tributary plots, so he wearily approved them to make investigations – into that specific accusation against Edward Coleman in the Duke of York’s household. They could at least see if that was true, and if, as he assumed, it turned out to be tripe, that would be that. And then he went off to the races and didn’t spare it all another thought. The guy was obviously barking, and would be discovered.

But since Oates had been a Jesuit, he was able to pepper his construction of tripe with real names and meetings which did turn out to have happened. Rumours about Oates’ revelations began to spread. And this is when the fates, who at that moment had just finished a monster game of Canasta and were a bit bored and not sure what to do, intervened. And just at this time, the 17^th October, Godfrey’s body was found. Well that was those Cathloics again trying to hush things up, obvious innit.  Now in point of fact, in all probability, Godfrey had hung himself – hence the strangulation and broken neck; and his heirs, to avoid all that legal piffle had shoved a sword in him and carried him to the bushes to make it look like suicide. But that’s not what people thought then of course. There’s no smoke and all that

And then, blow me, if on investigation by the PC, Eward Coleman didn’t turn out to have a lot of dodgy letters he’d written to Louis’ confessor; how rubbish Charles was, how rubbish Protestantism was, Walter Mitty schemes for advancing the cause of the true faith. No evidence at all of what Oates was saying if you looked at it square on, but people had stopped looking at things square on. We are now in full hysteria mode.

Because of course this was exactly what people had been worrying about. Catholic absolutism, Papal plots to drag everyone down to hell, Louis the Absolutist Catholic tyrant, everyone was petrified at Jesuits, an apparently fiendishly secret, subtle and clever spear of the Catholic church aimed at the heart of Protestant Oak. People remembered the Gunpowder plot, they remembered the bloodbath of the Irish rising in 1641, there was the Fire, tales from France of Huguenot persecution. There were reds under the beds, popes on the plate. And on top of which. the heir to the throne had converted and married a Catholic wife; so if a plot like this succeeded, he was on the throne and we would all be toast. There’s no doubt that James’ conversion had thrown paraffin on the potatoes. One lawyer looked at the supposed plots, believed it all and knew what had encouraged the supposed schemes

I can assign no other cause for this dismal attempt but the hopes the papists have of the Duke’s religion

The PC did not help at this point by telling the Lords Lieutenant to raise the militia to search the houses of known Catholics in all their counties. So that raised the temperature, and meanwhile think of those poor 60,000 or so Catholics around the country, a mere 1% of the population. All they wanted was for England to flourish, and to be able to practice their religion in peace while they helped that happen.

So when the October meeting of parliament came about, Shaftesbury knew full well what an opportunity this was for his cause. By this stage, a new player had begun to enter the lists, slightly nervously, looking over his shoulder, but I speak of young James Scott, the  Duke of Monmouth, Charles’ illegitimate son who’s about 29 years old now, and to this point had not been a political factor, seemed not one bit ambitious. In fact Pepys had noted that he spent

‘his time the most viciously and idly of any man’

He also got on with James famously. Then in June 1678 when the army had been raised for the aborted expedition to Flanders, he and James fell out – because James insisted he be referred to always in official papers as illegitimate. And in the subsequent vote to disband the army, Monmouth, for the first time, joined with Shaftesbury against Charles’ government. This will be significant; it won’t be too long before MPs and Peers start casually mentioning that there IS a man of royal blood, who could make a Protestant king, if he was to be discovered, or declared to be legitimate, and James the Catholic, could be quietly dropped. Anyway – watch this space. Charles hadn’t disbanded that army of 25,000 by the way, and that was also making people nervous.

Now, it is a sad truth that Shaftesbury and the coalition of interests around him, would pursue their perfectly laudable aims of constitutional liberty and toleration for protestant dissenters by riding and fanning the wave of anti catholic terror, if fanning waves is a thing. But then, hey, we are in the 17^th century Europe, and religious bigotry goes with the territory in most places. So, Charles in his opening speech to parliament told everyone to just simmer down and leave Oates’ accusations to the normal processes of law. And everything would be fine, and sat back to watch his parliament and his country just settle down a bit, have a sensible discussion, and let the all these daft accusations by the clearly bonkers Oates be exposed for what they were under the harsh light of law.

Well. Instead, the world around him just kept going more bonkers. Oates had lit a fire of fear, everyone was giddy with a conviction there were Catholics under all sorts of household furniture. The City Chamberlain announced

He did not know but the next morning they might all rise with their throats cut[1]

I might be picky and point out he’d be unlikely to rise with his throat cut, but no one was really thinking straight anymore. Parliament, urged on by Shaftesbury – and remarkably, Denzil Holles – did not simmer down, but instead demanded that the five Catholic peers accused by Oates of plotting together – and probably scheming too – be arrested. Charles was forced to comply – rolling his eyes in the knowledge that most of those accused were too aged and gout ridden to do more than whine, and two of them in particular would no more work with each other than that matter and anti matter could live in harmony in the Trekking universe.

The rumour mill was in full flow. A French Catholic was arrested for storing fireworks next to parliament…in vain did he point out he was the king’s firework maker. A likely story. Local Militias were ordered to search coffins in funeral processions for hidden guns. Strange ships were spotted off the coast and a rumour circulated that the French had seized the Isle of Purbeck. 40 nocturnal horsemen were spotted near Whitby. In November on Queen Elizabeth’s birthday there was a huge procession in London, and the Pope burned in effigy.

Meanwhile Oates’ conspiracy was claiming victims. Edward Coleman was convicted by a court, despite Oates making a complete Horlicks of his testimony; a court that included a Welsh Judge called Judge Jeffreys, by the way – his name will come up again. Coleman went to the gallows, the first of many innocent victims. 3 more Catholics were convicted and the order for execution sent to the king – but Charles sat on the decision. Utterly unconvinced.

Parliament went on and it became clear that James was their target now; they set up a bill to enforce all Catholics to take the oath of Supremacy – which specifically disavowed the power of the pope; and when Charles agreed but excluded James from the bill – the exemption was only passed in the Lords by one vote. Squeaky.

Danby was in a tricky position now; it was in the interests of his policy to fan the flames of the Oates plot too, much easier than fanning waves, because it suited his Anglican, and anti French  agenda. But attacks on the government meant attacks on his position, and attacking the King directly would of course be far too rude to contemplate – evil counsellors and all that, and so Danby was the obvious fall guy. And to his fury no one would believe he wasn’t supporting his master’s pro French stand, no one could hear his gritted teeth.  Just imagine if anyone should find out that Danby had actually been in charge of the negotiations with Louis. Ooff, that’d be nasty.

Enter Ralph Montagu, an ambitious man scorned, the young, and thrusting ambassador to France while those very negotiations had been going on, the young and thrusting Ambassador who’d also been young, and, er, thrusting with Charles old squeeze Barbara Castlemaine when she was in Paris, and who had suddenly dropped her and turned his attentions to her daughter Anne. By golly, talk about the art of living dangerously. Messages flew between old lovers Barbara and Charles, Montagu found himself out of a job and looking for revenge. And in December, in parliament, he tasted the pie of revenge, revealing that he held letters that proved Danby had been holding secret negotiations with France, at the same time as he was asking parliament for money to fight them.

Well that sent the balloon up. Before December was out, the Commons had resolved to impeach Danby. The charges they brought were these. That Danby had ‘encroached to himself regal power’ by conducting foreign affairs. That was aiming to introduce arbitrary power, cunningly raising an army on the pretence of a war. That he was one of those behind the devilish Popish plot, and had been concealing and obstructing Oates’ revelations.

Danby fought, and Charles expressed his full confidence in his Treasurer. Which as every football manager knows, is when you need to start looking over your shoulder, but in this case Charles was certainly sincere. Danby roundly mocked the charges, pointing out for example that it was an odd way to conceal a plot by bringing it to parliament’s attention and ordering an investigation, which would indeed have been a mighty bold double bluff. The Commons were unwilling to be convinced by mere reason, and voted by 179 to 119 votes to impeach his bottom, but he manage to get enough support from the Lords on his side to slow things down.

Meanwhile, Charles was still refusing to agree to the execution of those three Catholics convicted by Oates’ accusations, because he didn’t believe a word of it. His parliament, totally sold on the accusations now looked on with disbelief as their own king seemed to march completely out of step with his people, defending the surely indefensible. The Cavalier Parliament was in uproar. So, Charles prorogued it for a month to let everything calm down, and take the heat off Danby. We’d start again, afresh, in a new year.

But by January 1679, Charles was suddenly convinced that the Popish Plot was true. He was turned around by a smooth talking, reliably posh Catholic called Stephen Dugdale who confirmed the accusations against his fellow Catholics – so Charles signed, and they then went to the gallows.[2] And rather remarkably, Danby decided that it was time to dissolve parliament and call a new election; he believed he’d made a deal in the background with Holles and the more moderate of Shaftesbury’s allies, and that he could manage things and get a more pliant parliament. No one else on the PC agreed, so Charles stopped consulting them. So, as a former head of state might have said

Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance…Ye venal slaves be gone!…In the name of God, go!

Well, Charles obviously didn’t use Oliver’s words, but by February 1679, the end of the Long parliament came at last – ooh, sorry, did I say long, I meant Cavalier parliament of course, or as Marvell would have it, the Pensionary Parliament, 18 years in the sitting.

Well, as tactical political calculations go, it was a howler. Danby did is best to manipulate the elections target after target seat was lost, until Charles gloomily remarked that a dog would be elected if it stood against a courtier.

In March 1679 Charles made preparations, by sending a protesting James into exile in Brussels, in the hope that getting him out of the country would induce a sort of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ vibe. He made a long opening speech to the new parliament, arguing that he was safe as houses, that he’d exclude Catholics from London, expel Jesuits, all like a good boy, he had no designs on parliamentary power, and would quickly disband his army, if they would just vote him money to do so. The NHS is safe in our hands sort of line. Parliament stared back at him grimly, and asked themselves if this was the same army for whose disbandment they’d voted money last June. They said, ‘thanks King’, and went into a huddle to discuss when and how to cut Danby’s throat so he couldn’t rise again.

In April, impeachment was brought against those 5 Catholic Lords, brought to Westminster by the River in front of jeering crowds, waving halters and nooses; Oates’ testimony was written down and published so now everyone could read every lurid line of its lies. Charles did his best for Danby, offering him a pre-emptive pardon and a big pension for his resignation to save his life, but although Danby did as asked it was never going to be good enough for parliament. In April, Danby was committed to the Tower. He would stay there making it his home until 1684. Danby’s New Way had failed in the end; but never fear, the idea would soon have its day.

Well Charles changed tack, a change of course which seemed to owe a lot to Monmouth’s advice. If the folks outside the tent were causing trouble – why not bring them inside? Let’s stop fighting parliament – let’s work with them, be just ‘with’ the people – be the people, heart and soul. So the PC was remodelled, slimmed down, and made representative of the divisions in parliament, to try and divide and disperse the head of steam building in the engine room of a movement, an idea – to protect the nation from tyranny and Papism. The main driver of that engine was brought inside the tent of state – Shaftesbury was made President of the Council, and Charles looked forward to watching Shaftesbury’s ambition overwhelm his principles.

It was another howler. Instead, Shaftesbury saw this as an unrivalled opportunity to pursue his objectives from within. This parliament has been called the Habeas Corpus parliament, because it passed an Act clarifying and tightening the law of Habeas Corpus, to restrict the king’s ability to bang his opponents in jail without trial. And, fun story; the act passed in the Lords only by 57 votes to 55, and this was because Lord Grey of Warke jokingly decided to count one particularly fat peer as ten votes, and no one spotted it. I love that. I mean if it happened in 2026 I would write to my MP in the strongest possible terms, but 300 plus years ago and in a good cause? A Hoot.

More excitingly, we can now, with angels and archangels, start singing the story of the Exclusion Crisis. This March 1679 parliament has also been called the First Exclusion Parliament. Because now, explicitly, the target became James. The threat of a Catholic Monarch must be removed, James  must be excluded from the line of succession. Pressure began to build to exclude James – by law, by the people.

There was always more than one solution to this issue that this extreme one. A more moderate, conservative group shuddered at the thought of messing with the principle of hereditary succession, and favoured limitations on the power of the monarch. Another group now began to favour the idea of an alternative to James in the form of a legitimised Duke of Monmouth, the Protestant Duke as he became known. There was even a much more radical group, around the likes of Algernon Sidney and Arthur Capell, the Earl of Essex whose hearts still beat for the Good Old Cause – and the return of the Republic.

In April, a committee of the Commons resolved that James’ religion had encouraged those popish plots to which Oates had alerted everyone. At which point Charles, who was famously no fool and lacked his father’s inflexibility, took action. He recognised the danger and tried to head off the nuclear option of excluding James by himself proposing to parliament some official limitations on a future Catholic monarch. He would allow a legal absolute right of parliament to sit, limit royal power over the church, transfer the right to appoint judges to parliament. Meanwhile he had effectively exiled his brother to Brussels.

 

But a group began to lead, gathered around Shaftesbury in the Lords, and his right hand man in the Commons, William Russell. They chose  the nuclear option – full Exclusion of Catholic monarchs, combined with constitutional reform to make sure the danger would never come again. They chose, and would relentlessly follow this line, because limitations might well be impossible to enforce against a determined absolutist backed by that suspicious looking army and French Gold. And anyway Charles probably wasn’t serious about them either. Because the Monmouth option would always have the stain of illegitimacy and anyway he was a bit of an idiot. And because full Exclusion was a simple, straightforward message. Sell the message, easier to punch the bruise.

So, in May 1679 the First Exclusion Bill was introduced to the Commons, ordaining that the succession would pass to the next Protestant heir. It was absolute anathema to Charles and his supporters, who held a fundamental view which would become the Tory mantra – no one could mess with the divinely ordained hereditary succession. An Exclusion Bill did not just mean the end of a King James II, it meant an elective monarchy. That could never be, that was God’s decision, not the peoples’.

But by 21^st May the Bill had passed its second reading in the Commons by a majority of 79. Shaftesbury almost certainly did not have the firepower yet to get the bill through the lords, but Charles had seen enough. Parliament was prorogued on 27^th May, to everyone’s surprise

All parted in a mist of surprise

Recorded one. This parliament would not meet again, since it would be dissolved in July. But before that attention had shifted to the news from Scotland.

In early May, the Archbishop of St Andrews James Sharp set out with his daughter, Isabella, from the village of Ceres in Fife to travel to the Archbishops Palace at St Andrews. As one of the very grandest and most powerful public figures in Scotland, and an object of some detestation among the covenanters and Presbyterians labouring under his persecution. As they travelled in their grand carriage with servants, all that lay between them and their destination was Magus Muir, an area of moorland.

Well, the pair were looking forward to their imminent arrival as they crossed Magus Muir, when their progress was violently halted. 9 men leapt from their hiding places, armed with muskets and swords – they had come to take revenge for the pain inflicted on SW Scotland by repression and the violence of the Highland Host the previous year. But they sopped. They had not expected the presence of a daughter. They had no desire to kill her, so rather than shooting up the carriage to assassinate their tormentor, they demanded Sharp get out and face his punishment like a man.

Well, Jimmy Sharp evaluated his options and life expectancy according to various courses of action, reviewed the backsides of his servants happily disappearing into the distance and decided that no, on balance he’d rather not get out, thanks for asking. So the men surrounded the carriage and tried to stab the saintly Archbish through the windows with their swords. At last the carriage fell silent, except for Isabel’s sobbing as she looked at the apparently lifeless body of her Dad. Ahha! The job was done the killers could withdraw.

Nope hang on a bit, Isabel saw him breathe! Hurray she cried, he lives!

Oh, thanks a bunch daughter! So the killers returned, James was dragged out, and though he begged for mercy, it was declined on the basis that someone must pay for the sufferings of the Presbyterians. And that was it.

Well, let me take you then to Drumclog in Ayrshire, SW Scotland to a vast Presbyterian conventicle. The Minister was preaching away as you do  when suddenly a message arrived, he stopped listened – and then relayed it in a loud voice to the crowd. It was a dramatic announcement; retribution for Sharp’s assassination was on its way! In the form of John Graham Claverhouse, known to the Presbyterians as Bloody Clavers, on his way, right now with his hated dragoons.

The Covenanting Presbyterians acted quickly. They gathered together on the hill, armed themselves and when the Dragoons arrived they were met by a hail of bullets from Drumclog hill. They also then took Sir Robin’s view, and decided to run away all the way back to Edinburgh. Back in the SW, the Covenanters gathered an army of 6,000 seeming rebels. Probably they did not intend violence are were effectively protesting to the Scottish parliament against their violent oppression. But the Duke of Lauderdale and the people of Edinburgh of course did not see it that way. This was 1648 all over again – the Whiggamore Raid, when the Covenanters had marched on Edinburgh. Whiggamore by the way, did not mean rebel – it was the name for agricultural herders, the riders of horses. But it’s meaning would henceforth be shortened and used as an insult – a Whig.

Charles responded to the terrified pleas from Scotland, and sent help – in the form of the Duke of Monmouth, who arrived to take command of the government army. Because Charles did of course have a standing army in Scotland, as aforementioned. And on 22^nd June, Monmouth crushed the poorly armed Covenanters; a thousand captives were taken to Edinburgh, 16 were executed, and 258 deported to the colonies. Claverhouse then descended on the SW with aforesaid dragoons, billeted them on the inhabitants to teach them, all a good lesson, with full authority to use torture – of which he appears to have taken advantage. It was the start of what the Presbyterian historians would call The Killing Times, capital TTT.

Anyway, Monmouth took a different view of all this. He was a bit horrified by the violence he saw, and felt even more alienated from Charles and Lauderdale’s government, and inclined to support Shaftesbury’s cause in England. And although feted, wined and dined as a hero in Edinburgh, he urged moderation. It seemed to have some effect, and in July Charles issued a new declaration of Indulgence for Scotland. It had little impact; partly because the people of the SW themselves rejected his authority over anything to do with the church, in the Covenanter tradition. Indeed in 1680, the Covenanters would read out a declaration at Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire disavowing allegiance to Charles II and the government of Scotland, in the name of

“true Protestant and Presbyterian interest”

So yeah, rebels really. The incident signalled the beginning of the end of Lauderdale; by 1680, after suffering a stroke, he would finally be gone, his domination of Scottish politics and government ended at last.

The impact of all this in England was to increase polarisation. For Shaftesbury and the Whigs, it was a sign of royal oppression, a sign of the future under a Catholic monarch – brutal repression and imposition of episcopy, a standing army to crush dissent, political or religious. To Torys, it was a sign that protestant dissent was synonymous with sedition, rebellion and chaos – and before long the word Whig would enter the political language. But for the moment, the Scottish wind filled Whig sails, as the Oates trials continued.

Now came the trial of five Jesuits, presided over by Judge Jeffreys, who took the opportunity to share a few judicious words about their saints

Murder, and the blackest of crimes here are the best means of among you to get a man canonised a saint hereafter

Which doesn’t appear to my admittedly untrained eye to be the very highest tradition of judicial impartiality, but you know, I’m not a legal expert. Anyway, the verdict was guilty.

But in July, there were signs that the tide was turning against Oates’ lies and hysteria, and that loyalist and Tory resistance was stiffening after the events in Scotland. The occasion was the next trial in the Oates controversy, a crucial test with a man called George Wakeman in the dock. Now George was a physician to the Queen, accused by Oates of trying to poison the king, and if he was convicted, Catherine would be exposed to the hysteria of the mob – otherwise known as MPs. Charles was desperate, in a sort of demonstration of the Relatives Abuse Rule – you can abuse your own family as much as you like, but if your partner does so, it’s an outrage. Charles might submit Catherine to the continual humiliation of his philandering, but doom must be to anyone else who caused her pain, she was his wife after all. He met with his PC trying to find a way through this danger as the trial unfolded, under Judge William Scroggs.

Well, Oates muffed his testimony again, and this time Judge Scroggs was acid. Oates evidence he declared was but

Discourses of doubtful words

and

Let us not be amazed and frightened with the noise of plots as to take away a man’s life without reasonable evidence

That sounds a bit more judgely. And when the verdict came in – it was ‘not guilty’. Charles reputedly wept with relief on the news. As a result, Scroggs had a dead dog thrown in his coach by the mob – not the MPs this time. But despite this small sign of hope, throughout the country trials of Catholics continued in the summer, with 14 more people being executed; until the total came to the death of 22 innocents. Not a single one of them had confessed, and the Wakeman verdict was enough to sow doubts. John Evelyn still believed it, but disgust at Oates was starting to appear

A vain, insolent man, puffed up with the favour of the Commons

He wrote.

The test case would be the elections for a new parliament, now being held in August and September 1679 across the country. Would the country at last see sense? Charles could only hope a corner had been turned.

And we will hear about that next time. Until then, thank you everyone for listening, for your comments and best wishes. Members do not forget the App, it will make your subscription more powerful, and my best wishes to all you ladies, gentlemen and non binary folks everywhere. Good luck all, and have a great week.

[1] Healey, J: ‘The Blazing World’, p381

[2] Hutton, R: ‘Charles I’, p366