VI. liberty; the others, about two hundred and seventy, CHAP. were transported as slaves across the Atlantic. Rath- A.D. 1679. illet with the men of Fife returned to their own country, whence after many perilous adventures most of them escaped by sea to Holland.' In England the fanaticism and adventures of the Scottish insurgents excited but little sensation. The attention of the public was absorbed by subjects of more immediate and commanding interest, the investigation of the pretended plot, and the punishment of the supposed conspirators. By order of the council, June 13. the two Jesuits, Whitbread and Fenwick, who on their former trial had been illegally remanded to prison, were placed at the bar with three others, Harcourt, Gavan, and Turner; and against them was marshalled a host of formidable witnesses, Oates, Bedloe, Prance, and Dugdale, once steward to Lord Aston, and now, on his dismissal from the service of that nobleman, a subordinate informer. Oates, indeed, could only repeat with a few embellishments his former story; but Bedloe felt himself at liberty to make additional disclosures; better cheer and more indulgent treatment had wonderfully improved the memory of Prance; and the situation which Dugdale held in the family of Lord Aston was supposed to have supplied him with much secret and valuable information. The prisoners rested their defence chiefly on the utter worthlessness of their accusers, particularly of Bedloe and Oates. 1. Against the first they urged that, according to his own showing, he must have perjured himself on Whitbread's former trial; nor did 1 Russell, 465-482. Wodrow, ii. 62-67. Sydney's Letters, 95-99. The "Exact Relation published by authority" differs in several particulars from the preceding authorities. See also "A "History of the Rencounter at Drumclog," &c. by W. Aiton, 1821. VI. CHAP. he attempt to deny the charge, but pleaded in excuse A.D. 1679. that his prevarication at the time was necessary for the success of his intrigue with Reading; and this plea as far as appears from the printed copy of the proceedings, was admitted as satisfactory by the court and jury. 2. They met the testimony of Oates by pointing out its variance in several points from his former depositions before the council, the two houses of parliament, and at the preceding trials in the court of King's Bench but the judges answered that they had not those depositions before them; the prisoners might have indicted him for perjury; and if they had omitted to do so, must abide by the consequences of such omission. 3. In answer to his assertion that on the 24th of April he had waited on the accused at their treasonable consult in London, they produced sixteen young men who deposed that they dined on that day in the same room with him at St. Omer, and that during the four preceding and the two following months he was never more than twenty-four hours absent from the college. To rebut this powerful attack on his veracity, Oates had provided six witnesses to swear that in the month of May they had at different times seen him in London, or some one like, or who bore his name;' and it was argued that in judging of contradictory evidence, more credit was due to men who were Protestants, who spoke upon oath, and who were bound to deliver the truth, than to papists, unsworn, and accustomed, so it was pretended, to obtain dispensations for the utterance of falsehood. 4. Again, he had given the names of three persons, in whose company he crossed the sea to come to England. 1 On the credibility of these six witnesses, see North, 293, 240; and State Trials, x. 1189. VI. Of these, one deposed in open court that he never saw Oates during the voyage, and the servants of the other A.D. 1679. two that their respective masters had not on any occasion in the months of April and May been a day absent from their places of abode on the continent. But the minds of men were still too highly excited to give due weight to such testimony; the voice of reason and innocence was stifled by passion and prejudice; the chief justice delivered his charge with his usual partiality, and the jury without hesitation returned a verdict of guilty.1 The next evening the place of these unfortunate was occupied by Langhorne, the celebrated Catholic lawyer. His case presented an instance of extraordinary hardship. He had been committed to Newgate without any previous examination before a magistrate or the council; and, until the week preceding his trial, had been kept in solitary confinement and in complete ignorance of every passing event; yet he was now called upon to plead for his life without any other knowledge of the facts to be charged against him in evidence than what he could hastily collect from the printed narratives and the reports of his friends. The moment he appeared, the crowd received June 14. him with hooting and hisses; his witnesses were abused, beaten, and intimidated; his objections to the credibility of the informers, and his remarks on the inconsistency of their evidence, were overruled by the court; and when the foreman of the jury pronounced the verdict of guilty, it was received by the audience with loud and repeated cheers. The other five were then ranged at the side of Langhorne; Jeffreys, the recorder, pronounced on them judgment of death, and 1 State Trials, vii. 311-418. Burnet, ii. 215. CHAP. the hall resounded a second time with the acclama VI. A.D. 1679. tions of the spectators.' The Jesuits were the first who suffered. They were already tied to the gallows, and expected each moment June 20. to be launched into eternity, when their attention was awakened by cries of "A pardon, a pardon." A horseman rode up at full speed, and delivered to the sheriff a paper which proved to be a pardon on condition that "they should acknowledge the conspiracy, and lay open " what they knew thereof." With thanks to the king they replied, that it was not in their power to fulfil the condition, because they could not disclose that of which they possessed no knowledge. The piety which they displayed, and the composure with which they resigned themselves to their fate, gave additional weight to this their last declaration.2 Other arts were employed to shake the constancy of Langhorne. He received an offer of pardon, first, if he would confess himself guilty, and then, if he would make a discovery of the property of the Jesuits, with which he had become acquainted in his professional capacity. To the last proposal he assented; his 1 State Trials, vii. 417–490. Burnet, ii. 218. In the life of Lord Guildford we are told, in defence of the judges, "that the "prejudice was so universal and so strong that, if an apostle had "spoken against it no impression would have taken place, nor had "it done the prisoners any service; but on the other side not only "the rabble, but even the parliament itself, had flounced at it; "which consideration turned the scales of their discretion, and made "those judges let a vessel drive which they could not stop, and reserve themselves for fairer opportunities. Again they said that "not they but the jury were judges of the fact, and therefore they "allowed Scroggs to do as he pleased" (vol. i. 327). The falsehood of these pretences was proved by the next trial. Scroggs behaved with moderation, and the accused were acquitted. 2 State Trials, 490-451. Burnet, ii. 217. Challoner, ii. 404 Three other Jesuits, Mico, Nevil, and Bedingfield, died in prison; a fourth, Jenison, perished in consequence of the injury which he received from the violence of the pursuivants. TRIAL OF WAKEMAN AND OTHERS. 441 VI. books were restored to him; and from them he CHAP. extracted a statement, which was forwarded to the A.D. 1679. king. It is probable that the amount, a sum between twenty and thirty thousand pounds, fell short of expectation. In a personal interview, Shaftesbury informed him that this discovery was not thought of sufficient importance to redeem his life; he must in addition disclose the particulars of the plot, and in return for that disclosure he should receive any reward which he might ask. The honesty July 14. of Langhorne withstood the temptation, and he suffered the punishment of a traitor, asserting like the others his total ignorance of the conspiracy." Still the thirst for blood was not satisfied; and four other prisoners, Sir George Wakeman, the queen's physician, and Corker, Marshall, and Rumby, Benedictine monks, received notice of trial. They came, however, to the bar under more favourable circumstances than those who had preceded them. The testimony of the witnesses from St. Omer, and the protestations of the victims who had suffered, had shaken the credit of the plot; and even the chief justice himself had at last resolved to act the part of an indifferent judge. To the statement of the in- July 18. formers they opposed so many objections, drawn partly from the improbability of the information itself, partly from the contradictions with which it teemed, that State Trials, vii. 501-530. Burnet, ii. 218. Oates and Bedloe afterwards charged the chief justice Scroggs before the council with having said at the assizes at Monmouth "that he did believe "in his conscience that Richard Langhorne, whom he condemned, "died wrongfully, to the great disparagement," &c. Scroggs replied, that he was more unsatisfied about Mr. Langhorne's case than all the rest, the more so that he was credibly informed that part of Bedloe's evidence, about Langhorne's writing in his presence, could not possibly be true.-State Trials, viii. 172, 173. |