The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844

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.’

Att. Gen. ‘Do you know any thing of arms?’

‘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!