CHAPTER XXX.

CHARLES II.

A. D. 1648. USURPATION-1660, 1685.

WHEN Charles came to the throne he was thirty years of age, possessed of an agreeable person, an elegant address, and an engaging manner. His whole demeanour and behaviour was well calculated to support and increase popularity. Accustomed during his exile to live cheerfully among his courtiers, he carried the same endearing familiarities to the throne; and, from the levity of his temper, no injuries were dreaded from his former resentments. But it was soon found that all these advantages were merely superficial. His indolence and love of pleasure, made him averse to all kinds of business; his familiarities were prostituted to the worst as well as the best of Iris subjects; and he took no care to reward his former friends, as he had taken few steps to be avenged of his former enemies.

Though an act of indemnity was passed, those who had an immediate hand in the king's death were exempted. Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, though dead, were considered as proper objects of resentment; their bodies were dug from their graves, dragged to the place of execution, and after hanging some time, buried under the gallows. Of the rest, who sat in judgment on the late monarch's trial, some were dead, and some were thought worthy of pardon. Ten only, out of fourscore, were devoted to immediate destruction. These were enthusiasts, who had all along acted from principle, and who, in the general spirit of rage excited. against them, shewed a fortitude that might do honour to a better cause.

This was the time for the king to have made himself independent of all parliaments; and it is said that Southampton, one of his ministers, had thought of procuring his master from the commons the grant of a revenue of two millions a year, which would have effectually rendered him absolute; but in this his views were obstructed by the great Clarendon, who, though attached to the king, was still more the friend of liberty and the laws. Charles, however was no way interested in these opposite views of his minis ters; he only desired money in order to prosecute hi

pleasures; and provided he had that, he little regarded the manner in which it was obtained.

His continual exigencies drove him constantly to measures no way suited to his inclination. Among others, was his marriage celebrated at this time with Catherine, the infanta of Portugal, who, though a virtuous princess, possessed as it should seem but few personal attractions. It was the portion of this princess that the needy monarch was enamoured of, which amounted to three hundred thou sand pounds, together with the fortress of Tangier m Africa, and of Bombay in the East Indies. The chancellor Clarendon, the dukes of Ormond and Southampton, urged many reasons against this match, particularly the likelihood of her never having any children; the king disregarded their advice, and the inauspicious marriage was celebrated accordingly. It was probably also with a view of supporting his pleasures, that he declared war against the Dutch, as the money appointed for that purpose would go through his hands. In this naval war, which continued to rage for some years with great fierceness, much blood was spilt, and great treasure exhausted, until at last a treaty was concluded at Breda, by which the colony of New York was ceded by the Dutch to the English, and considered as a most valuable acquisition. But this was considered as inglorious to the English, as they gained no redress upon the complaints which gave rise to it. Lord Clarendon, particularly, was blamed both for having first advised an unnecessary war, and then for concluding a disgraceful peace. He had been long declining in the king's favour, and he was no less displeasing to the majority of the people; and this seemed the signal for his enemies to step in, and effect his entire overthrow. A charge was opened agatust him in the house of commons by Mr. Seymour, consisting of seventeen articles. Thése, which were only a catalogue of the popular rumours before mentioned, appeared at first sight false or frivolous. However, Clarendon finding the popular torrent, united to the violence of power, running with impetuosity against him, thought proper to withdraw to France.

Having thus got rid of his virtuous minister, the king soon after resigned himself to the direction of a set of men who afterwards went by the appellation of the Cabal, from the Initials of the names of which it was composed. The first of them, Sir Thomas Clifford, was a man of a daring

Q 2

and impetuous spirit, rendered more dangerous by eloquence and intrigue. Lord Ashley, soon after known by the name of lord Shaftsbury, was turbulent, ambitious, subtle, and enterprising. The duke of Buckingham was gay, capricious, of some wit, and great vivacity. Arlington was a man of very moderate capacity; his intentions were good, ́but he wanted courage to persevere in them. Lastly, the duke of Lauderdale, who was not defective in natural, and stil less in acquired talents; but neither was his address graceful, nor his understanding just; he was ambiA. D. tious, obstinate, insolent, and sullen.. These were 1670. the men to whom Charles gave up the conduct of his affairs; and who plunged the remaining part of his reign in difficulties, which produced the most dangerous symptoms..

From this inauspicious combination the people had entertained violent jealousies against the court. The fears and discontents of the nation were vented without restraint: the apprehensions of a popish successor, an abandoned court, and a parliament which, though sometimes assertors of liberty, yet which had now continued for seventeen years without change, naturally rendered the minds of mankind timid and suspicions, and they only wanted objects on which to wreak their ill humour.

When the spirit of the English is once roused, they either find objects of suspicion or make them. On the 12th of August, one Kirby, a chemist, accosted the king as he was walking in the park. "Sir (said he), keep within the company; your enemies have a design upon your life, and you may be shot in this very walk." Being questioned in consequence of this strange intimation, he offered to produce one Dr. Tongue, a weak, credulous clergyman, who had told him, that two persons, named Grove and Pickering, were engaged to murder the king; and that Sir George Wakeman, the queen's physician, had undertaken the same task by poison. Tongue was introduced to the king with a bundle of papers relating to this pretended conspiracy, and was referred to the lord treasurer Danby. He there declared that the papers were thrust under his door; and he afterwards asserted, that he knew the author of them, who desired that his name might be concealed, as he dreaded the resentment of the Jesuits.

This information appeared so vague and unsatisfactory, that the king concluded the whole was a fiction.

However,

Tongue went again to the lord treasurer, and told him, that a pacquet of letters, written by Jesuits concerned in the plot, was that night to be put into the post-house for Windsor, directed to one Bedingfield, a Jesuit, who was confessor to the duke of York, and who resided there. These letters had actually been received a few hours before by the duke, bút he had shewn them to the king as a forgery, of which he neither knew the drift nor the meaning.

Titus Oates, who was the fountain of all this dreadful intelligence, was produced soon after, and, with seeming reluctance, came to give his evidence. This Titus Oates was an abandoned miscreant, obscure, illiterate, vulgar, and indigent. He had been once indicted for perjury, was afterwards chaplain on board a man of war, and dismissed for unnatural practices. He then professed himself a Roman catholic, and crossed the sea to St. Omer's, where he was for some time maintained in the English seminary of that city. At a time that he was supposed to have been entrusted with a secret involving the fate of kings, he was allowed to remain in such necessity, that Kirby was obliged to supply him with daily bread.

He had two methods to pursue, either to ingratiate himself by this information with the ministry, or to alarm the people, and thus turn their fears to his advantage. He chose the latter method. He went, therefore, with his two companions, to Sir Edmonsbury Godfrey, a noted and active justice of the peace, and before him deposed to a narrative dressed up in terrors fit to make an impression on the vulgar. The pope, he said, considered himself as entitled to the possession of England and Ireland, on account of the heresy of the prince and people, and had accordingly assumed the sovereignty of these kingdoms. The king, whom the Jesuits call the Black Bastard, was solemnly tried by them, and condemned as an heretic. Grove and Pickering, to make sure work, were employed to shoot the king, and that too with silver bullets. The duke of York was to be offered the crown in consequence of the success of these probable schemes, on condition of extirpating the protestant religion. Upon his refusal, " To pot James must go," as the Jesuits were said to express it.

In consequence of this dreadful information, sufficiently. marked with absurdity, vulgarity, and contradiction, Titus Oates became the favourite of the people, notwithstanding -during his examination before the council, he so betraye

the grossness of his impostures, that he contradicted himself in every step of his narration. A great number of the Jesuits mentioned by Oates were immediately taken into custody. Coleman, secretary to the duke of York, who was said to have acted so strenuous a part in the conspiracy, at first retired; but next day surrendered himself to the secretary of state, and some of his papers, by Oates's directions, were secured.

In this fluctuation of passions an accident served to confirm the prejudices of the people, and to put it beyond a doubt that Oates's narrative was nothing but the truth. Sir Edmonsbury Godfrey, who had been so active in unravelling the whole mystery of the popish machinations, after having been missing some days, was found dead in a ditch by Primrose-hill, in the way to Hampstead. "The cause of his death remains, and must still continue, a secret; but the people, already enraged against the papists, did not hesitate a moment to ascribe it to them. The body of Godfrey was carried through the street in procession, preceded by seventy clergymen; and every one who saw it made no doubt that his death could be only caused by the papists. Even the better sort of people were infected with this vulgar prejudice; and such was the general conviction of popish guilt, that no man, with any regard to personal safety, could express the least doubt concerning the information of Oates, or the murder of Godfrey.

In order to continue and propagate the alarm, the parliament affected to believe it true. An address was voted fór a solemn fast. It was requested that all papers tending to throw light upon so horrible a conspiracy might be laid before the house; that all papists should remove from London; that access should be denied at court to all unknown and suspicious persons; and that the train-bands in London and Westminster should be in readiness to march Oates as recommended by parliament to the king. He was lodged in Whitehall, and encouraged by a pension of twelve hundred pounds a year to proceed in forging new infotmations.

The encouragement given to Oates did not fail to bring in others also, who hoped to profit by the delusion of the times. William Bedloe, a man, if possible, more infamous than Oates, appeared next upon the stage. He was, like the former, of very low birth, and had been noted for several cheats and thefts. At his own desire he was arrested at