“’Twas all in the service of Your Most Gracious Majesty.”
“And when you were in Madrid you conferred with Don John of Austria, you say in these papers.”
“’Tis true, Your Majesty.”
“Pray, describe him to me.”
“He is a tall, spare and swarthy man, if it please Your Majesty.”
“It does not please me,” said Charles with a sardonic smile. “But doubtless it would please him, for he is a little, fat, fair man, and I believe would desire to appear taller than he is.”
“Your Majesty, it may be that I have made a mistake in the description of this man. I have met so many.”
“So many of the importance of Don John? Ah, Mr. Oates, I see you are a man much given to good company.”
Titus stood his ground. Be could see that if the King did not believe him, others were ready to do so. The difference was that they wanted to, whereas the King did not.
“You say,” went on the King, “that the Jesuits will kill not only me but my brother, if he should be unwilling to join them against me, and that they received from Père la Chaise, who is Confessor to Louis Quatorze, a donation of £10,000.”
“That is so, Your Majesty.”
Those about the King seemed impressed. It was true that Père La Chaise was Confessor to the French King.
“And that there was a promise of a similar sum from another gentleman?”
“From De Corduba of Castile, Your Majesty.”
Again Titus was aware of his success. He made sure of facts. The visit to Spain had been well worthwhile. What if he had made a mistake in his description of a man; those about the King did not consider that to be of any great importance.
“So La Chaise paid down £10,000 did he? Where did he do this, and were you there?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. It was in the house of the Jesuits, close to the Louvre.”
“Man!” cried the King. “The Jesuits have no house within a mile of the Louvre!”
“I doubt not,” said Titus slyly, “that Your Majesty during your stay in Paris was too good a Protestant to know all the secret places of the Jesuits.”
“The meeting is over,” said Charles. “I will hear no more.”
And, putting his arm through that of his brother, the King led James away, murmuring: “The man is a lying rogue. I am certain of it.”
But the news of the great Popish plot was spreading through the streets of London. The citizens stood about in groups discussing it. They talked of the Gunpowder Plot; they recalled the days of Bloody Mary, when the fires of Smithfield had blackened the sky and a page of English history.
“No Popery!” they shouted. Nor were they willing to wait for trials. They formed themselves into mobs and set about routing out the Catholics.
Coleman, who had been secretary to the Catholic Duchess of York, and one of the suspects at whom Titus had pointed, was found to be in possession of documents sent him by that very Père la Chaise, for Coleman was in truth a spy for France.
All the King’s skepticism could do nothing to quiet rumor. The people’s blood was up. They believed in the authenticity of the plot. The Jesuits were rogues who must be tracked down to their deaths; Titus Oates was a hero who had saved the King’s life and the country from the Papists.
Oates was given lodgings in Whitehall. He was heard in royal palaces talking of Popery in his high nasal and affected voice interspersed with the coarsest of oaths; he was at the summit of delight; he had longed for fame such as this; he was no longer a poor despised outcast; he was admired by all. He was Titus Oates, exposer of Jesuits, the man of the moment.
The King, still declaring the man to be a fake, went off to Newmarket, leaving his ministers to do what they would.
And Titus, determined to hold what he had at last achieved, concocted fresh plots and looked for new victims.
Catherine was afraid.
In her apartments at Somerset House she sensed approaching doom. She felt she had few friends and owed much to the Count of Castelmelhor, a Portuguese nobleman, who had been loyal to Alphonso and had found it necessary to leave the country when Pedro was in control. He had come to Catherine for shelter and had brought great comfort to her during those terrible weeks.
Her servants brought her news of what was happening, and from her stronghold she would often hear the sound of shouting in the streets. She would hear screams and protests as some poor man or woman was set upon; she would hear wild rumors of how this person, whom she had known, and that person, for whom she had a great respect, was being taken up for questioning. “No Popery! No slavery!” was the continual cry. And Titus Oates and Dr. Tonge with their supporters were banded together to corroborate each other’s stories and fabricate wilder and still wilder plots in order to implicate those they wished to destroy.
The King, disgusted with the whole affair and certain that Titus was a liar, was quick to sense the state of the country. He had to be careful. His brother was a confessed Catholic. It might be that that clause in the secret treaty of Dover was known to too many, and that he himself might be suspect; he was afraid to show too much leniency to Catholics. He was shrewd, and the tragic events of his life had made him cautious. He remembered—although he had been but a boy at the time—the feeling of the country in those days before the Civil War, which had ended in the defeat of his father, had broken out. He sensed a similar atmosphere. He knew that Shaftesbury and Buckingham with other powerful men were seeking to remove the Duke of York; he knew too that they plotted against Catherine and were determined either to see him divorced and married to a Queen who could provide a Protestant heir, or to see Monmouth legitimized.
He must walk very carefully. He must temporize by giving the people their head; he must not make the mistakes his father had made. He must allow those accused by the odious Titus Oates to be arrested, questioned and, if found guilty, to suffer the horrible death accorded to traitors.
He was grieved, and the whole affair made him very melancholy. He would have liked to have put Titus Oates and his friends in an open boat and sent them out to sea, that they might go anywhere so long as they did not stay in England.
But he dared not go against the people’s wishes. They wanted Catholic scapegoats, and they were calling Oates the Savior of England for providing them. They must be humored, for their King was determined to go no more a-wandering in exile. So he went to Windsor and spent a great deal of time fishing, while he indulged in melancholy thought; and Titus Oates lived in style at Whitehall Palace, ate from the King’s plate and was protected by guards when he walked abroad. All tried not to meet his eye, and if they were forced to do so, responded with obsequious and admiring smiles, for Titus had but to point the finger and pretend to remember an occasion when a man or woman had plotted against the King’s life, and that man or woman would be thrown into jail.
Titus was content; for all those powerful men who had for ten years been seeking to bring about a divorce between the King and Queen saw Titus as a means of perfecting their plans, and to Titus they gave their support.
Catherine knew this.
She longed for the King to come and see her, but she heard that he was at Windsor. There was no one to whom she could turn for advice except those immediately about her, and they were mostly Catholics who feared for their own lives.
She began to realize that the trap into which many of her servants were in danger of falling was in reality being prepared for herself.
There came news that a certain magistrate of the City, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, had been murdered. He it was who had taken Titus’ affidavit concerning the Popish Plot. He was known as a Protestant although he had Catholic friends, and the manner of his meeting his death was very mysterious. Titus accused the Papists of murdering him, and the magistrate’s funeral was conducted with great ceremony while Titus and his friends did everything they could to incite the citizens to fury against his murderers, declared by Titus to be Catholics.