From this time the excitement and commotion went on increasing at a very rapid rate. Oates himself, of course, became immediately a man of great importance; and to maintain himself in his new position, he invented continually new stories, each more terrible than the preceding. New informers, too, began to appear, confirming Oates's statements, and adding new details of their own, that they might share his distinctions and rewards. These men became continually more and more bold, in proportion to the increasing readiness of the people to receive their inventions for truths. They accused persons of higher and higher rank, until at last they dared to implicate the queen herself in their charges. They knew that, as she was a Catholic, she was unpopular with the nation at large, and as Charles had so many other lady favorites, they concluded that he would feel no interest in vindicating her from false aspersions. They accordingly brought forward accusations against the queen of having joined in the conspiracy, of having been privy to the plan of murdering the king, and of having actually arranged and directed the assassination of the justice, Sir Edmondsbury. These charges produced, of course, great excitement. The people of the country were generally predisposed to believe them true. There were various investigations of them, and long protracted examinations of the witnesses before the council and before judicial commissions appointed to inquire into and decide upon the case. These inquisitions led to debates and disputes, to criminations and recriminations without number, and they threw the whole court and the whole nation into a state of extreme excitement, some taking sides against, and some in favor of the queen. Although the popular sentiment was against her, every fair and candid mind, that attended carefully to the evidence, decided unhesitatingly in her favor. The stories of the witnesses were utterly inconsistent with each other, and in many of their details impossible. Still, so great was the public credulity, and so eager the desire to believe every thing, however absurd, which would arouse and strengthen the anti-Catholic feeling, that the queen found herself soon the object of extreme and universal odium.
The king, however, much to his credit, refused all belief of these accusations against Catharine, and strongly defended her cause. He took care to have the witnesses cross examined, and to have the inconsistencies in their testimony, and the utter impossibility that their statements could be true, pointed out. He believed, he said, that she was entirely innocent, and that the whole plan was a conspiracy to effect her destruction. "They think, I suppose," said the king, "that I should like a new wife, but I will not suffer an innocent woman to be wronged." He also told one of the ministers of state, in speaking of the subject, that, considering how hardly he had treated his wife, and how much reason she had for just complaints against him, it would be an atrocious thing for him to abandon her in such an extremity.
A volume might be filled with stories of the strange and exciting incidents that grew out of this pretended popish plot. Its consequences extended disastrously through many years, and involved a vast number of innocent persons in irretrievable ruin. The true character of Oates and his accomplices was, however, at length fully proved, and they themselves suffered the fate at last which they had brought upon others. The whole affair was a disgrace to the age. There is no circumstance connected with it which can be looked upon with any pleasure except King Charles's fidelity to his injured wife in refusing to abandon her, though he no longer loved her. His defense of her innocence, involving, as it did, a continuance of the matrimonial tie, which bound them together when all the world supposed that he wished it sundered, seems to have resulted from a conscientious sense of duty, and implies certain latent traits of generosity and nobleness in Charles's character, which, though ordinarily overpowered and nullified by the influences of folly and vice, still always seem to have maintained their hold, and to come out to view from time to time, in the course of the gay monarch's life, whenever any emergency occurred sufficient to call them into action.
The reign of King Charles the Second was signalized by many other untoward and disastrous events besides those which we have enumerated. There were unfortunate wars, great defeats in naval battles, unlucky negotiations abroad, and plots and conspiracies, dangerous and disgraceful, at home. The king, however, took all these things very good naturedly, and allowed them to interfere very little with his own personal pleasures. Whatever troubles or embarrassments affected the state, he left the anxiety and care which pertained to them to his ministers and his council, banishing all solicitude from his own mind, and enjoying himself all the time with his experiments, his ladies, his dogs, and his perpetual fun.
CHAPTER XII. THE CONCLUSION.
Time rolled on, and the gay and pleasure-loving king passed through one decade after another of his career, until at length he came to be over fifty years of age. His health was firm, and his mental powers vigorous. He looked forward to many years of strength and activity yet to come, and thus, though he had passed the meridian of his life, he made no preparations to change the pursuits and habits in which he had indulged himself in his early years.
He died suddenly at last, at the age of fifty-four. His death was almost as sudden as that of his father, though in a widely different way. The circumstances of his last sickness have strongly attracted the attention of mankind, on account of the manner in which the dying king was affected, at last, by remorse at the recollection of his life of reckless pleasure and sin, and of the acts to which this remorse led him upon his dying bed. The vices and crimes of monarchs, like those of other men, may be distinguished into two great types, characterized by the feelings of heart in which they take their origin. Some of these crimes arise from the malignant passions of the soul, others from the irregular and perverted action of the feelings of kindness and affection. The errors and follies of Charles, ending at last, as they did, in the most atrocious sins, were of the latter class. It was in feelings of kindness and good will toward friends of his own sex that originated that spirit of favoritism, so unworthy of a monarch, which he so often evinced; and even his irregular and unhallowed attachments of another kind seem to have been not wholly selfish and sensual. The course of conduct which he pursued through the whole course of his life toward his female companions, evinced, in many instances, a sincere attachment to them, and an honest desire to promote their welfare; and in all the wild recklessness of his life of pleasure and vice, there was seen coming out continually into view the influence of some conscientious sense of duty, and of a desire to promote the happiness of those around him, and to do justice to all. These principle were, indeed, too feeble to withstand the temptations by which they were assailed on every side; still, they did not cease to exist, and occasions were continually occurring when they succeeded in making their persuasions heard. In a word, King Charles's errors and sins, atrocious and inexcusable as they were, sprang from ill-regulated and perverted feelings of love and good will, and not from selfishness and hate; from the kindly, and not from the malignant propensities of the soul. It is very doubtful whether this is really any palliation of them, but, at any rate, mankind generally regard it so, judging very leniently, as they always do, the sins and crimes which have such an origin.