August 18, 2025 • 32 mins
Dive into the fascinating world of Englands royal history with The Lives of the Queens of England. This multi-volumed work, primarily attributed to Agnes Strickland but largely researched and written by her sister Elisabeth, chronicles the lives of Englands queens from the Norman Conquest of 1066. While it may not meet todays scholarly standards, the Stricklands unearthed a wealth of previously untapped sources to tell these compelling stories. Volume eight focuses on the intriguing biographies of Henrietta Maria and Catharine of Braganza, shedding light on their unique influences in a tumultuous era. (Summary by Ann Boulais)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section twenty nine of the Lives of the Queens of England,
Volume eight by Agnes and Elizabeth Strickland. This LibriVox recording
is in the public domain. Catherine of Bergonza, Chapter three,
Part one. The arrival of the King's nephew, William, Prince
of Orange, caused more than ordinary festivities in the court.
(00:22):
In the autumn of sixteen seventy seven. Queen Catherine was
present at the marriage of that prince with the Princess Mary,
eldest daughter of the Duke of York, which was celebrated
at Whitehall on the fourth of November. The Queen's birthday
was kept that year on the fifteenth instead of the
twenty fifth of that month, because the departure of the
newly wedded pair was appointed for the twenty first. A
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very splendid ball was given on that occasion, both on
account of Her Majesty's anniversary commemoration and in honor of
the recent nuptials of the royal cousins. They both danced,
but the ill humor and ungracious deportment of the bridegroom
and the evident distress of the youthful bride cast an
unwonted gloom over the entertainment. Catherine, who had known the
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Princess Mary almost from the day of her birth and
regarded her with the affection of an aunt, felt great
compassion for her when she came, bathed in tears to
take her leave previously to her embarkation for Holland. The
sight of her grief doubtless recalled to the queen's mind
her own feelings on bidding a long ado to her
own country and friends, and she reminded the weeping bride
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that such was the lot of royalty, and that she
had herself experienced a similar trial when she came to England,
where she was a stranger to every one and had
not even seen the King. Her husband, Mary, who thought
no sorrow like her sorrow, petulantly replied, but Madam, you
came into England and I am leaving England. Catherine of
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Bergonza had little reason to rejoice in the destiny that
had conducted her to this country, for never had any queen,
with the exception of Anne of Cleaves, been treated more injuriously,
both by the sovereign and his ministers. Her case was
at this period worse than it had ever been before,
For the King had for the last five years wholly
withdrawn himself from her company, so that they rarely met
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except in public, and had ceased to occupy the same apartment.
The cause of this virtual separation may doubtless be traced
to the increasing infatuation of the King for the Duchess
of Portsmouth and the machinations of Shaftesbury, who, although he
had been unable to obtain Charles's sanction for a parliamentary divorce,
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was pertinacious in his determination to effect the ruin of
the Queen. He had injured Catherine too deeply to allow
her to remain in peaceful possession of the name of
Queen Consort and the few privileges she retained. His hatred
of the Duke of York was a still more active principle,
and his desire of depriving that prince of the succession
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to the crown urged him into incessant ada attempts either
to dissolve or invalidate the marriage of the King with
the childless Catherine, relying on Charles's parental fondness for his
illegitimate offspring, which on many occasions betrayed him into the
inconsistent acts of folly. He one day had the audacity
to tell his majesty that if he would but say
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he had been married to the mother of the Duke
of Monmouth, he would find those that would swear it.
The last lingering spark of honor, and all the pride
of Charles's nature revolted at the idea not only of
being considered the husband of so abandoned a woman as
Lucy Walters, but of avowing himself as an unprincipled bigamoust nay,
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subborning false witness to establish him as such by a
series of perjuries for the purpose of depriving his brother
of his rightful place in the regal succession, invalidating his
own marriage with his lawful wife, and imposing a surreptitious
air on his people. I would rather see James hanged
up at Tyburn than entertained. Such a thought, was his
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indignant reply to the insulting proposal. Charles proved his sincerity
by taking the earliest opportunity of ridding himself of his
subtle temper. In this he acted on the advice of
Holy Writ resists the devil, and he will flee from you.
But it was not in his power to fight manfully
against evil. His own paths were crooked, and of course
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those persons who had once been in his councils became
the most dangerous of his enemies. Shaftesbury, who on account
of his frequent changes of party, bore the nickname of
my Lord Shiftsbury, was speedily transformed by his loss of
office from the master fiend of the cabinet into the
master fiend of the opposition. He was a man alike,
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devoid of honor and religion. His ruling passions were ambition
and revenge. Little doubt now exists that the bugbear called
the Popish plot was got up by his emissaries for
the purpose of effecting the destruction of the Queen and
the Duke of York, he having vainly labored for nearly
ten years to annul the marriage of the one and
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to rob the other of his rightful place in the succession.
The details of this complicated tissue of iniquity would occupy
a folio, and can only be briefly sketched. The infamy
of the characters of Titus Oates, Bedloe, and in fact
of every person who came forward in the shape of
informers and witnesses to swear away the lives of a
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great number of innocent victims has been acknowledged by every
historian of integrity, and stands forth so palpably in the
state trials and journals of the House of Lords, that
it is needless to dwell on them further than as
connected with the audacious attempts to fix the charges of
high treason and murder on Queen Catherine and her servants.
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On the thirteenth of August sixteen seventy eight, Charles the
Second was about to take a walk in the park
when a person of the name of Kirby stepped forward
and begged his majesty not to separate from the company,
as his life was in danger. Charles, being a stranger
to personal fear, took no notice of this warning. He had, however,
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some personal knowledge of Kirby, who had been employed to
work in his laboratory. For among his various pursuits, Charles
the Second had a taste for experimental chemistry. Kirby was
a ruined speculator of plausible manners, engaged with Oats and
Tom Titus. Oates was the son of an Anabaptist weaver
and preacher, but on the restoration was ordained a minister
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of the Church of England, from which he was expelled
for his crimes. He took refuge in the Church of
Rome and studied at Via Dolid. His misdoings caused his
expulsion from that college, but on professions of great repentance,
he was admitted into the seminary of Saint Omer, whence
he was, however, finally driven with disgrace for his bad conduct.
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He returned to England and applied for relief to one
of his old companions, doctor Tong, the rector of Saint
Michael Would Street, the editor of a quarterly polemic periodical. Tong,
who had been accustomed to appeal by many marvelous tales
of blood and terror to the passions of the vulgar,
found Oates a valuable ally, for his powers of invention
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were singular, and he had acquired a knowledge of conventual
habits and many other technicalities connected with the Rummish Church,
which gave a tone of reality to his fictions. While
at Saint Omer, Oates had discovered that a private meeting
of the Jesuits was held in London in April. This
was the Triennial convocation of the order. But with the
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aid of Tong, he on this slight foundation built a
story of a secret meeting of the Roman Catholics, at
which a conspiracy was organized for the murder of the King,
a second conflagration of London, and the destruction of the
Protestant religion. Tong, having written and prepared a narrative setting
this forth in a business like form, directed Kirby to
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accost the King as related and refer his Majesty to
him for further information. In the evening, he obtained an
audience and presented his narrative. Charles regarded it as a fabrication, and,
being mightily bored with its details, to save himself from
further trouble, refer the matter to the Lord Treasurer Danby,
and went off the next day to Windsor to hold
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his court for the first time since the new alterations
and improvements to the castle, being impatient to witness the
effect of the fresco paintings of Verrio and the wood
carvings of Grimly Gibbon with which it was decorated. Danby
was at that time under the apprehension of being impeached
of high treason at the approaching meeting of Parliament for
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his ministerial conduct, and being well aware that his proceedings
would not bear the stern investigation of the leaders of
the opposition, he was eager to divert the attention of
the House to some other object of attack than his
own piccadillios. Nothing could be more pat to his purpose
than the popular bugbear of a pope plot, certain as
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it was to influence vulgar prejudice against the Duke of York,
of whom he was a concealed foe. Accordingly, with all
the selfish cunning of his nature, he made the most
wild tales of the informers, and insisted on their importance
with a vehemence that excited the laughter of the King.
But when he proposed to lay the matter before the Council,
Charles hastily exclaimed, no, not even before my brother. It
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would only create alarm, and may perhaps put the design
of murdering me into the head of some individual who
would not otherwise have thought of it. Oates did not
intend the matter to drop. Thus he took means to
compel public attention to his pretended discoveries by going to
a city magistrate Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, and making a deposition
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on oath of the particulars which the King had received
so coolly, and added a list of persons whom he
denounced as conspirators. Among the rest was a person of
the name of Coleman, lately secretary to the Duchess of York.
Sir Edmundbury Godfrey was Coleman's friend, and kindly wrote to
give him warning of what was in agitation against him,
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a proceeding not very likely to incur the ill will
of the Roman Catholics. Coleman told the Duke, who immediately
perceived that some deep laid scheme was in agitation against him,
and urged the King to investigate the matter to the bottom.
Oates was now summoned before the Council, who repeated the
depositions he had made before Godfrey, with the addition that
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the Jesus were determined to kill not only the King
but the Duke of York if he should prove unwilling
to join the plot, and that they had received from
pere Lache, the French King's confessor, a donation of ten
thousand pounds, and from de Corduba, the provincial of New
Castile the promise of a similar sum to be expended
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on this undertaking. The Duke of York pronounced the whole
to be an imprudent and absurd fabrication. The King desiredared
Oaates to describe the person of Don John of Austria,
with whom he pretended to have conferred at Madrid. He
replied that he was a tall, spare and swarthy man.
The royal brothers looked at each other and smiled, for
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both were acquainted with Don John and knew him to
be a little, fat, fair man with blue eyes. Charles
asked him next where he saw La Chaise pay down
the ten thousand pounds in the house of the Jesuits
close to the Louver, replied Oates, forgetting the intimate acquaintance
of the monarch with the localities of Paris and its palaces,
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Man exclaimed the King, the Jesuits have no house within
a mile of the Louver. Oates had now committed himself
sufficiently to destroy his own credit in any court of justice.
But the guilty practices of Coleman, who had been for
years a secret spy and pensioner of France, were brought
to light by his arrest and the investigation of his papers.
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Coleman was actually in correspondence with Lachaise, from whom a
letter was found offering for his master to furnish him
with twenty thousand pounds to be employed by him and
his friends for the service of France and the interests
of the Roman Church. While Coleman was thus receiving the
wages of France, he had been discharged from the service
of the Duchess of York for writing seditious letters and
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newspapers attacking the Jesuits and the French, for all which
he was highly caressed by the Whigs, who considered him
as one of their party. He appears to have been
one of those persons of whom there were too many
at that time, who made a trade of agitation and
sold himself to all parties. In turn, he was tried, convicted,
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and executed for his misdemeanors on the third of December following.
In the meantime, the King chose to go to Newmarket
and pursue his pleasures there, in spite of the entreaties
of his brother and every person of common sense for
him to remain at Whitehall and sift the matter thoroughly
to the bottom before Parliament met, persuaded the indolent Sardana Paulus,
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his master, to leave it to his management and go
recreate himself with the autumnal sports. Charles went, and during
his absence Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, the magistrate before whom Oates
had made his depositions, left his house one morning, and
his body was found after five days in a dry
ditch on Primrose Hill, transfixed with his own sword. The
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Duke of York, little foreseeing that this circumstance was hereafter
to form the foundation of a most absurd accusation against himself,
gives the following brief outline of the occurrence in a
letter to his son in law, the Prince of Orange,
on the subject of the plot. There is another thing happened,
which is that a justice of peace, one Sir Edmundbury Godfrey,
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was missing some days, suspected by several circumstances, very probable
ones to design them, making himself away. Yesterday his body
was found in a by place in the fields, some
two or three miles off, with his own sword run
through him. This makes a great noise and is laid
on the Catholics also, but without any reason for it,
for he was known to be far from an enemy
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to them. The death of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey has generally
been attributed to his own act from constitutional and hereditary melancholy,
his father having destroyed himself during a fit of mental despondency.
But considering the use that was made of it by
the incendiaries engaged in the fabrication of the popish plot,
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that it was the hinge on which the whole of
their machinery turned, there is every reason to believe that
the murder was perpetrated by themselves for the purpose of
charging it upon those who were marked out for their victims.
There is a passage in the notebook of an eminent civilian,
the Lord Keeper North, who was an acute observer of
the proceedings of Oates and his supporters, which leaves no
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doubt as to his opinion of the matter. Godfrey's murder,
says he they shall control as a stratagem of mischief.
The funeral of the unfortunate magistrate was conducted more like
a theatrical pageant than a Christian rite. Nothing was omitted
that could create tragic excitement and kindle the indignation of
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the populace against his alleged murderers the Roman Catholics, no
one pausing to inquire what persons of that persuasion had
to gain by so useless a crime, a vague suspicion
of which drew upon them. One of those terrible outbursts
of public fury, such as in former ages, was occasionally
excited against the Jews, when a pretense was required to
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plunder and annoy them. The absurd statements of Oats were
received with eager credulity by all ranks, and those who
presumed to question them were regarded in the light of accomplices.
The business of life was interrupted by confusion, panic, clamor,
and dreadful rumors. The King offered a reward of five
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hundred pounds for the dis discovery of the murderer of Godfrey, and,
notwithstanding his own conviction that the whole was a monstrous fabrication,
had not the moral courage to stem the torrent of
popular delusion. At the opening of the session of Parliament,
he called the attention of the House to the alleged
popish plot. Danby had now gained his point. His impeachment
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was averted by the astute policy with which he had
substituted this new and marvelous affair for the discussion of Parliament.
It was seized on with advidity. Oaths was sent for
his impudent falsehoods were listened to, and things possible and
impossible received as gospel. The higher tools of the King
of France, on the one hand, were there rejoicing in
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the destruction which they had paid for fomenting, and the
creatures of the Prince of Orange, on the other, working
to effect the exclusion of the Duke of York by
means of the no Popery cry that was now so
successfully ringing from one end of England to the other.
Danby now fancied that he should weather out the storm,
and that by crying out against popery, he should pass
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for a pillar of the church and ward off the
blow which he foresaw was falling on his shoulders. But
my Lord Shaftesbury, who soon found out his drifts, said,
let the Treasurer cry as loud as he pleases against popery,
and think to put himself at the head of the plot.
I cry a note louder, and soon take his place.
Shaftesbury had hitherto been felt but not seen in the business,
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his proceedings resembling those of the spider that lurks Purdue
in some dark chink of the wall, over which she
has stealthily woven her web, and never permits herself to
be visible till she can dart on her prey. Before
Parliament had sat a week, he got a committee appointed
for the investigation of the plot, and made himself the
directing power by which everything was managed. Oates was then
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rewarded with a pension of twelve hundred pounds a year
for his information, and encouraged to denounce every Catholic peer
whose abilities or influence would be likely to oppose his
designs against the Queen and the Duke of York as
concerned in the plot. It was in consequence of these
denunciations that all Roman Catholic peers were deprived of their
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seats in Parliament. The first week in November saw a
new actor in the farce, now fast progressing to a
tragedy of the most extensive and bloody character. An oft
convicted and punished felon of the name of Bedloe, newly
discharged from Newgate, tempted by the idea of obtaining the
reward of five hundred pounds offered by the Royal Proclamation
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for the discovery of the murderers of Sir Edmundbury. Godfrey
swore that the murder was committed by the Queen's popish
servants at Somerset House, that he was stifled between two
pillows by the Jesuits Walsh and la Fever, with the
aid of Lord Bellassie's gentlemen and one of the waiters
in the Queen's chapel. He added that he saw the
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body there, laying on the Queen's backstairs, that it lay
there two days, and he was offered two thousand guineas
to assist in removing it, and that at last it
was removed at nine o'clock on Monday night by some
of the Queen's people. Four days afterwards. He deposed that
in the beginning of October he was offered four thousand
pounds to commit a murder. That Godfrey was in wiggled
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into the court at Somerset House about five o'clock in
the afternoon, when the murder was committed, not as he
had first sworn, by stifling him with pillows, but by
strangling with a linen cravat. The King was indignant at
these impudent statements, which were aimed against the Queen's life,
as she was then residing at Somerset House. But luckily
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he was himself a witness of her innocence and of
the falsehood of the tale, as he visited her majesty
that day, and was with her at the very hour
name by the perjurer as that when the murder was perpetrated,
and which must have been instantly discovered, because a company
of foot guards were drawn out and sentinels placed at
every door. Bedloe pointed out the room to the Duke
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of Monmouth, where he pretended the courts of the murdered
man was carried, and that he saw standing round it
the four murderers, and Atkins clerk to mister Peeps of
the Admiralty. But this was as it happened. The waiting
room appropriated to the use of the Queen's footmen, who
were there in waiting all day long, and all her
Majesty's meals were brought through by no other way. Yet
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even these self evident contradictions did not convince the public
of the falsehood and wickedness of the impostor grave legislators
listened with apparent credulity to tales of invading armies of
Pilgrims and friars coming over from Spain to cut all
Protestant throats, and even armies of papists underground that were
already under arms, to break forth at the proper moment
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and kill everyone who would not conform to their dogmas.
It was now evident that the death of Sir Edmundbury
Godfrey was to be charged upon the Queen. Though the
first attack was made on her priests and servants. Her
birthday was however, celebrated with more than ordinary splendor. This
year I never saw the court more brave, says Evelyn,
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nor the nation in more apprehension and consternation. The jails
were crowded with prisoners who were arrested on the informations
of Oats as accomplices in the plot. A feverish excitement
pervaded all ranks of the people in the expectation of
fresh discoveries, and their thirst for the marvelous was duly
fed by pamphlets and announcements in the newspapers calculated to
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increase the delusion and inflame the national Mania. The supporters
of Oates, who were chiefly to be found among the
Republican party, held councils for carrying on their designs at
the King's head, in Fleet Street and other places. They
also had their dark cobbles and associations in city and country,
where they invented news and libels, and with that success
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that in twenty four hours they could entirely possess the
city with what reports they pleased, and in less than
a week spread them over the kingdom. The perilous crisis,
when the lives of the Queen, the Duke of York
and all their servants hung on the same fragile thread,
which the next breath might sever, a coolness arose between them.
On the following grounds. The King had been compelled to
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issue a proclamation for banishing priests, on which it was
moved in council that those attached to the household of
the Duchess of York might be accepted as well as
those belonging to the Queen. This was negative, it being
too dangerous to make such an exception, but it was
suggested that those ecclesiastics might be added to Her Majesty's list. Catherine,
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who knew she had more priests of her own than
was at all safe at that juncture, refused to sanction
this subterviuge, although both the King and Duke requested her
to consent to the arrangement. The Duke and Duchess were
offended at her non compliance, but she acted with far
greater friendship in refusing to aid them in evading the
mandate published in the King's Proclamation than if she had
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obliged them by a compliance, which would doubtless have involved
both herself and the Duchess in the most imminent danger.
Surrounded as Catherine was at this time by spies and bloodhounds,
one false or even doubtful step would have thrown her
into their toils. But the truthfulness and simplicity of her
character was her best defense against their malice. She had
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no guilt to conceal, and by walking in the broad
light of day, she avoided all cause of suspicion, so
that when she was charged with practicing against the life
of her royal husband, there was a witness in her favor,
in the heart of every honest man who knew her
that attested her innocence. Oates grew so presumptuous, says Evelyn,
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as to accuse the queen of a design to poison
the King, which certainly that pious and virtuous lady abhorred.
The thoughts of and Oates's circumstances made it utterly unlikely.
In my opinion, he probably thought to gratify some who
would have been glad his majesty should have married a
fruitful lady. However, the King was too kind a husband
to let any of these make impression on him. Evelyn,
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when he made this observation in his private diary, was
probably unconscious of the manner in which his opinion was
verified by the following fact. Doctor Tong, on the twenty
third of October, sent one of his confederates, Missus Elliot,
the wife of a gambling gentleman of the King's bed chamber,
to solicit a private audience for Oates, on the grounds
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that he wished to communicate some important secret information against
the Queen, tending to implicate her in the plot. Perceiving
that this intimation was received by the King with tokens
of impatience and displeasure, she had the boldness to tell
him that she thought his majesty would have been glad
to have parted with the Queen on any terms. I
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will never suffer an innocent lady to be oppressed, was
Charles's indignant reply to the base emissary of those who,
presuming on his ill conduct as a husband, had dared
to insult him with a propos of assisting in a
conspiracy against the life of his ill treated Consort Catherine's
unpopular religion, her numerous ecclesiastical establishment, her chapels at Saint
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James's and Somerset House, and her endeavors to reserve all
the preferments in her own household for persons of her
own faith, had always been displeasing to the people, and
therefore any attack on her, it was supposed, would expose
her to their fury. At a moment when their passions
and prejudices had been excited to a degree of blind
ferocity by the marvelous fictions of the originators of the plot.
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The avowed devotion of the Duke of York to the
tenants of the Church of Rome had alarmed the Timorus
and offended the bold of the Reformed faith. Those who
venerated his father as a martyr were disposed to look
upon him as an apostate, and to consider that the
evil communications of the Popish Queen had been the cause
of seducing him from his former attachment to the Church
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of England. In Portugal, the whole credit of his conversion
was given to Catherine of Bragonza, and it is to
this day emblazoned as one of her good deeds in
the chronicles of that country. In such different lights do
national feelings and strong prejudices inculcated by education teach persons
to look upon the same thing. Catherine had, however, nothing
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to do with the change in the Duke of York's creed.
She never possessed the slightest influence over his mind. Neither
does it appear that there was any increase of friendship
between her and him in consequence of his Catholicism. She
would not relinquish her chapel at Saint James's Palace to
his young Duchess Mary of Modina, and she passionately resented
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the attentions which a mistaken and unworthy policy induced the
Duke to allow his innocent consort to pay to the
Duchess of Portsmouth. Yet the faction that was bent on
excluding that prince from the regal succession treated the Queen
as if her want of children were a crime on
her part and had been actually contrived between her and
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Clarendon to secure the throne to the Duke of York
and his progeny. The secluded manner in which Catherine had
been living apart from the King in her dower palace
at Somerset House while the Duchess of Portsmouth was queening
it at Whitehall, and her apparently neglected and defenseless condition,
had encouraged Oates and Bedloe to mark her out as
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an easy victim, on the supposition that Charles would be
glad of an opportunity of playing Henry the Eighth and
would give her up to the vengeance of that party
whose malice she had excited by refusing to become their
tool in political agitation. Oates now deposed on oath before
the King and Council that in the preceding July he
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saw a letter in which it was affirmed by Sir
George Wakeman, the Queen's Catholic physician, that her Majesty had
been brought to give her assent to the murder of
the King that subsequently won Sir Richard or Sir Robert
of Somerset House, evidently pointing at Sir Richard Bellings. The
Queen Secretary came with a message from Her Majesty for
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certain Jesuits to attend her, with whom one day in
August he went to Somerset House for no other purpose,
as it should appear, than to be made an unnecessary
witness of their high and horrible designs. They went into
Her Majesty's closet, leaving him in the ante chamber, the
door of which these clever plotters were so obliging as
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to leave ajar in order to enable him to hear
the discourse which he pretended pass between them and the Queen.
He said he heard a female voice exclaim, I will
no longer suffer such indignities to my bed. I am
content to join in procuring his death and the propagation
of the Catholic faith, and that she would assist Sir
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George Wakeman in poisoning the King. He added that when
the Jesuits came out, he requested to see the Queen,
and had, as he believed, a gracious smile of Her Majesty,
And while he within, he heard the Queen ask Father
Harcourt whether he had received the last ten thousand pounds,
and as far as he could judge, it was the
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same voice which he had heard when he was in
the ante room, and he saw no other woman there
but the Queen. Charles, who knew that every tittle of
this tale was false, insisted on his describing the room
in ante chamber where he pretended he had overheard the
Queen hold this discourse with the priest Oates, who was
not acquainted with the private apartments of her majesty in
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Somerset House, merely describe one of the public reception rooms.
Those who knew the relative situation of the Queen's closet
and privy chamber were aware that it was impossible for
him to have heard anything the Queen had spoken there,
unless she had exerted the utmost power of her lungs
to make her treasons audible to the whole palace, or,
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to use Burnet's elegant phraseology, had strained for it. For
the Queen says he was a low voiced woman, a
point in her face as contributing to exonerate her from
this murderous aspersion, and also as being a feminine charm,
commended by Shakespeare as an excellent thing in woman. The
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King considered that Oates had entirely committed himself by this
local blunder, but then came Bedloe to confirm the slander
by swearing that he too had been witness of a
conference between the Queen and two French priests in the
presence of Lord Belsis Coleman, and some Jesuits in the
gallery of her chapel at Somerset House. While he stood below.
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He was informed by Coleman that at this conference the
project of murdering the King was first propounded to the Queen,
and that at the first mention of it she burst
into tears, but that her objections had been overcome by
the arguments of the French Jesuits, and she had reluctantly
signified her consent. He was asked why he had not
(30:53):
disclosed such a perilous matter in conjunction with his previous
information touching the murder of Sir e Godfrey, to which
he coolly replied it had escaped his memory in pursuance
of his determined attack on the life of the Queen.
Oates proceeded to depose that at first ten thousand pounds
was offered to Sir George Wakeman in his presence to
(31:15):
bribe him to the murder of the King, which he refused,
saying it was too little for so great a work.
Then five thousand pounds more was offered and accepted, and
he signed a receipt to Father Harcourt for five thousand
pounds paid in advance. It was pretended that Wakeman was
to prepare the poison and Catherine to administer it to
(31:36):
the King. This murderous calumny on the innocent Queen is
thus indignantly noticed by Dryden in his famous political poem
Absalom and Achittephel, in which she is designated by the
name of Michael. Such was the charge on pious Michael
brought Michael, that ne'er was cruel. E'en, in thought the
(31:57):
best of Queen's, the most obedient wife, impeached of cursed
designs on David's life. His life. The theme of her
eternal prayer tis scarce so much his guardian Angel's care.
Not summer mourns, but mildness can disclose the Hermann Lily
and the Sharon Rose, neglecting each vain pomp of her
majesty transported Michael feeds her thoughts. On high, she lives
(32:20):
with angels, and, as angels do, quits heaven, sometimes to
bless the world below, where cherished by her bounty's plenteous spring,
reviving widow's smile and orphans sing. End of Section twenty
nine
Section twenty nine of the Lives of the Queens of England,
Volume eight by Agnes and Elizabeth Strickland. This LibriVox recording
is in the public domain. Catherine of Bergonza, Chapter three,
Part one. The arrival of the King's nephew, William, Prince
of Orange, caused more than ordinary festivities in the court.
(00:22):
In the autumn of sixteen seventy seven. Queen Catherine was
present at the marriage of that prince with the Princess Mary,
eldest daughter of the Duke of York, which was celebrated
at Whitehall on the fourth of November. The Queen's birthday
was kept that year on the fifteenth instead of the
twenty fifth of that month, because the departure of the
newly wedded pair was appointed for the twenty first. A
(00:45):
very splendid ball was given on that occasion, both on
account of Her Majesty's anniversary commemoration and in honor of
the recent nuptials of the royal cousins. They both danced,
but the ill humor and ungracious deportment of the bridegroom
and the evident distress of the youthful bride cast an
unwonted gloom over the entertainment. Catherine, who had known the
(01:07):
Princess Mary almost from the day of her birth and
regarded her with the affection of an aunt, felt great
compassion for her when she came, bathed in tears to
take her leave previously to her embarkation for Holland. The
sight of her grief doubtless recalled to the queen's mind
her own feelings on bidding a long ado to her
own country and friends, and she reminded the weeping bride
(01:30):
that such was the lot of royalty, and that she
had herself experienced a similar trial when she came to England,
where she was a stranger to every one and had
not even seen the King. Her husband, Mary, who thought
no sorrow like her sorrow, petulantly replied, but Madam, you
came into England and I am leaving England. Catherine of
(01:52):
Bergonza had little reason to rejoice in the destiny that
had conducted her to this country, for never had any queen,
with the exception of Anne of Cleaves, been treated more injuriously,
both by the sovereign and his ministers. Her case was
at this period worse than it had ever been before,
For the King had for the last five years wholly
withdrawn himself from her company, so that they rarely met
(02:16):
except in public, and had ceased to occupy the same apartment.
The cause of this virtual separation may doubtless be traced
to the increasing infatuation of the King for the Duchess
of Portsmouth and the machinations of Shaftesbury, who, although he
had been unable to obtain Charles's sanction for a parliamentary divorce,
(02:36):
was pertinacious in his determination to effect the ruin of
the Queen. He had injured Catherine too deeply to allow
her to remain in peaceful possession of the name of
Queen Consort and the few privileges she retained. His hatred
of the Duke of York was a still more active principle,
and his desire of depriving that prince of the succession
(02:57):
to the crown urged him into incessant ada attempts either
to dissolve or invalidate the marriage of the King with
the childless Catherine, relying on Charles's parental fondness for his
illegitimate offspring, which on many occasions betrayed him into the
inconsistent acts of folly. He one day had the audacity
to tell his majesty that if he would but say
(03:20):
he had been married to the mother of the Duke
of Monmouth, he would find those that would swear it.
The last lingering spark of honor, and all the pride
of Charles's nature revolted at the idea not only of
being considered the husband of so abandoned a woman as
Lucy Walters, but of avowing himself as an unprincipled bigamoust nay,
(03:41):
subborning false witness to establish him as such by a
series of perjuries for the purpose of depriving his brother
of his rightful place in the regal succession, invalidating his
own marriage with his lawful wife, and imposing a surreptitious
air on his people. I would rather see James hanged
up at Tyburn than entertained. Such a thought, was his
(04:02):
indignant reply to the insulting proposal. Charles proved his sincerity
by taking the earliest opportunity of ridding himself of his
subtle temper. In this he acted on the advice of
Holy Writ resists the devil, and he will flee from you.
But it was not in his power to fight manfully
against evil. His own paths were crooked, and of course
(04:24):
those persons who had once been in his councils became
the most dangerous of his enemies. Shaftesbury, who on account
of his frequent changes of party, bore the nickname of
my Lord Shiftsbury, was speedily transformed by his loss of
office from the master fiend of the cabinet into the
master fiend of the opposition. He was a man alike,
(04:45):
devoid of honor and religion. His ruling passions were ambition
and revenge. Little doubt now exists that the bugbear called
the Popish plot was got up by his emissaries for
the purpose of effecting the destruction of the Queen and
the Duke of York, he having vainly labored for nearly
ten years to annul the marriage of the one and
(05:05):
to rob the other of his rightful place in the succession.
The details of this complicated tissue of iniquity would occupy
a folio, and can only be briefly sketched. The infamy
of the characters of Titus Oates, Bedloe, and in fact
of every person who came forward in the shape of
informers and witnesses to swear away the lives of a
(05:26):
great number of innocent victims has been acknowledged by every
historian of integrity, and stands forth so palpably in the
state trials and journals of the House of Lords, that
it is needless to dwell on them further than as
connected with the audacious attempts to fix the charges of
high treason and murder on Queen Catherine and her servants.
(05:47):
On the thirteenth of August sixteen seventy eight, Charles the
Second was about to take a walk in the park
when a person of the name of Kirby stepped forward
and begged his majesty not to separate from the company,
as his life was in danger. Charles, being a stranger
to personal fear, took no notice of this warning. He had, however,
(06:07):
some personal knowledge of Kirby, who had been employed to
work in his laboratory. For among his various pursuits, Charles
the Second had a taste for experimental chemistry. Kirby was
a ruined speculator of plausible manners, engaged with Oats and
Tom Titus. Oates was the son of an Anabaptist weaver
and preacher, but on the restoration was ordained a minister
(06:31):
of the Church of England, from which he was expelled
for his crimes. He took refuge in the Church of
Rome and studied at Via Dolid. His misdoings caused his
expulsion from that college, but on professions of great repentance,
he was admitted into the seminary of Saint Omer, whence
he was, however, finally driven with disgrace for his bad conduct.
(06:52):
He returned to England and applied for relief to one
of his old companions, doctor Tong, the rector of Saint
Michael Would Street, the editor of a quarterly polemic periodical. Tong,
who had been accustomed to appeal by many marvelous tales
of blood and terror to the passions of the vulgar,
found Oates a valuable ally, for his powers of invention
(07:15):
were singular, and he had acquired a knowledge of conventual
habits and many other technicalities connected with the Rummish Church,
which gave a tone of reality to his fictions. While
at Saint Omer, Oates had discovered that a private meeting
of the Jesuits was held in London in April. This
was the Triennial convocation of the order. But with the
(07:36):
aid of Tong, he on this slight foundation built a
story of a secret meeting of the Roman Catholics, at
which a conspiracy was organized for the murder of the King,
a second conflagration of London, and the destruction of the
Protestant religion. Tong, having written and prepared a narrative setting
this forth in a business like form, directed Kirby to
(07:57):
accost the King as related and refer his Majesty to
him for further information. In the evening, he obtained an
audience and presented his narrative. Charles regarded it as a fabrication, and,
being mightily bored with its details, to save himself from
further trouble, refer the matter to the Lord Treasurer Danby,
and went off the next day to Windsor to hold
(08:20):
his court for the first time since the new alterations
and improvements to the castle, being impatient to witness the
effect of the fresco paintings of Verrio and the wood
carvings of Grimly Gibbon with which it was decorated. Danby
was at that time under the apprehension of being impeached
of high treason at the approaching meeting of Parliament for
(08:41):
his ministerial conduct, and being well aware that his proceedings
would not bear the stern investigation of the leaders of
the opposition, he was eager to divert the attention of
the House to some other object of attack than his
own piccadillios. Nothing could be more pat to his purpose
than the popular bugbear of a pope plot, certain as
(09:01):
it was to influence vulgar prejudice against the Duke of York,
of whom he was a concealed foe. Accordingly, with all
the selfish cunning of his nature, he made the most
wild tales of the informers, and insisted on their importance
with a vehemence that excited the laughter of the King.
But when he proposed to lay the matter before the Council,
Charles hastily exclaimed, no, not even before my brother. It
(09:26):
would only create alarm, and may perhaps put the design
of murdering me into the head of some individual who
would not otherwise have thought of it. Oates did not
intend the matter to drop. Thus he took means to
compel public attention to his pretended discoveries by going to
a city magistrate Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, and making a deposition
(09:48):
on oath of the particulars which the King had received
so coolly, and added a list of persons whom he
denounced as conspirators. Among the rest was a person of
the name of Coleman, lately secretary to the Duchess of York.
Sir Edmundbury Godfrey was Coleman's friend, and kindly wrote to
give him warning of what was in agitation against him,
(10:10):
a proceeding not very likely to incur the ill will
of the Roman Catholics. Coleman told the Duke, who immediately
perceived that some deep laid scheme was in agitation against him,
and urged the King to investigate the matter to the bottom.
Oates was now summoned before the Council, who repeated the
depositions he had made before Godfrey, with the addition that
(10:31):
the Jesus were determined to kill not only the King
but the Duke of York if he should prove unwilling
to join the plot, and that they had received from
pere Lache, the French King's confessor, a donation of ten
thousand pounds, and from de Corduba, the provincial of New
Castile the promise of a similar sum to be expended
(10:52):
on this undertaking. The Duke of York pronounced the whole
to be an imprudent and absurd fabrication. The King desiredared
Oaates to describe the person of Don John of Austria,
with whom he pretended to have conferred at Madrid. He
replied that he was a tall, spare and swarthy man.
The royal brothers looked at each other and smiled, for
(11:14):
both were acquainted with Don John and knew him to
be a little, fat, fair man with blue eyes. Charles
asked him next where he saw La Chaise pay down
the ten thousand pounds in the house of the Jesuits
close to the Louver, replied Oates, forgetting the intimate acquaintance
of the monarch with the localities of Paris and its palaces,
(11:35):
Man exclaimed the King, the Jesuits have no house within
a mile of the Louver. Oates had now committed himself
sufficiently to destroy his own credit in any court of justice.
But the guilty practices of Coleman, who had been for
years a secret spy and pensioner of France, were brought
to light by his arrest and the investigation of his papers.
(11:57):
Coleman was actually in correspondence with Lachaise, from whom a
letter was found offering for his master to furnish him
with twenty thousand pounds to be employed by him and
his friends for the service of France and the interests
of the Roman Church. While Coleman was thus receiving the
wages of France, he had been discharged from the service
of the Duchess of York for writing seditious letters and
(12:20):
newspapers attacking the Jesuits and the French, for all which
he was highly caressed by the Whigs, who considered him
as one of their party. He appears to have been
one of those persons of whom there were too many
at that time, who made a trade of agitation and
sold himself to all parties. In turn, he was tried, convicted,
(12:41):
and executed for his misdemeanors on the third of December following.
In the meantime, the King chose to go to Newmarket
and pursue his pleasures there, in spite of the entreaties
of his brother and every person of common sense for
him to remain at Whitehall and sift the matter thoroughly
to the bottom before Parliament met, persuaded the indolent Sardana Paulus,
(13:02):
his master, to leave it to his management and go
recreate himself with the autumnal sports. Charles went, and during
his absence Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, the magistrate before whom Oates
had made his depositions, left his house one morning, and
his body was found after five days in a dry
ditch on Primrose Hill, transfixed with his own sword. The
(13:25):
Duke of York, little foreseeing that this circumstance was hereafter
to form the foundation of a most absurd accusation against himself,
gives the following brief outline of the occurrence in a
letter to his son in law, the Prince of Orange,
on the subject of the plot. There is another thing happened,
which is that a justice of peace, one Sir Edmundbury Godfrey,
(13:48):
was missing some days, suspected by several circumstances, very probable
ones to design them, making himself away. Yesterday his body
was found in a by place in the fields, some
two or three miles off, with his own sword run
through him. This makes a great noise and is laid
on the Catholics also, but without any reason for it,
for he was known to be far from an enemy
(14:10):
to them. The death of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey has generally
been attributed to his own act from constitutional and hereditary melancholy,
his father having destroyed himself during a fit of mental despondency.
But considering the use that was made of it by
the incendiaries engaged in the fabrication of the popish plot,
(14:30):
that it was the hinge on which the whole of
their machinery turned, there is every reason to believe that
the murder was perpetrated by themselves for the purpose of
charging it upon those who were marked out for their victims.
There is a passage in the notebook of an eminent civilian,
the Lord Keeper North, who was an acute observer of
the proceedings of Oates and his supporters, which leaves no
(14:53):
doubt as to his opinion of the matter. Godfrey's murder,
says he they shall control as a stratagem of mischief.
The funeral of the unfortunate magistrate was conducted more like
a theatrical pageant than a Christian rite. Nothing was omitted
that could create tragic excitement and kindle the indignation of
(15:15):
the populace against his alleged murderers the Roman Catholics, no
one pausing to inquire what persons of that persuasion had
to gain by so useless a crime, a vague suspicion
of which drew upon them. One of those terrible outbursts
of public fury, such as in former ages, was occasionally
excited against the Jews, when a pretense was required to
(15:37):
plunder and annoy them. The absurd statements of Oats were
received with eager credulity by all ranks, and those who
presumed to question them were regarded in the light of accomplices.
The business of life was interrupted by confusion, panic, clamor,
and dreadful rumors. The King offered a reward of five
(15:58):
hundred pounds for the dis discovery of the murderer of Godfrey, and,
notwithstanding his own conviction that the whole was a monstrous fabrication,
had not the moral courage to stem the torrent of
popular delusion. At the opening of the session of Parliament,
he called the attention of the House to the alleged
popish plot. Danby had now gained his point. His impeachment
(16:20):
was averted by the astute policy with which he had
substituted this new and marvelous affair for the discussion of Parliament.
It was seized on with advidity. Oaths was sent for
his impudent falsehoods were listened to, and things possible and
impossible received as gospel. The higher tools of the King
of France, on the one hand, were there rejoicing in
(16:42):
the destruction which they had paid for fomenting, and the
creatures of the Prince of Orange, on the other, working
to effect the exclusion of the Duke of York by
means of the no Popery cry that was now so
successfully ringing from one end of England to the other.
Danby now fancied that he should weather out the storm,
and that by crying out against popery, he should pass
(17:03):
for a pillar of the church and ward off the
blow which he foresaw was falling on his shoulders. But
my Lord Shaftesbury, who soon found out his drifts, said,
let the Treasurer cry as loud as he pleases against popery,
and think to put himself at the head of the plot.
I cry a note louder, and soon take his place.
Shaftesbury had hitherto been felt but not seen in the business,
(17:27):
his proceedings resembling those of the spider that lurks Purdue
in some dark chink of the wall, over which she
has stealthily woven her web, and never permits herself to
be visible till she can dart on her prey. Before
Parliament had sat a week, he got a committee appointed
for the investigation of the plot, and made himself the
directing power by which everything was managed. Oates was then
(17:50):
rewarded with a pension of twelve hundred pounds a year
for his information, and encouraged to denounce every Catholic peer
whose abilities or influence would be likely to oppose his
designs against the Queen and the Duke of York as
concerned in the plot. It was in consequence of these
denunciations that all Roman Catholic peers were deprived of their
(18:12):
seats in Parliament. The first week in November saw a
new actor in the farce, now fast progressing to a
tragedy of the most extensive and bloody character. An oft
convicted and punished felon of the name of Bedloe, newly
discharged from Newgate, tempted by the idea of obtaining the
reward of five hundred pounds offered by the Royal Proclamation
(18:34):
for the discovery of the murderers of Sir Edmundbury. Godfrey
swore that the murder was committed by the Queen's popish
servants at Somerset House, that he was stifled between two
pillows by the Jesuits Walsh and la Fever, with the
aid of Lord Bellassie's gentlemen and one of the waiters
in the Queen's chapel. He added that he saw the
(18:56):
body there, laying on the Queen's backstairs, that it lay
there two days, and he was offered two thousand guineas
to assist in removing it, and that at last it
was removed at nine o'clock on Monday night by some
of the Queen's people. Four days afterwards. He deposed that
in the beginning of October he was offered four thousand
pounds to commit a murder. That Godfrey was in wiggled
(19:18):
into the court at Somerset House about five o'clock in
the afternoon, when the murder was committed, not as he
had first sworn, by stifling him with pillows, but by
strangling with a linen cravat. The King was indignant at
these impudent statements, which were aimed against the Queen's life,
as she was then residing at Somerset House. But luckily
(19:39):
he was himself a witness of her innocence and of
the falsehood of the tale, as he visited her majesty
that day, and was with her at the very hour
name by the perjurer as that when the murder was perpetrated,
and which must have been instantly discovered, because a company
of foot guards were drawn out and sentinels placed at
every door. Bedloe pointed out the room to the Duke
(20:00):
of Monmouth, where he pretended the courts of the murdered
man was carried, and that he saw standing round it
the four murderers, and Atkins clerk to mister Peeps of
the Admiralty. But this was as it happened. The waiting
room appropriated to the use of the Queen's footmen, who
were there in waiting all day long, and all her
Majesty's meals were brought through by no other way. Yet
(20:23):
even these self evident contradictions did not convince the public
of the falsehood and wickedness of the impostor grave legislators
listened with apparent credulity to tales of invading armies of
Pilgrims and friars coming over from Spain to cut all
Protestant throats, and even armies of papists underground that were
already under arms, to break forth at the proper moment
(20:45):
and kill everyone who would not conform to their dogmas.
It was now evident that the death of Sir Edmundbury
Godfrey was to be charged upon the Queen. Though the
first attack was made on her priests and servants. Her
birthday was however, celebrated with more than ordinary splendor. This
year I never saw the court more brave, says Evelyn,
(21:06):
nor the nation in more apprehension and consternation. The jails
were crowded with prisoners who were arrested on the informations
of Oats as accomplices in the plot. A feverish excitement
pervaded all ranks of the people in the expectation of
fresh discoveries, and their thirst for the marvelous was duly
fed by pamphlets and announcements in the newspapers calculated to
(21:28):
increase the delusion and inflame the national Mania. The supporters
of Oates, who were chiefly to be found among the
Republican party, held councils for carrying on their designs at
the King's head, in Fleet Street and other places. They
also had their dark cobbles and associations in city and country,
where they invented news and libels, and with that success
(21:50):
that in twenty four hours they could entirely possess the
city with what reports they pleased, and in less than
a week spread them over the kingdom. The perilous crisis,
when the lives of the Queen, the Duke of York
and all their servants hung on the same fragile thread,
which the next breath might sever, a coolness arose between them.
On the following grounds. The King had been compelled to
(22:14):
issue a proclamation for banishing priests, on which it was
moved in council that those attached to the household of
the Duchess of York might be accepted as well as
those belonging to the Queen. This was negative, it being
too dangerous to make such an exception, but it was
suggested that those ecclesiastics might be added to Her Majesty's list. Catherine,
(22:35):
who knew she had more priests of her own than
was at all safe at that juncture, refused to sanction
this subterviuge, although both the King and Duke requested her
to consent to the arrangement. The Duke and Duchess were
offended at her non compliance, but she acted with far
greater friendship in refusing to aid them in evading the
mandate published in the King's Proclamation than if she had
(22:58):
obliged them by a compliance, which would doubtless have involved
both herself and the Duchess in the most imminent danger.
Surrounded as Catherine was at this time by spies and bloodhounds,
one false or even doubtful step would have thrown her
into their toils. But the truthfulness and simplicity of her
character was her best defense against their malice. She had
(23:19):
no guilt to conceal, and by walking in the broad
light of day, she avoided all cause of suspicion, so
that when she was charged with practicing against the life
of her royal husband, there was a witness in her favor,
in the heart of every honest man who knew her
that attested her innocence. Oates grew so presumptuous, says Evelyn,
(23:40):
as to accuse the queen of a design to poison
the King, which certainly that pious and virtuous lady abhorred.
The thoughts of and Oates's circumstances made it utterly unlikely.
In my opinion, he probably thought to gratify some who
would have been glad his majesty should have married a
fruitful lady. However, the King was too kind a husband
to let any of these make impression on him. Evelyn,
(24:03):
when he made this observation in his private diary, was
probably unconscious of the manner in which his opinion was
verified by the following fact. Doctor Tong, on the twenty
third of October, sent one of his confederates, Missus Elliot,
the wife of a gambling gentleman of the King's bed chamber,
to solicit a private audience for Oates, on the grounds
(24:25):
that he wished to communicate some important secret information against
the Queen, tending to implicate her in the plot. Perceiving
that this intimation was received by the King with tokens
of impatience and displeasure, she had the boldness to tell
him that she thought his majesty would have been glad
to have parted with the Queen on any terms. I
(24:47):
will never suffer an innocent lady to be oppressed, was
Charles's indignant reply to the base emissary of those who,
presuming on his ill conduct as a husband, had dared
to insult him with a propos of assisting in a
conspiracy against the life of his ill treated Consort Catherine's
unpopular religion, her numerous ecclesiastical establishment, her chapels at Saint
(25:11):
James's and Somerset House, and her endeavors to reserve all
the preferments in her own household for persons of her
own faith, had always been displeasing to the people, and
therefore any attack on her, it was supposed, would expose
her to their fury. At a moment when their passions
and prejudices had been excited to a degree of blind
ferocity by the marvelous fictions of the originators of the plot.
(25:36):
The avowed devotion of the Duke of York to the
tenants of the Church of Rome had alarmed the Timorus
and offended the bold of the Reformed faith. Those who
venerated his father as a martyr were disposed to look
upon him as an apostate, and to consider that the
evil communications of the Popish Queen had been the cause
of seducing him from his former attachment to the Church
(25:57):
of England. In Portugal, the whole credit of his conversion
was given to Catherine of Bragonza, and it is to
this day emblazoned as one of her good deeds in
the chronicles of that country. In such different lights do
national feelings and strong prejudices inculcated by education teach persons
to look upon the same thing. Catherine had, however, nothing
(26:19):
to do with the change in the Duke of York's creed.
She never possessed the slightest influence over his mind. Neither
does it appear that there was any increase of friendship
between her and him in consequence of his Catholicism. She
would not relinquish her chapel at Saint James's Palace to
his young Duchess Mary of Modina, and she passionately resented
(26:40):
the attentions which a mistaken and unworthy policy induced the
Duke to allow his innocent consort to pay to the
Duchess of Portsmouth. Yet the faction that was bent on
excluding that prince from the regal succession treated the Queen
as if her want of children were a crime on
her part and had been actually contrived between her and
(27:00):
Clarendon to secure the throne to the Duke of York
and his progeny. The secluded manner in which Catherine had
been living apart from the King in her dower palace
at Somerset House while the Duchess of Portsmouth was queening
it at Whitehall, and her apparently neglected and defenseless condition,
had encouraged Oates and Bedloe to mark her out as
(27:21):
an easy victim, on the supposition that Charles would be
glad of an opportunity of playing Henry the Eighth and
would give her up to the vengeance of that party
whose malice she had excited by refusing to become their
tool in political agitation. Oates now deposed on oath before
the King and Council that in the preceding July he
(27:42):
saw a letter in which it was affirmed by Sir
George Wakeman, the Queen's Catholic physician, that her Majesty had
been brought to give her assent to the murder of
the King that subsequently won Sir Richard or Sir Robert
of Somerset House, evidently pointing at Sir Richard Bellings. The
Queen Secretary came with a message from Her Majesty for
(28:03):
certain Jesuits to attend her, with whom one day in
August he went to Somerset House for no other purpose,
as it should appear, than to be made an unnecessary
witness of their high and horrible designs. They went into
Her Majesty's closet, leaving him in the ante chamber, the
door of which these clever plotters were so obliging as
(28:25):
to leave ajar in order to enable him to hear
the discourse which he pretended pass between them and the Queen.
He said he heard a female voice exclaim, I will
no longer suffer such indignities to my bed. I am
content to join in procuring his death and the propagation
of the Catholic faith, and that she would assist Sir
(28:47):
George Wakeman in poisoning the King. He added that when
the Jesuits came out, he requested to see the Queen,
and had, as he believed, a gracious smile of Her Majesty,
And while he within, he heard the Queen ask Father
Harcourt whether he had received the last ten thousand pounds,
and as far as he could judge, it was the
(29:08):
same voice which he had heard when he was in
the ante room, and he saw no other woman there
but the Queen. Charles, who knew that every tittle of
this tale was false, insisted on his describing the room
in ante chamber where he pretended he had overheard the
Queen hold this discourse with the priest Oates, who was
not acquainted with the private apartments of her majesty in
(29:30):
Somerset House, merely describe one of the public reception rooms.
Those who knew the relative situation of the Queen's closet
and privy chamber were aware that it was impossible for
him to have heard anything the Queen had spoken there,
unless she had exerted the utmost power of her lungs
to make her treasons audible to the whole palace, or,
(29:50):
to use Burnet's elegant phraseology, had strained for it. For
the Queen says he was a low voiced woman, a
point in her face as contributing to exonerate her from
this murderous aspersion, and also as being a feminine charm,
commended by Shakespeare as an excellent thing in woman. The
(30:11):
King considered that Oates had entirely committed himself by this
local blunder, but then came Bedloe to confirm the slander
by swearing that he too had been witness of a
conference between the Queen and two French priests in the
presence of Lord Belsis Coleman, and some Jesuits in the
gallery of her chapel at Somerset House. While he stood below.
(30:33):
He was informed by Coleman that at this conference the
project of murdering the King was first propounded to the Queen,
and that at the first mention of it she burst
into tears, but that her objections had been overcome by
the arguments of the French Jesuits, and she had reluctantly
signified her consent. He was asked why he had not
(30:53):
disclosed such a perilous matter in conjunction with his previous
information touching the murder of Sir e Godfrey, to which
he coolly replied it had escaped his memory in pursuance
of his determined attack on the life of the Queen.
Oates proceeded to depose that at first ten thousand pounds
was offered to Sir George Wakeman in his presence to
(31:15):
bribe him to the murder of the King, which he refused,
saying it was too little for so great a work.
Then five thousand pounds more was offered and accepted, and
he signed a receipt to Father Harcourt for five thousand
pounds paid in advance. It was pretended that Wakeman was
to prepare the poison and Catherine to administer it to
(31:36):
the King. This murderous calumny on the innocent Queen is
thus indignantly noticed by Dryden in his famous political poem
Absalom and Achittephel, in which she is designated by the
name of Michael. Such was the charge on pious Michael
brought Michael, that ne'er was cruel. E'en, in thought the
(31:57):
best of Queen's, the most obedient wife, impeached of cursed
designs on David's life. His life. The theme of her
eternal prayer tis scarce so much his guardian Angel's care.
Not summer mourns, but mildness can disclose the Hermann Lily
and the Sharon Rose, neglecting each vain pomp of her
majesty transported Michael feeds her thoughts. On high, she lives
(32:20):
with angels, and, as angels do, quits heaven, sometimes to
bless the world below, where cherished by her bounty's plenteous spring,
reviving widow's smile and orphans sing. End of Section twenty
nine
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