ren of results. The massacre of Saint
Bartholomew, the murder of the first William of Orange, the murder of
Henry the Third of France, the numerous conspiracies which had been
formed against the life of Elizabeth, and, above all, the gunpowder
treason, were constantly cited as instances of the close connection
between vicious theory and vicious practice. It was alleged that every
one of these crimes had been prompted or applauded by Roman Catholic
divines. The letters which Everard Digby wrote in lemon juice from the
Tower to his wife had recently been published, and were often quoted.
He was a scholar and a gentleman, upright in all ordinary dealings, and
strongly impressed with a sense of duty to God. Yet he had been deeply
concerned in the plot for blowing up King, Lords, and Commons, and had,
on the brink of eternity, declared that it was incomprehensible to him
how any Roman Catholic should think such a design sinful. The inference
popularly drawn from these things was that, however fair the general
character of a Papist might be, there was no excess of fraud or cruelty
of which he was not capable when the safety and honour of his Church
were at stake.

The extraordinary success of the fables of Oates is to be chiefly
ascribed to the prevalence of this opinion. It was to no purpose that
the accused Roman Catholic appealed to the integrity, humanity, and
loyalty which he had shown through the whole course of his life. It was
to no purpose that he called crowds of respectable witnesses, of his
own persuasion, to contradict monstrous romances invented by the most
infamous of mankind. It was to no purpose that, with the halter round
his neck, he invoked on himself the whole vengeance of the God before
whom, in a few moments, he must appear, if he had been guilty of
meditating any ill to his prince or to his Protestant fellow countrymen.
The evidence which he produced in his favour proved only how little
Popish oaths were worth. His very virtues raised a presumption of his
guilt. That he had before him death and judgment in immediate prospect
only made it more likely that he would deny what, without injury to the
holiest of causes, he could not confess. Among the unhappy men who
were convicted of the murder of Godfrey was one Protestant of no
high character, Henry Berry. It is a remarkable and well attested
circumstance, that Berry's last words did more to shake the credit of
the plot than the dying declarations of all