r than
the rest, represented the Primate. The noise of rockets, squibs, and
firearms, was incessant. One huge pile of faggots blazed right in front
of the great gate of Whitehall. Others were lighted before the doors of
Roman Catholic Peers. Lord Arundell of Wardour wisely quieted the mob
with a little money: but at Salisbury House in the Strand an attempt at
resistance was made. Lord Salisbury's servants sallied out and fired:
but they killed only the unfortunate beadle of the parish, who had come
thither to put out the fire; and they were soon routed and driven back
into the house. None of the spectacles of that night interested the
common people so much as one with which they had, a few years before,
been familiar, and which they now, after a long interval, enjoyed once
more, the burning of the Pope. This once familiar pageant is known to
our generation only by descriptions and engravings. A figure, by no
means resembling those rude representations of Guy Faux which are still
paraded on the fifth of November, but made of wax with some skill, and
adorned at no small expense with robes and a tiara, was mounted on a
chair resembling that in which the Bishops of Rome are still, on some
great festivals, borne through Saint Peter's Church to the high altar.
His Holiness was generally accompanied by a train of Cardinals and
Jesuits. At his ear stood a buffoon disguised as a devil with horns
and tail. No rich and zealous Protestant grudged his guinea on such an
occasion, and, if rumour could be trusted, the cost of the procession
was sometimes not less than a thousand pounds. After the Pope had
been borne some time in state over the heads of the multitude, he was
committed to the flames with loud acclamations. In the time of the
popularity of Oates and Shaftesbury this show was exhibited annually in
Fleet Street before the windows of the Whig Club on the anniversary of
the birth of Queen Elizabeth. Such was the celebrity of these grotesque
rites, that Barillon once risked his life in order to peep at them from
a hiding place. [408] But, from the day when the Rye House Plot was
discovered, till the day of the acquittal of the Bishops, the ceremony
had been disused. Now, however, several Popes made their appearance in
different parts of London. The Nuncio was much shocked; and the King was
more hurt by this insult to his Church than by all the other affronts
which he had received. The magistrates, however, could do nothing. The