dacity to accuse the poor Queen herself of
high treason. Then appeared a third informer, as bad as either of the
two, and accused a Catholic banker named STAYLEY of having said that the
King was the greatest rogue in the world (which would not have been far
from the truth), and that he would kill him with his own hand. This
banker, being at once tried and executed, Coleman and two others were
tried and executed. Then, a miserable wretch named PRANCE, a Catholic
silversmith, being accused by Bedloe, was tortured into confessing that
he had taken part in Godfrey's murder, and into accusing three other men
of having committed it. Then, five Jesuits were accused by Oates,
Bedloe, and Prance together, and were all found guilty, and executed on
the same kind of contradictory and absurd evidence. The Queen's
physician and three monks were next put on their trial; but Oates and
Bedloe had for the time gone far enough and these four were acquitted.
The public mind, however, was so full of a Catholic plot, and so strong
against the Duke of York, that James consented to obey a written order
from his brother, and to go with his family to Brussels, provided that
his rights should never be sacrificed in his absence to the Duke of
Monmouth. The House of Commons, not satisfied with this as the King
hoped, passed a bill to exclude the Duke from ever succeeding to the
throne. In return, the King dissolved the Parliament. He had deserted
his old favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, who was now in the opposition.

To give any sufficient idea of the miseries of Scotland in this merry
reign, would occupy a hundred pages. Because the people would not have
bishops, and were resolved to stand by their solemn League and Covenant,
such cruelties were inflicted upon them as make the blood run cold.
Ferocious dragoons galloped through the country to punish the peasants
for deserting the churches; sons were hanged up at their fathers' doors
for refusing to disclose where their fathers were concealed; wives were
tortured to death for not betraying their husbands; people were taken out
of their fields and gardens, and shot on the public roads without trial;
lighted matches were tied to the fingers of prisoners, and a most
horrible torment called the Boot was invented, and constantly applied,
which ground and mashed the victims' legs with iron wedges. Witnesses
were tortured as well as prisoners. All the prisons were full; all the
gibbets were