were being kindled as they came;
and, at the last, came the great coach, swaying upon its swings, in
which the body was borne.

I craned my head this way and that to see; and, as the coach passed
beneath me, I saw into its interior, and how there lay there, supported
by two men, the figure of another man whose face was covered with a
white cloth.

CHAPTER VII

It would occupy too much space, were I to set down in detail all that
passed between the finding of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey's body, and the
being brought to trial of the Jesuit Fathers. But a brief summary must
be given.

The funeral of Sir Edmund was held three or four days later in St.
Martin's, and the sermon was preached by Dr. Lloyd, his friend, who
spoke from a pulpit guarded by two other thumping divines, lest he
should be murdered by the Papists as he did it. There was a concourse of
people that cannot be imagined; and seventy-two ministers walked in
canonicals at the head of the procession. Dr. Lloyd spoke of the dead
man as a martyr to the Protestant religion.

By the strangest stroke of ill-fortune Parliament met ten days before
the funeral, which happened on the thirty-first of October; so that the
excitement of the people--greatly increased by the exhibition of the
dead body of Sir Godfrey--was ratified by their rulers--I say their
rulers, since His Majesty, it appeared, could do nothing to stem the
tide. It was my Lord Danby who opened the matter in the House of Peers
that he might get what popularity he could to protect him against the
disgrace that he foresaw would come upon him presently for the French
business; and every violent word that he spoke was applauded to the
echo. The House of Commons took up the cry; a solemn fast was appointed
for the appeasing of God Almighty's wrath; guards were set in all the
streets, and chains drawn across them, to prevent any sudden rising of
the Papists; and all Catholic householders were bidden to withdraw ten
miles from London. (This I did not comply with; for I was no
householder.) Besides all this, both men and women went armed
continually--the men with the "Protestants' flails," and ladies with
little pistols hidden in their muffs. Workmen, too, were set to search
and dig everywhere for "Tewkesbury mustard-balls," as they were
called--or fire-balls, with which it was thought that the Catholics
would set London a-fire, as Oates had said they would--or vast treasures
which the Jesuits were th