a pardon!"
was heard afar off, and presently a horseman appeared riding at full
speed. The soldiers with some difficulty making way for him through a
line of excited people, he advanced to the foot of the scaffold, and
handed a roll of paper bearing the king's seal to the sheriff, who,
opening it, read a promise of pardon to those now standing face to face
with death, provided "they should acknowledge the conspiracy, and lay
open what they knew thereof." To this they replied they knew of no plot,
and had never desired harm to the king; and, praying for those who had
sought their lives, they died.

The firmness and patience with which the victims of judicial murder had
one and all met death, refusing bribes, and resisting persuasions to
own themselves guilty, could not fail in producing some effect upon the
public mind; and towards the middle of the year 1679 the first signs of
reaction became visible, when three Benedictine monks and the queen's
physician were tried for conspiracy "to poison the king, subvert the
government, and introduce popery." During the examination, Evelyn tells
us, "the bench was crowded with the judges, lord mayor, justices, and
innumerable spectators." After a tedious trial of nine hours, the jury
brought the prisoners in not guilty, "without," says Evelyn, "sufficient
disadvantage and reflection on witnesses, especially on Oates and
Bedlow."

As my Lord Shaftesbury had not yet succeeded in his desired project of
excluding the Duke of York from succession, the symptoms of change in
public opinion were thoroughly distasteful to him. He therefore resolved
to check them immediately, and stimulate the agitation and fear that
had for many months reigned paramount through out the nation. For this
purpose he had recourse to his former method of circulating wild and
baseless reports. Accordingly a rumour was soon brought before the House
of Commons of a horrible plot hatched by the papists to burn London to
the ground. This, it was alleged, would be effected by a servant-maid
setting a clothes-press on fire in the house of her master, situated in
Fetter Lane. Two vile Irishmen were to feed the flames, and meanwhile
the catholics would rise in rebellion, and, assisted by an army of sixty
thousand French soldiers, kill the king, and put all protestants to the
sword. Though this tale was in due time discredited, yet it served its
purpose in the present. The violent alarm it caused had not subsided
when a