eason, that, if papers which had been passed over as
unimportant were filled with matter so suspicious, some great mystery
of iniquity must have been contained in those documents which had been
carefully committed to the flames.

A few days later it was known that Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey, an eminent
justice of the peace who had taken the depositions of Oates against
Coleman, had disappeared. Search was made; and Godfrey's corpse was
found in a field near London. It was clear that he had died by violence.
It was equally clear that he had not been set upon by robbers. His fate
is to this day a secret. Some think that he perished by his own
hand; some, that he was slain by a private enemy. The most improbable
supposition is that he was murdered by the party hostile to the court,
in order to give colour to the story of the plot. The most probable
supposition seems, on the whole, to be that some hotheaded Roman
Catholic, driven to frenzy by the lies of Oates and by the insults
of the multitude, and not nicely distinguishing between the perjured
accuser and the innocent magistrate, had taken a revenge of which the
history of persecuted sects furnishes but too many examples. If this
were so, the assassin must have afterwards bitterly execrated his own
wickedness and folly. The capital and the whole nation went mad with
hatred and fear. The penal laws, which had begun to lose something of
their edge, were sharpened anew. Everywhere justices were busied in
searching houses and seizing papers. All the gaols were filled with
Papists. London had the aspect of a city in a state of siege. The
trainbands were under arms all night. Preparations were made for
barricading the great thoroughfares. Patrols marched up and down the
streets. Cannon were planted round Whitehall. No citizen thought himself
safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail loaded with lead to
brain the Popish assassins. The corpse of the murdered magistrate was
exhibited during several days to the gaze of great multitudes, and was
then committed to the grave with strange and terrible ceremonies,
which indicated rather fear and the thirst of vengeance shall sorrow or
religious hope. The Houses insisted that a guard should be placed in the
vaults over which they sate, in order to secure them against a second
Gunpowder Plot. All their proceedings were of a piece with this demand.
Ever since the reign of Elizabeth the oath of supremacy had been exacted
from member