ad followed, driven mad, men said, by the Furies of an
evil conscience, and with loud shrieks imploring those who stood round
his bed to take away Lord Stafford. [267] Carstairs, too, was gone. His
end had been all horror and despair; and, with his last breath, he had
told his attendants to throw him into a ditch like a dog, for that he
was not fit to sleep in a Christian burial ground. [268] But Oates and
Dangerfield were still within the reach of the stern prince whom they
had wronged. James, a short time before his accession, had instituted
a civil suit against Oates for defamatory words; and a jury had given
damages to the enormous amount of a hundred thousand pounds. [269] The
defendant had been taken in execution, and was lying in prison as a
debtor, without hope of release. Two bills of indictment against him
for perjury had been found by the grand jury of Middlesex, a few weeks
before the death of Charles. Soon after the close of the elections the
trial came on.

Among the upper and middle classes Oates had few friends left. The most
respectable Whigs were now convinced that, even if his narrative had
some foundation in fact, he had erected on that foundation a vast
superstructure of romance. A considerable number of low fanatics,
however, still regarded him as a public benefactor. These people well
knew that, if he were convicted, his sentence would be one of extreme
severity, and were therefore indefatigable in their endeavours to manage
an escape. Though he was as yet in confinement only for debt, he was put
into irons by the authorities of the King's Bench prison; and even so he
was with difficulty kept in safe custody. The mastiff that guarded his
door was poisoned; and, on the very night preceding the trial, a ladder
of ropes was introduced into the cell.

On the day in which Titus was brought to the bar, Westminster Hall was
crowded with spectators, among whom were many Roman Catholics, eager to
see the misery and humiliation of their persecutor. [270] A few years
earlier his short neck, his legs uneven, the vulgar said, as those of a
badger, his forehead low as that of a baboon, his purple cheeks, and his
monstrous length of chin, had been familiar to all who frequented the
courts of law. He had then been the idol of the nation. Wherever he had
appeared, men had uncovered their heads to him. The lives and estates of
the magnates of the realm had been at his mercy. Times had now changed;
and many, who ha