On the
following morning he was brought forth to undergo his first flogging.
At an early hour an innumerable multitude filled all the streets from
Aldgate to the Old Bailey. The hangman laid on the lash with such
unusual severity as showed that he had received special instructions.
The blood ran down in rivulets. For a time the criminal showed a strange
constancy: but at last his stubborn fortitude gave way. His bellowings
were frightful to hear. He swooned several times; but the scourge still
continued to descend. When he was unbound, it seemed that he had borne
as much as the human frame can bear without dissolution. James was
entreated to remit the second flogging. His answer was short and clear:
"He shall go through with it, if he has breath in his body." An attempt
was made to obtain the Queen's intercession; but she indignantly refused
to say a word in favour of such a wretch. After an interval of only
forty-eight hours, Oates was again brought out of his dungeon. He was
unable to stand, and it was necessary to drag him to Tyburn on a
sledge. He seemed quite insensible; and the Tories reported that he had
stupified himself with strong drink. A person who counted the stripes
on the second day said that they were seventeen hundred. The bad
man escaped with life, but so narrowly that his ignorant and bigoted
admirers thought his recovery miraculous, and appealed to it as a proof
of his innocence. The doors of the prison closed upon him. During many
months he remained ironed in the darkest hole of Newgate. It was said
that in his cell he gave himself up to melancholy, and sate whole days
uttering deep groans, his arms folded, and his hat pulled over his eyes.
It was not in England alone that these events excited strong interest.
Millions of Roman Catholics, who knew nothing of our institutions or
of our factions, had heard that a persecution of singular barbarity had
raged in our island against the professors of the true faith, that many
pious men had suffered martyrdom, and that Titus Oates had been the
chief murderer. There was, therefore, great joy in distant countries
when it was known that the divine justice had overtaken him. Engravings
of him, looking out from the pillory, and writhing at the cart's tail,
were circulated all over Europe; and epigrammatists, in many languages,
made merry with the doctoral title which he pretended to have received
from the University of Salamanca, and remarked that, since his foreh