that was the names
of the witnesses, when I learned for the first time that Oates and
Dugdale and Turberville were to be the principal. I think more than I
were astonished to hear that Dr. Oates was in this conspiracy too, as in
so many others; and that he would swear, when the time came, that he had
delivered to my Lord a commission from the Holy Father, to be paymaster
in the famous Catholic army of which we had heard so much.

I was much occupied too on these days in observing the appearance and
demeanour of the prisoner, whom I could see very well. He was now in his
seventieth year, and looked full his age; but he bore himself with great
dignity and restraint. He had somewhat of a cold look in his face; and
indeed it was true that he was not greatly beloved by anybody, though
respected by all.

The principal witnesses, even before Oates, were Dugdale and
Turberville. First these gave their general testimony--and afterwards
their particular. Mr. Dugdale related how that the plot, in general, had
been on hand for above fifteen or sixteen years; and he repeated all the
stuff that had so stirred up the people before, as to indulgences and
pardons promised by the Pope to those who would kill the King. I must
confess that I fell asleep once or twice during this testifying, for I
knew it all by heart already. And, in particular, he said that my Lord
had debated with others at my Lord Aston's, how to kill the King: and
that himself was present at such debates.

A great hum broke out in the Hall, when Dugdale swore that he had heard
with his own ears my Lord Stafford and others who had been present, give
their assent one by one to the King's murder. His Majesty himself, I was
told later by Mr. Chiffinch, retired to the back of his box to laugh,
when he heard that said; for neither then nor ever did he believe a word
of it.

Next came Mr. Oates; and he too reaffirmed what he had said before, with
an hundred ingenious additions and particularities as to times and
places--and this, I think, as much as anything was the reason why so
many simple folk had believed him in the first event.

Then Turberville, who said falsely that he had once been a friar, and at
Douay, related how my Lord, as he had said, had attempted to bribe him
to kill the King, and suchlike nonsense. This, he said, had happened in
France.

My Lord Stafford questioned the prisoners a little; and shewed up many
holes in their story. For instance, he asked