treet conduits the
water-bearer was an important person); "a son of Mr. Flood, the
scrivener, in Holborn; a man of Sir Ives Pemberton; Thomas Brisket, his
wife, son, and maid, in Montague Close; Richard Fitzgarret, of Gray's
Inn, gentleman; Davie, an Irishman, in Angell Alley, Gray's Inn,
gentleman; Sarah Watson, daughter of Master Watson, chirurgeon; Master
Grimes, near the 'Horse Shoe' tavern, in Drury Lane; John Bevan, at the
'Seven Stars', in Drury Lane; Francis Man, Thieving Lane, Westminster,"
&c. As might have been expected, the fanatics of both parties had much
to say about this terrible accident. The Catholics declared that the
Protestants, knowing this to be a chief place of meeting for men of
their faith, had secretly drawn out the pins, or sawn the supporting
timbers partly asunder. The Protestants, on the other hand, lustily
declared that the planks would not bear such a weight of Romish sin, and
that God was displeased with their pulpits and altars, their doctrine
and sacrifice. One zealot remembered that, at the return of Prince
Charles from the madcap expedition to Spain, a Catholic had lamented, or
was said to have lamented, the street bonfires, as there would be never
a fagot left to burn the heretics. "If it had been a Protestant chapel,"
the Puritans cried, "the Jesuits would have called the calamity an omen
of the speedy downfall of heresy." A Catholic writer replied "with a
word of comfort," and pronounced the accident to be a presage of good
fortune to Catholics and of the overthrow of error and heresy. This
zealous, but not well-informed, writer compared Father Drury's death
with that of Zuinglius, who fell in battle, and with that of Calvin,
"who, being in despair, and calling upon the devil, gave up his wicked
soul, swearing, cursing, and blaspheming." So intolerance, we see, is
neither specially Protestant nor Catholic, but of every party. "The
Fatal Vespers," as that terrible day at Blackfriars was afterwards
called, were long remembered with a shudder by Catholic England.

In a curious old pamphlet entitled "Something Written by Occasion of
that Fatall and Memorable Accident in the Blacke-friers, on Sonday,
being the 26th October, 1623, _stilo antiquo_, and the 5th November,
_stilo novo_, or _Romano_" the author relates a singular escape of one
of the listeners. "When all things were ready," he says, "and the prayer
finished, the Jesuite tooke for his text the gospell of the day, being
(as I