“It was plain, that postnate to the narrative of Oates, there was a design formed for cutting off the Queen by a false accusation, and thereupon this evidence was given, and Bedloe, another evidence for the plot, chimed in. It seems the not venturing so high in Oates’s narrative was thought to be an error to be retrieved by additional swearing. It was not a cabal of ordinary authority could encourage Oates to come to the bar of the House of Commons, and say, ‘Aye, Taitus Oates, accause Catherine Quean of England of haigh traison.’ Upon which the King immediately confined him, and it might have been worse, if some people had not taken his part, who were considerable enough to give umbrage that it would be more prudent to set him at liberty again, which was done accordingly. The King was pleased to say, ‘They think I have a mind to a new wife; but for all that I will not see an innocent woman abused.’ This passage ought to be remembered to the honour of the King’s justice: certainly if his Majesty had given way, the Queen had been very ill used.”[121] Oates’s exaltation was a tempting bait, and other witnesses of infamous character began to appear. In November Coleman was tried, convicted, and executed on the joint evidence of Oates and Bedloe. There was sufficient disagreement between the statements made by the former upon the trial and before the council, to cause them to be received with much suspicion; but Chief Justice Scroggs, after manifesting throughout a most scandalous bias against the prisoner, charged the jury in a style of which this is a specimen: “The things the prisoner is accused of are of two sorts: the one is to subvert the Protestant religion, and to introduce Popery; the other was to destroy and kill the king. The evidence likewise was of two sorts; the one by letters of his own handwriting, and the other by witnesses _viva voce_. The former he seems to confess, the other totally to deny.... You are to examine what these letters import in themselves, and what consequences are naturally to be deduced from them. That which is plainly intended is to bring in the Roman Catholic, and subvert the Protestant religion. That which is by consequence intended, is the killing the king, as being the most likely means to introduce that which as it is apparent from his letters, was designed to be brought in.”[122] It would be a waste of words to point out the monstrous wickedness of this inference. The nature of the letters has been already described; that they contained schemes hostile to the constitution there is no doubt, though not, it should seem, such as bore out a charge of treason, least of all against the life of the king. And it is worthy of observation, that after dwelling at length upon the letters, Scroggs says not one word concerning the evidence of the witnesses. Justice Jones worthily seconded his principal: “You must find the prisoner guilty, or bring in two persons perjured.”