and, since the making of circumstance lies as well in the reception as in the invention of facts, justice must be admitted to the second line equally with the first. Circumstance was exactly what Shaftesbury could provide. He created the atmosphere for Oates to work in. The miscreant who a few weeks before had been begging from the Jesuit fathers rose to an undreamed height of luxury and influence. Repeated addresses from the Commons obtained for him lodgings which he shared with Dr. Tonge in Whitehall.[406] The modest sum of £12 a week allotted him “for dyett and expenses” was eked out by occasional gifts of £50 “as of free gift and royal bounty” and the payment of long bills incurred for his witnesses at trials. Within twelve months the total amount made out to him reached the figure of £945 : 8 : 10. Yet Oates was but one of a host whom the popular fury enabled to batten on the royal resources; and during the same period the accounts of the secret service money, disbursed almost exclusively to informers, showed an expenditure of nearly £5000.[407] The Salamanca doctor made the most of his luck. Robed like a bishop and puffed with insolence he became the darling of the Whig party. He set up as “a solemn housekeeper” and kept a fine table. Each morning there waited at his lodgings to dress him two or three gentlemen who vied for the honour of holding his basin. He was received by the primate at Lambeth. The Bishop of Ely welcomed him as a frequent guest at dinner and was unable to set bounds to the brutality of his conversation, till Sir John Reresby administered a merited rebuke. He received the public thanks of the House of Lords. The House of Commons made the Duke of Monmouth responsible for his safety, the Lord Chamberlain for his lodging, the Lord High Treasurer for his nourishment. His sermons were public events, his person followed by admiring crowds. Popular odes were composed in his honour, popular dinners were given him in the city, designs represented him knocking the tiara from the head of “that infallible fop, the pope,” or more exalted still, as an angel looking down from heaven. Among English merchants abroad his health was drunk next to that of the king. Everywhere he was courted, fêted, acknowledged. “Whig peers,” writes Sir George Sitwell, “supported him by their subscriptions. Whig peers welcomed him to their houses in London and in the country. Whig peers rolled him down in their coaches to aid by his unblushing presence the election of Whig candidates, Whig peers defended him in council and flocked to support him at his trials, while their political followers were engaged in threatening and hustling the witnesses.”[408] Oates had become for the moment the representative of the aspirations of the Whig party.