For contemporaries the Popish Plot provided a noble field of battle. Between its supporters and its assailants controversy raged hotly. Hosts of writers in England and abroad proved incontestably either its truth or its falsehood.[23] With which of the two the victory lay is hard to determine. Discredit presently fell on the Plot, but the balance was restored by the Revolution, when Oates’ release, pardon, and pension gave again the stamp of authority to his revelations. From this high estate its reputation quickly fell. Hume pronounced belief in it to be the touchstone for a hopelessly prejudiced Whig, Fox declared the evidence offered “impossible to be true,” and before the end of the eighteenth century Dalrymple accused Shaftesbury of having contrived and managed the whole affair. Since that time little serious criticism, with the notable exception of Ranke’s luminous account, has been attempted. Historians have generally contented themselves with relying on the informers’ certain mendacity to prove the entire falsehood of the plot which they denounced. The argument is patently unsound. As Charles II himself declared, the fact that Oates and his followers were liars of the first order does not warrant the conclusion that all they said was untrue and that the plot was wholly of the imagination.[24] The grounds upon which judgment must be based deserve to be more closely considered. On November 8, 1675 a remarkable debate took place in the House of Commons. Mr. Russell and Sir Henry Goodrick informed the House of an outrage said to have been committed by a Jesuit upon a recent convert from Roman Catholicism. Amid keen excitement they related that one Luzancy, a Frenchman, who, having lately come over to the Church of England, had in the French chapel at the Savoy preached a hot sermon against the errors of Rome, had been compelled at peril of his life to retract all he had said and sign a recantation of his faith. The man guilty of this deed was Dr. Burnet, commonly known as Father St. Germain, a Jesuit belonging to the household of the Duchess of York.[25] The Commons were highly enraged. “This goes beyond all precedents,” cried Sir Charles Harbord, “to persuade not only with arguments but poignards!” He never heard the like way before. Assurance was given by Mr. Secretary Williamson that strict inquiry was being made. The king was busy with the matter. Luzancy had been examined on oath before the council, and a special meeting was now summoned. A warrant was out for St. Germain, but the Jesuit had fled. The House expressed its feeling by moving that the Lord Chief Justice be requested to issue a second warrant for St. Germain’s arrest, and yet another in general terms “to search for and apprehend all priests and Jesuits whatsoever.”[26] It was a strange story that Luzancy told. By Protestants he was said to have been a learned Jesuit, by Catholics a rascally bastard of a disreputable French actress.[27] The two