but in the designs which he had formed to alter the established course of government and religion, as settled in the kingdom. By the recognised construction of the statute of Edward III such an attempt was held to include “imagining the king’s death,” and was as much high treason as an assassination plot of the most flagrant character.[558] All that was required was that the intention should be proved by an overt act, and the portion of Coleman’s correspondence which had been seized afforded the plainest proof of his designs. This was the real offence which lay at his door, and for this he was legally and properly condemned to suffer the penalties of high treason. “Mr. Coleman,” said the Chief Justice after the verdict had been delivered, “your own papers are enough to condemn you.”[559] The case for the prosecution was opened by the evidence of Titus Oates. After an admonition from the bench to speak nothing but the truth, permission was given him to tell his story in his own way. In the course of a long examination by the Chief Justice he reaffirmed the startling evidence which he had given before the two Houses of Parliament, and which had already become a powerful weapon in the Whig armoury. He deposed that he had carried treasonable letters from Coleman and various Jesuits in London to the Jesuit College at St. Omers; that he had carried to Père de la Chaize a letter written by Coleman in thanks for a promise from the confessor of £10,000 to be employed in procuring Charles II’s death;[560] that Coleman had in his hearing expressed approval when he was told that the Jesuits had determined to kill the king;[561] and that Coleman had been engaged in distributing throughout the kingdom copies of certain instructions sent to the Jesuit Ashby concerning the assassination of the king, in order to give heart to those of their party who were not on the scene of affairs.[562] In the medley of wild accusations against the Jesuits and other Roman Catholics, which Oates mingled with this evidence against Coleman, the main point, as in his previous examinations, was the Jesuit consult held, he swore, at the White Horse Tavern in the Strand on April 24, 1678, to concert means for the death of the king. After the consult had broken up into smaller committees, it was at that which met at Wild House that Coleman had, according to Oates, given his formal approval to the project. Later, in a letter which Oates professed to have seen, he had expressed the desire “that the duke might be trepanned into this plot to murder the king.”[563] Bedloe’s evidence, which followed, was of the same nature, though not so wide in scope or so decisive in character.[564] He swore to treasonable correspondence between the Jesuits in London and Paris, to treasonable words which he had heard Coleman speak, to treasonable consults in Paris at which Coleman was not present, and on hearsay from Sir Henry Tichbourn bore out Oates’ statement that Coleman had received a patent