The case still dragged on its weary length. Numerous other witnesses were called to prove and disprove points of varying importance and connection with the matter at issue. All the prisoners against whom Oates and Bedloe had sworn made long speeches and discoursed on a hundred irrelevant topics. Marshal, the Benedictine, lectured the court and delivered an impassioned harangue on the injustice of the English nation and on the future state. He was stopped and, beginning again, drew down on himself from Scroggs a violent rebuke in which he declared his belief that it was possible for an atheist to be a papist, but hardly for a knowing Christian to be a Christian and a papist. When the heated wrangle which followed was ended, the Chief Justice summed up, setting the evidence on both sides in a clear light and pointing out where its strength lay against the prisoners, but plainly intimating his opinion that the revelation made by Sir Philip Lloyd went far to invalidate Oates’ testimony. As the jury were leaving the box Bedloe broke in: “My lord, my evidence is not right summed up.” “I know not by what authority this man speaks,” said Scroggs sternly. After the absence of about an hour the jury returned. Might they, they asked, find the prisoners guilty of misprision of treason? “No,” replied Jeffreys, the Recorder, “you must either convict them of high treason or acquit them.” “Then take a verdict,” said the foreman; and returned a verdict of not guilty for all the prisoners. Scarcely was the trial over when a storm broke upon the head of the Lord Chief Justice. He had already earned the hatred of the ferocious London mob by accepting bail for Mr. Pepys and Sir Anthony Deane, who were in prison on account of the Plot.[700] Now the feeling against him amounted to positive fury. Sir George Wakeman, after visiting the queen at Windsor, fled the country to escape the effects of the popular rage.[701] Scroggs stood his ground. The London presses teemed with pamphlets against him. _Some observations upon the late trials of Sir George Wakeman_, etc., by Tom Ticklefoot; _The Tickler Tickled_; _A New Year’s Gift for the Lord Chief in Justice_ are among those which deserve to be remembered for their especial virulence. The Portuguese ambassador had the egregious folly to call publicly upon Scroggs the day after the trial and to thank him for his conduct of the case.[702] It was immediately said that the Chief Justice had been bribed. A barrel packed with gold had been sent to him. “Great store of money” had been scattered about. The jury had been bribed. A good jury had been impanelled, but was never summoned, and a set of rascals was chosen in its place.[703] When Scroggs went on circuit for the autumn assizes he was met in the provinces with cries of—A Wakeman, a Wakeman; and at one place a half-dead dog was thrown into his coach.[704] Early in the year following Oates and Bedloe exhibited