The rumours which had before connected the magistrate’s disappearance with the Roman Catholics were now redoubled in vigour.[178] Conviction of their truth became general. The Whig party under the lead of Shaftesbury boomed the case. Portrait medals of Godfrey were struck representing the Pope as directing his murder. Ballads were composed in Godfrey’s memory. Sermons were preached on the subject. Dr. Stillingfleet’s effusion ran into two editions in as many days, and ten thousand copies were sold in less than a month.[179] An enterprising cutler made a special “Godfrey” dagger and sold three thousand in one day. On one side of the blade was graven: Remember the murder of Edmond Bury Godfrey; on the other: Remember religion. One, ornamented with a gilt handle, was sent to the Duke of York. Ladies of high degree carried these daggers about their persons and slept with them beneath their pillows, to guard themselves from a similar doom. Others as timid followed the lead of the Countess of Shaftesbury, who had a set of pocket pistols made for her muff.[180] The corpse of the murdered magistrate was brought to London in state, and lay exposed in the street for two days. A continual procession of people who came to gaze on the sight passed up and down. Few who came departed without rage, terror, and revenge rooted in their hearts. On October 31 the body was borne to burial at St. Martin’s in the Fields. Seventy-two clergymen walked before; above a thousand persons of distinction followed after. The church was crowded. Dr. Lloyd, afterwards Dean of Bangor and Bishop of St. Asaph, himself a friend of Godfrey, preached a funeral sermon from the text: “Died Abner as a fool dieth?” It consisted of an elaborate eulogy of the dead man and an inflammatory attack upon the Roman Catholics. To crown the theatrical pomp of this parade, there mounted the pulpit beside the preacher two able-bodied divines, to guard his life from the attack which it was confidently expected would be made. “A most portentous spectacle, sure,” exclaims North. “Three parsons in one pulpit! Enough of itself, on a less occasion, to excite terror in the audience.”[181] There was one thing still lacking. As yet no evidence had appeared to connect any one with the crime. On October 21 a committee of secrecy was appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the Popish Plot and the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. On the 23rd a similar committee was established by the House of Lords.[182]