The accusations against York and the Queen were no part of Oate's original plot. On the contrary, in the summary of his "True Narrative," he informs us, that the "Royal family of the Stuarts are condemned to be cut off, root and branch, and namely, the King, Duke of York, and Prince of Orange, because that family have not answered their expectation, nor have they any hopes that any of them will comply fully with this their bloody design, when fully discovered to them." And on the next page, it is again affirmed, that notwithstanding the Duke of York's zeal for the Catholic religion, "they design to dispose of him as is aforesaid." But when the public belief in the plot had taken root, and Shaftesbury had grafted upon it his doctrine of exclusion, Oates, by degrees, charged the Duke, first with being the innocent and blind tool of the Catholics whom they intended to succeed his brother, though he knew nothing of their designs; and finally, with being at the very depth of all the villainy, and the immediate author of the Fire of London. As for the queen, her barrenness was a reason, for all the exclusionists desiring she should be removed, that the king might have a chance of legitimate issue, to the exclusion of the Duke of York. Animated by a belief, that this would be agreeable to the king, Oates had the boldness, at the bar of the House of Commons, to utter these words, in his affected phraseology, "Aye, Taitus Oates, accause Catherine, Quean of England, of haigh traison!" The grounds of his accusation are stated in the trial of Wakeman, the queen's physician, who, he alleged, was bribed with 15,000l to poison the king, in case he should escape the poniard of a Jesuit, named Coniers, and the pistols of Pickering and Groves. Oates then swore, that three Jesuits carried him with them to Somerset-house, where they were summoned to attend the Queen; that he remained in an anti-chamber when they were ushered into her presence; that he heard a female voice say, she would assist Sir George Wakeman in his project, and would no longer bear these repeated violations of her bed. When the fathers came out, he desired to see the queen, and when admitted into the anti-chamber, whence the female voice had proceeded, he saw the queen, who smiled graciously on him, and there was no other woman present. These impudent stories, with some blunders into which the best-breathed witness may fall, saved Wakeman's life. The King immediately saw the tendency of this charge, and observed, "They think I have a mind for a new wife; but for all that, I will not see an innocent woman abused;" and certainly, had he given way to it, the Queen would have been in great danger. Note XXXII. _In this short file Barzillai first appears, Barzillai, crowned with honour and with years; Long since the rising rebels he withstood, In regions waste, beyond the Jordan's flood,_ &c. P. 241.