On the strength of his discovery, Oates hastened to Sir
Edmondbury Godfrey, and swore false informations; becoming aware
of which, Coleman, conscious of his innocence, delivered himself
up, in hopes of meeting a justice never vouchsafed him.
The Privy council now sat morning and evening, in order to
examine Oates, whose evidence proved untrustworthy and
contradictory to a bewildering degree. When it was pointed out
to him the five letters, supposed to come from men of education,
contained ill-spelling, bad grammar, and other faults, he, with
much effrontery, declared it was a common artifice among the
Jesuits to write in that manner, in order to avoid recognition;
but inasmuch as real names were attached to the epistles, that
argument was not considered just. The subject was not mentioned
again. When an agent for these wicked men in Spain, he related,
he had been admitted into the presence of Don John, and had seen
him counting out large sums of money, with which he intended to
reward Sir George Wakeham when he had poisoned the king. Hearing
this, his majesty inquired what kind of person Don John was.
Oates said he was tall, lean, and black; whereas the monarch knew
him to be small, stout, and fair. And on another occasion, when
asked where he had heard the French king's confessor hire an
assassin to shoot Charles, he replied, "At the Jesuits' monastery
close by the Louvre;" at which the king, losing patience with the
impostor, cried out, "Tush, man! the Jesuits have no house
within a mile of the Louvre!" Presently Oates named two catholic
peers, Lord Arundel of Wardour and Lord Bellasis, as being
concerned in the plot, when the king again spoke to him, saying
these lords had served his father faithfully, and fought his wars
bravely, and unless proof were clear against them, he would not
credit they sought him ill.
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