Sir
Roger North tells us the crowd in and about the church was
prodigious, "and so heated, that anything called papist, were it
cat or dog, had probably gone to pieces in a moment. The
catholics all kept close in their houses and lodgings, thinking
it a good composition to be safe there."
The whole city was terror-stricken. "Men's spirits were so
sharpened," says Burnet, "that it was looked on as a very great
happiness that the people did not vent their fury upon the
papists about the town." Tonge and Oates went abroad protected
by body guards, arresting hundreds of catholics; cannon were
mounted around Whitehall and St. James's; patrols paraded the
streets by day and night; the trained bands were ready to fall in
at a moment's notice; preparations were made for barricading the
principal thoroughfares; the city gates were kept closed so that
admission could be only had through the wickets; and the Houses
of Parliament demanded a guard should keep watch on the vaults
over which they sat, lest imitators of Guy Fawkes might blow them
to pieces. Moreover, it was not alone the safety of the
multitude, but the protection of the individual which was sought
to be secured. In the dark confusion which general terror
produced, each man felt he might be singled out as the next
victim of this diabolical plot, and therefore devised means to
guard his life from the hands of murderous papists. North, in
his "Examen," speaking of this period, tells us: "There was much
recommendation of silk armour, and the prudence of being provided
with it against the time the Protestants were to be massacred.
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