Note 1 — Chapter I
Reading edition
Burnet, Rapin, Hume, and Lingard, give numerous particulars, but the account I have presented is drawn from A True Narrative of the Horrid Plot and Conspiracy of the Popish Party against the Life of His Majesty, the Government, and the Protestant Religion, by Titus Oates himself, published 1679.
In the Dedication there is a sentiment expressed worthy of a better man. “It is a false suggestion,” says Oates, “which such tempters use, that a King that rules by will is more great and glorious than a King that rules by law:—the quality of the retinue best proves the state of the lord; the one being but a king of slaves, while the other, like God, is a king of kings and hearts.”
I have before me a narrative of “the horrid Popish plot,” by Capt. W. Bedloe, 1679; another by Miles Prance, 1679; and a collection of letters relating to it published by order of the House of Commons, 1681. Oates’ narrative, which, though dated the 27th of September, 1678, was not published until the following April, contains a digested statement, in eighty-one items, of all the particulars which he had alleged.