The papers which he studied seemed to contain highly improbable accusations; but Danby was a desperate man.

He sent for Tonge.

“It is very necessary,” he told him, “for you to produce the man who thrust these papers under your door. Can you do that?”

“I believe I can, my lord.”

“Then do so; and bring him here that he may state his case before the King.”

“I will do my utmost, sir.”

“What is his name?”

“My lord, it is Titus Oates.”

Titus Oates was a man of purpose. When he heard that he was to appear before the King he was delighted. He saw immense possibilities before him, and he began to bless the day when Fate threw him in the way of Dr. Tonge.

Titus was the son of Samuel Oates, rector of Markham in Norfolk. Titus had been an extremely unprepossessing child, and it had seemed to him from his earliest days that he had been born to misfortune. As a child he had been subject to convulsive fits, and his father had hated the shuffling, delicate child with a face so ugly that it was almost grotesque. His neck was so short that his head seemed to rest on his shoulders; he was ungainly in body, one leg being shorter than the other; but his face, which was purple in color, was quite repulsive, for his chin was so large that his mouth was in the center of his face; he suffered from a continuous cold so that he snuffled perpetually; he had an unsightly wart over one eyebrow; and his eyes were small and cunning from the days when he had found it necessary to dodge his father’s blows. His mother, though, had lavished great affection on him. He had none for her. Rather he admired his father whose career he soon discovered to have been quite extraordinary. Samuel, feigning to be a very pious man, had, before he settled in Norfolk, wandered the country preaching his own particular brand of the gospels which entailed baptism by immersion of the naked body in lakes and rivers of the districts he visited. Samuel went from village to village; he liked best to dip young women, the more comely the better; and for this purpose he advised them to leave their homes at midnight, without the knowledge of their parents, that they might be baptized and saved. The ceremony of baptism was so complicated that many of the girls found that they gave birth to children as a result of it. But, in view of these results, dipping had eventually become too dangerous a procedure, and Samuel, after some vicissitudes, had settled down as rector of Hastings.

Meanwhile Titus pursued his own not unexciting career.

He went to the Merchant Taylor’s School, where he was found to be such a liar and cheat that he was expelled during his first year there; afterwards he was sent as a poor scholar to a school near Hastings where he managed to hide his greater villainies; and eventually, having taken Holy Orders, he became a curate to his father.

The curate of All Saints, Hastings, quickly became the most unpopular man in the district. The rector was heartily disliked, and the people of Hastings would not have believed it was possible to find a man more detestable until they met his son. Titus seemed to delight in circulating scandal concerning those who lived about him. If he could discover some little peccadillo which might be magnified, he was greatly delighted; if he could discover nothing, he used his amazing imagination and an invention which amounted almost to genius.

Samuel hated his son more than ever and wished he had never allowed him to become his curate; therefore, there arose the problem of how to remove Titus. Titus had his living to earn; and it seemed that, if he remained in Hastings, not only the curate but the rector would be asked to leave. A schoolmaster’s post would be ideal, decided Samuel; there was one in a local school, but unfortunately it was filled by a certain William Parker, so popular and of such good reputation that it seemed unlikely he could be dismissed to make way for Titus.

Father and son were not the sort to allow any man’s virtues to stand in their way.

Titus therefore presented himself to the Mayor and told him that he had seen William Parker in the church porch committing an unnatural offense with a very young boy.

The Mayor was horrified. He declared he could not believe this of William Parker, who had always seemed to him such an honest and honorable man; but Titus, who was a lover of details and had worked on the plan with great thoroughness, managed to convince him that there was truth in the story.

William Parker was sent to jail and Titus, swearing on oath that he was speaking the truth, gave in detail all he alleged he had seen in the church porch.

Titus was eloquent and would have been completely convincing; but he was not yet an adept at the art of perjury, and he had forgotten that truth has an uncomfortable way of tripping up the liar.

Parker was able to prove that he was nowhere near the porch when the offense was alleged to have taken place; the tables were turned; Titus was in danger of imprisonment, and so he ran away to sea.

It was not difficult to get to sea, for His Majesty’s Navy was in constant need of men and did not ask many questions. Titus became ship’s chaplain, in which role he had opportunities of practicing that very offense of which he had accused Parker, and became loathed by all who came into contact with him; and after a while the Navy refused to employ him.

Samuel had been forced to leave Hastings after the Parker affair and was in London, where Titus joined him; but it was soon discovered that Titus was wanted by the law; he was captured and sent to prison, from which he escaped, only to find himself penniless once more. He joined a club in Holborn, where he made the acquaintance of several Catholics, and it was through their influence that he obtained a post of Protestant chaplain in the household of that staunch Catholic, the Duke of Norfolk.

It was at this time that the Catholic scare was beginning to be felt in England, and it had occurred to Titus that there might be some profit in exposing, in the right quarters, the secrets of Catholics. He thereupon set himself out to be as pleasant as he could to Catholics, in the hope of learning their secrets, and obtaining an authentic background for his imagination.

Dismissed from the service of the Duke of Norfolk, he was again in London where he made the acquaintance of Dr. Israel Tonge.

Dr. Tonge was a fanatic who was prepared to dedicate his life to the persecution of Jesuits. He had written tracts and pamphlets about their wickedness but, as so many had done the like since the conversion of the Duke of York, there was no sale for those of Dr. Tonge. This made him bitter; not against those who refused to buy them, but against the Papists. He was more determined than ever to destroy them; and when he renewed his acquaintance with Oates, he saw in him a man who could be made to work for him in the cause so near his heart.

Titus was at the point of starvation and ready enough to do all that was required of him.

The two men met often and began to plot.

Oates was to mingle with the Catholics who congregated in the Pheasant Coffee House in Holborn; Tonge had heard that certain Catholic servants of the Queen frequented the place. There Titus would meet Whitbread and Pickering, and other priests who came from Somerset House, where Catherine worshipped, in accordance with her Faith, in her private chapel.

There was one person whom those two plotters mentioned often; the condemnation of that person could bring them greater satisfaction than that of any other, for to prove the Queen of England a Papist murderer would enrage the country beyond all their hopes. If they could prove that the Queen was plotting to murder the King, then surely there was not a Jesuit in England who would not be brought to torture and death.

“The King is a lecher,” said Oates, licking his lips. “He will wish to be rid of the Queen.”

Dr. Tonge listened to the affected voice of his accomplice and laid a hand on his shoulder. He knew the story of William Parker and Titus’ tendency to be carried away by his imagination.

He warned him: “This is no plot against a village schoolmaster. This is a charge of High Treason against the Queen. ’Tis true the King is a lecher, but he is soft with women, including his wife. We shall have to build up our case carefully. This is not a matter over which we can hurry. It may take us years to collect the information we need, and we shall accuse and prove guilty many before we reach the climax of our discovery which shall be the villainy of the Queen.”

Tonge’s eyes burned with fanaticism. He believed that the Queen must wish to murder the King; he believed in the villainy of all Catholics, and the Queen was devoutly Catholic.

Titus’ sunken eyes were almost closed. He was not concerned with the truth of any accusations they would bring. All he cared for was that he should have bread to eat, a roof to shelter him and a chance to indulge that imagination of his which was never content unless it was building up a case against others.

Dr. Tonge’s plan was long and involved. Titus should mix with Catholics; he should become a Catholic, for only thus could he discover all they would need to build the plot which should bring fame and fortune to them both, and win the eternal gratitude of the King and those ministers of his who desired above all things to see the Queen and the Duke of York dismissed from the Court.

Titus “became” a Catholic and went to study at a college in Valladolid. When he returned, expelled from the college, he brought with him little knowledge, but a fair understanding of the life lived by Jesuit priests; and he and Dr. Tonge, impatient to get on with their work, set about fabricating the great Popish plot.

They would begin by warning the King that two Jesuits, Grove and Pickering—men whom Titus had met at the coffee house in Fleet Street—were to be paid £1,500 to shoot the King while he walked in the park. The death of the King was to be followed by that of certain of his ministers; the French would then invade Ireland and a new King would be set up. This was to be the Duke of York, who would then establish a Jesuit Parliament.

That was the first plot. Others would follow; and when the people were fully aroused, and the King fully alarmed, they would bring forth evidence of the Queen’s complicity.

Titus was excited. He saw here a chance to win honors such as had never before come his way.

So when Dr. Tonge returned to his lodgings and told Titus that the man who had uncovered the hellish Popish plot and had thrust the papers concerning it under the door of Dr. Tonge was ordered to appear before the King, Titus was eager to tell his story.

Charles looked at Titus Oates and disliked him on sight.

Oates knew this but was unperturbed; he was accustomed to looks of disgust. He cared for nothing; he had a tale to tell, and he felt himself to be master of his facts.

He was glad now of the affair of William Parker as it had taught him such a lesson.

Beside the King was the Duke of York, for Charles had said he must be present since this matter of plots and counterplots concerned him as much as Charles himself.

“A preposterous tale,” said Charles when he had read the papers. “False from beginning to end.”

His eyes were cold. He hated trouble, and these men were determined to make it.

“So you have studied in Valladolid?” he asked Titus.”

It is true, Your Majesty.”

“And you became a Jesuit, that you might mingle with them and discover their secrets?”

“That is so, Your Majesty.”

“What zeal!” commented the King.

“’Twas all in the service of Your Most Gracious Majesty.”

“And when you were in Madrid you conferred with Don John of Austria, you say in these papers.”

“’Tis true, Your Majesty.”

“Pray, describe him to me.”

“He is a tall, spare and swarthy man, if it please Your Majesty.”

“It does not please me,” said Charles with a sardonic smile. “But doubtless it would please him, for he is a little, fat, fair man, and I believe would desire to appear taller than he is.”

“Your Majesty, it may be that I have made a mistake in the description of this man. I have met so many.”

“So many of the importance of Don John? Ah, Mr. Oates, I see you are a man much given to good company.”

Titus stood his ground. Be could see that if the King did not believe him, others were ready to do so. The difference was that they wanted to, whereas the King did not.