Oates, Titus

Oates, Titus, was born at Oakham about 1649, the son of a Norwich ribbon-weaver, who, from an Anabaptist preacher, became at the Restoration rector of All Saints', Hastings, where the boy was baptised on 20th Nov. 1660. He was brought up at Oakham school, Merchant Taylors' (1665), and Sedlescombe in Sussex; entered Caius College, Cambridge (1667); and two years later was admitted a sizar at St John's. Next taking orders, he held several curacies and a naval chaplaincy, but was as often expelled for infamous practices, of which perjury was not the worst. So, in concert with a Protestant alarmist, the Rev. Dr Tonge, he resolved to concoct the 'narrative of a horrid plot,' and, feigning conversion to Catholicism, was admitted as 'Brother Ambrose' to the Jesuit seminaries of Valladolid and St Omer. From both in a few months he was expelled for misconduct, but, returning to London in June 1678, he forthwith communicated to the authorities his pretended plot, the main features of which were a rising of the Catholics, a general massacre of Protestants, the burning of London, the assassination of the king, and the invasion of Ireland by a French army. Charles treated the story with contempt; but Oates swore to the truth of it before a magistrate, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, who on 17th October was found dead in a ditch—murdered probably by Titus and his confederates. All London straightway went wild with fear and rage; Shaftesbury skilfully fanned the excitement; and Oates became the hero of the day. A pension of £480 was granted him, and a suite of apartments at Whitehall set apart for his use; wherever he went the mob cheered him as the 'saviour of his country.' Bedloe, Dangerfield, and other wretches came forward to back or emulate his charges; the queen herself was assailed; and many Catholics were cast into prison. Some thirty-five of them were executed, including five Jesuits and old Viscount Stafford; but after two years a reaction set in, and Oates was driven from his rooms in the palace. In May 1683 he was fined £100,000 for calling the Duke of York a traitor, and being unable to pay was imprisoned; in May 1685 he was found guilty of perjury, and sentenced to be stripped of his canonicals, pilloried, flogged, and imprisoned for life. The Revolution of 1688 set him at liberty; and a pension was even granted him of £300; but in 1696 he writes to the Secretary of State, describing his worse than utter destitution. He died 13th July 1705. See the Histories of Burnet, Echard, Lingard, and Macaulay.