Editing Popish Plot (section)

===Waning of the hysteria===
However, public opinion began to turn against Oates. As Kenyon points out, the steady protestations of innocence by all of those who were executed eventually took hold in the public mind. Outside London, the priests who died were almost all venerable and popular members of the community, and there was widespread public horror at their executions. Even Lord Shaftesbury came to regret the executions and is said{{by whom|date=March 2023}} to have quietly ordered the release of particular priests, whose families he knew. Accusations of plotting in [[Yorkshire]] (the "Barnbow Plot"), where prominent local Catholics like [[Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 2nd Baronet]] were accused of signing "the Bloody Oath of Secrecy", were unsuccessful because their Protestant neighbours (who sat on the juries) refused to convict them. A [[grand jury]] at Westminster rejected the plotting charge against [[Sir John Fitzgerald, 2nd Baronet]] in 1681.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/fitzgerald-sir-john-a3165 |title=Fitzgerald, Sir John |last=Bergin |first=John |date=October 2009 |website=Dictionary of Irish Biography |publisher= |access-date=1 February 2023 |quote=}}</ref> Judges gradually began to take a more impartial line, ruling that it was not treason for a Catholic to advocate the conversion of England to the old faith, nor to give financial support to [[religious house]]s (the latter was a criminal offence, just not treason). The supposed plot gained some credence in [[Ireland]], where the two Catholic Archbishops, [[Oliver Plunkett|Plunkett]] and [[Peter Talbot (bishop)|Talbot]], were the principal victims, but not in [[Scotland]].

Having had at least twenty-two innocent men executed (the last being [[Oliver Plunkett]], the Catholic [[Archbishop of Armagh (Roman Catholic)|Archbishop of Armagh]] on 1 July 1681), [[Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales|Chief Justice]] [[William Scroggs]] began to declare people innocent and the King began to devise countermeasures. The King, who was notably tolerant of religious differences and generally inclined to clemency, was embittered at the number of innocent men he had been forced to condemn; possibly thinking of the [[Indemnity and Oblivion Act 1660]] ([[12 Cha. 2]]. c. 11), under which he had pardoned many of his former opponents in 1660, he remarked that his people had never previously had cause to complain of his mercy. At the trial of Sir George Wakeman, and several priests who were tried with him, Scroggs virtually ordered the jury to acquit all of them, and despite public uproar, the King made it clear that he approved of Scroggs' conduct. On 31 August 1681, Oates was told to leave his apartments in Whitehall, but remained undeterred and even denounced the King and the Duke of York. He was arrested for [[sedition]], sentenced to a fine of £100,000 and thrown into prison.

When James II acceded to the throne in 1685 he had Oates tried on two charges of perjury. The Bench which tried him was presided over by the formidable [[George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys]], who conducted the trial in such a manner that Oates had no hope of acquittal, and the jury brought in the expected guilty verdict. The death penalty was not available for perjury and Oates was sentenced to be stripped of clerical dress, whipped through London twice, and imprisoned for life and pilloried every year (the penalties were so severe that it has been argued that Jeffreys was trying to kill Oates by ill-treatment). Oates spent the next three years in prison. At the accession of [[William III of England|William of Orange]] and [[Mary II of England|Mary]] in 1689, he was pardoned and granted a pension of £260 a year, but his reputation did not recover. The pension was suspended, but in 1698 was restored and increased to £300 a year. Oates died on 12 or 13 July 1705, quite forgotten by the public which had once called him a hero.

Of the other informers, James II was content merely to fine Miles Prance for his perjury, on the grounds that he was a Catholic and had been coerced by threats of torture into informing. Thomas Dangerfield was subjected to the same savage penalties as Oates; on returning from his first session in the [[pillory]], Dangerfield died of an eye injury after a scuffle with the barrister Robert Francis, who was hanged for his murder. Bedloe, Turbervile and Dugdale had all died of natural causes while the Plot was still officially regarded as true.