The power of lying. The Popish Plot Part 2

For part one, see my post of yesterday.

When Titus Oates presented his ‘evidence’ to the Privy Council, King Charles II tore it to shreds, but Oates had the support of the London mob, and standing up to him publicly - that was quite another matter. It would have caused an almighty row.

So the king did nothing to save from execution at least 15 people he must have known to be innocent, while Oates was heaped with honours and money.

But gradually people became more and more sceptical about Oates' claims, and in 1681 Charles had him arrested and imprisoned. And when the king was succeeded by his brother, the Catholic James II, who Oates had denounced, the perjurer was imprisoned for life, put in the pillory and whipped through the streets of London.

The story was not quite over, though. When James was deposed by his daughter Mary and his son-in-law, William III, Oates was pardoned, released and given a pension.

Death of a palace - 317 years ago today

On this day………………317 years ago, London’s Palace of Whitehall burned down. Once the greatest palace in Europe, it met its end when a servant put some linen to dry by a fire, then left it.

Soon not only the linen but the whole room was alight, and by the time the alarm was raised, the flames had taken such a strong hold that the primitive fire-fighting apparatus of the time could make no impression on them.

The blaze raged for 16 hours, and destroyed the whole palace apart from the Holbein Gate and the Banqueting Hall (pictured), with its magnificent Rubens ceiling, where Charles I had been executed half a century before.

The fire also destroyed 150 nearby houses, mostly homes of the nobility. William III, who was king at the time, didn’t like the palace, believing it aggravated his asthma, and so it was never rebuilt. For more, see London’s Disasters.