The truth seems to have been that the rancorous and coarseminded Countess gave the tone to Her Highness’s confidential correspondence, while the graceful, serene and politic Earl was suffered to prescribe the course which was to be taken before the public eye.  During a short time the Queen was generally blamed.  But the charm of her temper and manners was irresistible; and in a few months she regained the popularity which she had lost.192

It was a most fortunate circumstance for Marlborough that, just at the very time when all London was talking about his disgrace, and trying to guess at the cause of the King’s sudden anger against one who had always seemed to be a favourite, an accusation of treason was brought by William Fuller against many persons of high consideration, was strictly investigated, and was proved to be false and malicious.  The consequence was that the public, which rarely discriminates nicely, could not, at that moment, be easily brought to believe in the reality of any Jacobite conspiracy.

That Fuller’s plot is less celebrated than the Popish plot is rather the fault of the historians than of Fuller, who did all that man could do to secure an eminent place among villains.  Every person well read in history must have observed that depravity has its temporary modes, which come in and go out like modes of dress and upholstery.  It may be doubted whether, in our country, any man ever before the year 1678 invented and related on oath a circumstantial history, altogether fictitious, of a treasonable plot, for the purpose of making himself important by destroying men who had given him no provocation.  But in the year 1678 this execrable crime became the fashion, and continued to be so during the twenty years which followed.  Preachers designated it as our peculiar national sin, and prophesied that it would draw on us some awful national judgment.  Legislators proposed new punishments of terrible severity for this new atrocity.193 It was not however found necessary to resort to those punishments.  The fashion changed; and during the last century and a half there has perhaps not been a single instance of this particular kind of wickedness.

The explanation is simple.  Oates was the founder of a school.  His success proved that no romance is too wild to be received with faith by understandings which fear and hatred have disordered.  His slanders were monstrous; but they were well timed; he spoke to a people made credulous by their passions; and thus, by impudent and cruel lying, he raised himself in a week from beggary and obscurity to luxury, renown and power.  He had once eked out the small tithes of a miserable vicarage by stealing the pigs and fowls of his parishioners.194 He was now lodged in a palace; he was followed by admiring crowds; he had at his mercy the estates and lives of Howards and Herberts.  A crowd of imitators instantly appeared.  It seemed that much more might be got, and that much less was