as Tartarin said, but who are 'they'? Godfrey said that he had
'taken the depositions very unwillingly, and would fain have had it
done by others. . . . I think I shall have little thanks for my
pains. . . . Upon my conscience I believe I shall be the first
martyr.'*** He could not expect thanks from the Catholics: it was
from the frenzied Protestants that he expected 'little thanks.'

*L'Estrange, iii. p. 187.
**Burnet, ii. p. 740.
***State Trials, vii. pp. 168, 169.

Oates swore, and, for once, is corroborated, that Godfrey complained
'of receiving affronts from some great persons (whose names I name
not now) for being so zealous in this business.' If Oates, by
'great persons,' means the Duke of York, it was in the Duke's own
cause that Godfrey had been 'zealous,' sending him warning by
Coleman. Oates added that others threatened to complain to
Parliament, which was to meet on October 21, that Godfrey had been
'too remiss.' Oates was a liar, but Godfrey, in any case, was
between the Devil and the deep sea. As early as October 24, Mr.
Mulys attested, before the Lords, Godfrey's remark, 'he had been
blamed by some great men for not having done his duty, and by other
great men for having done too much.' Mulys corroborates Oates.* If
Godfrey knew a secret dangerous to the Jesuits (which, later, was a
current theory), he might be by them silenced for ever. If his
conduct, being complained of, was examined into by Parliament,
misprision of treason was the lowest at which his offence could be
rated. Never was magistrate in such a quandary. But we do not
know, in the state of the evidence, which of his many perils he
feared most, and his possession of 'a dangerous secret' (namely, the