on the security of a Jacobite plot, which the latter was prepared to divulge; but this fair prospect was ruined, in Oates's estimation, by Fuller's cowardly scruples (The whole Life of William Fuller, 1703, p. 623). An advantageous marriage became his next object, and on 18 Aug. 1693 Oates was married to a widow named Margaret Wells, a Muggletonian, with a jointure of 2,000l. (Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, iii. 165). The event provoked some lively pasquinades, one by Thomas Brown being the cause of the satirist's commitment to prison by order of the council (ib. iii. 173; Brown, The Salamanca Wedding). His wife's money proved inadequate to the needs of Oates, who had contracted extravagant tastes and habitually lived beyond his income. In 1693, moreover, his annuity had been suspended at the instance of Queen Mary, who was greatly incensed at the atrocious libels upon the character of her father to which Oates had given currency. Upon Mary's death, however, Oates's powers of coarse invective were fully displayed in his elaborate ‘Εἰκὼν Βασιλική; or the Picture of the late King James drawn to the Life. In which it is made manifest that the whole Course of his Life hath to this day been a continued Conspiracy against the Protestant Religion, Laws, and Liberties of the Three Kingdoms. In a Letter to Himself. And humbly dedicated to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, William the Third, our Deliverer and Restorer;’ part i. (three editions), 1696, 4to; part ii., 1697; part iii., 1697; part iv., 1697. The pecuniary reward for his labour was probably small. Early in 1697 he wrote a piteous appeal to the king for the payment of his debts and the restitution of his pension, mentioning that he had no clothes worthy to appear before his majesty in person. ‘The doctor,’ as he was still styled by advanced whigs, retained a certain influence, and on 15 July 1698 the treasury granted him 500l. to pay his debts, and 300l. per annum, to date from Lady day 1698, during his own and his wife's lifetime, out of the post-office revenues (Cal. of Treasury Papers, 1697–1702, p. 116). Deliverance from pecuniary embarrassments enabled Oates to obtain, what he had long coveted, admission into the sect of baptists; his craving for publicity doubtless obtained satisfaction in the pulpit of the Wapping chapel, where he frequently officiated. He was, however, foiled in a discreditable intrigue for wringing a legacy from a wealthy devotee, and in 1701 he was expelled from the sect as ‘a disorderly person and a hypocrite’ (Crosby, Hist. of the Baptists, 1738, iii. 166, 182). He returned to his old lodging in Axe Yard, and resumed his favourite occupation of attending the sittings of the courts in Westminster Hall. In July 1702 he involuntarily attended the quarter sessions, and narrowly escaped imprisonment for assaulting the eccentric Eleanor James [q. v.], who had questioned his right to appear, as was his practice, in canonical garb (An Account of the Proceedings against Dr. Titus Oates at the Quarter Sessions held in Westminster Hall on 2 July 1702). He died in Axe Yard on 12 July 1705 (Luttrell, v. 572). Roger North says of Oates, with substantial justice: ‘He was a man of an ill cut, very short neck, and his visage and features were most particular. His mouth was the centre of his face, and a compass there would sweep his nose, forehead, and chin within the perimeter. … In a word, he was a most consummate cheat, blasphemer, vicious, perjured, impudent, and saucy, foul-mouth'd wretch, and, were it not for the Truth of History and the great Emotions in the Public he was the cause of, not fit to be remembered.’
Oates's idiosyncrasies might be fairly deduced from the character of his associates—men such as Aaron Smith (his legal adviser), Goodenough, Rumsey, Colledge, Rumbold, Nelthrop, West, Bedloe, Tutchin, and Fuller. These men he entertained in his chambers at Whitehall, and sought to eclipse in abuse of the royal family at their common headquarters, the Green Ribbon Club, which, from 1679 onwards, held its meetings at the King's Head in Chancery-lane End (Smith, Intrigues of the Popish Plot; cf. Sitwell, The First Whig, p. 49). Among all these scoundrels Oates was distinguished for the effrontery of his demeanour no less than by the superior villany of his private life. He was an adept in all the arts of arrogance and bluster, but though voluble of speech, he spoke with a strange, broad accent and a nasal drawl. His fondness for foul language was such that in the presence of superiors he is said to have missed no opportunity of narrating the blasphemies of others (North, Examen; Calamy, Life, i. 120).
Lord-keeper North once heard Oates preach at St. Dunstan's, and much admired his theatrical behaviour in the pulpit. A certain dramatic talent, combined with the unrivalled assurance of his manner, had probably more to do with the success of his fabrication than any real cleverness on his part. He certainly exhibited some astuteness in the early stages of the plot; but, as his inventions grew more complicated, his memory was not good enough to save him from self-contradiction. Such a career was only possible at a time when party feeling raged in politics and religion
