In the time of the popularity of Oates and Shaftesbury this show was exhibited annually in Fleet Street before the windows of the Whig Club on the anniversary of the birth of Queen Elizabeth.

Such was the celebrity of these grotesque rites, that Barillon once risked his life in order to peep at them from a hiding place.

[408] But, from the day when the Rye House Plot was discovered, till the day of the acquittal of the Bishops, the ceremony had been disused.

Now, however, several Popes made their appearance in different parts of London.

The Nuncio was much shocked; and the King was more hurt by this insult to his Church than by all the other affronts which he had received.