In appearance he was strikingly pale and emaciated, due it was said to his practice of regular fasting; his white face being all the more noticeable because he always wore a black periwig.

In 1673 James appointed Colman secretary to his wife, Mary of Modena, despite warnings from several quarters, including Charles II himself, that he was not a man to be trusted.

Through an English Catholic army officer stationed in Paris, Sir William Throckmorton, he passed on political information to the Jesuit Jean Ferrier who was confessor to Louis XIV.

These attempts failed to procure money, due mainly to the scepticism of Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne, Louis' Foreign Minister, who put no faith in Colman, Throckmorton or indeed King Charles II, whom he did not even think worth the trouble of bribing.

[5] Colman acted independently of Charles II in trying to obtain French financial assistance to reduce the King's dependence on the anti-Catholic Parliament.

Throckmorton had been killed in a duel in the spring of 1675: this, following Ferrier's death the previous winter, deprived Colman of his most useful contacts at the French Court.

His sister removed a trunk full of documents from his house a week later, rousing further suspicions about what incriminating evidence her brother was concealing.

He made so "voluble and fair a defence", urging his voluntary appearance as proof of his "innocence of these vile things", that the Council, exhausted by the long day's proceedings, decided not to order his arrest.

Kenyon argues that the King decided to make an example of Colman, in order to reassure the public that the Crown would allow the law to take its course even against Court officials, and that he was happy to sacrifice a man whom he had always distrusted.

The strange optimism (Kenyon attributes it to a natural levity of mind) which he had shown up to then finally deserted him: he predicted correctly to the House of Lords that "I have confessed to that which will destroy me"[11] (although many believed that he continued to hope in vain for a pardon right up to the very end).

The first victim of the plot was William Staley, a young Catholic banker who had allegedly vowed to kill the King (in fact the threat seems to have been simply a foolish remark spoken in drink).

On Saturday, 23 November 1678, Colman was arraigned for high treason, and the trial took place on Wednesday, the 27th, at the King's Bench bar, before the Lord Chief Justice William Scroggs and three junior judges.

Scroggs was a firm believer in the Popish Plot, and although he assured Colman that he would receive a fair trial- "we seek no man's blood, but only our own safety"[12]- there is no doubt that he was determined to secure a conviction by any means necessary.

Oates swore that he had carried a treasonable letter from Colman to the rector of St. Omer, containing a sealed answer to Father La Chaise, with thanks for the ten thousand pounds given for the propagation of the Catholic religion, and chiefly to cut off the King of England.

Then Oates told of a consultation in August at the Savoy, with Colman present, arranging to poison the Duke of Ormonde and to rise in rebellion.

Ten thousand pounds were to be offered to Sir George Wakeman, physician to Queen Catherine of Braganza, to poison the king; instructions had been seen and read by Colman, copied out by him and sent to other conspirators.

In particular, he could not explain to the Court's satisfaction why he had failed to recognise Colman at the crucial Council meeting of 30 September: the judges were not impressed with his pleas that it had been late and he was tired.

In his summing up he referred briefly to their evidence ("you have heard it") but made no comment, one way or the other, on their veracity To spare the Duke of York any embarrassment, the prosecution did not tell the jury that Colman had ever been in his employment, instead referring vaguely to Colman holding an unspecified public office (although they can scarcely have believed that the jury were unaware of his true position).

He plainly had advocated foreign bribery of the king to insure such a dissolution, and used some strong phrases as to the Catholic hopes of suppressing heresy.

[13] There was no proof of any conspiracy by Colman in a plot for the assassination of, or a rebellion against Charles II except the perjured testimony of Oates and Bedloe.

The next morning a sentence of death and confiscation of property was pronounced, and on Tuesday, 3 December, he was executed, avowing his faith and declaring his innocence.