The acquittal dealt a severe blow to the credibility of the "Plot", but there was a public backlash also. The jurors had to flee their homes for fear of the mob, and a dead dog was thrown at Scroggs. When the Portuguese Ambassador, the Marquis of Arronches, called on Scroggs in person to congratulate him on Wakeman's acquittal (historians have called the Ambassador's action one of "incredible folly"), the public, perhaps not unreasonably, assumed that the judge had been bribed. Wakeman went to Windsor Castle to see the queen and king, and left the country. In the course of evidence given at subsequent trials Oates entirely ignored the verdict, and continued to speak of the bribe offered to and accepted by the queen's physician. Wakeman was back in London by 1685, and gave evidence against Oates on 8 May 1685, in his first trial for perjury. Nothing is known of his further career.