Popish Plot

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Not to be confused with Gunpowder Plot.
Jesuits

The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy invented by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria.[1] Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II, accusations that led to the executions of at least 22 men and precipitated the Exclusion Bill Crisis. During this tumultuous period, Oates weaved an intricate web of accusations, fueling public fears and paranoia. However, as time went on, the lack of substantial evidence and inconsistencies in Oates's testimony began to unravel the plot. Eventually, Oates himself was arrested and convicted for perjury, exposing the fabricated nature of the conspiracy.

Background

Development of English anti-Catholicism

The fictitious Popish Plot must be understood against the background of the

Protestant
population of England.

The

Edward VI (1547–1553), the Church of England was transformed into a strictly Protestant body, with many remnants of Catholicism suppressed. Edward was succeeded by his half-sister Mary I of England (1553–1558), daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine. She was a Catholic and returned the Church in England to union with the Holy See. Mary tainted her policy with two unpopular actions: she married her cousin, King Philip II of Spain, where the Inquisition
continued, and had 300 Protestants burned at the stake, causing many Englishmen to associate Catholicism with the involvement of foreign powers and religious persecution.

Mary was succeeded by her Protestant half-sister,

Dutch Revolt in the Spanish Netherlands – triggered Philip II of Spain's attempted invasion with the Spanish Armada
(1588). This reinforced the impression that Catholicism was a foreign element, while the Armada's failure, largely due to unfavourable weather, convinced many Englishmen that God was supportive of Protestantism.

Anti-Catholic sentiment reached new heights in 1605 after the Gunpowder Plot was discovered. Catholic plotters attempted to topple the Protestant regime of King James I by blowing up both King and parliament during the state opening of parliament. However, Guy Fawkes, who was in charge of the explosives, was discovered the night before and the attempt thwarted. The magnitude of the plot – had it succeeded most leading government figures would have been killed in one stroke – convinced many Englishmen that Catholics were devious conspirators who would stop at nothing to have their way, thus making allegations about Catholic plots more believable.

Anti-Catholicism in the 17th century

Anti-Catholic sentiment was a constant factor in how England perceived the events of the following decades: the

Thirty Years War (1618–1648) was seen as an attempt by the Catholic Habsburgs to exterminate German Protestantism. Under the early Stuart Kings, fears of Catholic conspiracies were rampant and the policies of Charles I – especially his church policies, which had a decidedly high church bent – were seen as pro-Catholic and likely induced by a Catholic conspiracy headed by Charles' Catholic queen, Henrietta Maria of France. This, together with accounts of Catholic atrocities in Ireland in 1641, triggered the English Civil War (1642–1649), which led to the abolition of the monarchy and a decade of Puritan rule, which espoused religious tolerance for most forms of Protestantism but not for Catholicism. The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 under King Charles II brought with it a reaction against all religious dissenters, i.e. all outside the established
Church of England. As a result, Catholics felt popular hostility and legal discrimination.

Anti-Catholic hysteria flared up lightly during the reign of Charles II, which saw various disasters such as the Great Plague of London (1665) and the Great Fire of London (1666). After the latter, rumours and propaganda floated around about arson, with Catholics and especially Jesuits as the first to be blamed. Kenyon remarks, "At Coventry, the townspeople were possessed by the idea that the papists were about to rise and cut their throats ... A nationwide panic seemed likely, and as homeless refugees poured out from London into the countryside, they took with them stories of a kind which were to be familiar enough in 1678 and 1679."[2]

Anti-Catholicism was fueled by doubts about the religious allegiance of the King, who had married a Portuguese Catholic princess,

penal laws against Catholics and other religious dissenters.[3] This resulted in growing fears by Protestants of increasing Catholic influence in England and led to conflict with parliament during the 1670s. In December 1677 an anonymous pamphlet (possibly by Andrew Marvell) spread alarm in London by suggesting that the Pope planned to change the lawful government of England.[4]

In 1682, Francis Barlow made a comic strip about the Popish Plot and Oates titled A True Narrative of the Horrid Hellish Popish Plot.

Events

Beginnings

The fictitious Popish Plot unfolded in a very peculiar fashion. Oates and

Jesuits
in England were to carry out the task. The manuscript also named nearly 100 Jesuits and their supporters who were supposedly involved in this assassination plot; nothing in the document was ever proven to be true.

Oates slipped a copy of the manuscript into the

Sir George Wakeman, would poison him. When the King demanded proof, the chemist offered to bring Tonge who knew of these matters personally. The King did agree to see both Kirkby and Tonge that evening, when he gave them a short audience. At this stage, he was already sceptical, but he was apparently not ready to rule out the possibility that there might be a plot of some sort (otherwise, Kenyon argues, he would not have given these two very obscure men a private audience). Charles told Kirkby to present Tonge to Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby, Lord High Treasurer, then the most influential of the King's ministers.[8]
Tonge then lied to Danby, saying that he had found the manuscript but did not know the author.

Investigations

As Kenyon points out, the government took seriously even the remotest hint of a threat to the King's life or well-being – in the previous spring a Newcastle housewife had been investigated by the Secretary of State simply for saying that "the King gets the curse of many good and faithful wives such as myself for his bad example".

Don John of Austria. Questioned by the King, who had met Don John in Brussels in 1656, it became obvious that Oates had no idea what he looked like.[12] The King had a long and frank talk with Paul Barillon, the French ambassador, in which he made it clear that he did not believe that there was a word of truth in the plot, and that Oates was "a wicked man"; but that by now he had come round to the view that there must be an investigation, particularly with Parliament about to reassemble.[13]

On 6 September Oates was summoned before the magistrate

Jesuit meeting held at the White Horse Tavern in the Strand, London, on April 24, 1678.[14] According to Oates, the purpose of that meeting was to discuss the assassination of Charles II. The meeting discussed a variety of methods which included: stabbing by Irish ruffians, shooting by two Jesuit soldiers, or poisoning by the Queen's physician, Sir George Wakeman.[14]

Oates and Tonge were brought before the

Jesuit Fr Ferrier, confessor to Louis XIV, outlining his grandiose schemes for obtaining a dissolution of the present Parliament, in the hope of its replacement by a new and pro-French Parliament; in the wake of this revelation he was condemned to death for treason. Wakeman was later acquitted. Despite Oates' unsavoury reputation, the councillors were impressed by his confidence, his grasp of detail and his remarkable memory. A turning point came when he was shown five letters, supposedly written by well-known priests and giving details of the plot, which he was suspected of forging: Oates "at a single glance" named each of the alleged authors. At this the Council were "amazed" and began to give much greater credence to the plot; apparently it did not occur to them that Oates' ability to recognise the letters made it more likely, rather than less, that he had forged them.[15]

Others Oates accused included Dr. William Fogarty,

Archbishop Peter Talbot of Dublin, Samuel Pepys and John Belasyse, 1st Baron Belasyse
. The list grew to 81 accusations. Oates was given a squad of soldiers and he began to round up Jesuits.

Godfrey's murder

The allegations gained little credence until the murder of

Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, a magistrate and strong supporter of Protestantism, to whom Oates had made his first depositions. His disappearance on 12 October 1678, the finding of his mutilated body on 17 October, and the subsequent failure to solve his murder sent the Protestant population into an uproar. He had been strangled and run through with his own sword. Many of his supporters blamed the murder on Catholics. As Kenyon commented, "Next day, the 18th, James wrote to William of Orange that Godfrey's death was already 'laid against the Catholics', and even he, never the most realistic of men, feared that 'all these things happening together will cause a great flame in the Parliament'."[16]
The Lords asked King Charles to banish all Catholics from a radius of 20 miles (32 km) around London, which Charles granted on 30 October 1678, but it was too late because London was already in a panic, which was long remembered as "Godfrey's autumn".

Oates seized on Godfrey's murder as proof that the plot was true. The murder of Godfrey and the discovery of Edward Coleman's letters[17] provided a solid basis of facts for the lies of Oates and the other informers who followed him. Oates was called to testify before the House of Lords and the House of Commons on 23 October 1678. He testified that he had seen a number of contracts signed by the Superior General of the Jesuits. The contracts appointed officers that would command an army of Catholic supporters to kill Charles II and establish a Catholic monarch.[18] To this day, no one is certain who killed Sir Edmund Godfrey, and most historians regard the mystery as insoluble. Oates' associate William Bedloe denounced the silversmith Miles Prance, who in turn named three working men, Berry, Green and Hill, who were tried, convicted and executed in February 1679; but it rapidly became clear that they were completely innocent, and that Prance, who had been subjected to torture, named them simply to gain his freedom (Kenyon suggests that he may have chosen men against whom he had a personal grudge, or he may simply have chosen them because they were the first Catholic acquaintances of his who came to mind).

The Plot before Parliament

King Charles, aware of the unrest, returned to London and summoned

firework
maker.

Trial of the Five Catholic Lords

Oates became more daring and accused five Catholic lords (

Test Act
, excluding Catholics from membership of both Houses (a law not repealed until 1829).

On 1 November 1678, the House of Commons resolved to proceed by

high treason
; and on 5 December the Commons announced the impeachment of Arundell. A month later Parliament was dissolved, and the proceedings were interrupted. In March 1679, it was resolved by both houses that the dissolution had not invalidated the motions for the impeachment. On 10 April 1679 Arundell and three of his companions (Belasyse was too ill to attend) were brought to the House of Lords to put in pleas against the articles of impeachment. Arundell complained of the uncertainty of the charges, and implored the peers to have them "reduced to competent certainty" but on 24 April this plea was voted irregular, and on 26 April the prisoners were again brought to the House of Lords and ordered to amend their pleas. Arundell replied by briefly declaring himself not guilty.

The impeachment trial was fixed for 13 May, but a quarrel between the two houses as to points of procedure, and the legality of admitting the bishops as judges in a capital trial, followed by a dissolution, delayed its commencement until 30 November 1680. On that day it was decided to proceed first against Lord Stafford, who was condemned to death on 7 December and beheaded on 29 December.[20] His trial, compared to the other Plot trials, was reasonably fair, but as in all cases of alleged treason at that date the absence of defence counsel was a fatal handicap (this was finally remedied in 1695), and while Oates' credit had been seriously damaged, the evidence of the principal prosecution witnesses, Turberville and Dugdale, struck even fair-minded observers like John Evelyn as being credible enough. Stafford, denied the services of counsel, failed to exploit several inconsistencies in Tuberville's testimony, which a good lawyer might have turned to his client's advantage.

On 30 December, the evidence against Arundell and his three fellow prisoners was ordered to be in readiness, but their public proceedings stopped. In fact, the death of William Bedloe left the prosecution in serious difficulties, since one protection for a person accused of treason, that there must be two eyewitnesses to an overt act of treason, was observed scrupulously, and only Oates claimed to have any hard evidence against the remaining Lords. Lord Petre died in the Tower in 1683. His companions remained there until 12 February 1684 when an appeal to the Court of King's Bench to release them on bail was successful. On 21 May 1685 Arundell, Powis, and Belasyse came to the House of Lords to present petitions for the annulling of the charges and on the following day the petitions were granted. On 1 June 1685, their liberty was formally assured on the ground that the witnesses against them had perjured themselves, and on 4 June the bill of attainder against Stafford was reversed.[21]

Height of the hysteria

Broadside, "The Solemn Mock Procession of the POPE, Cardinalls, Iesuits, Fryers etc: through ye City of London, November ye 17th. 1679."

On 24 November 1678, Oates claimed the Queen was working with the King's physician to poison him and enlisted the aid of "Captain" William Bedloe, a notorious member of the London underworld. The King personally interrogated Oates, caught him out in a number of inaccuracies and lies, and ordered his arrest. However, a few days later, with the threat of constitutional crisis, Parliament forced the release of Oates.

Hysteria continued:

Anglican widowers. The House of Commons was searched – without result – in the expectation of a second Gunpowder Plot
.

Anyone even suspected of being Catholic was driven out of London and forbidden to be within ten miles (16 km) of the city.

bound over, a mild punishment. Oates, for his part, received a state apartment in Whitehall and an annual allowance. He soon presented new allegations, claiming assassins intended to shoot the King with silver bullets so the wound would not heal. The public invented their own stories, including a tale that the sound of digging had been heard near the House of Commons and rumours of a French invasion on the Isle of Purbeck. The evidence of Oates and Bedloe was supplemented by other informers; some like Thomas Dangerfield, were notorious criminals, but others like Stephen Dugdale, Robert Jenison and Edward Turberville were men of good social standing who from motives of greed or revenge denounced innocent victims, and by their apparently plausible evidence made the Plot seem more credible. Dugdale in particular made such a good initial impression that even the King for the first time "began to think that there might be somewhat in the Plot".[22]

Waning of the hysteria

However, public opinion began to turn against Oates. As Kenyon points out, the steady protestations of innocence by all of those who were executed eventually took hold in the public mind. Outside London, the priests who died were almost all venerable and popular members of the community, and there was widespread public horror at their executions. Even Lord Shaftesbury came to regret the executions and is said[

religious houses (the latter was a criminal offence, just not treason). The supposed plot gained some credence in Ireland, where the two Catholic Archbishops, Plunkett and Talbot, were the principal victims, but not in Scotland
.

Having had at least twenty-two innocent men executed (the last being

Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, under which he had pardoned many of his former opponents in 1660, he remarked that his people had never previously had cause to complain of his mercy. At the trial of Sir George Wakeman, and several priests who were tried with him, Scroggs virtually ordered the jury to acquit all of them, and despite public uproar, the King made it clear that he approved of Scroggs' conduct. On 31 August 1681, Oates was told to leave his apartments in Whitehall, but remained undeterred and even denounced the King and the Duke of York. He was arrested for sedition
, sentenced to a fine of £100,000 and thrown into prison.

When James II acceded to the throne in 1685 he had Oates tried on two charges of perjury. The Bench which tried him was presided over by the formidable

Mary
in 1689, he was pardoned and granted a pension of £260 a year, but his reputation did not recover. The pension was suspended, but in 1698 was restored and increased to £300 a year. Oates died on 12 or 13 July 1705, quite forgotten by the public which had once called him a hero.

Of the other informers, James II was content merely to fine Miles Prance for his perjury, on the grounds that he was a Catholic and had been coerced by threats of torture into informing. Thomas Dangerfield was subjected to the same savage penalties as Oates; on returning from his first session in the pillory, Dangerfield died of an eye injury after a scuffle with the barrister Robert Francis, who was hanged for his murder. Bedloe, Turbervile and Dugdale had all died of natural causes while the Plot was still officially regarded as true.

Long-term effects

The

Claude de la Colombière highlights the plight of the Jesuits during this time period. He comments, "The name of the Jesuit is hated above all else, even by priests both secular and regular, and by the Catholic laity as well, because it is said that the Jesuits have caused this raging storm, which is likely to overthrow the whole Catholic religion".[25]

Other Catholic

priests were arrested and tried because the Privy Council wanted to make sure to catch all of those who might possess information about the supposed plot.[26]

The hysteria had serious consequences for ordinary British Catholics as well as priests. On 30 October 1678, a proclamation was made that required all Catholics who were not tradesmen or property owners to leave London and Westminster. They were not to enter a twelve-mile (c.19 km) radius of the city without special permission. Throughout this period Catholics were subject to fines, harassment and imprisonment.[27] It was not until the early 19th century that most of the anti-Catholic legislation was removed by the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829; anti-Catholic sentiment remained even longer among politicians and the general populace, although the Gordon Riots of 1780 made it clear to sensible observers that Catholics were far more likely to be the victims of violence than its perpetrators.

Gallery of playing cards

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Heald 1992, p. 605.
  2. ^ Kenyon 1985, p. 10.
  3. ^ Fraser, pp. 305–308; Hutton, pp. 284–85.[full citation needed]
  4. ^ Heald 1992, p. 603.
  5. ^ Pollock 2005, p. 13.
  6. ^ Marshall 2008.
  7. ^ Brown 1999.
  8. ^ Knights 2008.
  9. ^ Kenyon 1985, p. 61.
  10. ^ Pollock 2005, p. 73–74.
  11. ^ Kenyon 1985, pp. 68–69.
  12. ^ Kenyon 1985, p. 80.
  13. ^ Kenyon 1985, p. 84.
  14. ^ a b c Williams 1958, pp. 104–118.
  15. ^ Kenyon 1985, p. 79.
  16. ^ Kenyon 1985, p. 78.
  17. ^ Barclay 2004.
  18. ^ Kenyon 1985, pp. 78–81.
  19. ^ Kenyon 1985, pp. 84–85.
  20. ^ Holmes 2004.
  21. ^ Lee 1885.
  22. ^ Kenyon 1985, p. 158.
  23. ^ Bergin, John (October 2009). "Fitzgerald, Sir John". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  24. ^ Kenyon 1985, p. 205.
  25. ^ Kenyon 1985, p. 206.
  26. ^ Kenyon 1985, p. 209–11.
  27. ^ Kenyon 1985, p. 219.

Sources


External links

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