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The Popish Plot
In 1678, against a backdrop of paranoiac fear of Catholicism, Titus Oates and his followers succeeded in convincing both Parliament and the public of a Jesuit and Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II and overthrow the Protestant establishment. As a result, hundreds of Catholics suffered imprisonment and 24 were executed. Here is the background of that plot, its development, and its long-term repercussions. "With the technical mastery of a seasoned professional...he retells in vivid detail an extraordinary tale of human credulity, knavery, and folly."--The Times.
345 pages, Paperback
First published June 30, 2001
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About the author
J.P. Kenyon
20 books2 followersJohn Philipps Kenyon was an English historian. He was one of the foremost historians of 17th-century England, a prolific writer and reviewer, and a Fellow of the British Academy.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 13, 2023
Not the easiest of reads and I was very pleased to finish it.
Following the tortuous machinations of the would-be-plot exposers, also those factions in Parliament whose ends were furthered as a result, was hard and dispiriting. Then the trials of many innocent people, in the dock for being “papists” and potential regicides, often condemned to death as a result. This was a fun read alright!
I find it very depressing that human nature hasn’t changed much in 350 years. People are still dying innocently and cheaply, albeit judiciously killed, to the benefit of others. Scape–goating is as fashionable as ever. One little gem which has lodged concerns two cousins – one a catholic priest and another a god-fearing protestant. The priest was a landholder without issue. It just so happened that the protestant cousin stood to inherit the estate should anything happen to his priestly relation. Accused of being the worst kind of catholic, the priest went on the run and eventually died of exhaustion, buried secretly by his friends and followers. The surviving cousin eventually had him disinterred to make sure the deceased was his own flesh and blood and that he could then inherit. He did.
The book offered me a fascinating insight into the workings of the British constitution and its evolution, especially the role of the monarchy. Wily though he was, Charles II was ducking and diving and offering glimpses of a path that would lead eventually to constitutional monarchy. Similarly fascinating is the attitude of each of the Stuart brothers to Catholicism. Charles, a death bed convert, was secretly sympathetic to the “old” Catholics (rather than the Jesuit variety) who had befriended him when crownless. Why, I wonder, did James suddenly and stubbornly embrace Catholicism when he had shown little or no inclination previously to do so? Did it suit his absolutist tendencies?
Following the tortuous machinations of the would-be-plot exposers, also those factions in Parliament whose ends were furthered as a result, was hard and dispiriting. Then the trials of many innocent people, in the dock for being “papists” and potential regicides, often condemned to death as a result. This was a fun read alright!
I find it very depressing that human nature hasn’t changed much in 350 years. People are still dying innocently and cheaply, albeit judiciously killed, to the benefit of others. Scape–goating is as fashionable as ever. One little gem which has lodged concerns two cousins – one a catholic priest and another a god-fearing protestant. The priest was a landholder without issue. It just so happened that the protestant cousin stood to inherit the estate should anything happen to his priestly relation. Accused of being the worst kind of catholic, the priest went on the run and eventually died of exhaustion, buried secretly by his friends and followers. The surviving cousin eventually had him disinterred to make sure the deceased was his own flesh and blood and that he could then inherit. He did.
The book offered me a fascinating insight into the workings of the British constitution and its evolution, especially the role of the monarchy. Wily though he was, Charles II was ducking and diving and offering glimpses of a path that would lead eventually to constitutional monarchy. Similarly fascinating is the attitude of each of the Stuart brothers to Catholicism. Charles, a death bed convert, was secretly sympathetic to the “old” Catholics (rather than the Jesuit variety) who had befriended him when crownless. Why, I wonder, did James suddenly and stubbornly embrace Catholicism when he had shown little or no inclination previously to do so? Did it suit his absolutist tendencies?
December 21, 2025
The anti-Catholic "Popish plot" conspiracism that gripped England and Scotland in the late 1670s is synonymous with the name of Titus Oates. However, in this classic account of the affair J.P. Kenyon cautions that although "even today some Catholic apologists refer to the Plot as 'Oates's Plot'… this is to flatter him. The King's mystifying foreign policy produced a general feeling of apprehension and instability, and the ebullient self-confidence of his Catholic courtiers and hangers-on accentuated it".
One of these courtiers was Edward Coleman (or Colman), secretary to Charles II's Catholic sister-in-law, Mary of Moderna. Coleman seems to have been a hapless figure, who as described by Kenyon "lived in an unreal world of his own". Coleman believed that the prospects of Catholics in England would be improved if Charles were less dependent on Parliament, and he entered into intrigues with the French court to bring this about. His scheming reflected "the delusion of all those outside the inner circle of power, that confessors and mistresses were significant political figures - more significant, indeed, than trusted and accredited ministers of state" – but although his efforts were ineffective he unwisely retained compromising correspondence that came to light in 1678, when he was accused by Oates to Charles and the Privy Council. Oates may have made a lucky guess, or he may have been given a tip-off by the Earl of Danby, the Lord Treasurer, who saw Colman as a bad influence.
What happened next set the conditions for a perfect storm of conspiracism: the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, to whom Oates had given a full deposition just before Colman's arrest. The case remains one of English history's great unsolved crimes - three men were convicted of the murder on the basis of false testimony, but later exonerated. Treason trials followed: Coleman was hanged, drawn and quartered towards the end of 1678; and "between June 20th and August 27th, 1679, and including those tried in London, fourteen Catholics were executed; one layman, two Franciscans, four seminary priests and seven Jesuits. To these must be added two reprieved for special reasons, and one who died in prison before execution."
Oates's supposed credibility was due to a period he had spent in France and Spain as "Fr Ambrose" – prior converting to Catholicism he had been a Baptist and an Anglican cleric, and he had just been dismissed from a position as a naval chaplain due to an allegation of homosexuality. He fared poorly as a novice at the English College at Valladolid and as a mature student St Omers, unable to master Latin, engaging in "bawdy and blasphemous conversation" and exhibiting homosexual tendencies, and at length he had been expelled back to London by the Provincial, Thomas Whitbread – who was to become one of Oates's victims. Having repudiated Catholicism (claiming that his conversion had been a pretence all along), Oates now claimed to have been the confidante of plotters at the highest levels. As Kenyon archly puts it: "Once it was accepted that such men would, half a dozen at a time, put their hands to letters detailing their treasonable plans, and consign their secrets to an ex-Anabaptist homosexual, then the rest followed."
Difficulties were glossed over: Oates's testimony relied on impossible and inconsistent dates; he was unable to recognise Coleman (he blamed poor candlelight); and his checkered past already included a prior perjury charge at Hastings in Sussex, where his father Samuel Oates had been given the living of All Saints Church by a London physician named Sir Richard Barker: "There he eagerly joined in his father's quarrel with a prominent local family, the Parkers, but he made the mistake of accusing young William Parker of sodomy and his father of treasonable words. The elder Parker's case went up to the Privy Council, which exonerated him, and the local magistrates dismissed the case against his son." It was to escape the perjury charge that he took the position as a naval chaplain.* Kenyon suggests Oates's father may have prompted him to accuse Sir William Goring and Sir John Gage, two Catholics Sussex landowners. His allegations were also in some cases far-fetched: his "psychotic mind", in Kenyon’s judgement, was most in evidence in his suggestion of conspiracies between Jesuits and Cromwellians.
Why were he and co-accusers such as Israel Tonge ("a crazy clergyman… a mental casualty of the Civil Wars") and William Bedloe taken so seriously? Kenyon explains:
Kenyon's narrative is based on close readings of primary sources, although he also engages with earlier scholarly treatments (in particular, that Sir John Pollock) and even gives dues to a book about Godfrey’s murder by "the American detective story writer John Dickson Carr". He also dips into group psychology, quoting Neil Smelser's Theory of Collective Behaviour and through him Anselm Strauss (cited only as "Strauss", and without any specific reference). This is particularly pertinent to reports of "night riders", mysterious horsemen supposedly either seen or heard across the country.
Although at times conversational in tone, parts of the text quite demanding. The trials held under Lord Chief Justice of England William Scroggs, with George Jeffreys as Recorder, are described in detail and at length, and it is not always clear that indviduals mentioned in passing in one place will become significant later on in the narrative, requiring a bit of back-and-forth.
* Footnote: The MP for Hastings, Sir Denny Ashburnham of Broomham, was asked about the matter in court. He was "pitiably embarrassed" that his knowledge about it and of Oates's history of dishonesty going back to childhood might undermine the Crown's case, and Scroggs "got rid of" him "quickly enough". Ashburnham was a distant cousin of the Ashburnhams of Ashburnham and also son-in-law of John Ashburnham "the Cavalier".
One of these courtiers was Edward Coleman (or Colman), secretary to Charles II's Catholic sister-in-law, Mary of Moderna. Coleman seems to have been a hapless figure, who as described by Kenyon "lived in an unreal world of his own". Coleman believed that the prospects of Catholics in England would be improved if Charles were less dependent on Parliament, and he entered into intrigues with the French court to bring this about. His scheming reflected "the delusion of all those outside the inner circle of power, that confessors and mistresses were significant political figures - more significant, indeed, than trusted and accredited ministers of state" – but although his efforts were ineffective he unwisely retained compromising correspondence that came to light in 1678, when he was accused by Oates to Charles and the Privy Council. Oates may have made a lucky guess, or he may have been given a tip-off by the Earl of Danby, the Lord Treasurer, who saw Colman as a bad influence.
What happened next set the conditions for a perfect storm of conspiracism: the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, to whom Oates had given a full deposition just before Colman's arrest. The case remains one of English history's great unsolved crimes - three men were convicted of the murder on the basis of false testimony, but later exonerated. Treason trials followed: Coleman was hanged, drawn and quartered towards the end of 1678; and "between June 20th and August 27th, 1679, and including those tried in London, fourteen Catholics were executed; one layman, two Franciscans, four seminary priests and seven Jesuits. To these must be added two reprieved for special reasons, and one who died in prison before execution."
Oates's supposed credibility was due to a period he had spent in France and Spain as "Fr Ambrose" – prior converting to Catholicism he had been a Baptist and an Anglican cleric, and he had just been dismissed from a position as a naval chaplain due to an allegation of homosexuality. He fared poorly as a novice at the English College at Valladolid and as a mature student St Omers, unable to master Latin, engaging in "bawdy and blasphemous conversation" and exhibiting homosexual tendencies, and at length he had been expelled back to London by the Provincial, Thomas Whitbread – who was to become one of Oates's victims. Having repudiated Catholicism (claiming that his conversion had been a pretence all along), Oates now claimed to have been the confidante of plotters at the highest levels. As Kenyon archly puts it: "Once it was accepted that such men would, half a dozen at a time, put their hands to letters detailing their treasonable plans, and consign their secrets to an ex-Anabaptist homosexual, then the rest followed."
Difficulties were glossed over: Oates's testimony relied on impossible and inconsistent dates; he was unable to recognise Coleman (he blamed poor candlelight); and his checkered past already included a prior perjury charge at Hastings in Sussex, where his father Samuel Oates had been given the living of All Saints Church by a London physician named Sir Richard Barker: "There he eagerly joined in his father's quarrel with a prominent local family, the Parkers, but he made the mistake of accusing young William Parker of sodomy and his father of treasonable words. The elder Parker's case went up to the Privy Council, which exonerated him, and the local magistrates dismissed the case against his son." It was to escape the perjury charge that he took the position as a naval chaplain.* Kenyon suggests Oates's father may have prompted him to accuse Sir William Goring and Sir John Gage, two Catholics Sussex landowners. His allegations were also in some cases far-fetched: his "psychotic mind", in Kenyon’s judgement, was most in evidence in his suggestion of conspiracies between Jesuits and Cromwellians.
Why were he and co-accusers such as Israel Tonge ("a crazy clergyman… a mental casualty of the Civil Wars") and William Bedloe taken so seriously? Kenyon explains:
a seventeenth-century treason trial was not an attempt to ascertain the truth or administer justice, except in a punitive sense. It was a morality play, staged as a demonstration of government power, an affirmation of kingly authority, and a warning to the unwary.Judges could "coerce" juries, and it was generally understood that treason was so serious but difficult to prove that the accused were not to be allowed counsel or to sub poena witnesses, or even to be given a copy of the indictment against them – a way of proceeding that is "baffling and unpleasant" to modern readers. Bedloe, who when asked in court by one of his victims, Richard Langhorne, to clarify the extent of his allegations, "brazenly" replied that "Things may occur to my memory hereafter, which do not now" – the perennial boast of the false accuser.
Kenyon's narrative is based on close readings of primary sources, although he also engages with earlier scholarly treatments (in particular, that Sir John Pollock) and even gives dues to a book about Godfrey’s murder by "the American detective story writer John Dickson Carr". He also dips into group psychology, quoting Neil Smelser's Theory of Collective Behaviour and through him Anselm Strauss (cited only as "Strauss", and without any specific reference). This is particularly pertinent to reports of "night riders", mysterious horsemen supposedly either seen or heard across the country.
Although at times conversational in tone, parts of the text quite demanding. The trials held under Lord Chief Justice of England William Scroggs, with George Jeffreys as Recorder, are described in detail and at length, and it is not always clear that indviduals mentioned in passing in one place will become significant later on in the narrative, requiring a bit of back-and-forth.
* Footnote: The MP for Hastings, Sir Denny Ashburnham of Broomham, was asked about the matter in court. He was "pitiably embarrassed" that his knowledge about it and of Oates's history of dishonesty going back to childhood might undermine the Crown's case, and Scroggs "got rid of" him "quickly enough". Ashburnham was a distant cousin of the Ashburnhams of Ashburnham and also son-in-law of John Ashburnham "the Cavalier".
September 12, 2018
Exhaustive levels of details made this heavy going at times with a lot of focus on the trials. But what emerges is an interesting window into a scandal that is rich with detail, drawing attention to a key era in English history. I'd have liked to learn more about the personalities of the figures as opposed to trial transcripts but it held my attention well
June 2, 2023
When you sit down and read about Tituss Oates, a modern phrase comes to mind: this 17th century fantasist was "hiding in plain sight. Fascinating account of a country losing it's collective marbles, a" reds under the beds" fright some three centuries before Mccarthy.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews