Written by Manahil Masood
In the late seventeenth century, England was a kingdom haunted by the spectre of civil war, revolution, and religious unrest. The memory of the 1640s still lingered uncomfortably close: Parliament and Crown had gone to war, a king had been executed, and Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan interregnum republic had briefly replaced monarchical order with military rule. The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 brought back some semblance of stability, but it did not erase the political fractures or religious anxieties that had been brewing for generations.
Indeed, England remained a deeply divided society. Beneath the restored pomp of court life and the flourishing of Restoration theatre and science, the country seethed with suspicion and ideological tension. Central to this tension was religion; specifically, the position of Catholics in an overwhelmingly Protestant state. Anti-Catholicism had long been embedded in the national psyche, dating back to the Reformation, and inflamed by events such as the 1588 Spanish Armada conflict, the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, and the Thirty Years’ War on the continent. Indeed, by the 1670s, Catholics were a small, disenfranchised minority, regarded with mistrust and frequently treated as potential enemies of the state. As J.P. Kenyon puts it in the opening line of his 1972 book, The Popish Plot, “in the seventeenth century, the Englishman’s attitude to Roman Catholicism was quite uncompromising.” Arguably, the young Lord Russell represented the majority of his countrymen when he told the 1679 House of Commons that he “despises such a ridiculous and nonsensical religion.”
It was in this context that, in 1678, a previously obscure figure named Titus Oates stepped into the heart of national affairs with a claim so audacious, and so timely, that it plunged England into one of the most bizarre and deadly episodes of its seventeenth-century history. Oates, a former Anglican clergyman with a record of failure and expulsion from both Protestant and Catholic institutions, presented a conspiracy theory of Jesuit treachery. Together with his “crazy clergyman” associate Israel Tonge, he alleged that he had uncovered a vast Catholic conspiracy to assassinate King Charles II, overthrow the government, massacre Protestants, and install James as a puppet Catholic king under papal control.
Oates’ claims were delivered with detail and drama. He provided specific names, supplied forged documents, and presented his fabricated allegations to the Privy Council and Cavalier Parliament with all the confidence of a man who understood the paranoia that ruled his audience. He was, in many ways, the perfect figure for this role: opportunistic, charismatic, and entirely untroubled by the need for truth. Thus, somewhat unsurprisingly, the panicked response to his allegations was immediate and staggering. Though Charles II himself is believed to have doubted the plausibility of the plot from the beginning, political pressure and popular hysteria forced him to act on the alleged Catholic conspiracy.
What followed was a wave of panic that swept through English society with alarming speed. The supposed “Popish Plot” became a national obsession, dominating pamphlets, sermons, and parliamentary debates. In the absence of reliable evidence, the power of fear became increasingly apparent. Indeed, the mysterious death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, a Protestant magistrate who had taken Oates’ initial deposition, was quickly interpreted as proof of Catholic guilt. Whilst the circumstances of his grisly murder remain unsolved, the discovery of a corpse, stabbed and strangled, provided the narrative with a martyr and gave Oates’ story the macabre plausibility it needed.
Over the next three years, approximately thirty-five innocent Catholics were executed, and dozens more were imprisoned or exiled. The most prominent victims were members of the Jesuit order, including the now-beatified Thomas Whitbread and William Ireland, whose trials were marked by flimsy evidence, coerced witnesses, and a presumption of guilt. The proceedings were public and highly performative, often shaped more by political theatre than legal process. Parliament became inflamed by Protestant MPs eager to curtail royal prerogative and the influence of the Catholic Duke of York and Albany (the future James II). They seized the moment to pass the Test Acts, excluding Catholics from public office and increasing restrictions on religious dissenters.
Arguably, the broader context of the Exclusion Crisis, which followed in 1679, is crucial here. The fear of a Catholic monarch inheriting the throne led many in the political class to use the Popish Plot as leverage to prevent James from succeeding his brother. The plot thus became more than a criminal investigation, but a political weapon in a larger ideological battle over succession, sovereignty, and the future of the English state.
As the 1680s progressed, however, the plot began to unravel. The unwavering protestations of innocence by all of those who were executed haunted the minds of the public and widespread horror met the executions of the venerable priests executed outside of London. Oates, emboldened by his new status and pension, overplayed his hand, accusing increasingly implausible targets of involvement, including Queen Catherine of Braganza. By the summer of 1681, public opinion had shifted, and Oates was fined and imprisoned for sedition. When James II ascended to the throne in 1685, he moved swiftly to dismantle what remained of the plot’s legal legacy. Oates was tried and found guilty of perjury, for which he was sentenced to be imprisoned for life; stripped of clerical dress, whipped through London twice, pilloried every year.
The damage, however, had already been done. The Popish Plot had claimed the lives of innocents, exacerbated sectarian tensions, and entrenched anti-Catholic legislation that would remain in place for over a century. Indeed, it had revealed the terrifying ease with which fear, when dressed in the language of patriotism and morality, could override due process and sweep through a nation like wildfire.
Bibliography
Hibbard, Caroline M. Charles I and the Popish Plot. the University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
Kenyon, J.P. The Popish Plot. Penguin Books, 1972.
Knights, Mark. Politics and Opinion in Crisis, 1678-81. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Miller, John. Popery and Politics in England 1660-1688. Cambridge University Press, 1973.
Pollock, John. The Popish Plot; A Study in the History of the Reign of Charles II. Cambridge University Press, 1944.
Wikipedia. “Popish Plot.” Last modified 19 March 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popish_Plot
Featured image credit: “Titus Oates standing in the pillory surrounded by medaillons of people executed as a result of the Popish Plot in 1678. Etching with engraving.” is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Retrospect Journal 