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n The panic that followed the murder of Sir EdmundnBerry Godfrey spread throughout London at an alarming rate. A rumour spreadnthat a second Gunpowder Plot was underway, with both Houses of Parliament aboutnto be blown up. The Duke of Monmouth lent soldiers to guard the cellars beneathnboth Houses, which were examined by Sir Jonas Moore and Sir Christopher Wren,nsentinels patrolled the cellars during both day and night and adjoining housesnand vaults were cleared.
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| Parliament Cellars |
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nThe new prison at Clerkenwell was burned down, and thenpriests inside burned with it. Sir Ossory claimed to have found one hundrednthousand incendiary bombs and hand grenades hidden in Somerset House. FromnFlanders came the rumour that if English Catholics were destroyed, the burghersnof Bruges had a similar fate planned for English Protestants in their town.nThere were Spaniards in Wales, Frenchmen in Scotland and Ireland, there was anjoint fleet in the Channel, waiting to invade, Tynemouth Castle had been blownnup with gunpowder, at night armed bands of militia men were seen exercising –nall rumours, all believed, deliberated over, attention given to, decisions madenabout.
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| Execution of Jesuits |
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nOf the thirty or so thousand Catholics in London, those that weren’tnimprisoned fled elsewhere, many to the continent. Catholic businessmen werenmade bankrupt, Catholic workmen were driven from their livelihoods and intonpenury. Catholic houses across the country were repeatedly searched andnransacked; Catholic relics, books and vestments were publicly burned. Catholicsnwere arrested, harassed and persecuted. Priests were hunted down and hid innpriest-holes, chimneys and hollow walls as their pursuers tore houses downnaround them in their fervour to discover them. In the northern counties, thingsnwere especially harsh with the notoriously grim dungeons of York Castle (in annage of particularly grim dungeons) filled to capacity.
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| Titus Oates before the Privy Council |
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nTitus Oates was feted asnthe saviour of the nation and took to wearing episcopal garb, with a silk gownnand cassock, a great hat with satin band and rose, and a long scarf. Now with antroop of soldiers under his orders, he set about arresting the suspectednplotters he had named, including the so-called ‘Five Popish Lords’. Oatesnclaimed that the Pope had commissioned these five Catholic nobles – LordnArundel of Wardour was to become Lord Chancellor, Lord Powis would benTreasurer, Lord Belasis to be General of the Forces, Lord Petre to benLieutenant General and Lord Stafford to be Paymaster General. On October 25thn1678, the five were arrested, sent to the Tower and impeached for treason.nTheir trials were delayed over a period of seven years, for a variety of legalnand parliamentary reasons.
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| Titus Oates |
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nEmboldened by success Oates, with support fromnBedloe, went so far to accuse the Queen of plotting, with help from her doctor,nSir George Wakeman, to poison the King. This was a step too far for Charles II,nwho refused “…to see an innocent woman abused,” and he ordered Oatesnarrested, his papers seized and his servants dismissed. The Queen was visiblynapolitical and it seems that the reason for an attack on her was to force anRoyal divorce, with Charles then remarrying a Protestant and, it was hoped,nproducing a Protestant heir (Catherine was unable to bear children, whichnresulted in James, Charles’s Catholic brother, being Heir Presumptive.)
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| Catherine of Braganza |
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nWithnthe threat of a constitutional crisis looming, Parliament intervened, orderednOates’s release and moves began, led mainly by Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl ofnShaftesbury, to introduce an Exclusion Act through Parliament, which would preventnJames, Duke of York, from succeeding to the throne after the death of hisnbrother, Charles II, (in the end, the Bill failed to be passed by the Lords).nIn addition, Test Acts were passed, requiring Members of Parliament to make andeclaration against transubstantiation, invocation of the saints and thensacrament of the Mass, thereby effectively excluding Catholics from bothnHouses. The King attempted to oppose many of the measures by dissolvingnParliament on a number of occasions, but the problem refused to go away andnthere were even fears of a second civil war.
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| Exhumation |
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nOn November 21st 1678,nthe Catholic William Stayley, a goldsmith’s son from Covent Garden, was triednfor treason, on the grounds that he had been overheard in a tavern to call thenKing a rogue and a heretic, and said he would kill him with his own hand. Henwas found guilty and hanged at Tyburn on November 26th, but when hisnbody was buried, three days later, over 300 Catholics attended, and masses werensaid. This infuriated Judge Scroggins, who ordered that the body bendisinterred, cut into quarters and displayed on the city gates, and the headnset to rot on a pike on London Bridge. Other Catholics were tried and executednfor treason, on the verbal testimony of Oates and Bedloe.
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| The Popish Damnable Plot |
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nOn November 30thn1680, the first of the Five Popish Lords, Lord ViscountnStafford, came to trial. It was Stafford’s sixty-ninth birthday, and over thennext seven days sixty-one witnesses gave evidence on the charges that Staffordnhad offered £500 for the murder of the King. Stafford produced witnesses of hisnown who contradicted their statements, so further prosecution witnesses werenproduced to bolster the reputation of the original witnesses. When summing up,nStafford feebly rambled and hesitated, boring the court with minor points ofnprocedure and legal argument, and did his case no good at all.
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| Execution |
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nOn December 6th,nthirty-three peers found for him but fifty-five peers found him guilty of HighnTreason and although attempts were made to obtain a pardon on December 29thn1680, Stafford, bowed with age and infirmity, went to the block at the Tower.nThe only concession made was that he would beheaded only and be spared thendrawing and quartering that were the proscribed penalty for High Treason. Henmade a long speech declaring his innocence and vindicating his religion, whichnfell on deaf ears, and in front of a large, hostile crowd, the sentence wasncarried out.
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nnnBut changes were coming …
