Key Terms You Must Know

📖 Key Terms You Must Know

Popish Plot (1678)

The fabricated conspiracy invented by Titus Oates, alleging that Jesuits had planned to assassinate Charles II, massacre Protestants, and place the Catholic Duke of York on the throne with French support. Almost entirely false — the "Coleman letters" were the only genuine evidence and were misread. The hysteria resulted in 35 innocent Catholics being executed, Catholics being excluded from Parliament (Second Test Act 1678), and the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-81. It is one of the most dramatic examples of mass hysteria in English history.

Titus Oates (1649-1705)

The fabricator of the Popish Plot. A habitual liar who had been expelled from multiple institutions, Oates had actually infiltrated Jesuit communities in Europe as a spy and used genuine knowledge of Catholic networks to make his fabrications plausible. He was widely believed because his story fitted existing Protestant fears perfectly. He was eventually convicted of perjury in 1685 under James II and sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released and pardoned after the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Whigs and Tories

The two political groupings that emerged from the Exclusion Crisis, representing the first recognisable political parties in English history. Whigs (the name was an insult meaning Scottish Presbyterian rebel) wanted to exclude the Catholic James from the succession and supported parliamentary power over the Crown. Tories (an insult meaning Irish Catholic bandit) supported hereditary succession and a strong monarchy. Both parties remained central to English politics for over 150 years; the modern Liberal and Conservative parties are their distant descendants.

Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey

The London magistrate who took Titus Oates's deposition in September 1678. He was found dead in a ditch near Primrose Hill in October 1678 — stabbed and strangled. His death was immediately blamed on Catholics as retaliation for hearing Oates's evidence. The murder was never solved; modern historians have proposed various explanations including suicide, accidental death, and Protestant conspirators killing him to inflame the crisis. His death was the single event that transformed Oates's allegations from rumour into national panic.

Second Test Act (1678)

An Act of Parliament, passed during the Popish Plot hysteria, excluding Catholics from sitting in either House of Parliament. It was more sweeping than the first Test Act (1673), which had excluded Catholics from public office. The Second Test Act's exclusion of Catholics from Parliament remained in force until the Catholic Relief Act of 1829 — 151 years later.

Oliver Plunkett (1629-1681)

Catholic Archbishop of Armagh (Ireland) who was the last victim of the Popish Plot executions. Convicted on perjured evidence of plotting a French invasion of Ireland, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in July 1681. He was canonised as a saint by the Catholic Church in 1975. His case is often cited as the clearest example of judicial murder during the crisis — even many contemporaries doubted the evidence against him.