The Popish Plot, 1678

In 1678 Titus Oates, a former Anglican clergyman with a history of dishonesty, claimed to have uncovered a vast Jesuit plot to murder Charles II and put James on the throne. His story was largely invented, but two events made it seem credible. The magistrate Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, who had taken Oates's sworn statement, was found dead in October 1678, and letters by Edward Coleman, the Duchess of York's secretary, revealed real attempts to seek French money for Catholic causes. Panic followed.

Parliament passed the second Test Act, and more than twenty innocent people, including Catholic priests and the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Oliver Plunkett, were executed over the next few years. Oates was celebrated, then disgraced; in 1685 he was convicted of perjury. The plot shows how fear, rumour and partisan politics can combine to produce injustice, and it set the stage for the Exclusion Crisis.