Popish Plot and led to conflict with parliament during the 1670s. In December 1677 an anonymous pamphlet (possibly by Andrew Marvell) spread alarm in London by suggesting that the Pope planned to change the lawful government of England. The fictitious Popish Plot unfolded in a very peculiar fashion. Oates and Israel Tonge, a fanatically anti-Catholic clergyman (who was widely believed to be insane), had written a large manuscript that accused the Catholic Church authorities of approving the assassination of Charles II. The Jesuits in England were to carry out the task. The manuscript also named nearly 100 Jesuits and their supporters who
Rye House Plot notables through couriers and ciphered correspondence. Two of them, William Spence alias Butler, and Abraham Holmes, were arrested in June 1683. News of the plot leaked when Josiah Keeling gave information on it to Sir Leoline Jenkins; and the plot was publicly discovered 12 June 1683. Keeling had contacted a courtier, who put him in touch with George Legge, 1st Baron Dartmouth, and Dartmouth had brought him to Jenkins, Secretary of State. Keeling's testimony was used at the trials of Walcott, Hone, Sidney, and Charles Bateman; and it earned him a pardon. It also started a lengthy process of incriminated