Popish Plot Popish Plot The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy concocted by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria. Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II, accusations that led to the executions of at least 22 men and precipitated the Exclusion Bill Crisis. Eventually Oates's intricate web of accusations fell apart, leading to his arrest and conviction for perjury. The fictitious Popish Plot must be understood against the background of the English Reformation and the subsequent development of a strong anti-Catholic sentiment among the mostly
The Plot Against the Giant The Plot Against the Giant "The Plot Against the Giant" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1917, so it is in the public domain. Stevens was called "the Giant" in his Harvard days, and he confessed in an interview a year before his death that "[i]n my younger days I liked girls. But let's not stress that. I have a wife." The mumbling giant, perhaps a lumberjack sharpening his axe, may be compared to the bucks whose course is changed by the firecat poet in "Earthy Anecdote", here replaced by