Popish Plot saying that "the King gets the curse of many good and faithful wives such as myself for his bad example". Danby, who seems initially to have believed in the Plot, advised the king to order an investigation. Charles II denied the request, maintaining that the entire affair was absurd. He told Danby to keep the events secret so as not to put the idea of regicide into people's minds. However, word of the manuscript spread to the Duke of York, who publicly called for an investigation into the matter. Even Charles admitted that given the sheer number of allegations, he
A Ballad upon the Popish Plot Santa Barbara, which are part of the James Ludovic Lindsay Crawford collection at the National Library of Scotland, indicate in the subtitle that the author is "a lady of quality." However, the compilers of "The National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints" have identified John Gadbury (1627–1704), an English astrologer, almanac writer, and otherwise prolific author, as the composer of several versions of the ballad held at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Gadbury, a High Tory and Catholic convert, had been wrongfully imprisoned at the time of the Plot. However, Yale librarian and literary cataloger Donald Wing has attributed the ballad