A Ballad upon the Popish Plot and region (“From Pulpit to Pot / They talk’d of a Plot” [1.5-6]), as well as the fear invoked in the general population (“frighted with Fire-balls, their heads turned round” [1.4]), but then proposes a rational and just correction of these effects. The majority of the rest of the ballad then lists the occupational types, personal characteristics, and machinations of the participants in the plot. The first is a politician “of Body unsound,” who intends to slander the Pope and the current King, Charles II, until both are forced out of power (2.1, 8). The narrator then describes the personal
Southampton Plot in Shakespeare's "Henry V", in which it is portrayed as a French-financed betrayal of the king to stop Henry's invasion plans. It is also portrayed in the anonymous play, "The History of Sir John Oldcastle" (c.1600) and in William Kenrick's "Falstaff's Wedding" (1760). Southampton Plot The Southampton Plot of 1415 was a conspiracy to replace King Henry V with Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March. Mortimer was the great-grandson of Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, second surviving son of King Edward III, and his claim to the throne was thus superior to that of Henry V and his