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
A Ballad upon the Popish Plot it in the press. The narrator ends with a “Prayer” against the plotters and for the providence and safety of the current King, and with the hope that the participants will be executed at Tyburn, a village in Middlesex County well known for capital punishment of London criminals and martyrs. The ballad is one of several that describe the “Popish Plot” in England and Scotland between 1678 and 1681, and the print publication of the ballad is tentatively dated from 1678 or 1679. All versions of this ballad held at the English Broadside Ballad Archive at the University of California,