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
Popish Plot were supposedly involved in this assassination plot; nothing in the document was ever proven to be true. Oates slipped a copy of the manuscript into the wainscot of a gallery in the house of the physician Sir Richard Barker, with whom Tonge was living. The following day Tonge claimed to find the manuscript, and showed it to an acquaintance, Christopher Kirkby, who was shocked and decided to inform the King. Kirkby was a chemist and a former assistant in Charles' scientific experiments, and Charles prided himself on being approachable to the general public. On 13 August 1678, whilst Charles was