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
Popish Plot there might be a plot of some sort (otherwise, Kenyon argues, he would not have given these two very obscure men a private audience). Charles told Kirkby to present Tonge to Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby, Lord High Treasurer, then the most influential of the King's ministers. Tonge then lied to Danby, saying that he had found the manuscript but did not know the author. As Kenyon points out, the government took seriously even the remotest threat to the King's life or well-being – in the previous spring a Newcastle housewife had been investigated by the Secretary of State simply for