POPISH PLOT. The tryals and condemnation of Thomas White, alias Whitebread ... William Harcourt ... John Fenwick ... John Gavern, alias Gawen & Anthony Turner, all Jesuits and priests, for high treason.... (1679)

AUTHOR: [POPISH PLOT] Thomas Whitbread; William Barrow; John Caldwell; John Gawen; Anthony Turner; James Maurus Corker

TITLE: The tryals and condemnation of Thomas White, alias Whitebread ... William Harcourt ... John Fenwick ... John Gavern, alias Gawen & Anthony Turner, all Jesuits and priests, for high treason in conspiring the death of the King, the subversion of government...

PUBLISHER: London: for H. Hills, &c., 1679.

DESCRIPTION: 1 vol., extracted, folio, 12" x 7-1/2", (i)99pp., complete.

REFERENCE: WING T2247

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Thomas Whitebread, 1618-79, became an English Jesuit missionary. In 1678 as Provincial, he refused to admit Titus Oates as a member of the Society. In retaliation Oates conceived the ‘Popish Plot’ against Whitebread who was arrested and finally tried on 13 June 1679. On the perjured evidence of Oates, William Bedloe and Stephen Dugdale, Whitebread and four others were found guilty of conspiracy to murder Charles II. They were all hung, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on 30 June 1679. Following the execution Whitebread’s remains were buried in St Giles-in-the-Fields and in 1929 he was beatified.
The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy concocted by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria.[1] Oates alleged that there existed an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II, accusations that led to the execution of at least 22 men and precipitated the Exclusion Bill Crisis. Eventually Oates' intricate web of accusations fell apart, leading to his arrest and conviction for perjury.