Charles II Plot

Catholic Scapegoats

Tonge and Oates wrote a manuscript detailing the Catholic conspiracy against the king. They claimed that the leaders of the Catholic Church in Great Britain had approved the assassination plot, which was to be carried out by the Jesuits. Allegedly, the English Catholics had entered into a conspiracy with King Louis XIV of France to raise an army of 50,000 men who would seize the country and kill the king, place his brother (who was Catholic) on the throne, and murder thousands of Protestants. No such plot existed, but Oates's story was readily accepted by English Protestants who feared the possibility of James, the Duke of York and a Roman Catholic, ascending to the throne if his brother died. Charles II had himself become a Catholic in 1670, but kept this a secret.

The king was informed of the plot by Christopher Kirkby, a chemist, and Tonge. Charles II, who did not really take the plot seriously, turned the investigation over to Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby, the lord high treasurer. Osborne was an opponent of the Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain, having opposed Charles II's 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, which suspended criminal sanctions against those who did not conform to the Church of England or were Roman Catholics. Osborne also was a supporter of the 1673 Test Act, which barred nonconformists and Roman Catholics from public service or public office. Unlike the king, Osborne was interested in pursuing the plot. Tonge decided to have Oates tell his story, under oath, to Sir Edmund Geoffrey, a magistrate. Oates testified before Geoffrey on September 6, 1678. On October 12, the magistrate disappeared, and his body was found a few days later, which only heightened the belief that Oates's story had some merit and that the Jesuits had killed him to insure his silence.

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