Oakham in history: Titus Oates and his 'Popish Plot'
By Evie Payne 1st May 2022
This week, we have learned all about Titus Oates and his transition from 'dunce' to the mastermind behind the 'Popish Plot' to kill King Charles II.
Titus Oates was born in Oakham in 1649 to a family of ribbon-weavers.
He attended Cambridge university, but left in 1669 without a degree, his teacher remarking that he was a 'great dunce'. This is where he established a reputation of homosexuality.
However, Oates was not going to let this stop him, and he secured his license to preach from the Bishop of London after lying, claiming that he did in fact have a degree.
In 1670 he was ordained as a priest and became the vicar of a parish in Kent.
In 1675 Oates became the chaplain of the HMS Adventurer, where he was accused of 'buggery', which was a capital offence. Ironically, his life was spared due to his clerical status.
Oates then won and lost a series of fleeting positions before being accepted into the Catholic church in 1677. This is where the fate of Oates began to change.
He met Israel Tong with whom he produced, controversially, a series of pamphlets condemning the Catholic faith. It appears that Oates was the 'inside man', gaining insider knowledge about the Catholic faith that they could use to undermine the religious faction.
Together the pair wrote a manuscript that accused the Catholic Church authorities in England of approving the assassination of Charles II and, in August 1678, Tong himself warned King Charles of this alleged plot. The King sentenced many men, who were mostly randomly named by the pair, to death.
Unwisely, in 1678, Oates claimed the Queen was working with the King's physician to poison the King, and his lies spiralled out of control until the King himself realised that Oates was lying.
He was imprisoned, whipped, and fined £100,000. Oates was also put in the stocks for citizens to pelt him with eggs.
However, Oates never suffered the same fate as the men he had falsely accused and, in 1689, when William of Orange and Mary acceded the throne, he was pardoned.
His reputation never recovered though and he died in 1705, a figure already lost in history.
Find last week's 'Oakham in history' feature here.
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