Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis

The Popish Plot began with false claims of a Catholic conspiracy to kill Charles II. It fed into the Exclusion Crisis, in which opponents of James, Duke of York, tried to bar him from the succession because he was Catholic. The crisis inflamed print culture, Parliament, public opinion and party politics.

It mattered because it exposed the fragility of the Restoration settlement. Anti-Catholic fear, royal succession and parliamentary opposition combined in ways that foreshadowed later revolution. The crisis also helped shape early Whig and Tory identities.

This is a strong setting for Restoration political thrillers and mysteries in the orbit of Andrew Taylor’s Marwood and Lovett novels and Robert Harris’s interest in fugitives and state power.