Titus Oates. Anagramma Testis Ovat.
This is the true Original taken from the Life. done for Hen: Brome and Ric: Chiswell [therefore] All others are Counterfeit. [n.d. c.1679.]
Engraving, printed on both sides. 235 x 157mm. 9¼ x 6¼". Trimmed, crease, damaged.
Curiousity. Portrait of Titus Oates, half length in an oval frame on a pedestal, wearing wig, bands, and robe. From a broadside entitled 'A poem upon Mt Tytus Oates, the first discoverer of the late Popish Plot', published by Henry Brome and Richard Chiswell (1679). Titus Oates (1649-1705) was an English perjurer who fabricated the 'Popish Plot', a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II. He began his career as an Anglican priest, but converted to Catholicism in 1677. This secured his admission to Jesuit college at St Omer, and this gave him enough information to give his story about a Catholic plot to murder Charles some plausibility. Oates swore his testimony to Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey in September 1678, and it was Godfrey's murder a few weeks later (a death that has never been explained) that overnight turned the plot in the public mind from allegation to certainty. Oates managed to retain a central role in the unfolding affair by continually inventing new accusations. In 1684, in the flood of the Tory reaction, he was prosecuted for perjury, and in 1685 sentenced to the pillory and public flogging. The Glorious Revolution saved him; he was pardoned, given a pension and married a wealthy widow.
Ex Collection: R. Hobson of Hove.
[Ref: 25273] £160.00
Engraving, printed on both sides. 235 x 157mm. 9¼ x 6¼". Trimmed, crease, damaged.
Curiousity. Portrait of Titus Oates, half length in an oval frame on a pedestal, wearing wig, bands, and robe. From a broadside entitled 'A poem upon Mt Tytus Oates, the first discoverer of the late Popish Plot', published by Henry Brome and Richard Chiswell (1679). Titus Oates (1649-1705) was an English perjurer who fabricated the 'Popish Plot', a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II. He began his career as an Anglican priest, but converted to Catholicism in 1677. This secured his admission to Jesuit college at St Omer, and this gave him enough information to give his story about a Catholic plot to murder Charles some plausibility. Oates swore his testimony to Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey in September 1678, and it was Godfrey's murder a few weeks later (a death that has never been explained) that overnight turned the plot in the public mind from allegation to certainty. Oates managed to retain a central role in the unfolding affair by continually inventing new accusations. In 1684, in the flood of the Tory reaction, he was prosecuted for perjury, and in 1685 sentenced to the pillory and public flogging. The Glorious Revolution saved him; he was pardoned, given a pension and married a wealthy widow.
Ex Collection: R. Hobson of Hove.
[Ref: 25273] £160.00