Conspiracy Theory Flashcards
Jason Peacey on conspiracy theories across the 17th century?
Peacey, J., ‘Paranoid Prelates: Archbishop Laud and the Puritan Plot’, B. Coward, J. Swann (ed.), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 113-134.
17th century ‘fertile ground’ for conspiracy theories
Historians feel that although particular threats and a sense of overall ‘conspiracy’ was exaggerated, there was a genuine threat
Puritan Plot: How did Laud define ‘conspiracy?’
Peacey, J., ‘Paranoid Prelates: Archbishop Laud and the Puritan Plot’, B. Coward, J. Swann (ed.), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 113-134.
‘Laud…ran together personal opposition to him and opposition to the institution he headed. Laud operated with an extremely broad notion of what it was to be a conspirator’
both participation in illegal activity and, in an archaic sense ‘harmonious action or “combination” for an agreed end or purpose’ (sometimes not seditious)
Puritan Plot: What was the nature of the Puritan Threat?
Peacey, J., ‘Paranoid Prelates: Archbishop Laud and the Puritan Plot’, B. Coward, J. Swann (ed.), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 113-134.
What was the nature of the puritan threat?
Books
Fearful that publications and ideology would incite disobedience and nonconformity
Beyond fear of ‘popularity’, fear that leading puritans were ‘most visible’ in conspiratorial network’
Collaborative projects did not originate in established authority and, being instead ‘popular’, were a threat - even if they were not conspiring to undermine church OR government
‘continuity of puritanism’: connecting different instances of ‘conspiracy’, and tying them together to form a longer narrative to evidence the ‘persistence of puritanism conspiracy’
The Puritan Threat: Books
Peacey, J., ‘Paranoid Prelates: Archbishop Laud and the Puritan Plot’, B. Coward, J. Swann (ed.), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 113-134.
Puritan press
- September 1640, Laud learns of Puritan press of 30 collaborators operating in london
- Edmund Peacham, 1615: interrogation focused on ‘helpers and confederates’
- Prynne had licence to write Histriomastix but was questioned on whether one or more people had written it
- Collaboration was big element of accusations in Bastwick/Burton/Prynne trial of 1637.
- Those who had helped to print it were also brought to trial
‘The 1637 trial…was not just about the triumvirate of Burton, Bastwicke and Prynne, nor even about the possibility of their having worked in a collaborative fashion. It was about their role as the centrepiece of a larger network and a wider conspiracy.’ - Trial of Thomas Purslowe for helping print Instructions for Churchwardens and Divine Tragedy
- Accused of using printing blocks that would print hidden images, for instance, in a complicated printing block for the letter C there was said to be a pope’s head and an army
The trial of John Ashe as evidence of Laud’s tenacity to track down wrongdoers
Peacey, J., ‘Paranoid Prelates: Archbishop Laud and the Puritan Plot’, B. Coward, J. Swann (ed.), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 113-134.
Trial of John Ashe
Had 200 copies of a puritan work which he had distributed to friends
As the network of those who had received a copy was investigated, it became clear that the works had reached people across the country and was more extensive than was originally thought
People four connections away from Ashe were investigated
Evidences Laud’s ‘willingness to pursue tenaciously the trail of evidence
Gordon Wood on conspiracy theories in the 17th century
Gordon Wood: ‘more than any other period of English history, the century or so following the restoration (of 1660) was the great era of conspiratorial fears and imagined intrigues.’
Knights on the importance of the public sphere to conspiracy
Knights, M., ‘Faults on Both Sides: The Conspiracies of Party Politics under the Later Stuarts’, B. Coward, J. Swann (ed.), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 113-134.
‘The practice of publicly contested politics was thus important in embedding and developing a conspiratorial mindset’
What are Knights main arguments about the connection of Party and Conspiracy?
Knights, M., ‘Faults on Both Sides: The Conspiracies of Party Politics under the Later Stuarts’, B. Coward, J. Swann (ed.), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 113-134.
party conceptualised in conspiratorial terms
there was a heightened anxiety that ‘language was being misused for partisan purposes’
‘The language of conspiracy had a cultural impact’
What did the first Earl of Halifax say about conspiracy and party
Knights, M., ‘Faults on Both Sides: The Conspiracies of Party Politics under the Later Stuarts’, B. Coward, J. Swann (ed.), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 113-134.
First Earl of Halifax: ‘The best party is but a kind of conspiracy against the rest of the nation’
Party Conspiracy to mislead the public in late-stuart England
Knights, M., ‘Faults on Both Sides: The Conspiracies of Party Politics under the Later Stuarts’, B. Coward, J. Swann (ed.), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 113-134.
Knights, Representation and Misrepresentation
Popular appeal ‘necessitated lies, rumours and half-truths’ (Knights)
Particular use of ‘conspiracy’ - ‘a way of talking, a way of delegitimising an alternative viewpoint.’
EVIDENCE
- Petitions and Counter-petitions competed for representation:
- VINDICATION OF THE PEOPLE OF KENT AND CANTERBURY: many several petitions….framed or rather forged by a few disloyal, factious and seditious… have…been fathered, foisted, and obtruded upon us and presented and exposed to the open view and all the world in print, under our name and stamp
THE HISTORY OF THE KENTISH PETITION ANSWERED: the Voice of the People is nonsense; for every l§ittle faction lays claim to that appellation…[the people] are only whole and entire in their representatives in Parliament [The History of the Kentish Petition answered]
Party conspiracy and polemical dispute
Knights, M., ‘Faults on Both Sides: The Conspiracies of Party Politics under the Later Stuarts’, B. Coward, J. Swann (ed.), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 113-134.
Some Thoughts of an Honest Tory upon the Present Proceedings of that Party (1710) written by a Whig and preached lockean doctrine
response: The Thoughts of an Honest Whig written by a Tory
Faults on Both Sides—> Most Faults on One Side
- claimed that beyond the apparent impartiality there was ‘much of the Republican…a zealous friend to the Dissenters and a bitter enemy to the Church and Clergy’ (contemporary). But this was High Church Tory (partisan)!
A True History of the Honest Whigs written by a Tory, Ned Ward
Faults on Both Sides by Simon Clement:
‘Designing men in both parties’ have provoked conflict in ‘ignorant people’ so that they might ‘promote their own sinister designs’
Some Thoughts of an Honest Tory upon the Present Proceedings of that Party (1710)
‘we used to complain of the methods and arts of the whigs; and we are now combatting them with more infamous weapons than they ever in my memory used against us.’
What effect did the party conspiracy of later years have?
Knights, M., ‘Faults on Both Sides: The Conspiracies of Party Politics under the Later Stuarts’, B. Coward, J. Swann (ed.), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 113-134.
‘the language of conspiracy undermined confidence that the public could see through this misinformation and one remedy was to remove the perceived motor of much of the conspiratorial manipulation of the people: frequent elections.
Whigs argued for Septennial>Triennial Act, which was achieved in 1716!
What, according to Weil, was the significance of plots?
Weil, R., A Plague of Informers (London: Yale University Press, 2013), 217-247; 248-9.
‘plots can be seen as occasions that destabilise and redraw boundaries of loyalty, provide opportunities for informers and witnesses to construct their own credibility in the eyes of community and the state, and spotlight tensions between liberty and security.’
The Assassination Plot/The Turnham Green Plot
The Assassination Plot/The Turnham Green Plot
- Plan to Ambush King William when he returned from hunting, organised by Sir George Barclay, a Jacobite from France.
- Planned for February 1696 - postponed on 15th for the 21st after King didn’t go out hunting
- Co conspirators were Robert Charnock, George Porter, Ambrose Rockwood, Robert Lowick, and others recruited by them. Over 40 implicated in all.
- Designed to encourage France to invade and restore James II
- Meeting in May/June 1695 in King’s Head Tavern,Planned to send Charnock to France to invite James to invade.
Rye House Plot
The plan was to conceal a force of men in the grounds of the house and ambush the King and the Duke as they passed by on their way back to London from the horse races at Newmarket. The “Rye House plotters”, an extremist Whig group who are now named for this plot, allegedly adopted this plan out of a number of possibilities, having decided that it gave tactical advantages and could be carried out with a relatively small force operating with guns from good cover.[2]
The royal party were expected to make the journey on 1 April 1683, but there was a major fire in Newmarket on 22 March, which destroyed half the town. The races were cancelled, and the King and the Duke returned to London early. As a result, the planned attack never took place.
