WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.120 Welcome to this custom -tailored deep dive made 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:07.120 specifically for you. We have a pretty complex 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:09.900 and, well, a highly revealing mission today. 00:00:09.939 --> 00:00:11.900 They really do. It's a fascinating one. We are 00:00:11.900 --> 00:00:14.699 exploring the anatomy of mass hysteria and the 00:00:14.699 --> 00:00:17.019 devastating power of a fabricated narrative. 00:00:17.420 --> 00:00:20.079 Our source material today is a really comprehensive 00:00:20.079 --> 00:00:22.980 Wikipedia article detailing the Popish plot of 00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:27.539 1678 to 1681. Right, which was a completely fictitious 00:00:27.539 --> 00:00:30.989 conspiracy. Totally fake. But it plunged England 00:00:30.989 --> 00:00:33.570 and Scotland into this deadly paranoia, ultimately 00:00:33.570 --> 00:00:36.289 leading to the execution of at least 22 innocent 00:00:36.289 --> 00:00:38.710 men. Okay, let's unpack this because we are looking 00:00:38.710 --> 00:00:41.390 at forged letters, a king who saw through the 00:00:41.390 --> 00:00:44.049 lies from day one, and a society that willingly 00:00:44.049 --> 00:00:46.590 dismantled its own justice system to appease 00:00:46.590 --> 00:00:48.450 its deepest fears. It serves as a remarkable 00:00:48.450 --> 00:00:50.649 case study in societal psychology. You know, 00:00:50.689 --> 00:00:52.570 the plot itself was entirely fabricated, like 00:00:52.570 --> 00:00:55.070 you said, but the panic and the political weaponization 00:00:55.070 --> 00:00:58.210 of that panic were very real. Our objective for 00:00:58.210 --> 00:01:00.909 this deep dive is to move beyond the surface 00:01:00.909 --> 00:01:03.770 narrative of the events. We need to dissect the 00:01:03.770 --> 00:01:05.909 systemic failures and understand the precise 00:01:05.909 --> 00:01:16.980 con - Absolutely. Because. As you know, by the 00:01:16.980 --> 00:01:19.680 late 1670s, the English public carried more than 00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:22.599 a century of generational trauma regarding religious 00:01:22.599 --> 00:01:24.599 and political upheaval. It wasn't a spontaneous 00:01:24.599 --> 00:01:27.079 panic at all. Right. Exactly. We don't need to 00:01:27.079 --> 00:01:29.500 rehash the entire Tudor Reformation or the gunpowder 00:01:29.500 --> 00:01:32.099 plot of 1605, but we do need to look at how that 00:01:32.099 --> 00:01:34.260 history created an institutionalized confirmation 00:01:34.260 --> 00:01:37.879 bias. Which was massive. It really was. The public 00:01:37.879 --> 00:01:40.500 was pre -programmed to view Catholicism not merely 00:01:40.500 --> 00:01:43.060 as a differing theology, but as an apparatus 00:01:43.060 --> 00:01:46.069 of foreign state terror and absolute. What's 00:01:46.069 --> 00:01:48.450 fascinating here is how those past events functioned 00:01:48.450 --> 00:01:51.609 as a permanent, distorting lens through which 00:01:51.609 --> 00:01:53.909 the English public viewed contemporary politics. 00:01:54.370 --> 00:01:56.390 You think about the whiplash of the Reformation. 00:01:56.629 --> 00:01:59.689 Oh, the whiplash was extreme. It was. Starting 00:01:59.689 --> 00:02:02.730 in 1533, you have Henry VIII breaking from Rome. 00:02:03.129 --> 00:02:06.810 Then Edward VI pushes strict Protestantism. Only 00:02:06.810 --> 00:02:09.349 for Mary I to return to Catholicism and burn, 00:02:09.469 --> 00:02:12.050 what, 300 Protestants at the stake? Exactly. 00:02:12.490 --> 00:02:15.069 And then Elizabeth I breaks away again. It's 00:02:15.069 --> 00:02:17.889 society suffering from chronic ideological whiplash. 00:02:18.189 --> 00:02:21.770 Add in the 1605 gunpowder plot, where Catholic 00:02:21.770 --> 00:02:24.349 conspirators like Guy Fawkes literally tried 00:02:24.349 --> 00:02:27.030 to blow up Parliament. Which served as the ultimate 00:02:27.030 --> 00:02:29.250 confirmation bias for the English Protestant 00:02:29.250 --> 00:02:31.770 majority. It convinced them that Catholics were 00:02:31.770 --> 00:02:33.990 murderous conspirators. Add the trauma of the 00:02:33.990 --> 00:02:36.050 English Civil War, the devastation of the Great 00:02:36.050 --> 00:02:38.960 Plague, and the Great Fire of London. Which contemporary 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:41.800 rumors falsely blamed on Catholic arsonists, 00:02:41.800 --> 00:02:44.180 by the way. Right. All that created a hypervigilant 00:02:44.180 --> 00:02:47.060 society. And then you have the specific geopolitical 00:02:47.060 --> 00:02:50.740 anxieties of the 1670s. King Charles II was in 00:02:50.740 --> 00:02:52.639 a highly precarious position. He had a Catholic 00:02:52.639 --> 00:02:55.020 wife, right? He did. And he had allied with Catholic 00:02:55.020 --> 00:02:57.379 France against the Protestant Netherlands. His 00:02:57.379 --> 00:02:59.680 brother and heir, James, the Duke of York, was 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:02.360 openly Catholic. So the tension was already systemic. 00:03:03.039 --> 00:03:05.560 Parliament was intensely suspicious of the Crown's 00:03:05.560 --> 00:03:08.419 intentions, especially after Charles II issued 00:03:08.419 --> 00:03:11.340 the Royal Declaration of Indulgence in 1672. 00:03:11.759 --> 00:03:13.900 Which suspended penal laws against Catholics. 00:03:14.120 --> 00:03:16.340 Yeah, and Protestant dissenters too. But for 00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:18.800 the public, this wasn't viewed as a step toward 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:21.080 modern religious tolerance. It was seen as an 00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:24.500 illegal overreach of royal prerogative. It terrified 00:03:24.500 --> 00:03:27.439 a populace that had just fought a civil war over 00:03:27.439 --> 00:03:30.039 monarchical overreach. The fear was that Charles, 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:32.949 or eventually his brother James, would use a 00:03:32.949 --> 00:03:35.870 Catholic alliance to impose an absolute monarchy, 00:03:36.030 --> 00:03:39.289 dismantling Parliament entirely. That is the 00:03:39.289 --> 00:03:41.990 tinderbox. The society was primed. The political 00:03:41.990 --> 00:03:44.250 factions were deeply distrustful of one another, 00:03:44.409 --> 00:03:47.520 and the institutions were fragile. All it required 00:03:47.520 --> 00:03:50.639 was a spark. And that spark arrived via two extremely 00:03:50.639 --> 00:03:53.800 unlikely villains, Titus Oates and Israel Tunn. 00:03:53.800 --> 00:03:55.800 Two men who absolutely shouldn't have been trusted 00:03:55.800 --> 00:03:58.620 with anything. Definitely not. Tunn was a clergyman 00:03:58.620 --> 00:04:01.740 whose contemporaries heavily documented his obsessive, 00:04:01.740 --> 00:04:04.199 nearly insane fixations on supposed Catholic 00:04:04.199 --> 00:04:06.590 subversion. And Oates was even worse. Right. 00:04:06.750 --> 00:04:09.650 Oates was a man who had repeatedly been dismissed 00:04:09.650 --> 00:04:12.849 from various naval and clerical posts for misconduct 00:04:12.849 --> 00:04:16.290 before briefly spending time in Jesuit seminaries 00:04:16.290 --> 00:04:18.490 on the continent. From which he was also expelled. 00:04:18.550 --> 00:04:21.709 Of course he was. But together they manufactured 00:04:21.709 --> 00:04:25.810 this sprawling, convoluted manuscript. It alleged 00:04:25.810 --> 00:04:29.730 a vast conspiracy approved by the Pope to assassinate 00:04:29.730 --> 00:04:32.519 King Charles II. and replace him with his Catholic 00:04:32.519 --> 00:04:36.379 brother James, and violently suppress Protestantism 00:04:36.379 --> 00:04:39.660 in England. They named nearly 100 Jesuits and 00:04:39.660 --> 00:04:42.240 prominent English Catholics as the architects 00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:45.420 of this incoming slaughter. And the absurd setup 00:04:45.420 --> 00:04:47.459 of how they introduced this document is just 00:04:47.459 --> 00:04:50.579 wild. Oates literally slipped a copy of this 00:04:50.579 --> 00:04:52.939 massive manuscript into the wood paneling of 00:04:52.939 --> 00:04:55.180 a gallery in a physician's house where Tun was 00:04:55.180 --> 00:04:57.300 residing. Just so Tun could magically discover 00:04:57.300 --> 00:04:59.540 it the following day. Exactly. He finds it and 00:04:59.540 --> 00:05:02.319 passes it to an acquaintance. That acquaintance 00:05:02.319 --> 00:05:04.439 happened to be a chemist named Christopher Kirkby, 00:05:04.519 --> 00:05:06.579 who had previously assisted King Charles with 00:05:06.579 --> 00:05:08.839 scientific experiments. So Kirkby actually has 00:05:08.839 --> 00:05:13.670 access to the king. He does. On August 13, 1678, 00:05:13.930 --> 00:05:16.730 Kirkby approaches the king while Charles is just 00:05:16.730 --> 00:05:19.790 taking a walk in St. James's Park. He warns him 00:05:19.790 --> 00:05:22.110 of assassins waiting to shoot him and claims 00:05:22.110 --> 00:05:24.529 the queen's own physician planned to poison him 00:05:24.529 --> 00:05:27.050 if the bullets failed. But the king's reaction 00:05:27.050 --> 00:05:29.959 is what's really telling here. Charles II was 00:05:29.959 --> 00:05:33.300 notoriously cynical, and he was immediately dismissive 00:05:33.300 --> 00:05:35.319 of the claims. He didn't buy it for a second. 00:05:35.519 --> 00:05:38.480 Not at all. During a later interrogation, Oates 00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:40.939 claimed to have met Don Juan of Austria in Brussels. 00:05:41.420 --> 00:05:44.220 The king, who actually knew Don Juan personally, 00:05:44.500 --> 00:05:46.779 immediately realized Oates had no idea what the 00:05:46.779 --> 00:05:48.540 man looked like. He caught him in a blatant lie. 00:05:48.800 --> 00:05:51.790 He knew Oates was a liar. But Charles allowed 00:05:51.790 --> 00:05:54.009 his chief minister, Lord Danby, to review the 00:05:54.009 --> 00:05:56.910 allegations. Danby saw a political opportunity 00:05:56.910 --> 00:05:59.529 to use the rumors to bolster the king's standing 00:05:59.529 --> 00:06:02.389 by presenting the crown as under threat. Demanding 00:06:02.389 --> 00:06:04.870 more loyalty and funding from Parliament. Precisely. 00:06:04.870 --> 00:06:07.490 But Charles wanted the matter kept secret. He 00:06:07.490 --> 00:06:09.350 figured that publicizing an assassination plot 00:06:09.350 --> 00:06:12.069 might ironically give someone the idea to actually 00:06:12.069 --> 00:06:14.269 attempt it. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:06:14.430 --> 00:06:16.569 because the investigation before the Privy Council 00:06:16.569 --> 00:06:19.509 in late September completely spirals out of control. 00:06:19.750 --> 00:06:22.389 Despite the king's skepticism, it takes on a 00:06:22.389 --> 00:06:24.810 life of its own. The rumors had reached his brother, 00:06:24.970 --> 00:06:27.709 the Duke of York. And because the plot directly 00:06:27.709 --> 00:06:30.810 implicated James' associates, James essentially 00:06:30.810 --> 00:06:33.610 forced the king's hand. He demanded a formal 00:06:33.610 --> 00:06:36.329 Privy Council investigation to clear his name, 00:06:36.410 --> 00:06:39.509 right? He did. James believed that a swift inquiry 00:06:39.509 --> 00:06:42.410 would expose Oates as a fraud and end the matter. 00:06:42.680 --> 00:06:45.540 He severely miscalculated the council's susceptibility 00:06:45.540 --> 00:06:48.540 to confirmation bias. Which brings us to Oates' 00:06:48.600 --> 00:06:51.759 performance before the Privy Council. He expands 00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:54.800 his initial claims into 43 massive allegations, 00:06:55.160 --> 00:06:58.660 naming 541 Jesuits. He claims there were secret 00:06:58.660 --> 00:07:01.139 meetings at the White Horse Tavern to coordinate 00:07:01.139 --> 00:07:03.639 an invasion of Irish and French forces. But the 00:07:03.639 --> 00:07:05.579 turning point and the critical failure of the 00:07:05.579 --> 00:07:08.120 council revolves around a packet of forged letters. 00:07:08.420 --> 00:07:11.060 The council presented Oates with five letters, 00:07:11.220 --> 00:07:13.519 supposedly intercepted from prominent priests, 00:07:13.839 --> 00:07:16.699 detailing the assassination plot. The council 00:07:16.699 --> 00:07:18.839 actually suspected these letters might be forged. 00:07:19.370 --> 00:07:22.290 Yet when Oates was asked to examine them, he 00:07:22.290 --> 00:07:24.410 instantly identified the supposed authors of 00:07:24.410 --> 00:07:26.970 each letter after barely glancing at the handwriting. 00:07:27.250 --> 00:07:29.709 The cognitive dissonance of the highest nobles 00:07:29.709 --> 00:07:32.649 in the kingdom is just staggering. They took 00:07:32.649 --> 00:07:34.649 his instantaneous recognition of the handwriting 00:07:34.649 --> 00:07:37.230 as definitive proof of his intimate knowledge 00:07:37.230 --> 00:07:41.089 of the conspiracy. It is a tragic irony and a 00:07:41.089 --> 00:07:44.399 textbook failure of critical thinking. It apparently 00:07:44.399 --> 00:07:47.040 never occurred to the Privy Council that Oates' 00:07:47.180 --> 00:07:49.560 ability to instantly recognize the handwriting 00:07:49.560 --> 00:07:52.480 made it vastly more likely that he was the one 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:54.139 who had forged the letters in the first place. 00:07:54.339 --> 00:07:56.920 They were amazed by his memory instead of suspicious 00:07:56.920 --> 00:07:59.500 of his forgery. Because the letters confirmed 00:07:59.500 --> 00:08:01.800 their pre -existing fears about a Catholic uprising, 00:08:02.220 --> 00:08:04.720 the council suspended their logical faculties. 00:08:04.839 --> 00:08:07.560 They validated Oates, inadvertently granting 00:08:07.560 --> 00:08:10.180 him state -sanctioned credibility. And then the 00:08:10.180 --> 00:08:12.800 physical catalyst occurs. The event that poured 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:15.680 gasoline on the fire. The magistrate who had 00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:18.319 first taken Oates' sworn deposition, Sir Edmund 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:21.300 Barry Godfrey, goes missing. And in mid -October, 00:08:21.300 --> 00:08:23.680 his body is discovered in a ditch on Primrose 00:08:23.680 --> 00:08:26.160 Hill. He had been strangled, his neck broken, 00:08:26.379 --> 00:08:29.279 and he was run through with his own sword. The 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:31.579 murder remains unsolved to this day, but the 00:08:31.579 --> 00:08:34.659 public immediately blamed Catholics. That period 00:08:34.659 --> 00:08:37.549 became known as Godfrey's Autumn. For a public 00:08:37.549 --> 00:08:40.950 already on edge, the unsolved murder of a prominent 00:08:40.950 --> 00:08:44.769 Protestant magistrate was the irrefutable physical 00:08:44.769 --> 00:08:47.929 proof they needed. It transformed Oates' abstract 00:08:47.929 --> 00:08:51.809 manuscript into a bloody reality. That panic 00:08:51.809 --> 00:08:54.639 was suddenly tangible. And to make matters worse, 00:08:54.899 --> 00:08:57.279 investigators raiding the homes of the accused 00:08:57.279 --> 00:09:01.259 found actual factual correspondence. A man named 00:09:01.259 --> 00:09:03.700 Edward Coleman, a secretary connected to the 00:09:03.700 --> 00:09:06.019 Duke of York, was caught with letters he had 00:09:06.019 --> 00:09:07.899 written to a French Jesuit. So there actually 00:09:07.899 --> 00:09:10.559 was a real conspiracy going on. Yes. Coleman's 00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:12.779 letters are the crucial kernel of truth that 00:09:12.779 --> 00:09:15.039 every effective disinformation campaign requires. 00:09:15.960 --> 00:09:18.539 Coleman wasn't plotting an assassination, but 00:09:18.539 --> 00:09:20.580 he was attempting to secure French funding to 00:09:20.580 --> 00:09:22.659 bribe members of Parliament. Essentially trying 00:09:22.659 --> 00:09:25.080 to dissolve the English legislature in favor 00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:28.639 of a more pro -French absolutist model. Exactly. 00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:31.879 Which is entirely separate from Oates' fictitious 00:09:31.879 --> 00:09:34.399 murder plot, but it was nonetheless high treason. 00:09:34.679 --> 00:09:37.399 Coleman was executed, and his real conspiracy 00:09:37.399 --> 00:09:39.919 provided the necessary foundation to make Oates' 00:09:39.980 --> 00:09:43.139 fabricated conspiracy appear credible. At this 00:09:43.139 --> 00:09:45.399 point, the mechanics of the hysteria shift from 00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:48.059 the government chambers to the streets. The city 00:09:48.059 --> 00:09:50.399 of London effectively militarized itself overnight. 00:09:50.700 --> 00:09:53.139 Roger North described it by saying, the very 00:09:53.139 --> 00:09:56.019 cabinet of hell has been opened. The sheer panic 00:09:56.019 --> 00:09:58.519 was overwhelming. Noble women carried firearms. 00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:01.240 The House of Commons was repeatedly searched 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:04.419 for hidden bombs. There was even a moment where 00:10:04.419 --> 00:10:07.100 a Frenchman was caught hoarding gunpowder, causing 00:10:07.100 --> 00:10:09.519 widespread panic until they realized he was just 00:10:09.519 --> 00:10:12.100 the king's firework maker. It's absurd, but it 00:10:12.100 --> 00:10:13.919 highlights the tragicomedy of the situation. 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:16.740 The print media was a massive driver of this. 00:10:16.779 --> 00:10:19.000 The printing press was basically the social media 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:21.799 of the 1670s. Censorship laws had recently lapsed, 00:10:21.799 --> 00:10:23.940 right? They had. So a flood of cheap, easily 00:10:23.940 --> 00:10:26.700 digestible pamphlets and broadsides hit the streets. 00:10:27.059 --> 00:10:29.549 These publications... serialized Oates' allegations, 00:10:29.970 --> 00:10:32.669 complete with lurid, woodcut illustrations of 00:10:32.669 --> 00:10:35.429 Jesuits plotting in the shadows. Creating an 00:10:35.429 --> 00:10:39.289 inescapable feedback loop of terror. Which brings 00:10:39.289 --> 00:10:41.909 us to the accusation of the five Catholic lords. 00:10:42.269 --> 00:10:45.149 With the press and the public behind him, Oates 00:10:45.149 --> 00:10:47.529 aimed at the very top of the social hierarchy. 00:10:47.889 --> 00:10:50.129 The specifics of these accusations highlight 00:10:50.129 --> 00:10:53.559 the complete abandonment of logic. Two of the 00:10:53.559 --> 00:10:56.200 accused lords, Arendelle and Stafford, hadn't 00:10:56.200 --> 00:10:58.600 spoken to each other in 25 years because of a 00:10:58.600 --> 00:11:01.039 bitter feud. Yet Oates accused them of conspiring 00:11:01.039 --> 00:11:04.740 together. Yes. And another, Lord Bellesise, had 00:11:04.740 --> 00:11:07.519 gout so severe he could barely stand, let alone 00:11:07.519 --> 00:11:10.720 lead a violent military uprising. But the absurdity 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:13.330 didn't matter. The political utility of the plot 00:11:13.330 --> 00:11:16.450 had overtaken any search for the truth. Factions 00:11:16.450 --> 00:11:18.750 within Parliament realized they could weaponize 00:11:18.750 --> 00:11:21.649 this mass hysteria to fundamentally alter the 00:11:21.649 --> 00:11:24.129 power structure of the country. Opposing factions 00:11:24.129 --> 00:11:26.909 used the public terror generated by the Popish 00:11:26.909 --> 00:11:29.870 plot to introduce legislation aimed at explicitly 00:11:29.870 --> 00:11:32.470 excluding the Catholic Duke of York from the 00:11:32.470 --> 00:11:34.309 line of succession. While the politicians were 00:11:34.309 --> 00:11:36.230 playing chess with the succession, the justice 00:11:36.230 --> 00:11:38.370 system was actively collapsing under the weight 00:11:38.370 --> 00:11:40.590 of public fear. We see this with the execution 00:11:40.590 --> 00:11:44.009 of William Staley. A young Catholic banker who 00:11:44.009 --> 00:11:46.669 allegedly made a drunken threat against the king 00:11:46.669 --> 00:11:49.529 in a tavern. In a functioning legal system, he 00:11:49.529 --> 00:11:52.350 might have been fined or jailed. During the Popish 00:11:52.350 --> 00:11:54.830 plot, he was tried, convicted of high treason, 00:11:54.830 --> 00:11:57.750 and executed within 10 days. To understand how 00:11:57.750 --> 00:12:01.049 22 innocent men were legally murdered, we have 00:12:01.049 --> 00:12:03.570 to look at the procedural mechanics of a 17th 00:12:03.570 --> 00:12:07.070 century treason trial. Defendants were not permitted 00:12:07.070 --> 00:12:09.049 defense counsel. They weren't even allowed to 00:12:09.049 --> 00:12:11.009 see the evidence against them prior to the trial. 00:12:11.149 --> 00:12:13.470 They could not call witnesses under oath to contradict 00:12:13.470 --> 00:12:16.250 the Crown's informers. The accused were fighting 00:12:16.250 --> 00:12:19.190 blindfolded. And the Crown actively incentivized 00:12:19.190 --> 00:12:21.909 informers with pardons and rewards. Men were 00:12:21.909 --> 00:12:24.230 tortured into giving false confessions. Like 00:12:24.230 --> 00:12:26.370 Miles Prance, who was thrown into a freezing 00:12:26.370 --> 00:12:29.110 dungeon and tortured until he broke. To save 00:12:29.110 --> 00:12:31.730 himself, he falsely implicated three entirely 00:12:31.730 --> 00:12:34.809 innocent working men. Berry, Green, and Hill, 00:12:34.970 --> 00:12:37.230 who were then executed for Godfrey's murder. 00:12:37.490 --> 00:12:40.389 The environment was so toxic that Oates continuously 00:12:40.389 --> 00:12:43.529 updated his lies to explain away any inconsistencies. 00:12:44.070 --> 00:12:46.190 When people question why none of the supposedly 00:12:46.190 --> 00:12:48.590 hired assassins had managed to shoot the king 00:12:48.590 --> 00:12:51.610 during his daily walks, Oates claimed the assassins 00:12:51.610 --> 00:12:54.129 were planning to use special silver bullets so 00:12:54.129 --> 00:12:56.470 that the king's wounds wouldn't heal. It's a 00:12:56.470 --> 00:12:59.889 desperate rationalization, but the public eagerly 00:12:59.889 --> 00:13:03.120 swallowed it. But hysteria, by its very nature, 00:13:03.220 --> 00:13:06.200 is unsustainable. The fever eventually breaks. 00:13:06.379 --> 00:13:08.539 And it wasn't from a sudden realization of the 00:13:08.539 --> 00:13:11.139 evidence, but a shift in public sentiment regarding 00:13:11.139 --> 00:13:13.519 the victims. As these innocent men went to their 00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:16.139 deaths protesting their innocence, public opinion 00:13:16.139 --> 00:13:19.500 began to shift. In the 17th century, the words 00:13:19.500 --> 00:13:22.000 of a dying man were considered legally and spiritually 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:24.600 weighty. They continually delivered incredibly 00:13:24.600 --> 00:13:27.679 dignified final speeches, and you start to see 00:13:27.679 --> 00:13:30.259 grassroots skepticism empowering the judiciary 00:13:30.259 --> 00:13:33.259 to reclaim its authority. Judges like Chief Justice 00:13:33.259 --> 00:13:35.779 William Scroggs, who had previously presided 00:13:35.779 --> 00:13:38.720 over wrongful convictions, began demanding actual 00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:41.210 corroborating evidence. And when the informers 00:13:41.210 --> 00:13:43.850 couldn't produce it, judges ordered juries to 00:13:43.850 --> 00:13:46.429 acquit. King Charles threw the full weight of 00:13:46.429 --> 00:13:49.210 the crown behind the judges. The moment the institutional 00:13:49.210 --> 00:13:52.070 support vanished, Titus Oates's entire empire 00:13:52.070 --> 00:13:54.809 collapsed. King Charles finally kicked Oates 00:13:54.809 --> 00:13:56.830 out of his cushy state apartments in Whitehall. 00:13:57.169 --> 00:14:01.200 And when James II took the throne in 1685, the 00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:03.220 ultimate reckoning occurred. James had Oates 00:14:03.220 --> 00:14:06.179 tried for perjury, right? He did. Oates was stripped 00:14:06.179 --> 00:14:08.919 of his clerical status, imprisoned for life, 00:14:09.100 --> 00:14:11.080 and sentenced to be whipped violently through 00:14:11.080 --> 00:14:13.340 the streets of London and pilloried annually. 00:14:13.759 --> 00:14:16.220 Even though his credibility was permanently eradicated, 00:14:16.460 --> 00:14:18.759 the long shadow of the damage he inflicted was 00:14:18.759 --> 00:14:22.379 devastating. At least 22 innocent men died. The 00:14:22.379 --> 00:14:24.519 Society of Jesus was functionally decimated in 00:14:24.519 --> 00:14:27.179 England. And ordinary Catholics were subjected 00:14:27.179 --> 00:14:30.000 to strict anti -Catholic legislation that wasn't 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:33.360 fully removed until 1829. So what does this all 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:35.500 mean? We aren't examining this narrative just 00:14:35.500 --> 00:14:38.279 to recount dusty history. This is highly relevant 00:14:38.279 --> 00:14:40.419 to your world today. It's a masterclass in how 00:14:40.419 --> 00:14:42.940 disinformation operates. It truly is. It shows 00:14:42.940 --> 00:14:45.980 how bad actors can exploit societal anxieties, 00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:49.080 how confirmation bias blinds even smart people 00:14:49.080 --> 00:14:52.059 like the Privy Council, and how quickly the presumption 00:14:52.059 --> 00:14:55.080 of innocence vanishes in a panic. This raises 00:14:55.080 --> 00:14:57.120 an important question regarding how we consume 00:14:57.120 --> 00:14:59.960 information today. Knowledge is only valuable 00:14:59.960 --> 00:15:02.879 when applied with critical thinking. The Popish 00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:05.480 plot should serve as a cautionary tale against 00:15:05.480 --> 00:15:08.139 letting fear dictate truth. I want to leave you 00:15:08.139 --> 00:15:10.500 with one final provocative thought to explore 00:15:10.500 --> 00:15:13.320 on your own. If you look at the broader categorization 00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:16.019 of this event in our source material, it's listed 00:15:16.019 --> 00:15:18.820 under conspiracy theories. It shares DNA with 00:15:18.820 --> 00:15:21.159 modern examples like crisis actors or shadow 00:15:21.159 --> 00:15:23.620 governments. The crucial concept connecting them 00:15:23.620 --> 00:15:26.539 all is falsifiability. In a logically found investigation, 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:29.120 a theory must be falsifiable, meaning there must 00:15:29.120 --> 00:15:31.769 be a way to prove it wrong. In the Popish plot, 00:15:31.889 --> 00:15:33.830 the complete lack of physical evidence was twisted 00:15:33.830 --> 00:15:35.950 into proof of just how well -hidden the conspiracy 00:15:35.950 --> 00:15:38.950 was. The complete lack of evidence miraculously 00:15:38.950 --> 00:15:41.750 became the strongest evidence of all. I challenge 00:15:41.750 --> 00:15:44.690 you to look at the media you consume today. If 00:15:44.690 --> 00:15:47.169 a theory is designed so that even the total absence 00:15:47.169 --> 00:15:49.710 of evidence supposedly proves it to be true, 00:15:50.509 --> 00:15:52.730 Are we dealing with facts or are we just living 00:15:52.730 --> 00:15:55.289 in someone else's popish plot? A vital question 00:15:55.289 --> 00:15:57.850 for anyone navigating the information age. Thank 00:15:57.850 --> 00:16:00.250 you for joining us on this deep dive. Stay curious, 00:16:00.350 --> 00:16:02.570 stay critical, and we will catch you next time.