, perpetrator of the "
Popish Plot" On the enactment of the
Stuart Restoration penal laws known as the
Test Act in 1673, to which Plunkett would not agree for doctrinal reasons, the college was closed and demolished. Plunkett went into hiding, travelling only in disguise, and refused a government edict to register at a seaport to await passage into exile. For the next few years he was largely left in peace since the Dublin government, except when put under pressure from the English government in
London, preferred to leave the Catholic bishops alone. In 1678 the so-called
Popish Plot, concocted in England by clergyman
Titus Oates, led to further anti-Catholic action.
Archbishop Peter Talbot of
Dublin was arrested, and Plunkett again went into hiding. The
Privy Council of England, in Westminster, was told that Plunkett had plotted a French invasion. The moving spirit behind the campaign is said to have been
Arthur Capell, the first Earl of Essex, who had been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1672–1677 and hoped to resume the office by discrediting the Duke of Ormonde. However Capell was not normally a ruthless or unprincipled man, and his later plea for mercy suggests that he had never intended that Plunkett should actually die.
Trial Despite being on the run and with a price on his head, Plunkett refused to leave his flock. At some point before his final
incarceration, he took refuge in a church that once stood in the townland of Killartry, in the parish of
Clogherhead in
County Louth, seven miles outside Drogheda. He was arrested in Dublin on 6 December 1679 and imprisoned in
Dublin Castle, where he gave absolution to the dying Talbot. Plunkett was tried at
Dundalk for conspiring against the state by allegedly plotting to bring 20,000 French soldiers into the country, and for levying a tax on his clergy to support 70,000 men for rebellion. Though this was unproven, some in government circles were worried about the possibility that a repetition of the
Irish rebellion of 1641 was being planned and in any case, this was a convenient excuse for proceeding against Plunkett. The Duke of Ormonde, aware that Lord Essex was using the crisis to undermine him, did not defend Plunkett in public. In private however, he made clear his belief in Plunkett's innocence and his contempt for the informers against him: "silly drunken vagabonds ... whom no schoolboy would trust to rob an orchard". , where Plunkett was tried Plunkett did not object to facing an all-Protestant jury, but the trial soon collapsed as the prosecution witnesses were themselves wanted men and afraid to turn up in court.
Lord Shaftesbury knew Plunkett would never be convicted in Ireland, irrespective of the jury's composition, and so had Plunkett moved to
Newgate Prison in London in order to face trial at
Westminster Hall. The first grand jury found no
true bill, but he was not released. The second trial has generally been regarded as a serious miscarriage of justice; Plunkett was denied defending counsel (although
Hugh Reily acted as his legal advisor) and time to assemble his defence witnesses, and he was also frustrated in his attempts to obtain the criminal records of those who were to give evidence against him. His servant James McKenna, and a relative, John Plunkett, had travelled back to Ireland and failed within the time available to bring back witnesses and evidence for the defence. During the trial, Archbishop Plunkett had disputed the right of the court to try him in England and he also drew attention to the criminal past of the witnesses, but to no avail.
Lord Chief Justice Sir
Francis Pemberton addressing these complaints said to Plunkett: "Look you, Mr. Plunkett, it is in vain for you to talk and make this discourse here now ..." and later on again: "Look you, Mr. Plunkett, don't mis-spend your own time; for the more you trifle in these things, the less time you will have for your defence". The
Scottish clergyman and future
Bishop of Salisbury,
Gilbert Burnet, an eyewitness to the Plot trials, had no doubt of the innocence of Plunkett, whom he praised as a wise and sober man who wished only to live peacefully and tend to his congregation. Writing in the 19th century,
Lord Campbell said of the judge, Pemberton, that the trial was a disgrace to himself and his country. More recently the
High Court judge
Sir James Comyn called it a grave mistake: while Plunkett, by virtue of his office, was clearly guilty of "promoting the Catholic faith", and may possibly have had some dealings with the French, there was never the slightest evidence that he had conspired against the King's life.
Execution and immediate surroundings
Archbishop Plunkett was found guilty of high treason in June 1681 "for promoting the Roman faith", and was condemned to death. In passing judgement, the Chief Justice said: "You have done as much as you could to dishonour God in this case; for the bottom of your treason was your setting up your false religion, than which there is not any thing more displeasing to God, or more pernicious to mankind in the world". The jury returned within fifteen minutes with a guilty verdict and Archbishop Plunkett replied: (Latin for "Thanks be to God"). Numerous pleas for mercy were made but Charles II, although himself a reputed crypto-Catholic, thought it too politically dangerous to spare Plunkett. The French ambassador to England,
Paul Barillon, conveyed a plea for mercy from his king,
Louis XIV. Charles told him frankly that he knew Plunkett to be innocent, but that the time was not right to take so bold a step as to pardon him. Lord Essex, apparently realising too late that his intrigues had led to the condemnation of an innocent man, made a similar plea for mercy. The King, normally the most self-controlled of men, turned on Lord Essex in fury, saying: "his blood be on your head – you could have saved him but would not, I would save him and dare not". Plunkett was
hanged, drawn and quartered at
Tyburn on 1 July 1681 (11 July
NS), aged 55, the last Catholic
martyr to die in England. His body was initially buried in two tin boxes, next to five
Jesuits who had died previously, in the courtyard of
St Giles in the Fields church. The remains were exhumed in 1683 and moved to the Benedictine monastery at
Lamspringe, near
Hildesheim in
Germany. The head was brought to Rome, and from there to
Armagh, and eventually to Drogheda where since 29 June 1921 it has rested in
Saint Peter's Church. Most of the body was brought to
Downside Abbey, England, where the major part is located today, with some parts remaining at Lamspringe. On the occasion of his canonization in 1975 his casket was opened and some parts of his body were given to St Peter's Church in Drogheda Ireland and also to the new
Worth Abbey Church consecrated 13 July 1975. ==Legacy==