Conspiracies: The Facts * the Theories * the Evidence (10 page)

official story of the 1605 plot. How, after al , were 36 huge barrels of gunpowder transported so easily by known Catholics into the

vicinity of the House of Lords without raising suspicion? It may

be that – almost certainly unwittingly – most of the plotters were indeed patsies, believing they were working under their own

volition, while their movements were in truth being monitored

and unrestricted until the final moment of apprehension. (Things

do not always work like this: in a similar situation Emad Salem,

an FBI double agent, claims that in 1993 he was hired to provide

dummy explosives to a group of Muslim extremists so that they

could be implicated in a plot to bomb the World Trade Center

using a truck. However, in that case, Salem asserts that the group was inexplicably given real explosives, as a bomb
did
go off, killing six people and injuring over a thousand others;
see
p. 177.) It has also been noted that John Streete, the soldier who shot

and killed Catesby and Thomas Percy (reputedly with the same

musket ball) in the final siege at Holbeche House following

Fawkes’s apprehension, was, unusual y, granted a special pension

for his services, even though taking them alive for interrogation had supposedly been the desired course of action. Was this a

reward for removing the two men who might have had some

potential y embarrassing revelations to make under trial? (Not

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of any official sponsorship at their trials, however. If a double agent, was the more-knowing Percy betrayed by Cecil to prevent

any inadvertent confessions, or was his death just an unfortunate accident?)

There are undoubtedly some unresolved issues around the

false-flag claims. If he was secretly working for the authorities, why did Percy not just desert the scene once the plot was

uncovered, instead of risking himself by staying on to fight the

siege (unless he had already sensed Cecil’s betrayal, and was

now genuinely on the run himself)? And would it have been

such a strange thing in those times for a real plot to have arisen anyway? The false-flag theories for the events of 1605, although

increasingly popularized by modern theorists, remain unproven,

and academics, unsurprisingly, general y discount them, although

the accusations made at the time are grudgingly acknowledged.

As with the Great Fire of Rome, it is less the ultimate truth

of the events that matters here, but rather the willingness of so many people to believe in the most convenient or self-reassuring

versions. Inevitably, the Catholic sympathizers of the day were

quick to support Gerard’s view of state responsibility, while the Protestant majority took the plot at face value and used it to full effect, setting in stone legislation that would ensure Catholics

remained pariahs in some parts of the country until well into the early 20th century.

In a curious distortion of all this, it is interesting to note that in recent years (thanks largely to the 2005 movie version of Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s graphic novel
V for Vendetta
) Guy Fawkes has evolved into a figurehead for positive rebellion; a

symbol of freedom rather than the dark traitorous figure hated

in previous centuries. The movie’s plastic Fawkes masks are now,

for good or il , the
de rigueur
uniform of social dissenters, from anti-capitalists to human rights activists. The mask-wearers

argue that, just as Fawkes and his allies represented a persecuted minority seeking justice and the freedom to believe in what was

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right for them, so too do they. However, it is also the case that Fawkes unquestionably represented a terrorist mindset prepared

to indiscriminately murder for its convictions, which makes for a less savoury modern icon, while the character of ‘V’ kil s as much for vengeance as for ideology. This is an uncomfortable paradox

that has not been satisfactorily resolved in the ascent of the revised Fawkes symbolism.

It is certainly the case that, had the Gunpowder Plot

succeeded (if it was ever intended to), it is unlikely that the

conspirators would have gained much real sympathy amidst the

wide revulsion that would certainly have been felt against such

an underhand and moral y questionable mass killing. Without

the full backing of a poised invasion force from another country

(absent, this time around), it might well have been the Catholics of England who would have ended up massacred, rather than

the Protestants, with the plot having the reverse effect to that

apparently intended.

Whichever way it is looked at, the undeniable aspect of this

case in point is that it was very definitely a conspiracy, one which would resonate for a great length of time and give rise to numerous other conspiracies – or at least theories about them.

‘Straw Man’ Theories

One of the acknowledged problems with conspiracy thinking is

an occasional tendency towards hysteria that goes beyond the

available evidence. Clear patterns that give reasonable grounds for suspicion in one area can be seen to give the green light for belief in another for which proof may be in much shorter supply.

For example, a credible UFO sighting from a reliable witness

will often give rise to a number of ‘back-up’ claims in the days after by excitable but less discriminating individuals keen to support

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add the later, more questionable, accounts into the general picture to bolster the overall effect. However, if these are then exposed as cash-in hoaxes or mistaken reports of otherwise mundane

phenomena, public doubt is suddenly cast on the original sighting too, bringing the whole story into disrepute. Ultimately, blending good information with bad for the sake of sensationalism is a self-defeating strategy.

With this in mind, there is a good likelihood that certain

wilder conspiracy theories may be contrived ‘straw man’

theories (i.e. easily blown away), deliberately spread by both

media and authorities to encourage wider-eyed speculators

into the more bizarre cul-de-sacs of truthseeking before very

publicly demolishing the arguments for them, bringing down

the reputation of all conspiracy thinking by simple association.

There is reason to suggest, for instance, that this strategy was

employed when certain UK tabloid newspapers insisted on

running endless conspiracy-flavoured ‘leaks’ about the official

inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales (
see
p. 154) in the run-up to the verdict in 2008. It was implied that all sorts of dark deeds were about to be revealed when, in truth, the final report drily rejected any such notions and plumped firmly for

the mundane. Suddenly the promised scandalous discoveries

were made to seem ridiculous, sending out a clear message to

the population of the perils of such deranged thinking. Had it al just been a ploy to sell more papers (which it certainly did), or was something more fundamental at work?

Many other areas of conspiracy speculation, from 9/11 theories

to Moon landing doubts, have almost certainly fallen victim to

related tactics, with the more outlandish elements seemingly

encouraged into wide prominence, allowing awareness of the

more convincing areas to be eclipsed. Hence conspiracy theories

can arise over the
contrivance
of conspiracy theories themselves, and once again there are clear historical precedents for this

occurring.

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The Titus Oates ‘Plot’

Telling genuine concern from deliberately stirred hysteria is not always easy. The English Civil War of the 1640s saw long-brewing

struggles between Parliament and the monarchy conflate into

disastrous open conflict, culminating in the execution of Charles I and leaving a jittery and confused nation in its wake. Although

the fallout from the Gunpowder Plot had apparently ensured that

long-term resistance to open Catholicism would endure, some

had marked reservations about the replacement king, Charles II,

whose line was restored to the throne in 1660 after the short-

lived Puritan republic crumbled following the death of Lord

Protector Oliver Cromwel . Although Charles himself maintained

the Protestant religion, his brother James Stuart – heir to the

throne, in the absence of any legitimate children from Charles

– had openly re-embraced Catholicism, and fear of renewed

sympathies towards the old religion were seeping once again into

a traumatized population. This was strongly demonstrated when

the Great Fire of London swept through in 1666, devastating

large swathes of the city. Scapegoats are always sought in times

of crisis, with cholera or plague outbreaks throughout history

habitual y blamed on despised local religious or ethnic minorities having poisoned the water supply and suchlike. Thus the London

blaze immediately raised charges that Catholic (specifical y Jesuit) insurrectionists were responsible.

Into this smog of paranoia stepped two dubious characters:

Israel Tonge and Titus Oates. Tonge had been rector of a church lost in the Great Fire. Harbouring deep loathing towards Catholicism,

he subscribed to the view that Jesuits were responsible for the

calamity and set about writing a series of inflammatory pamphlets denouncing Rome and accusing it of numerous conspiratorial

designs. It was the tract co-authored with Oates, however, that

was to create the ‘Popish Plot’ – one of the most insidious and

harmful episodes in English history.

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Titus Oates was always of questionable background. Reportedly

an unintelligent bigot from an early age, what he lacked in

personal finesse or achievement he made up for by attacking the

reputations of others. He had already been jailed for perjury after falsely accusing his schoolmaster of sodomy, yet still managed to forge a career as an Anglican minister (although this didn’t prevent Oates from later being accused of sodomy himself). At some

point Oates somehow found himself being drawn to Catholicism,

and actual y studied at a Jesuit institution at St Omer in France.

Although Oates later claimed this was merely a ploy to infiltrate Jesuit secrets, it seems likely that his subsequent expulsion from St Omer in 1678 sparked a revengeful streak in him against his

former masters.

The publication of Tonge and Oates’s entirely self-descriptive

pamphlet,
The True and Exact Narrative of the Horrid Plot and
Conspiracy of the Popish Party Against the Life of His Sacred
Majesty, the Government and the Protestant Religion, etc.
, in the same year of 1678 can thus be seen in two ways: either as a

foolish act of vengeance filled with personal religious hatred, or as yet another covert scheme from authorities, using the helpful

lies of vicious ignorance to stir up a new wave of fear to stem a reawakened tide of Catholic influence. The torturous tract made

claims that assassination plots were being planned against the

King from within his own ranks, accompanied by the usual tales

of massed invasion forces poised to leap upon England from

foreign shores loyal to the Pope, the instigator of the scheme.

This time, however, unlike previously uncovered ‘plots’, there

was no evidence of any kind to support the claims, which seem to

have sprung almost entirely from the minds of Tonge and Oates

(primarily the latter) or were rooted in nothing more than the

standard fear-mongering rumours of the day, which regularly rip-

pled through England’s anxious cities. Even Charles II, confronted with news of the alleged plot, seemed dubious about its reliability and was reluctant to act without further evidence.

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A lack of substance, though, did not stop the effectiveness of

Oates’s scheme. Word of the Popish Plot soon spread to a public

ready to blame all il s on the old foe, and the renewed abhorrence of Catholics began to result in the usual depressing rounds of

death, torture and persecution. With the government unable to

ignore the rapidly disruptive gossip any longer, Oates was called before the magistrate Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey in September

1678 and, later, the Privy Council, where he managed to persuade

it that action was needed. Rather than treat Oates’s increasingly wild claims and indiscriminate naming of 81 alleged conspirators

with the contempt they should have received (anticipating the

similarly paranoid curve which would final y undo US senator

Joseph McCarthy during his Communist ‘witch-hunts’ of the

1950s), instead Oates was given his own squad of soldiers, with

which he tracked down and arrested suspects. All this was given

further momentum when magistrate Godfrey was mysteriously

murdered. No one was ever convicted of the killing. At the time it was broadly assumed to be the result of a Catholic assassination, but it is not unreasonable to consider that Oates or his supporters might have been behind it, such was the gift Godfrey’s death