Readable account of the Popish Plot and the conspiracy against Samuel Pepys, written with a general audience in mind. A fine introduction to the topic. ( )

I recall plodding through the Diary of Samuel Pepys in high school, but my only image of him is that of pusillanimous portrayer of London life who enjoyed fine dining with amicable company and who took a physique just about every night prior to retiring. This book by the father and son team of James Long and Ben Long expands Pepys’s life after he ceased his daily journaling because he believed that activity was weakening his eyesight.

As a royal official and a protégé of Duke of York, James, the Catholic-leaning brother of Protestant and heirless King Charles II, Pepys becomes the unwitting victim as the primary target of the nefarious wrangling of the Whig Party during England’s Restoration Period. Led by the irrepressible Earl of Shaftesbury, the Whigs seek to purify England from any outside religious influence, which they believe is the Pope’s design through Jesuit manipulations to overthrow their government. In the background, then, this politico-religious conflict rages.

In the foreground, a massively deceptive campaign is laid upon Samuel Pepys. According to the Longs, Pepys makes an initial error in chasing John Scott out of England because he believed Scott to be the assassin of local justice of the peace, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. Scott seeks revenge upon the Royal Navy administrator. The vengeful provocateur—if not amoral prevaricator—becomes a tool of the Whigs to demolish James’s lineage to the throne. With the assistance of perjurous testimony from Titus Oates and William Bedloe, Scott forces Pepys before the House of Commons (under Shaftesbury’s control) and later before Westminster Hall (under the sway of Lord Chief Justice William Scroggs) to defend himself against bogus charges of treason although the particulars of the litigation are kept secret from Pepys.

Political brinksmanship is nothing new in this exposé about political intrigue undone and a global spy-ring unmasked through the meticulous diligence of one government official. The reader can almost replace the names and update the occurrences from four centuries ago to document American politics today.

This work is a savvy study of an arcane period of English history for any interested reader. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1791411.html

An excellent narrative of the chain of events by which Samuel Pepys was imprisoned in the Tower of London as part of the Popish Plot hysteria of 1679 - a truly horrible moment of witch-hunting against Catholics and suspected allies of the Duke of York, the heir to the throne, who had been exiled from England because of his religion. Faced by false accusers who had powerful political allies, Pepys' life was clearly in danger; but he cooly assembled evidence in his own defence and was able to hang on until the political wind changed in his favour. A very nice micro-study of how a well-known set of political events affected a well-known figure of the time. Particularly nice to have detail on Pepys' main accuser, an adventurer who had got enmeshed in the politics of Connecticut, Long Island, and New Amsterdam (which had recently been captured by the British and renamed after the Duke of York). ( )

This account of Samuel Pepys' imprisonment during the "Popish Plot" is well told, and in greater detail than in Arthur Bryant's definitive biography of Pepys. It is an interesting episode in both Pepys' life and the history of England, and the authors do reasonably well relating their particular subject to the broader plot, to Pepys' earlier life, and to the social conditions of the age.

Perhaps it speaks well of the book that it leaves one wanting more- more regarding the Plot, Pepys' life, and later episodes in the struggle between the Whigs and the Crown in the Rye House Plot, the Monmouth rebellion & the "Glorious Revolution". ( )

It's a little dense with characters but if you keep with it it's worthwhile. The book deals with the supposed Catholic Plots to kill King Charles II and place his Catholic brother, James, Duke of York, on the throne of England. Pepys, whose sponsor was James, was in the crosshairs of the Whigs behind the movement to expose the Catholic Plot. However, the Whig charges were overblown and in many cases, like against, Pepys, fabrications.

The books does best in the middle when describing the life and times of the chief accuser of Pepy, John Scott. Scott was an adventurer, egomaniac and liar. And that is what gives the book its zest. ( )