print;
broadside;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1849,0315.80
- Title
- Object: A True Narrative of the Horrid Hellish Popish-Plot. To the tune of Packington's Pound. The second part
- Description
-
A broadside on the Popish Plot; with an engraving in twelve small scenes mocking the account given by Titus Oates and his associates of the death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. A Catholic priest administers communion at Mass to a group of men includig Titus Oates, William Bedloe and others who kneel at the altar rail with their hands taking the cloth that is draped over the rail so as to hold it under their chins while receiving the eucharist; Oates and the other Protestants proclaim "Mea Culpa", "Mea Maxima Culpa" in reference to their apostasy; the altarpiece is a painting of Judas giving Christ the kiss of betrayal. Oates and his group kneel before three Jesuits in front of an altar taking the Oath of Secrecy concerning the Popish Plot; the altarpiece is a painting of false witnesses testifying against Christ. In the background two men carry bundles of arms into the house of Sir Henry Taisborough where they were "by the art of magic invisible to the gentlemen ... who often dined ... in the same room"; in the foreground, five men search the coffins in Taisborough's crypt finding skeletons rather than the arms which had been concealed there; one of them holds up a humerus, perhaps a pun for "arm". Four men dig with pick-axe and shovels into a cess-pit belonging to Sir R. T. (unidentified) while, to the right, two gentlemen hold their noses, one saying "Faugh. I smell gunpowder". Oates, in ragged clothes, begs for alms at the door of Thomas Pickering's house and is turned away by a maidservant. Thomas Pickering and William Grove behind a bush in St James's Park (usually located in Windsor Park) examine their faulty guns while the King and his entourage walk past in the background. A scene in a bedroom where Thomas Harcourt (alias Whitbread) birches Pickering as punishment for failing to kill the King; on a table is a paper inscribed, "Johannes Paulus de Oliva". Another bedroom where Harcourt raises a stick to strike Oates as he runs out of the room. Oates appears before the King and his Council to give evidence about the Popish Plot but raises suspicions by giving an incorrect answer to the King's question about the appearance of Don John of Austria. Oates pretends to faint before the Council when confronted by one of those he has accused. A man, evidently intended for Lord Shaftesbury, offers a group of men accused by Oates the alternative of a large purse or a halter. Five men about to hang from the gallows protest their innocence while another is being disembowelled. Inscriptions engraved in scrolls emerging from the figures' mouths, lettering I-T referring to notes on the right hand side, and letterpress verses satirising the unlikelihood of Oates's story in three columns with further notes [London, Turner: May 1682]
- Production date
- 1682
- Dimensions
-
Height: 300 millimetres
-
Height: 538 millimetres
-
Width: 402 millimetres (plate)
-
Width: 402 millimetres (sheet)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- For another impression of this print, see 1843-5-13-147.
This is a sequel to BMSat.1092, see 1849-3-15-81 and 1843-5-13-146.
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated events
- Associated Event: Popish Plot 1679-81
- Acquisition date
- 1849
- Acquisition notes
- Purchased through Mr. Evans at the Stowe sale, 5 March 1849, lot 1249
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1849,0315.80
