Titus Oates (15 September 1649 – 12/13 July 1705) was a 17th-century perjurer who fabricated the "Popish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II.
Titus Oates was born in Oakham. His father, Samuel, was the rector of Marsham in Norfolk before becoming an Anabaptist during the Puritan Revolution and rejoining the Church of England at the Restoration. Titus was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Gonville and Caius College, C...
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Titus Oates (15 September 1649 – 12/13 July 1705) was a 17th-century perjurer who fabricated the "Popish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II.
Titus Oates was born in Oakham. His father, Samuel, was the rector of Marsham in Norfolk before becoming an Anabaptist during the Puritan Revolution and rejoining the Church of England at the Restoration. Titus was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and St John's College, Cambridge. Known as a less than astute student, he was ejected from both colleges. A few months later, he became an Anglican priest and Vicar of the parish of Bobbing in Kent. During this time Oates was charged with perjury having accused a schoolmaster in Hastings of sodomy. Oates was put in jail, but escaped and fled to London.
In 1677 he got himself appointed as a chaplain of the ship Adventurer in the English navy. He was soon accused of buggery (i.e., sodomy, which was a capital offence in England at the...
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