MALAHIDE Co.Dublin & HASTINGS East Sussex: linked by treachery

     Peter Talbot, born in Malahide Co. Dublin Ireland in 1620, joined the Jesuits in Portugal and went on to become Archbishop of Dublin between 1669 and 1680.
     Titus Oates born in Hastings, Sussex, England in 1649, became an Anglican vicar, oddly became a Catholic for a while, and then went on to become a serial perjurer and the infamous fabricator of a conspiracy theory that gripped England for at least ten years and maybe a lot longer. It was known as the Popish Plot, a supposed Catholic/Jesuit plot to kill King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland. It landed both of them, and many more in prison.

Peter Talbot's home: Malahide Castle, Co.Dublin                                                                       Photo: Pat Keenan

     I have lived all my life just a few miles from Malahide Castle, the home to the Talbot family from 1185 until 1976. The "lands and harbour of Malahide" was  originally a reward given to Richard Talbot by King Richard II.

All Saints Church, Hastings: where Titus Oates was baptised and his father was rector                       Photo: Pat Keenan

All Saints Church: where Titus Oates father was rector.Titus managed to appoint himself as his father's curate  Photo: Pat Keenan

     Recently I happened to be in Hastings visiting friends and after a visit to the Jerwood Gallery on the seafront we walked across the road and up All Saints Street, at the top of which is All Saints Church (Church of England) where Titus Oates was baptised. His father, Samuel Oates, once chaplain to one of Cromwell's regiments, was the rector of All Saints Church. Titus was educated at three colleges in Cambridge, two of them rejected him and one tutor referred to him as "a great dunce," but one thing he did have was a good memory, something he would turn to his advantage as the future dangerous and deathly perjurer.
     Across the way from the church is Torfield Cottage (at 88 Old London Road) where Titus Oates lived for a time.

Torfield Cottage, Old London Rd, Hastings: perjurer Titus Oates lived here                            Photo: Pat Keenan

Peter Talbot: photo by Pat Keenan detail of a painting in Malahide Castle with permission from The National Gallery of Ireland

      Before he became Archbishop of Dublin, Talbot lived as a member of the Jesuit order in Portugal and came to the attention of England's King Charles II as he was preparing to marry Princess Catherine of Portugal. Talbots knowledge of that country and his fluent command of the language made him a natural selection to become CharlesII's domestic chaplain. Indeed Talbot tutored and actually received Charles into the Catholic Church.
     Factions in the Royal court were never happy with Talbot and particularly his influence with the king and at one point he and the Jesuits were accused of conspiring to kill the Duke of Ormond. He was forced to resign his position and retired to the Continent. However he later returned to England having severed his connection with the Jesuits and back in Ireland, was appointed Archbishop of Dublin in 1669.
     Enter Oliver Plunket, appointed Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland the same year and so began an embittered rivalry as to whether Armagh or Dublin should be the ecclesiastical centre for Ireland. The Pope had to intervene and decided in favour of Armagh. But between the two bishops the issue continued to fester and was never reconciled. Talbot now began to pressure England to redress some of the grievances of Catholics in Ireland.
     Protestants in Ireland, alarmed by Talbots closeness to Charles and the prospect that the balance of power in Ireland might shift to the Catholic majority, protested vigorously resulting in even more oppressive laws against Catholics. Talbot again was forced into exile in Paris.

Time scale:  Talbot, Plunkett, Oates, Charles II, Cromwell in Ireland  and the time span covering the 'Popish Plot' period                                                                                 Compiled by Pat Keenan

     Meantime Titus Oates had became the Anglican vicar in the parish of Bobbing in Kent and landed himself in court, charged with perjury, having accused William Parker, a schoolmaster in Hastings, of sodomy (a capital offense at the time). The case was dismissed and Oates received a jail sentence. Then, somehow  he escaped and arrived in London. There in 1675 he managed to have himself appointed chaplain aboard navy frigate, HMS Adventure, on a voyage to Tangier where, bizarrely, Oates was himself accused of sodomy, and although still a capital crime, he is let off because of his clergyman's status.

An engraving of a  pilloried Titus Oates from Robert Chambers'Book of Days

     Back in Ireland an old and ailing, Peter Talbot returned from Paris in 1678, and was promptly arrested and charged with complicity in the Popish Plot. He was imprisoned in Dublin Castle where later, ironically, his former rival Oliver Plunkett became was a fellow prisoner in the cell next door. When Talbot’s condition deteriorated and he was refused a visit by a priest, Plunkett overcame his animosity and somehow alluded his prison guards to be at Talbot's deathbed. There he administered the last rites as Peter Talbot died. He is believed to have been interred in the churchyard of St. Audoen's Church, 14 High St, Dublin 8.
     Oliver Plunkett was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn (current location Marble Arch, junction of Oxford Street, Park Lane, and Edgware Road, London) 1681; was buried in two tin boxes in the courtyard of St Giles in the Fields Church, 60 St Giles High St, London WC2 , England; was exhumed in 1683 and moved to the Benedictine monastery at Lamspringe, Hildesheim, Germany but later most of his remains were removed to Downside Abbey, England - some parts remain at Lamspringe.; his head was taken to Rome, then back to Ireland, first to Armagh and then in 1921 to Saint Peter's Church, Drogheda, Co. Louth where it is preserved in an glass fronted shrine at the altar. www.saintoliverplunkett.com/stpeters.html
     When he was canonized a saint in 1975 bits of his body (relics) were dispatched to Ireland, England, France, Germany, the United States and Australia.

A detail fron a portrait of King Charles II by John Michael Wright

   Charles II died February 2, 1685 and was buried in a vault in the south aisle of Henry VII's chapel at Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yd, London SW1, England. www.westminster-abbey.org
   Titus Oates: died in July, 1705 and it is not known where he was buried.
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