Titus Oates
Titus Oates (1649–1705) was a clergyman who invented the "Popish plot".
Oates was born in Oakham, Rutland, and attended Caius College, Cambridge, where he gained a reputation for stupidity and homosexuality.[1] He transferred to St John’s College in 1669 but left without a degree. In 1675, while living in Hastings, he falsely accused a local schoolmaster of sodomy in an attempt to become schoolmaster himself.[1] Oates was accused of perjury, but escaped and fled to London. In 1677 he was appointed as a chaplain of the ship Adventurer in the English navy, but dismissed on suspicion of a homosexual offence.
In 1678 he claimed to have discovered a plot by Roman Catholics to murder King Charles II. This aroused considerable anti-Catholic feeling, but was eventually revealed as a forgery. In 1681 Oates was convicted of sedition and imprisoned. In 1685 he was tried again, this time for perjury and ordered to be imprisoned, pilloried, and whipped.
