Titus Oates

Titus Oates (1649–1705) was a clergyman who invented the "Popish plot".

Oates attended both Oxford and Cambridge universities, but was expelled from both. He became vicar of Bobbing in Kent, but was charged with perjury after accusing a schoolmaster in Hastings of sodomy. Oates was put in jail, but escaped and fled to London. In 1677 he was himself appointed as a chaplain of the ship Adventurer in the English navy. He was soon accused of buggery, which was a capital offence, and spared only because of his clergyman's status.