ABSTRACT
Mr Pope, whose first name was also Alexander, probably converted to Catholicism when he was a young man, during the early years of the Restoration. Later, during the agitated reign of James II, he bought and read all that was being written on both the Protestant and Papist sides but, when he had finished reading, he found no way he could change his mind. Mr Pope took Edith and Magdalen to live in the house he had rented in Plough Court, off Lombard Street in the City. Even as Londoners read in the Flying Post of the persecution of French Protestants, they watched with dismay as James celebrated Mass openly in the royal chapel and received the Papal Nuncio with all due ceremony at court. The news of James's abrupt departure was the signal for widespread rioting in the capital. Mobs chanting 'No Popery' went in search of Jesuit priests, stopping and interrogating all known Catholics.
