Roger L’Estrange’s Observator and the Exorcism of the Plot

Rumbustious and vitriolic, satiric and savage, week after week for six years and through two million words, Roger L’Estrange’s newspaper, the Observator, corroded the foundations of Whiggery. When it began in 1681, Whiggism reigned, and to doubt the Popish Plot courted personal calamity. Long before it ended in 1687, the plot was dead and Whiggism too. Plot-belief was a national demonic possession and L’Estrange its self-appointed exorcist.