ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines that anti-Catholicism ensured that the attempts of Charles's chief minister in the early 1670s, Danby, to gain support for the crown failed and it brought about the biggest threat to the monarchy since the mid-century: the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis. Danby had to accept the consequences of the fact that heir to the throne was now a Catholic. One of the most striking features of seventeenth-century England is the strength and persistence at all levels and among all classes of society of anti-Catholicism, which from the early 1670s came to play an increasingly important part in politics. The paradox of English anti-Catholicism is that it grew at a time when there were very few Catholics in England. The most important explanation lies in the anti-Catholic tradition which it has been seen was so strong in seventeenth-century England. Many people found the Popish Plot story convincing because it was unoriginal and incorporated much English anti-Catholic mythology.
