PRIVY COUNCIL DOCUMENT OF CHARLES II
Important warrant addressed to Viscount Camden, then Lord Lieutenant of Rutland, 1 page folio with integral address-leaf, Whitehall, 30 September 1678. Ordering Camden to search 'all the Habitations of the Papists ... or those who are reputed Papists' for arms, and to seize them pending further orders.
The alleged discovery of Oates's Popish Plot had taken place in August of this year. The King involved himself as little as possible with the condemnation of the five Jesuits and distanced himself from other atrocities resulting from the public panic, being aware that the frenzy was fired by a desire on the part of Shaftesbury and his cohorts to exclude the Duke of York from succession.
 The signatories to the document include Heneage Finch, Earl of Nottingham (1621-1682); Arthur Annesley, Earl of Anglesey (1614-1686, later dismised for adverse criticism of the King's government); Sir Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby (1631-1712, impeached later the same year for attempting to conceal the Popish Plot); John Grenville, Earl of Bath (1628-1701); John, Duke of Lauderdale (1616-1682); Richard Vaughan, Earl of Carbery (1600?-1686); George Berkeley, Viscount Dursley and Earl of Berkeley (1628-1698); Sir George Carteret (d. 1680, Governor of Jersey); Sir Robert Southwell (1635-1702); and Henry Coventry (1619-1686).
[No: 20092]