"Final evidence of the extent to which an identity of interest was assumed between the court and Catholicism can be seen in a common reaction to the Irish rebellion. Edward Hyde, Edmund Ludlow and Robert Baillie each, and from very different standpoints, recorded the country's immediate conviction that the Queen certainly, and the King possibly, had encouraged the massacre. Such suspicions made trust between the King and his subjects impossible and without trust no compromise in the constitutional crisis was feasible... the "popish plot" panics between 1640 and 1642 heightened the general sense of crisis, making large numbers of the common population feel personally threatened and in danger. Even where it did not directly affect the course of events anti-Catholicism increased tension, creating suspicion and fear, and so helped drive the situation on to conflict. For many contemporary writers the essence of the conflict was in fact a collision between true religion and popery: here, for them, was the reality underlying disagreement between King and Parliament."
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Civil wars involving the states and peoples of EuropeMilitary history of EnglandPolitics of the United Kingdom17th-century military history
Original Language: English
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Sources
Robin Clifton, 'Fear of Popery', in Conrad Russell (ed.), The Origins of the English Civil War (1973), p. 162
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
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