Margaret Clark (died 1680), also known as Margret Clark, was an English servant arrested and executed for the arson of her employer's house in Southwark, London. Her justifications were published posthumously in pamphlet form.
Margaret Clark was born in Croydon, Surrey. She found work as a servant in various houses and by January 1680, she was serving the family of Peter Delanoy, a prosperous dyer who lived in Southwark, in London. [1]
On 1 February 1680, the Delanoy family were at their country home in Lee. Three fires were started in the Southwark house; they were put out by local people and Clark was arrested on the night after arousing suspicions by acting strangely. At first, she denied the charge but then quickly admitted arson. She claimed that she had been approached by John Satterthwayt in late January and he had asked her to let him into the house in order to set it on fire. Clark alleged that he had promised to pay her £2,000 (equivalent to £410,000 in 2023). [2] [1] Satterthwayt was arrested the following day on her description. He was a soldier in the Duke of York's guard and initially investigators were suspicious because the duke (later to become James II of England) was Catholic and at the time religious tensions were running high as a result of the Popish Plot. [1]
Clark and Satterthwayt were both detained and stood trial at Kingston assizes on 13 March. Clark was found guilty and sentenced to death. Satterthwayt persuaded the jury that he was Protestant and his fellow soldiers said they were drinking with him in various pubs on the night of the arson, so he was acquitted. [1]
Clark was put to death by hanging on 22 March 1680. She had declined to ask for a pardon. [1] In her final hours, she was besieged by people asking her why she had done it. [3] As she stood on the scaffold awaiting her execution, Clark announced to the onlookers that she had written a pamphlet arguing her case, claiming that her culpability was limited. [4] This had probably been dictated by her and the high sheriff saw that it was published after her death. [4] The true confession of Margret Clark was followed by a second pamphlet also published in 1680 and entitled Warning for Servants, and a Caution to Protestants. Both texts expanded upon Clark's argument that she had been bribed by Satterthwayt as part of a Catholic plot to burn down London. [1] She declared that "Pride and Sabbath breaking hath been my downfall". [5] Satterthwayt set out his side of the story in A True and Perfect Narrative of the Tryal and Acquitment of Mr. John Satterthwayt. [1]
The House of Tudor was an English and Welsh dynasty that held the throne of England from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd, a Welsh noble family, and Catherine of Valois. The Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and the Lordship of Ireland for 118 years with five monarchs: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantagenet as rulers of the Kingdom of England, and were succeeded by the Scottish House of Stuart. The first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, descended through his mother from the House of Beaufort, a legitimised branch of the English royal House of Lancaster, a cadet house of the Plantagenets. The Tudor family rose to power and started the Tudor period in the wake of the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), which left the main House of Lancaster extinct in the male line.
Robert Ferguson was a Scottish presbyterian minister, conspirator and political pamphleteer, known as "the Plotter".
Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk,, was an English nobleman and politician. He was a second cousin of Queen Elizabeth I and held many high offices during the earlier part of her reign.
Philip Howard, 13th Earl of Arundel was an English nobleman. He was canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970, as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Howard lived mainly during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I; he was charged with being a Roman Catholic, quitting England without leave, and sharing in Jesuit plots. For this, he was sent to the Tower of London in 1585. Howard spent ten years in the Tower, until his death from dysentery.
Titus Oates was an English priest who fabricated the "Popish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II.
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury PC, FRS, was an English statesman and peer. He held senior political office under both the Commonwealth of England and Charles II, serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1661 to 1672 and Lord Chancellor from 1672 to 1673. During the Exclusion Crisis, Shaftesbury headed the movement to bar the Catholic heir, James II, from the royal succession, which is often seen as the origin of the Whig party. He was also a patron of the political philosopher John Locke, with whom Shaftesbury collaborated with in writing the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina in 1669.
The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy invented by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria. Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II, accusations that led to the show trials and executions of at least 22 men and precipitated the Exclusion Bill Crisis. During this tumultuous period, Oates weaved an intricate web of accusations, fueling public fears and paranoia. However, as time went on, the lack of substantial evidence and inconsistencies in Oates's testimony began to unravel the plot. Eventually, Oates himself was arrested and convicted for perjury, exposing the fabricated nature of the conspiracy.
Thomas Dangerfield was an English conspirator, who became one of the principal informers in the Popish Plot. His violent death at the hands of the barrister Robert Francis was clearly a homicide, although whether the killing was murder or manslaughter was a matter of considerable public debate at the time.
Sir Roger L'Estrange was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of King Charles II's regime during the Restoration era. His works played a key role in the emergence of a distinct 'Tory' bloc during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679–81. Perhaps his best known polemical pamphlet was An Account of the Growth of Knavery, which ruthlessly attacked the parliamentary opposition to Charles II and his successor James, Duke of York, placing them as fanatics who misused contemporary popular anti-Catholic sentiment to attack the Restoration court and the existing social order in order to pursue their own political ends. Following the Exclusion Crisis and the failure of the nascent Whig faction to disinherit James, Duke of York in favour of Charles II's illegitimate son James, 1st Duke of Monmouth, L'Estrange used his newspaper The Observator to harangue his opponents and act as a voice for a popular provincial Toryism during the 'Tory Reaction' of 1681–85. Despite serving as an MP from 1685 to 1689 his stock fell under James II's reign as his staunch hostility to religious nonconformism conflicted with James's goals of religious tolerance for both Catholics and Nonconformists. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the collapse of the Restoration political order heralded the end of L'Estrange's career in public life, although his greatest translation work, that of Aesop's Fables, saw publication in 1692.
Henry Howard, 7th Duke of Norfolk, KG PC FRS was an English nobleman, politician, and soldier. He was the son of Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk, and Lady Anne Somerset, daughter of Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester, and Elizabeth Dormer. He was summoned to the House of Lords in his own right as Baron Mowbray in 1678. His unhappy marriage was the subject of much gossip, and ended in divorce.
Peter Talbot was an Irish Roman Catholic religious leader who served as Archbishop of Dublin from 1669 until his death in prison in 1680. He was a victim of the Popish Plot.
Thomas Thwing (1635–1680) was an English Roman Catholic priest and martyr, executed for his supposed part in the Barnbow Plot, an offshoot of the fabricated Popish Plot invented by Titus Oates. His feast day is 23 October.
Lady Jane Grey, also known as Lady Jane Dudley after her marriage and as the "Nine Days' Queen", was an English noblewoman who claimed the throne of England and Ireland from 10 to 19 July 1553.
Peveril of the Peak (1823) is the longest novel by Sir Walter Scott. Along with Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, and Woodstock this is one of the English novels in the Waverley novels series, with the main action taking place around 1678 in the Peak District, the Isle of Man, and London, and centring on the Popish Plot.
Miles Prance was an English Roman Catholic craftsman who was caught up in and perjured himself during the Popish Plot and the resulting anti-Catholic hysteria in London during the reign of Charles II.
Crystal Gail Mangum is an American former Stripper from Durham, North Carolina, United States, who has been incarcerated for murder since 2013. In 2006, she came to attention in national news reports for having made false allegations of rape against lacrosse players in the Duke lacrosse case. Mangum's work in the sex industry as a black woman while the young men she accused were white generated extensive media interest and academic debate about race, class, gender, and the politicization of the justice system.
Elizabeth Cellier, commonly known as the "Popish Midwife", was a notable Catholic midwife in seventeenth-century England. She stood trial for treason in 1679 for her alleged part in the "Meal-Tub Plot" against the future King James II, but was eventually freed. Cellier was later imprisoned for allegations made in her 1680 work Malice Defeated, in which she recounted the events of the alleged conspiracy against the future King. She later became a pamphleteer and advocated for advancements in the field of midwifery. Cellier published A Scheme for the Foundation of a Royal Hospital in 1687, where she outlined plans for a hospital and a college for instructions in midwifery, as well as proposing that midwives of London should enter into a corporation and use their fees to establish parish houses where any woman could give birth. Cellier resided in London, England until her death.
Maurus Corker was an English Benedictine who was falsely accused and imprisoned as a result of the fabricated Popish Plot, but was acquitted of treason and eventually released.
John Arnold, widely known as John Arnold of Monmouthshire, was an English Protestant politician and Whig MP. He was one of the most prominent people in the Welsh county of Monmouthshire in the late 17th century. A stark anti-Catholic, he was a notable figure during the Popish plot and the suppression of Catholicism in the country. Arnold represented the constituencies around Monmouth and Southwark in Parliament in the 1680s and 1690s. His strong anti-Catholic beliefs and insurgences against Catholic priests made him an unpopular and controversial figure amongst his peers and in his native Monmouthshire. In his later years, his behaviour became increasingly eccentric, and he was widely believed to have faked an attempt on his own life. Amongst his associates were Titus Oates and Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury.
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