Meal-tub Plot

Meal-Tub Plot is the name of a plot concocted on the part of Romanists, but intended to be fathered on a number of eminent persons engaged in the interests of the Protestants during the reign of Charles II, in the year 1679. A conspiracy on the part of the Jesuits to dethrone or make away with Charles, and place the duke of York (who was in favor of the papal rule) on the throne, having come to light, the papists, exasperated, determined to set on foot a sham plot, and brand the Presbyterians as the originators. The dastardly attempt was timely discovered, and heaped infamy upon the already spotted character of the Jesuits. For a full account, see Neale, Hist. of the Puritans, 2:290; Stoughton, Eccl. Hist. of Engl. (Ch. of the Restoration), 2:21 sq.