For Nicholas Hawthorne, the Catholic heir to Measham Hall in Derbyshire, subterfuge is part of everyday life. But there are deeper and darker secrets even than his family’s outlawed religion: why is his father, Sir William, so reclusive? What became of his mother, and his aunt Alethea? And who fatally betrayed his cousin Matthew? Nicholas […]
Fake news, or the Horrid Popish Plot
The ‘Horrid Popish Plot’, as it was called, was an anti-Catholic conspiracy that flared up in the 1670s; a classic example of fake news infecting the public imagination. Anna Abney examines the bizarre and sometimes shocking events. ‘Since Hell is broke loose, and the Press set a work,By Jesuit, by Jew, by Christian, and Turk; […]