of 100,000 Protestants, and then by the genuine disclosure of Danby's

secret negotiations with France. The hysteria of political life over the next
three years was, and still is, shocking; it can be explained in part by such
factors as deep-rooted anti-popery, the coincidental expiry of press censorship,
three general elections, and the deliberate politicization of the masses
and of office-holding; but much of the story can only be explained by fear
and rumor, denunciation and counter-allegation, and the sheer pressure of
events. By the spring of 1679, with a second Test Act on the statute book
and the trials of plotters underway, the central political issue was no longer
the investigation of the plot, but the parliamentary exclusion of the Duke
of York from the succession to the throne. Interference in the rights of royal
succession was an explosive issue - it implied constitutional innovation,
even rebellion, and it could by extension undermine all inherited property
rights. The exclusionists claimed to be defending Protestantism, but to
many they seemed to be promoting Dissent. Voters and MPs faced a choice
of two evils, each of which was stigmatized by a pejorative nickname: those
who supported the monarchy and the rights of James to succeed were
dubbed "Tories" after Irish Catholic brigands of that name, and the
exclusionists were slandered as "Whigs," a colloquial Scottish term for
Presbyterian rebels.7 As so often in this era, extremism bred extremism.
Although the attempts of the Tory propagandists to turn the tables on their
opponents by creating an alternative "Whig plot" were never successful,
they certainly managed to tar the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Whig leader, his
allies, and his witnesses with sedition, republicanism, and Dissent. The
years after 1681 saw a "Tory revenge," an attempt to drive Whigs from
public life and the century's worst wave of persecution of Dissenters.
In 1685 James II succeeded to the throne with the blessing of the Church
of England, a well-disposed parliament, and some loyal and competent
ministers (including Clarendon's sons). He also came to the throne with the
overriding ambition to restore Roman Catholicism to England and to
repeal the Tests. Historians tend to see him as the victim of an idee fixe
rather than as an absolutist, but contemporaries can be excused if they
found these distinctions more difficult to draw. James saw off the foolhardy
rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, Charles IPs bastard, and the victory
confirmed the king in his belief that God was on his side and that he was
justified in increasing the army. James soon realized that his Tory supporters
would not cooperate in the demolition of the Anglican political
monopoly and he turned instead to an alliance of all those groups hitherto
excluded - Catholics, Dissenters of many hues, including Quakers, and
former Cromwellians, Parliamentarians, and Whigs. James displayed his
authority by violating the Test Act, having the courts rubber-stamp his