page_title: Stephen Dugdale
section_title: Popish Plot
hierarchical_section_title: Stephen Dugdale / Popish Plot
caption_attribution_description: English: Playing card depicting Stephen Dugdale, perjuror in the Popish Plot
context_page_description: Stephen Dugdale was an English informer, and self-proclaimed discoverer of parts of the Popish Plot. He perjured himself on numerous occasions, giving false testimony which led to the conviction and execution of numerous innocent men, notably the Catholic nobleman Lord Stafford, the Jesuit Provincial Thomas Whitbread, and the prominent barrister Richard Langhorne.
context_section_description: Dugdale  gave evidence before   the justices of the peace, who issued warrants for the apprehension of George Hobson and George North. Although he professed to have broken open letters from Paris to Evers and others, he had little but hearsay evidence, and pretended to have destroyed the most dangerous documents on the eve of his departure. His evidence was further weakened by the inability of the authorities to find Francis Evers, who remained  free throughout the Plot.   He gave evidence against the "five popish lords" (Lord Stafford, Earl of Powis, Lord Arundell of Wardour, Lord Belasyse and Lord Petre) in October 1678. On 24 December 1678 he swore an information before two magistrates,  Thomas Lane and J. Vernon in Staffordshire. His initial reception by the Government was extremely favourable : he was "a man of sense and temper", intelligent, educated and well-spoken, in marked contrast to the disreputable earlier informers like Titus Oates. His testimony, in the early stages, was so plausible that even Charles II, who had previously been a complete sceptic on the subject,  "began to think there was somewhat in the Plot"; while Chief Justice William Scroggs found him entirely convincing, as did many others, for "somewhat in his air disposed people to believe him". By the time his unsavoury past came to light he had done a great deal of harm. Despite his deep sense of grievance against Lord Aston he seemed at first rather hesitant about actually accusing him of complicity in the Plot, but eventually did so: Aston was accordingly sent to the Tower of London.
  Dugdale charged John Tasborough and Mrs. Ann Price with soliciting him to sign a paper of recantation of his evidence, and offering him a £1,000 reward for it. In February 1679 these persons were tried and convicted at the king's bench; Price had been Dugdale's fellow-servant and sweetheart at Tixall. Afterwards Dugdale led a shifty, vagabond life, giving evidence and writing pamphlets, at first associating chiefly with William Bedloe, Oates, and Edward Turberville, but eventually turning against Stephen College  and confronting Oates.
caption: Playing card of 1679 showing Stephen Dugdale, engraving after Francis Barlow.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2008:10:03 14:08:12", "Image ExifOffset": "6804", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "120", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "200", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "90", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6624", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "300", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "500", "EXIF Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "EXIF XResolution": "72", "EXIF YResolution": "72", "EXIF ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch"}