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John Pym portrayed in the forefront of the battle against popish conspiracies

Fear about the popish plot fed on uncertainty about events, an uncertainty that in turn fed rumour and anxiety. These issues were reaching out beyond Parliament; perceptions of local events were coloured by these larger anxieties while at the same time reports of these events fuelled the crisis of confidence that lay at the heart of the failure of the political process. Pamphlets sold by their covers – the titles are actually abstracts which sell the book from the shelves of the stalls. What publishers and authors put on the covers probably reflected their sense of the market and it may therefore be significant that in 1641 ‘plot’ and ‘conspiracy’ were unusually prominent terms.42 Excluding official publications and newsbooks, the impression is quite dramatic: in November 1641 Thomason collected eighty-eight pamphlets, of which nine had ‘plot’ in the title, two more promised discussion of ‘conspiracies’, and others discussed ‘bloody plots’ and ‘bloody attempts’.43 An increased supply of information did not in this case solve the central political difficulty of uncertainty and the problem of establishing trust, but it greatly amplified rumours. In March it was reported that 154,000 settlers had been killed (the real number may have been nearer 4,000)44 and some estimates went as high as 200,000.45 And, to reiterate, this Catholic rising was said to have enjoyed the support of the English king.

Fear of the popish plot was driving political action beyond the bounds of decency and was reciprocally related to the growing publicity given to political discussions. This produced a polarization of political opinion, however, not simply a drift of opinion to Parliament. By the time that the Grand Remonstrance had been passed Charles was back in London. His progress southwards from Scotland was marked by conspicuous displays of loyalty, and his entry into London on 26 November was the occasion for another lavish display. This was a deliberate political manoeuvre of course: Charles had not previously indulged in a formal entry into his capital city, a lack that has struck subsequent commentators as significant by comparison with the greeting accorded to the Puritan martyrs the previous year.46 The King was, of course, the essential element of any settlement, and this interest in public political theatre surely rested on that knowledge.

On entering London, Charles was ‘brought in with a Hosanna at one end of Town, [but] he found a Crucifige at the other’, wrote James Howell a short time later. In the light of the controversy over the Grand Remonstrance and the warmth of his own reception in the City, Charles cannot be blamed for thinking that his opponents in England might now have gone too far and that this division of opinion could play in his favour. In any case, Charles could hardly be expected to concede to the demands of the Grand Remonstrance, given the public analysis on which those demands were apparently based. Thus, while he was feted in the City, the ‘Remonstrance framed’ in Westminster could expect ‘but cold entertainment with His Majesty’.47

Charles, by emphasizing the threat of Puritan populism, played to a resurgent royalism based on a concern to preserve political and religious decencies. Acknowledging the petition and the ‘declaration of a very unusual kind attached thereunto’, his answer first objected to the publication of the petition and remonstrance. He would have hoped for a chance to answer but this decision robbed him of the time to consider his response. He had also hoped that their own ‘reason’ and regard to the King would have dissuaded them from proceeding in this way, or at least that his express view that they should not would have restrained them. He was, he said, ‘very sensible of the disrespect’ that it implied. Beyond these concerns about the integrity of the political process, he naturally rejected the history