Thomas Dangerfield was an English conspirator

Conspiracy (political)

In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....

.

Dangerfield was born about 1650 at Waltham Abbey

Waltham Abbey

Waltham Abbey may refer to:* Waltham Abbey, Essex, England* Waltham Abbey , which gave its name to the above town* Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills* Waltham Abbey F.C., based in the same town...

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, the son of a farmer. At the age of 12 around 1662, he ran away from home to London, England and never returned to his home.

He began his career by robbing his father, and, after a rambling life, took to coining false money, for which offence and others he was many times imprisoned. False to everyone, he first tried to involve James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth

James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth

James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, 1st Duke of Buccleuch, KG, PC , was an English nobleman. Originally called James Crofts or James Fitzroy, he was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II and his mistress, Lucy Walter...

 and others by concocting information about a Presbyterian plot against the throne, and this having been proved a lie, he pretended to have discovered a Catholic plot against Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

. This was known as the Mealtub Plot, from the place where the incriminating documents were hidden at his suggestion, and found by the king's officers by his information.

Mrs Elizabeth Cellier

Elizabeth Cellier

Elizabeth Cellier , flourished 1668–1688, London, England was a notable Catholic midwife in seventeenth-century England. She stood trial for treason in 1679 for her alleged part in the "Meal-Tub Plot" against the future James II but was acquitted...

, in whose house the tub was, almoner to the countess of Powis, who had befriended Dangerfield when he posed as a Catholic, was, with her patroness, actually tried for high treason and acquitted (1680). Dangerfield, when examined at the bar of the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

, made other charges against prominent Roman Catholics, and attempted to defend his character by publishing, among other pamphlets, Dangerfield's Narrative.

This led to his trial for libel, and on 20 June 1685 he received sentence to stand in the pillory

Pillory

The pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse, sometimes lethal...

 on two consecutive days, be whipped from Aldgate

Aldgate

Aldgate was the eastern most gateway through London Wall leading from the City of London to Whitechapel and the east end of London. Aldgate gives its name to a ward of the City...

 to Newgate

Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...

, and two days later from Newgate to Tyburn

Tyburn, London

Tyburn was a village in the county of Middlesex close to the current location of Marble Arch in present-day London. It took its name from the Tyburn or Teo Bourne 'boundary stream', a tributary of the River Thames which is now completely covered over between its source and its outfall into the...

. On his way back he was struck in the eye with a cane by a barrister, Robert Francis, and died shortly afterwards from the blow. The barrister was tried and executed for the murder, somewhat to the surprise of the public, the popular view being that the death " could hardly been even called manslaughter".

He is the subject, and perhaps the author, of Don Tomazo, or The Juvenile Rambles of Thomas Dangerfield (1680), a comic, self-consciously literary novel that presents Dangerfield as a clever and resourceful rogue. It is reprinted in Spiro Peterson's The Counterfeit Lady Unveiled and Other Criminal Fiction of Seventeenth-Century England (1961) and in Paul Salzman's Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Fiction (1991).

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