William Lloyd - A Sermon at the Funeral of Sr Edmund-Berry Godfrey - 1678

A seminal event in the Popish plot LLOYD, William A Sermon at the Funeral of Sr Edmund-Berry Godfrey. One of his Majesties Justices of the Peace, Who was Barbarously Murthered. Preached on Thursday the last day of October 1678. In the Parish Church of St. Martin in the Fields. London: Tho. Newcomb for Henry Brome at the Gun, at the West End of St. Pauls. 1678 First edition. Disbound sermon. Paper covers. Title, with black funereal border. There is a touch of nicking to the corners of the paper cover. The cover is darkened - the rest of the sermon is clean and tidy. A sound copy. Anti Catholic sermon preached at the funeral of Lloyd’s parishioner, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, the justice of the peace to whom Titus Oates made his first depositions concerning the Popish Plot. Shortly thereafter, he was found mysteriously murdered in a ditch on Primrose Hill. This led to the arrests of several Catholics - and was the beginning of the hysteria of the Popish Plot. The murder remains unsolved; some historians have suspected the plotters themselves, and that its aim was to bolster support for his anti-Catholic allegations. This funeral was a huge Protestant public event. The vicar, William Lloyd, preached with two clergymen standing guard beside him in the pulpit for fear of a Catholic attack. More than twenty Catholics were executed during the Plot hysteria before Oates was exposed as a perjurer. The sermon was highly political and strayed far from being religious. The vicar also played detective, describing in detail the manner of Godfrey's death, and giving theories of what the Papists had done to him. "God knows where they kept him, We know only that it was under restraint; and 'twas not altogether in darknes, bu the wax-candle drops upon his cloaths. ....Yet we cannot say they starved him. God knows what they would have done, had they had time; but in all likelihood it was the fear of search that hastened his death." etc. Lloyd stated clearly that Catholics were to blame. 42pp - Wing L2700

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