Ok you armchair history buffs, I need a patsy. The year is 1689. The shadowy forces in my witch Hunter game are trying to push the English Crown into war with...the Fey. This isn't really public knowledge. The guy pushing this course of action shod be influential enough to actually have the ear of the king at the time.  

So I need a couple if good candidates. It's great if they are already shadowy figures, but bonus points to the guy or gal who puts an otherwise upstanding servant of the crown on the chopping block.

It's a bit of a rush. I need to make a decision before Friday.

Thanks,
Tom

How historical do you want it?

Here's an interesting article about Jews returning to England in the 17th century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_of_the_Jews_in_England

As 1689 is the year of 'The Glorious Revolution' where William of Orange (protestant) is invited to take up the crown from Catholic James II, maybe this chap would be a good patsy. He deserted James to side with William (and later became a derided governor of New York where he was rumoured to be a cross-dresser).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hyde,_3rd_Earl_of_Clarendon

Right now, my vague plan goes something like this.

The French and the Jacobites are conspiring with the faerie Court to become involved in King Louis's latest venture (this is the dawn of the war of great alliances). As part of the bargain, the Anglican King is threatened. Therefore, England must strike first before before the Alliance can be formalized.  

The fey are aware that tensions are brewing between their court and the throne of England. A powerful Unseelie has recently been rescued by the French and there is indeed talk of an alliance (of sorts). But the true purpose of the British campaign is to create a distraction. That's what the shadowy forces behind this strategy want.

There is the potential for multiple factions in this plot, but this is simply one spoke in a big machine so I'm not going to invest anymore into it that the players demand. But I definitely need a couple of figure heads to put at the crux of this plot.  

Tom

I'd use Issac Newton.

• Newton dedicated much of his time to the study of biblical chronology and alchemy, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his death.

Tie the fay into the end times, or have Newton calculate that they are connected, and Bob's your uncle.
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• Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation.

Perhaps the fae are fallen angels who helped Lucifer and fell with him, but somehow managed to stay on earth rather than being cast down to hell. Or possibly better yet, the fae were angels who chose to support neither side and took refuge (hid) on earth. Under the old burial mounds.
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• In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."

A nice tie in to our century (45 years and counting) or maybe Newton discovers something in the bible that connects the fae to the End Times.
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• Speculative fiction author Fritz Leiber said of Newton, "Everyone knows Newton as the great scientist. Few remember that he spent half his life muddling with alchemy, looking for the philosopher's stone. That was the pebble by the seashore he really wanted to find."

By all accounts, Newton was pretty wacky on alchemy.
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And as a bonus, all of Newton's known writings on alchemy are currently being put online in a project undertaken by Indiana University: "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton"

Quote from: Spinachcat;854435How historical do you want it?

Here's an interesting article about Jews returning to England in the 17th century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_of_the_Jews_in_England

Thanks for the article! I'll definitely file that one away.

Well, is like the people at the forefront to be known historical figures, though maybe B-listers. The people behind the plot are completely fictitious, so having real figures helps ground the whole thing.

Tom

Bren,

I may put him in the mix somehow, but I already have plans for Isaac Newton. I'm setting him up to be a link between two characters and a reason to introduce an old nemesis.

But putting him into the mix is definitely a good way to get the group more involved in the plot. But it's probably better that he stay on the fringes if the plot.

Tom

Maybe someone else from the Royal Society.

Or use Newton's nemesis, Leibnitz. Personally I'd rather have Newton as the villain or the dupe, but Leibnitz could work. And as a bonus, a German villain in a Restoration period game isn't cliched.

Quote from: Bren;854498Maybe someone else from the Royal Society.

Or use Newton's nemesis, Leibnitz. Personally I'd rather have Newton as the villain or the dupe, but Leibnitz could work. And as a bonus, a German villain in a Restoration period game isn't cliched.

Hmmm...I'll have to look into Leibnitz.

My plans for Newton came out of a new player joining the crew. He's brining in an English magi and his introduction was potentially going to happen right in the middle of a big fight between the PC group and a couple of different factions of bad guys in the middle of an extra dimensional hideaway.

I've only started doing my research, so a lot of this in flux right now.

Newton is kind of an arrogant prick. He was recruited by the Lightbringers, a witch hunter order of enlightened science types while in Cambridge. Against their recommendations, he publishes his Principles of Mathematics in 1687. Unfortunately, in his hubris, something evil has made it into the material. Imagine the devil himself told you the secret of the number 19, and you thought it was so cool, you told everyone. Then you found out later that bad things were happening all because of your explanation (the road to hell...).

So now Newton is on the run from the church and is in hiding. And he's bored. Bored bored bored bored. So he's taking the time to experiment on a few new rites based on his principles while the Lightbringers work furiously to repair the damage and fix his reputation. The new guy is one of the Lightbringers tasked with keeping a lid on the guy. So naturally, newton's experiments with opening passages into the invisible world sends the poor PC hurtling through extra dimensional space and right into the thick of a big fight.

Unfortunately, the whole bamf into the middle of a fight didn't work out schedule wise, but I like the rest of it enough to keep it.

Tom

Quote from: Blusponge;854468Right now, my vague plan goes something like this.

The French and the Jacobites are conspiring with the faerie Court to become involved in King Louis's latest venture (this is the dawn of the war of great alliances). As part of the bargain, the Anglican King is threatened. Therefore, England must strike first before before the Alliance can be formalized.  

The fey are aware that tensions are brewing between their court and the throne of England. A powerful Unseelie has recently been rescued by the French and there is indeed talk of an alliance (of sorts). But the true purpose of the British campaign is to create a distraction. That's what the shadowy forces behind this strategy want.

There is the potential for multiple factions in this plot, but this is simply one spoke in a big machine so I'm not going to invest anymore into it that the players demand. But I definitely need a couple of figure heads to put at the crux of this plot.  

Tom

That sounds like a good idea.

The Jacobites could be trying to use the Fey as allies against the foreign Protestant King. They Fey would seem to me to be more sympathetic with miracle-accepting Catholics than miracle-denying Protestants.

The French would just want an alliance with anyone against England.

The Fey would want to be left alone to work their magic behind the scenes.

Someone working mischief to get the English crown to declare war on the Fey, in order to bring the Fey into combat against the English crown, would be perfect. You don't even need an original alliance between the Jacobites and the Fey, you just need the suggestion of such an alliance.

Yeah, I always like to throw in a Jacobite connection when I can.  Heard so much about that during College and Grad School, I feel like I need to get some practical use out of it.

So...no ideas for a patsy?  Besides Leibnitz?

Anyone?

Read up on Daniel Defoe. Besides being a novelist, he was also a political pamphleteer and (admittedly later than the 1680s) a spy. Might be usable somehow.

You could have this gentlemen be involved since he could want England to pay for it's transgression against him. The public word could be the he fled but the real story could be that he has the ear of the one who replaced him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_England

Quote from: Blusponge;854434Ok you armchair history buffs, I need a patsy.

Quote from: Blusponge;855079Yeah, I always like to throw in a Jacobite connection when I can.  Heard so much about that during College and Grad School, I feel like I need to get some practical use out of it.

So...no ideas for a patsy?  Besides Leibnitz?

Anyone?

A couple possibilities:

John Macky

Quote from: WikipediaJohn Macky (died 1726) was a Scottish spy. He was the first person to inform the British of James II's intended invasion of England in 1692 after he fled from France to England. He published an attack on James' exiled court in A View of the Court of St Germains from the Year 1690 to 1695 in 1696. His network of spies was crucial to the discovery in February and March 1708 of the Jacobite plans to invade Scotland. In 1733 his son published Memoirs of the Secret Services of John Macky.

William Bedloe

Quote from: WikipediaHe was born at Chepstow in Monmouthshire, the cousin of William Kemys (or Kemish), who became High Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1678. He appears to have been well educated; he was certainly clever, and after moving to London in 1670 he became acquainted with some Jesuits and was occasionally employed by them. Calling himself now Captain Williams, now Lord Gerard or Lord Newport or Lord Cornwallis, he travelled from one part of Europe to another, usually accompanied by his brother James. In the 1670s he was gaoled for fraud and became an expert in all kinds of duplicity. Kenyon described him as "a habitué of a London underworld of crime and vice of which we know almost nothing".

Then in 1678, following the lead of Titus Oates, he gave an account of a supposed Popish Plot to the English government, and his version of the details of the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was rewarded with £500. Kenyon concluded that while Bedloe probably had no direct knowledge about Godfrey's murder, he learned enough about it from his extensive contacts in the criminal underworld to tell a convincing story. His record as a confidence trickster was so notorious that he chose to dwell on it, explaining that it was his career as a criminal which enabled him to denounce the plotters. While some Government officials, like Henry Coventry, were wary of relying on such a notorious criminal, the general view was that he was too valuable as a corroborative witness to Oates to be disregarded. In the event his testimony was usually of little value, apart from the trial of Berry, Green and Hill for Godfrey's murder, of which he may have had some personal knowledge: as a witness he was rambling and incoherent, and had a habit of dragging in irrelevant grievances and private feuds. At most of the Plot trials like that of Edward Colman his evidence was so weak that the Court largely disregarded it.

Emboldened by his success he denounced various Roman Catholics, married an Irish lady, and having become very popular lived in luxurious fashion. Afterwards his fortunes waned, and he died at Bristol on 20 August 1680. His dying depositions, which were taken by Sir Francis North, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, revealed nothing of importance. Bedloe wrote a Narrative and impartial discovery of the horrid Popish Plot (1679), but all his statements are extremely untrustworthy.

Lady Worcester, whose husband was the target of some of Bedloe's accusations called him "a man whose whole life has been a pageant of villainy and whose word would not have been taken at sixpence". At Oates's trial for perjury, Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, who had condemned innocent men on Bedloe's accusations, called him "infamous Bedloe".

Robert Moray

Quote from: Wikipedia(alternative spellings: Murrey, Murray) (1608 or 1609 – 4 July 1673) was a Scottish soldier, statesman, diplomat, judge, spy, freemason and natural philosopher. He was well known to Charles I and Charles II, and the French cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. He attended the meeting of the 1660 committee of 12 on 28 November 1660 that led to the formation of the Royal Society, and was influential in gaining its Royal Charter and formulating its statutes and regulations.

Jane Whorwood (best name ever)

Quote from: Wikipedianée Ryder (1612 – September 1684) was a Royalist agent during the English Civil War. She managed circulation of intelligence, as well as smuggling of funds to sustain the Royalist faction. Jane was an intimate confidante of King Charles I, having helped to co-ordinate his attempts to escape captivity in the late 1640s