Note 12 — Chapter VIII

The conspiracy known as Preston's—a plan of inviting the French king to land troops in England, and offering to second his efforts by an insurrection, and, if possible, the treacherous surrender of the whole or a part of the British fleet. Clarendon and Dartmouth, with other more or less eminent personages, were implicated in it, including, at least as was suspected, the Quaker, William Penn. The conspirators were betrayed by an accomplice, and some of them sent to the Tower. Lord Preston, a Scotch peer, a ringleader of the conspiracy, was tried and convicted for high treason, but subsequently pardoned.