The Committee, or Popery in Masquerade

'The Committee, or Popery in Masquerade'. 'Anti-Catholic hysteria reached its zenith in England during the years of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis from 1678 to 1681. With Jesuit plotters seemingly ready to deliver up England to the bondage of Rome, many began to see the attractions of Protestant unity. Calls for Dissenters to be allowed to re-enter the fold, or at least for toleration and an end to the penal laws which they endured as part of the Restoration Settlement, began to be heard in the Parliament of 1680. Some however saw Protestant union as a threat to the Established Church, [as in this illustration from] a remarkable broadside from this camp, entitled The Committee or popery in masquerade (London, 1680). Its author was Sir Roger L'Estrange. L'Estrange recalls here the ranting factions and sectarianism of the Civil War and Commonwealth eras, as a warning for his own time. In a lively scene a committee of nine sits at a table. A Presbyterian presides, and beside him are an Independent, an Anabaptist, a Quaker, a Ranter, a Muggletonian, a Fifth Monarchist, James Nayler and an Adamite, each at the others' throats. Chaos and confusion prevail throughout. Archbishop Laud is led off in chains, the King is overthrown, the Bible, Magna Charta and the works of Hooker are cast to the ground, while an unruly mob calls for 'a thorough reformation'. Ignorant petitioners, and even a mare and the dog Swash, call for an end to bishops and the prayer book. A clergyman vomits forth the canons, surplices and common prayer, and a night-stool releases an excremental swarm of insects, 'the spawn of lawless liberty'. The moral, set forth in verse, is that Protestant Dissenters can never be brought into unity:
'They never did, they never can unite
in any one poynt, but t' o'rethrow the right'. http://www.lambethpalacelibrary.org/news/Annualreport2000/accessions_books.html. BM catalogue no. 1081.