Ever since the Restoration he had been exceedingly popular, and as early as 1666 there had been rumours of an abortive plot to place him on the throne. The statement of the witness who revealed it, is as follows: "William Hopkins doth depose that he heard Edward Dolphin of Camphill, near Birmingham, say these words, or to that purpose, viz.: 'The Papists should be uppermost for a time...' {330} and said he could tell me more, for he cared not if he were hanged so he could serve the country. Then, speaking low, he said, (as I suppose,) 'The King and the Duke of York are Papists, and the King hath been at Mass underground within this week or fortnight, and I can prove it.' And when I contradicted him, he said the King's wife was a Papist, and that a royal G. should rule over us. And when I demanded if he meant not George Monck, he replied it was Prince Rupert he meant. Then I said he was no G., so he answered G. stood for a German, and Prince Rupert was a German Prince, and declared he meant Prince Rupert should be above the King, and said all should be willing to it, and venture lives and fortunes to vindicate the cause of the said Prince Rupert."[95] The whole plot probably existed only in the ravings of a lunatic, but insignificant though it is in itself, it is an indication of the country's feeling. That Rupert would have listened for a moment to any disloyal scheme is, of course, incredible. Indeed the only time, after the Restoration, that he played any part in politics was in this year of 1673, when he was forced into the position of popular leader, and carried away by his wrath against the French. Feeling against "Popery" was, just then, keen, the nation having been stirred by the Duke of York's open adhesion to the Roman Church, and his marriage with a Roman bride, believed by the ignorant, to be the Pope's own granddaughter. "What will the Prince say?" was the popular cry, on all occasions;[96] and the position contrasts oddly with the attitude of the populace towards Rupert in the Civil War. Then he was "atheistical, popish, heathenish, tyrannical, bloodthirsty;" now the country turned to him as a true patriot, the staunch upholder of the Anglican Church, the defender of the rights of Parliament. Shaftesbury, the prime mover of all the agitation against {331} James, hastened to ally himself with the Prince, and together they formed an anti-French party, which stirred up the Commons against the French alliance. "Prince Rupert and he are observed to converse much together, and are very great, and indeed I see His Highness's coach often at the door. They are looked to be the great Parliament men and for the interests of old England."[97]