Lionel Anderson

Lionel Anderson, alias Munson (died 1710) was an English Dominican priest, who was falsely accused of treason during the Popish Plot, which a fabrication of the notorious anti-Catholic informer Titus Oates. He was convicted of treason on the technical ground that he had acted as a Catholic priest within England, contrary to an Elizabethan statute, but he was eventually released and sent into exile, after a biased trial, and after serving a term of imprisonment.

Anderson had taken an oath of loyalty to King Charles II, and had accordingly been allowed to live quietly in England, with tacit Government permission, since 1671; he was left in peace for a short time even after the invention of the Popish Plot. In time however the mounting hysteria made protection of any Catholic priest, even if he had sworn an oath of loyalty, impossible. He was arrested in 1679 and tried with six other priests for high treason under the statute 27 Eliz. c. 2, which banished from the realm all subjects of her Majesty born within her dominions who had received orders from the Papacy. This statute, which under Elizabeth I had been very vigorously administered, became after her death practically a dead letter, and so remained until the panic into which the nation was thrown by the fabrications of Oates and Bedloe led to its resuscitation.

Anderson's trial was held at the Old Bailey on 17 January 1680 before Lord Chief Justice Sir William Scroggs, Lord Chief Baron William Montagu, justices Edward Atkyns, William Dolben, William Ellis, Thomas Jones, Francis Pemberton, the Recorder of London, Sir George Jeffreys and a jury. The prisoners (like all those accused of treason until 1695) were not allowed the benefit of counsel, and indeed the most skilful advocate would have been of little avail before judges who were determined to presume everything against rather than for the accused. Sir John Kelynge and Mr. Serjeant Stroke prosecuted. The witnesses were Oates, Bedloe, Thomas Dangerfield, and Miles Prance.

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