Summerset Fox
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Summerset Fox was a Catholic and Royalist conspirator who pled guilty to an indictment of high treason.
In May 1654 Fox, Peter Vowell,and John Gerard were arrested for plotting to assassinate Oliver Cromwell as he travelled to Hampton Court, with a guard of thirty mounted troops. Fox's role was to recruit apprentices for the attempt. However, the government received intelligence of the plot; the route was changed and arrests were made.
At their trial by the High Court of Justice sitting in Westminster Hall on 30 June 1654, Fox pled guilty. He was one of only two men accused of treason ever to do so, the other being John Amery in 1945. Vowell and Gerard were executed. Fox was transported to Barbados as he had confessed. There is no record of him having survived until The Restoration.
The investigation of the plot led to the Catholics being blamed and hostility towards France.
