Summerset Fox was a Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 and Royalist

Cavalier

Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...

 conspirator who pled guilty to an indictment

Indictment

An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...

 of high treason

High treason

High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...

.

In May 1654 Fox, Peter Vowell

Peter Vowell

Peter Vowell was a schoolteacher executed as a Catholic and Royalist conspirator.In May 1654 Vowell, from Islington, was arrested for his part in a plot to assassinate Oliver Cromwell as the Lord Protector and his guard of thirty mounted troops, travelled to Hampton Court...

, and John Gerard were arrested for plotting to assassinate Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

 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

High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I

The High Court of Justice is the name given to the court established by the Rump Parliament to try King Charles I of England. This was an ad hoc tribunal created specifically for the purpose of trying the king, although the same name was used again for subsequent courts.Neither the involvement of...

 sitting in Westminster Hall on 30 June 1654, Fox pleaded guilty. He was one of only two men accused of treason ever to do so, the other being John Amery

John Amery

John Amery was a British fascist who proposed to the Wehrmacht the formation of a British volunteer force and made recruitment efforts and propaganda broadcasts for Nazi Germany...

 in 1945. Vowell and Gerard were executed. Fox was transported

Penal transportation

Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...

 to Barbados

Barbados

Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...

 as he had confessed. There is no record of him having survived beyond The Restoration.

The investigation of the plot led to the Catholics being blamed and hostility towards France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.