staunch former Cavaliers like L'Estrange who felt embittered by the Court's pandering to Oates, equivocation towards Whigs, and failure to reward their loyalty. After years dedicated to suppressing the press, L'Estrange began writing a periodical aimed at a mass audience. He maintained an educational and paternalistic stance, arguing the paper was necessary to 'set the masses right' after seditious printings had turned them against their natural superiors. The dialogue format lent itself to being read aloud in public spaces, while the aggressive diatribes amused an audience who above all revelled in the drama and vitriol of Restoration politics. The execution in 1681 of the hardline Whig pamphleteer Stephen College filled L'Estrange with ill-concealed glee and emboldened him to settle old scores as Titus Oates was increasingly the prime subject of his attacks. Throughout this period L'Estrange argued that there was no Popish Plot, with the only conspiracy being a Nonconformist one of the sort depicted in Popery in Masquerade. The discovery of the Rye House Plot in 1683 filled L'Estrange with a powerful sense of vindication as several leading Whigs were implicated in an assassination plot against Charles II. His obsession with detecting subliminal messages in print between plotters and earlier assertions of a 'Presbyterian Plot' directed by shadowy cliques finally seemed proven correct. With the Whig faction broken by the Plot's discovery and execution of several prominent Whigs such as William Russell, L'Estrange replaced the Observator's Whig interlocuter with the Trimmer, a moderate figure such as George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax who 'trimmed' between the Tory and Whig factions. This represented the culmination of a career-long tendency to attack moderates who craved respectability but were not wholly loyal to the Court and Tory cause. L'Estrange had long feared 'moderate' Presbyterians who enabled extremists and this represented a natural culmination of them. Later career In 1685, L'Estrange was knighted by King James II and became a member of parliament for Winchester from 1685 to 1689. However, though a fierce Tory and High Anglican, he opposed the religious toleration of Catholics, which put him at odds with the policy of the new king. After the Glorious Revolution in favour of William III, he lost all his offices and was arrested several times on suspicion of involvement in plots against him. L'Estrange now turned to writing again, and published translations of Seneca the Younger's Morals and Cicero's Offices, besides his master-work