on this testimony, Stafford was found guilty and beheaded on 29 December 1680. There were discrepancies between the dates Tuberville gave at the trial and those in the affidavit he had sworn previously. Also, presumably in an effort to add convincing background detail to his story (Titus Oates had always been good at this), he claimed that Stafford suffered from gout, which was untrue. However, Stafford, like all those charged with treason before the Treason Act 1695, was denied legal counsel: he did catch Turberville out in one or two mistakes but did not exploit his advantage as a good lawyer might have. Crucially the Lords were not told that on being received into the Church of England, Turberville told William Lloyd, Bishop of Worcester, that he knew nothing of any Catholic plot, other than a little gossip. His motives for turning informer seem to have been purely financial: he was a poor man, and remarked that "he was fit for no trade but an informer". His later change of stance he justified by saying that "if the Protestants deserted him, goddamn it, he would not starve." Family loyalty seems to have been no part of his character: during his career as a priest-hunter he attempted to arrest a priest at the home of his brother Christopher at Sker, although he must have known that Christopher would be liable to the death penalty if found guilty of harbouring a priest. After the Plot In 1681 the Crown, at last, turned on the instigators of the Plot, beginning with the unsavoury minor informers Edward Fitzharris and Stephen College. After the trial of Fitzharris, Turberville reading the straws in the wind, or as Gilbert Burnet thought, being "under new (i.e. Crown) management" gave evidence against College who was found guilty of treason and executed. This led to a breach between Turberville and Titus Oates, the inventor of the Plot, whom Turberville now denounced as a villain. He also gave evidence against his former patron Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who was indicted for treason in November 1681. The following month he fell ill of smallpox and died, supposedly fulfilling a prophecy of Lord Stafford that Turberville would not outlive him by a year. Despite rumours that he returned to the Catholic faith at the end, in fact, he was attended by Thomas Tenison, the future Archbishop of Canterbury. To the