John Arnold of Monmouthshire

His strongly anti-Catholic and Whiggist beliefs and private war against underground local Catholic priests, such as St David Lewis, and Recusant laity made Arnold a particularly unpopular and controversial figure in his native Monmouthshire.

Amongst his close associates, particularly during the anti-Catholic moral panic and witch hunt based on the conspiracy theory known as the Popish plot, were fellow Whigs Titus Oates and Lord Shaftesbury.

[3] Arnold was made a deputy lieutenant, captain of the county troops, and Justice of the Peace in 1677 by Henry Somerset, 3rd Marquess of Worcester.

[2] Arnold, who was starting to exhibit signs of paranoia, blamed Edward Colman, secretary to the future King James II, and went up to London to challenge him to a duel.

In fact Colman, who has been described as "the typical courtier and man about town", had no interest in events on the remote Welsh border, and it is most unlikely that he was to blame.

Arnold's popularity declined further in March 1678 when he raided the Cwm Jesuit college in Llanrothal, Herefordshire with Border Protestants such as Herbert Croft, Bishop of Hereford, and Charles Price during the Popish plot.

[4][5] Arnold reportedly gave some of his harshest criticism to its steward, Henry Milbourne, describing him as an "undoubted Papist" who only "held lands worth £100 per annum in one county, but is made justice of the peace in four".

In the second general election of 1679, Arnold stood for Monmouth but lost to Lord Herbert and was admitted to the Green Ribbon Club in November of that year.

In November, Arnold and John Dutton Colt were described by Thomas Bruce as "the most noisy, impudent and ignorant" Members of the Parliament.

For this, he was brought to trial in the King's Bench, along with Sir Trevor Williams, for Scandalum Magnatum by the Marquess of Worcester, newly created Duke of Beaufort, whom he had also accused of harbouring Papists in Chepstow.