While at Rome he had signed a petition for the retention of the Jesuits as superiors of the English College, but in England he was considered to have suffered injury through their agency.

On 2 November 1591, he was captured by priest hunter Richard Topcliffe at the house of Swithun Wells on Gray's Inn Lane,[2] a centre of hospitality for recusants, where Edmund Gennings was celebrating Mass.

[5] On 6 December, together with Edmund Gennings and Eustace White (priests), and Sydney Hodgson, Swithun Wells, and John Mason (laymen), he was tried before the King's Bench, and condemned for coming into England contrary to the Jesuits, etc.

[6] All were executed on the same day: Gennings and Wells opposite the house of the latter at Gray's Inn Lane; Plasden, White, Hodgson, and Mason at Tyburn.

At his execution on 10 December 1591, Plasden acknowledged Elizabeth as his lawful queen, whom he would defend to the best of his power against all her enemies, and he prayed for her and the whole realm, but said that he would rather forfeit a thousand lives than deny or fight against his religion.