CABAL: The Curious History of a Word

The word "cabal" is likely familiar to online gamers. Google it and "Images" and you will get nothing but ads for the game "Cabal." 

Today's QAnon activists use "cabal" to denote a secret global conspiracy against freedom. (Secret to everyone except QAnon members, of course, who possess information the rest of us are ignorant of.) 

The origins of the word "cabal" lie in the distant past. It most likely derives from "Kaballah," which refers to the mystical interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. In medieval Christian Europe, "Caballa" or "cabale" came to refer to occult doctrines or secrets. In these contexts it related to mysticism and magic. 

In the 17th century "cabal" developed a wider, mainly political meaning. It came to mean a small group of individuals united in secret to achieve a desired political or economic goal. For many people it became a pejorative term used to denote a devious clique or conspiracy opposed to the general good. 

This usage has survived into modern times. Cabal is often used today to denote a clique, faction, gang, ring, junta, and similar groupings, real or imagined.   

In Britain, "cabal" came into prominent use during the turbulent politics of the late 17th century. Opponents of the "Merry Monarch," King Charles II (1660-1685), accused him of leading a cabal. [Image: Charles II, by Sir Peter Lely]

These accusations are particularly interesting, because at the time (1667-74), the King was governing with the advice of a small band of five ministers, the first letters of whose names could be used to spell out the acronym "CABAL." Opponents of royal policies often referred to them as the "Cabal" or "Cabal Ministry." 

The five members of the Cabal were Sir Thomas Clifford, Lord Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley, and Lord Lauderdale. They were signatories to the public Treaty of Dover (1670) that created an alliance with the France of Louis XIV against the Dutch. 

The public treaty acted as a screen for a secret treaty in which Charles promised to convert to Roman Catholicism in return for a French pension of £230,000 a year. Louis promised more money if Charles announced his conversion to the British public, which he wisely never did. Most of the CABAL did not sign and were not aware of the secret treaty.

Some historians argue that the present meaning of the word "cabal" derives from the usage of the term to describe this particular political grouping of the late 1660s -- early1670s. That may be true, although claims that the word itself derives from them is likely a myth. 

PS. A prominent member of the CABAL ministry who did not know of the secret treaty eventually turned against Charles II. In the 1670s, Lord Ashley (Anthony Ashley Cooper, later 1st Earl of Shaftesbury) helped found one of the first British political parties, the Whigs. 

The Whigs posed as defenders of Parliament and Protestantism against what they argued was the King's authoritarian and pro-Catholic tendencies. Charles II's supporters coalesced uneasily into what became the pro-royalist Tory Party. (Image: Lord Ashley, later Lord Shaftesbury)

Ashley was the patron of the philosopher John Locke. He was also one of the founders, or Lords Proprietor, of the colony of Carolina. He and Locke wrote the original blueprint for the colony, The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. The names "Ashley", "Cooper," and "Shaftesbury" are found all over the oldest settlement, Charleston, which of course, was named for Charles II. At that time, Charles and Ashley were still on good terms. 

In 1682, fearing arrest for High Treason, Ashley fled to the Netherlands, where he died of an illness the following year. By then, the CABAL Ministry was history, but the political meaning of the term "cabal" lived on and thrives today, for good or ill.