The Jesuit Provincial Thomas Whitbread (alias Harcourt), executed at Tyburn on 20 June 1679, was the most eminent ecclesiastical victim of the so-called ‘Popish Plot’, and has been beatified. Who exactly was he? There is apparently still some uncertainty. His parentage and early background are in one sense irrelevant to the dramatic public events at the close of his life. Nevertheless it is tantalising not to be able to ‘place’ an historical character. This paper re-examines the question with the aid of some scraps of fresh evidence.