ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



in 1653.*" One or two mentions of Baptists survive from the Cromwellian 

 period.*^^ Independents are likely to have flourished in the Protectorate, but 

 •cannot be clearly traced yet. In the religious confusion of the period other 

 sectaries may well have maintained themselves. At all events the first proof 

 ■of religious dissidence after the Restoration that has yet come to hand is at the 

 end of 1 66 1, when we are told that ' the Fifth Monarchy men are strongly 

 at work, in Yorkshire, Durham,' and other places.*" The same informant 

 represents them as going about from county to county and fanning the flames 

 of rebellion. There does not seem to be evidence of secession when the 

 Uniformity Act came into operation in 1662."' Doubtless, however, the 

 Act stimulated latent sectarian irritation, for we find secret treasonable corre- 

 spondence with foreign Baptists in active operation that same year, and the 

 presence of Baptists in Durham is asserted."' All this agitation came to a 

 head in 1663 in what has been called the Derwentdale Plot. It gets its name 

 from the head quarters of the Durham confederates in the conspiracy. It has 

 been the practice of writers to make little of this aff^air,*^" but if we may 

 credit the mass of state papers connected with it and now accessible to the 

 historian there was during the whole of 1663 and afterwards a widespread 

 and determined effort to crush the religious settlement, and to overthrow the 

 restored dynasty in reliance on the combination of the Dutch Protestants. 

 Who the chief agitators were it is not possible to say, but the confessions of 

 those ultimately apprehended indicated all manner of sectaries as involved in 

 it, and sketched the proportions of a deeply-laid and dangerous stratagem."' 

 A fair summary of what is really a long story is contained in the following 

 information of one of the leaders : 



The design was laid in the South. The chief designers in the North were Lieut. Col. 

 Mason, Dr. Edw. Richardson, John Joplin once gaoler in Durham, and Paul Hobson. 

 . . . They intended to force the king to perform his promises made at Breda, grant 

 liberty of conscience to all but Romanists, take away excise, chimney money and all 

 taxes whatever, and restore a gospel magistracy and ministry. They have sworn to be 

 secret, and to destroy all who oppose them without mercy, especially the Dukes of 

 Albemarle and Buckingham etc. 2,000 horse and dragoons were ready in Durham and 

 Westmorland, and many of the train-bands all over. . . On October 12 the rising was 

 to be in London, in two places near Blackwell Hall, to fall on the city in St. James' 

 Fields, and attempt Whitehall. . . . Many in the Life Guards and Duke of Albemarle's 

 regiment, in the Fleet, in Scotland, and beyond the seas, and divers of quality over 

 England were consenting to it.*'^ 



At all events it was estimated that 'in Durham 700 or 800 men were ready.' 

 Ultimately the plot, which was known to the authorities from the first, fell 

 to pieces when the leaders were taken and their close colleagues imprisoned. 



*" Above, p. 53, Mr. J. W. Steel has collected from documents surviving at Darlington and elsewhere an 

 interesting account of the early days of the cause. Early Friends in the North, 1905. 



*™ As early as 1630 or so the name occurs in the Acts of the High Commission Court, Surtees Soc. Publ. 

 vol. xxxiv ; see further below. 



*"C<2/. S.?. Dom. 1 66 1-2, p. 161. 



'^ Mention is made in the State Papers of ministers who have been extruded and are fomenting rebellion 

 in the county, but they may belong to other parts. Tradition does not seem to speak of any large deprivation 

 in the diocese. Calamy gives the names of eighteen rejected ministers, amongst whom two were tutors in the 

 college erected by Cromwell at Durham. 



"' Cal. S.P. Dom. 1662, p. 564 ; cf. 1664, p. 577. They never took root in Durham. 



"° In the accounts, for instance, by Surtees, Hist. Dur. ii. Addenda pp. 389-91, and Canon Ornsby, 

 Surtees Soc. Publ. Iv, p. xx. 



'"The authorities are the S.P. Dom. for 1663 and l66:[. passim. 



'" Cal. S.P. Dom. 1663, p. 540 ; see also p. 352. 



55 



