104 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 
Witnesses, an interpretation that has persisted to the 
present day. Jackson and Daniell would, doubtless, 
have believed in the family connection, which 
could be the origin of the presumed link with 
Chippenham. If John Reeve was related to 
Muggleton it would be tempting to cast a 
Chippenham branch of the Reeve family in the role 
of the ‘strangers in the country’ to whom the infant 
Lodowick was sent. The lack of documentary 
evidence means we can never be sure about where 
young Muggleton spent his early life, but can only 
speculate on possibilities tentatively based on local 
traditions. What is clear is that he did live 
somewhere ‘in the country’, and perhaps that 
somewhere was Chippenham. 
Notes 
| Jackson, Canon J. E. ‘On the History of Chippenham’ 
WANHM vol. iii, 1856-1857, p.46. 
‘A Modest Account of the Wicked Life of That Grand 
Impostor Lodowicke Muggleton, 1676’ in the 
Harleian Miscellany, reprinted 1744 and 1810, vol. viii, 
p. 83. 
+ This 1756 copy of A Transcendental Spiritual Treatise 
upon Several Heavenly Doctrines, by John Reeve and 
Lodowick Muggleton does not include the original 
date of publication, but includes an account, in 
sixteen chapters, of the commission they claim to 
have received from Jesus in February 1651/2. 
+ Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society 
(W.A.N.H.S.) Library, Devizes: Wiltshire Tracts, 48, 
A True Account of the Trial and Sufferings of 
Lodowick Muggleton One of the two last prophets and 
Witnesses of the Spirit, left by our Friend Powell.’ 
[Nathaniel Powell] (Printed for T. Fever 1808 by 
Morris and Reeves, 53 Red-Cross Street, Southwark.) 
> W.A.N.H.S. Library, MS Box 225, folder v. 
® Daniell, Rev. J. J. The History of Chippenham, 
(Houlston & Sons, London, 1894). 
’ Wiltshire Notes & Queries, vol. ii, (Devizes, 1899), p. 
585. 
® Underwood T.L (ed), The Acts of the Witnesses: the 
Autobiography of Lodowick Muggleton and Other Early 
Muggletonian Writings, (Oxford University Press, 
1999), the first part, chapter III, p. 31. 
’ — Dictionary of National Biography (D.N.B.), vol. xiii, 
(OUB 1921, reprinted 1968), p.1164. 
'0 Daniell, History of Chippenham, p. 212. 
'! Braithwaite, William C. The Second Period of Quaker- 
ism, (1919, reprinted 1979, Sessions, York), p.671. 
Daniell, History of Chippenham, p. 212. 
8 Hill, Christopher, Reay Barry, & Lamont William 
The World of the Muggletonians, (Temple Smith, 
36 
London, 1983), frontispiece dedication, and 
Underwood, The Acts of the Witnesses, pp. 11-12. 
Braithwaite, The Second Period of Quakerism, noted 
Muggleton had followers in Derbyshire, and the sect 
continued to meet into the early twentieth century, 
holding their Yearly Meeting at the Drury Lowe 
Arms in Derby. 
Hill, et al, The World of the Muggletonians, map 1. 
Penn, William The New Witnesses Proved Old Heretics, 
(London, 1672). 
Smith, Joseph, Bibliotheca Anti-Quakeriana, (London, 
1873, [revised by Alexander Gordon pre-1894]) 
contains a bibliography of Muggleton’s works. 
Wiltshire Tracts, 48, ‘A True Account of the Trial and 
Sufferings of Lodowick Muggleton’ p. 3. 
D.N.B. vol. xiii, p.1163, and Wiltshire Tracts, 48, p. 4. 
Wiltshire Tracts, 48, p.6. 
Jackson, ‘On the History of Chippenham’, p.46. 
Lamont, William ‘Lodowick Muggleton and 
“Immediate Notice”, in Hill et al The World of the 
Muggletonians, p. 116. 
The Dictionary of National Biography, from the Earliest 
Times to 1900, was founded in 1882 and the 
introduction to the Oxford University reprint in 
1967-1968 states that “it seemed best to leave the text 
unaltered.” Thus the entries by Alexander Gordon 
relating to Lodowick Muggleton in vol. xiii, and to 
John Reeve in vol. xvi, are as they were originally 
published in 1894. 
Gordon, Alexander, ‘The Origin of the 
Muggletonians,’ Transactions of the Liverpool Literary 
and Philosophical Society, 1869, and ‘Ancient and 
Modern Muggletonians,’ Transactions of the Liverpool 
Literary and Philosophical Society, 1870. 
Muggleton, Lodowick, The Acts of the Witnesses of the 
Spirit, an autobiographical account to 1677, was 
published posthumously in 1699. 
Underwood, T.L. (ed), The Acts of the Witnesses, the 
first part, chapter xv, p. 51, my italics. 
Chambers Dictionary (Chambers Harrap, Edinburgh, 
1993) p. 392 defined ‘cousin’ as “a person belonging 
to a group related by common ancestry, interests etc; 
something kindred or related to another.” 
Underwood, The Acts of the Witnesses, the first part, 
chapter III, p. 31. 
Ibid, p. 31. 
D.N.B. vol. xvi, (OUP, 1921, reprinted 1968), p. 851. 
W.S.R.O. 811/6: Chippenham St Andrew parish 
register 1578-1644; and Calne St Mary index of 
baptisms 1538-1637, marriages 1538-1837, and 
burials 1637-1725. 
D.N.B. vol. xvi, p. 851 
Hill, Christopher, The World Turned Upside Down, 
(Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1975), p. 173. 
Hobbes, Thomas, English Works, VI, pp. 195-196, 
cited in Hill, The World Turned Upside Down, p. 173. 
Hill, The World Turned Upside Down, p. 173. 
Braithwaite, The Second Period of Quakerism, p.244. 
