The Lancashire Plot 1689–1694
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Contrebis 2018 v36 TREASONS, STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS: THE LANCASHIRE PLOT 1689–1694 Margaret Robinson Abstract The Lancashire Plot has been controversial since it came to court in 1694. Was there even a plot at all, and if not, who was behind the claims of its existence and what was their motivation? The setting After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when the Protestant William III replaced the Roman Catholic James II, Lancashire and Cheshire were suspect counties for the new government in London, with their perceived high proportion of Catholics. A petition of 1688 put it succinctly: ‘Those two counties were not only pestered with papists but likeliest to be inlets of the Irish’ (HMC, Kenyon, 205). These concerns were not entirely idle. Although many Catholics were content to keep their heads down and stay out of trouble, others were actively plotting to restore James II and conspiracies, both real and imagined, occurred regularly throughout William III’s reign. One conspiracy appeared in the area just south of Lancaster. Whether there was actually a plot by the local Catholic gentry, or whether it was just down to official jitters, is a moot point, but the facts, or the facts as reported, are these. The beginning On 14 May 1689 the Lyon of Lancaster sailed out of the Lune at two o’clock in the morning, carrying Edmund Threlfall, a gentleman from Goosnargh, to Dublin. She returned on 13 June with a second passenger, John Lunt. Even this simple account is clogged with evasions and lies. The Lyon was owned by John Cawson of Norbreck, near Cockerham, and his son Charles. John Cawson’s account is confused, claiming that a few weeks after Easter, Threlfall had come to him wanting passage to the Isle of Man but, since a shipping embargo was in force, Cawson had refused. Threlfall tried again but again Cawson refused, saying this time that he did not wish to carry passengers. So it makes little sense that on 14 May, the Lyon, skippered by Charles Cawson, slipped out of the Lune in the small hours, having omitted to get a cocket, or permit, for the trip and carrying three passengers, Threlfall and two anonymous men. The crew were under the impression that they were bound for the Isle of Man but, once at sea, Threlfall asked for their course to be changed for Dublin, a port now controlled by the Irish Catholic army, where they arrived on 18 May. Cawson and Threlfall both left the ship, for about three weeks. The two unknown passengers also left, never to be heard of again. Eventually Threlfall returned to the ship with another passenger, John Lunt, the central character in this farrago and sailed home on 10 June. Lunt was a short man, wearing his own hair, according to one of the crew, and with ‘a trunk portmantle’ and some leather bags’ (LRO DDKe 8/18). The Lyon sailed back, not to Lancaster, where their presence might be noted by officialdom, but to Crook, a quiet spot just north of Cockersand Abbey. John Cawson also had to explain why, if the ship had originally sailed for the Isle of Man, they had not returned that way, to pick up their interrupted journey. Cawson claimed that his son had been afraid to do so, since Threlfall and Lunt were both armed and insisted on returning straight to the Lune. They promised £10 for this, ‘but never yet payd him’ (LRO DDKe 8/18). Once arrived at Crook, before dawn on 13 June, Threlfall, Lunt and the trunk were rowed ashore by two seamen. Lunt then remembered leaving his leather bags on board. The seamen offered to row back for them, but Lunt said that he and Threlfall would ‘go to refresh themselves at Cockerham’ and asked for the bags to be brought there. The reason for this was given by Lunt himself. ‘Upon 50 Contrebis 2018 v36 our landing we were like to have been wholly surprised by some customs officers, but we escaped and brought off the most material of our business’. Lunt and Threlfall never did get to the pub at Cockerham, but spent the rest of the day hiding under a hedge in Thurnham Moss, where they abandoned the trunk in a ditch. This effort at concealment was useless since a dog subsequently dug it up and it was found to contain six cases of pistols, an old wig and Lunt’s dirty laundry (HMC, Kenyon 293, 349, 311, 312). After sundown Threlfall and Lunt moved on but there are now inconsistencies in the evidence. Lunt’s own account has him going to Mr Dalton’s house at Thurnham, then to Col. Tildesley’s at Lodge, near Myerscough, and then on to Lord Molineux’ seat at Croxteth. Other accounts leave out Thurnham, Robert Dalton denying that Lunt had been there and have Lunt going straight to Lodge on 13 June. He did not, in this version, stay there but moved straight on, with a guide, to Lady Tildesley’s at Ince, arriving in the afternoon of 14 June. On 16 June he went from Ince via Runcorn to London. Then again, a different witness, George Wilson, already known to the authorities for assisting fleeing Jacobites, gives the date as early July, when Lunt and Threlfall came to Lodge, with ‘a cloakbag full of commissions’ from James II to local gentlemen to raise troops for a projected rising, though this bag was supposed to have been seized by the customs officers from the Lyon (LRO DDKe 8/9). Threlfall then left with commissions for Yorkshire, Lunt being responsible for Lancashire, Cheshire and Staffordshire. While with Wilson, Lunt is said to have gone to various Catholic gentlemen, including Mr. Townley, though that gentleman had been in custody since 9 June, before Lunt had even left Dublin. Neither could Lunt have been delivering commissions in early July, since he and a friend of dubious repute, Thomas Stafford, had been arrested in Coventry on 5 July for carrying arms and ‘talking very disaffectedly to the present Government’ (LRO DDKe 8/2). While delivering commissions to raise men for rebellion, Lunt also collected money to fund enlistment and to buy weapons. At Croxteth he claimed to find many Catholic gentlemen gathered together, most of whom gave him £5 apiece and drank James II’s health upon their knees. Quite when this was supposed to have happened is not clear as 22 of the most eminent Lancashire and Cheshire Catholics, including Lord Molineux, the owner of Croxteth, had been arrested in June and were confined until the following January. Lunt was transferred from Coventry to Newgate Jail in London and was released on bail in late 1689. He continued to plot, shuttling between London and Lancashire, staying with Threlfall in Goosnargh, or sometimes in Chipping, Ormskirk or Bilsborough, where he put up at the White Bull for a couple of nights in late 1691. While in London, he claimed to have raised around 500 men over the years for a Jacobite rising and to have bought arms, going under several aliases. At different times he was Mr. Jackson, Mr. Benet, Captain Widrington or Captain Smith. The arms bought were delivered to Catholic houses, including Standish and Townley Hall, by carriers some of whom gave evidence at the later trial. During this time he went to France to inform James II of the level of support he might expect, if and when he chose to invade. Defenders of the Catholic gentlemen under suspicion alleged that Lunt supported himself by theft and frauds. He also found time to commit bigamy on 28 March 1692, becoming a brother-in-law of John Taaffe who played a large part later in this imbroglio (HMC Kenyon 320). In 1693 Lunt’s funds began to run short and in July he was reduced to working as a labourer, barrowing gravel and digging ponds for London’s water supply. Unsurprisingly, this occupation did not appeal and he returned to defrauding a Mr. Whitfield with a forged bond, netting £30 to take 51 Contrebis 2018 v36 himself and his new wife to Flanders. Back on English soil in December 1693, he was arrested again for making off, leaving unpaid his bill for lodgings at Dover (HMC, Kenyon 317). About this time Lunt began to change tack, asserting that he had been shocked by Jacobite plots to assassinate King William III. There does indeed seem to have been such a plot to murder the King while he was out hunting, though whether that really was a factor in Lunt’s change of heart, or change of tactics, can be no more than guesswork. Possibly his inventiveness was running out: certainly the plot he reported after coming back from France in December 1693 was not particularly convincing. This, if true, would have involved the seizure of the Tower of London by a handful of Jacobites and the marching of 30,000 men from the North to restore James II (HMC, Kenyon 299). George Wilson’s evidence covers most of the same period. A wanted man for assisting the flight of known Jacobites, not to mention a little cattle rustling on the side, he came to Lancashire in May 1689, staying with various Catholic gentlemen including Lord Molineux and Col. Tildesley. Told to watch the coast for messengers from Ireland, Wilson deposed that Threlfall and Lunt had come to Tildesley at Lodge with a cloakbag full of letters and commissions and then went to Croxteth. We have already seen that the Catholic gentlemen were in no position to be receiving commissions just then.