Contrebis 2018 v36

TREASONS, STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS: THE 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 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

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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. Another version says that Wilson was not there at all, but that John Nickson guided Lunt to Ince. The purchase of arms was corroborated by the carrier, John Wombell, who testified to delivering arms to Townley and Standish, and this was supported by his employee, Oliver Peirson, who helped deliver pistols and kettledrums. Peirson had not known what the boxes contained until the carrier’s horse had fallen and broken open the pack. Wombell used the same excuse later (HMC, Kenyon 352). All these people appeared as witnesses when the Catholic gentlemen were finally brought to trial at in 1694, but at this point several fresh characters take centre stage and a powerful motive for ruining the Catholics becomes clear.

The Commission for Superstitious Lands was a sixteenth-century organization designed to thwart land or money being given for the upkeep of Catholic institutions at home or abroad. Such property was forfeit to the Crown and large rewards were given to informants. This set-up was tailor-made for fraud and false witness, especially after Lord Delamere, a major landowner in Cheshire and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1689, extended the Commission’s powers by allowing verbal proof, instead of relying on written legal charters, leases and rentals (Hopkins 1980, 270). This made an irresistible target for con men who, for a fee, hired themselves out as witnesses. The Commission was ‘notorious for dishonesty’; hardly surprising when private investors were licensed by the Crown to seek out Catholic property being used to maintain the Catholic . These investors then got a half share in the proceeds (Weil 2013, 93–4). Lord Molineux, Mr. Standish and other Lancashire landowners had already suffered under this system (Hopkins 1980, 271).

The prosecution of the Lancashire Catholics in 1694 seems to have been orchestrated by Aaron Smith, Treasury Solicitor, whose duty was to prosecute in cases where the Crown had a financial interest. His interest in a prosecution for treason was because a guilty verdict meant that property was forfeit to the Crown (Weil 2013, 108). He may also have hoped that proof of the superstitious uses of their estates might make a guilty verdict more likely for treason. In any case, as an investor, Smith would collect a handsome sum of money. His assistant was Captain Henry Baker who managed affairs and recruited witnesses, including Lunt, Wilson, Wombell and John Taaffe.

Taaffe had been a Capuchin monk in James II’s time but renounced his faith and became an agent for William III’s close friend, the Earl of Portland. As such he had some access to the Court and the Government, helping Lunt to get an interview with Secretary of State Trenchard to get his plot

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Contrebis 2018 v36 taken seriously. In the early years of William’s reign, political influence was wielded by Protestant dissenters and Whigs, but after a time the Tories began to fight back. Sniffing the wind, Taaffe changed sides again, now devising a way to trap Lunt who had fallen out with Wilson and Wombell. Lunt complained that he would prefer a gentleman witness and Taaffe duly provided him with one, Roger Dicconson, who could be relied upon to relay Lunt’s plans to the Catholic defence for the coming treason trial (LRO DDKe 8/20, Weil 2013, 220)

The people mentioned above appeared as witnesses when the Catholic gentlemen were finally brought to trial for treason at Manchester in 1694, in two groups, including Lord Molineux, Sir Rowland Stanley, Sir Thomas Clifton, William Blundell and other pillars of the Catholic community. Lunt hardly helped his cause by claiming to know the defendants, but failing to identify them correctly. Regardless of this, however, the prosecution case was ruined by John Taaffe’s evidence of Lunt’s villainy. This, joined with the Catholic defenders’ fighting back and digging up various damning instances of criminal behaviour from Lunt’s past, made acquittal the only possible verdict (HMC, Kenyon 310–1). Some questions So, was there a Catholic plot? The most likely answer is ‘not this time’, but the Government was not being foolish to imagine that there might have been, since well-attested plots were frequent enough. It was suggested that the Government may have been behind this attempt to set up the Catholics (HMC Kenyon vi). This is not particularly plausible. Surely any government could have found a front-man who carried more conviction, and who had not already left a trail through the justice system? Possibly Aaron Smith may have been behind it, but it seems a lot of trouble to go to, when the existing law on superstitious uses would have served perfectly well on its own to bring in the money. Finally, Lunt himself, with a known past of frauds, may have dreamed up this plot, but been unable to bring it off successfully. The jury is still out. Certainly the events described here shine a light on how power and justice operated in the late-seventeenth century.

Author profile Margaret Robinson got her first degree in history from Birmingham University and her PhD many years later from Lancaster University where she was an Honorary Research Fellow for some years. She has published a number of articles on maritime and commercial history and is currently working on the impact of William III’s war in Ireland on life in North-West .

References LRO (Lancashire Record Office), Kenyon Papers, DDKe 8/2, 8, 9, 18, 20) HMC (Historical Manuscripts Commission), Kenyon, 14th Report, Appendix, Part iv, the Manuscripts of Lord Kenyon Hopkins PA 1980 The Commission for Superstitious Lands of the 1690s. Recusant History 15, 265–82 Weil R 2013 A Plague of Informers. Yale: Yale University Press

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