A History of Lancashire

by Henry Fishwick

From Croxteth he went to an inn at Rhuddlan, in Flintshire, where he stayed for some time, and soon had a considerable number of visitors. From this place he made frequent visits to Ireland, by this means keeping up a safer communication with the exiled King and his friends in Lancashire. Suspicion having fallen on him, the vessel in which he crossed to Ireland was seized, but with the assistance of the landlord of the inn at Rhuddlan he made his escape and repaired to Ireland, where King James made him a Commissioner of the Mint. The Lancashire Plot included the murder of the King, and Colonel Parker, according to De la Rue, was the person who first propounded this portion of the plot to Lord Melford. Dr. Bromfield now found it absolutely necessary to have an active agent, who was to be at once unscrupulous and trustworthy. Such a man he thought he had secured in John Lunt, an Irishman by birth, but who was successively a labourer at Highgate, a coachman, a licensed victualler at Westminster, and one of King James’s Guards, with a promise of a captaincy. Moreover, he was not a man of good character, as he had been tried for bigamy.

This Lunt, having followed the King to France soon after his abdication, was sent from thence with the rest of the guards to Ireland in May, 1689, and there renewed his acquaintance with Bromfield. Being assured that the people in Lancashire only waited the King’s commission to rise in arms on his behalf and restore him to the throne, he at once undertook to be the bearer of the commission. Meanwhile the conspirators in Lancashire, evidently being eager for the rising, sent over to Ireland Edmund Threlfall, of Ashes, in Goosnargh, to fetch the needful commissions, and accordingly he and two others embarked in a “pink” (i.e., a small ship) called the Lion of Lancaster, and sailed down the Lune by night without any Custom–house certificate. This vessel had been used to fetch cattle from the Isle of Man for the Earl of Derby, and the sailors were led to believe that this was again their destination on this occasion; but Threlfall induced the captain to make for Dublin, where they duly arrived, and having received the commission and obtained a passport from Lord Melford, they re–embarked on board the pink, which, to prevent suspicion, was laden with iron pots and bars and other commodities, and they anchored in the Lune near to Cockerham on the morning of June 13, 1689. Whilst in Dublin, Threlfall and Lunt had met, and had now returned together in the pink, and as soon as she was anchored in the Lune they were put ashore, before the arrival of the Custom–house officers, whose practice and duty it was to go on board every vessel as she entered the harbour. Lunt, with that carelessness which so often distinguishes conspirators, left on board his saddle–bags, which contained some of the commissions, and finding out after he got ashore that he had done so, he asked one of the sailors who was returning with the cock–boat to the ship to bring them after him to Cockerham; but before this could be done the officers came on board, and discovering the papers, set off in pursuit of their owners; but not finding them, they handed the documents over to the authorities.

The discovery of these papers caused considerable excitement, and they were carefully examined by the Earl of Devonshire, the Earl of Macclesfield, the Earl of Scarborough and Lord Wharton, who were all in Manchester on army business, and they recommended that warrants should be issued to apprehend Lunt and Threlfall. In the meantime the two conspirators had taken shelter at Myerscough Lodge, near Preston, where lived Thomas Tyldesley, who was one of the foremost supporters of their cause. Here they divided such of the commissions as they had brought with them, Lunt setting off to deliver those for Lancashire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, whilst Threlfall took those for Yorkshire and Durham.

Lunt afterwards went to London to buy arms and enlist men to be sent to Lancashire. At this time Irishmen came into the county in such numbers as to rouse suspicion, and in October the justices of the peace at the adjourned quarter sessions at Manchester sent a letter to the Secretary of State, in which it was stated that the gaols were full of Irish Roman Catholics, that many others were staying at Popish houses, and that boxes with scarlet cloaks, pistols and swords had been sent from London to Roman Catholic gentlemen now absent from home.

The warrants against Lunt and Threlfall were, no doubt, issued, but it was not until August that an arrest was made, when Lunt and Mr. Abbot, the steward of Lord Molyneux, were apprehended at Coventry when they were returning from London. They were cast into prison as enemies to the King, and soon afterward Charles Cawson, the master of the ship which brought Lunt and Threlfall from Ireland, was arrested on a similar charge. Cawson was taken from Coventry to London, where he gave evidence before the Privy Council as to his taking Threlfall to Ireland, and bringing him and Lunt back, also as to the papers left in the pink at Cockerham. Meanwhile Threlfall, having despatched his business in Yorkshire and Durham, where he assumed the name and title of Captain Brown, and probably not knowing that a warrant had been issued against him, returned home to Goosnargh, where he remained for some time concealed, waiting for a chance to get away to Ireland. Ashes, which had been the home of this family for several generations, was well adapted for a place of concealment, not only from its retired situation, but from its peculiar structure, its centre wall being at least 4 feet thick, and containing two cavities large enough to hide half a dozen men in; add to these advantages that the house was surrounded by a moat, and on every side were sympathizing neighbours.

All things considered, perhaps Threlfall was as safe here as anywhere had he used ordinary caution, but on August 20 (1690) he was surprised near his house by a party of militia, and as he offered to resist, he was killed by a corporal who was one of the party. At the trial in Manchester in 1694, one John Wilson, of Chipping, made a deposition that Threlfall had told him that he had twenty Irishmen ready for his troop, who had been at his house and in the county waiting for several months.

In the February following a deposition was made before the Mayor of Evesham, in Worcestershire, that divers persons in that neighbourhood had received commissions from King James to raise two regiments of horse, two of dragoons, and three of foot for Lancashire, and that in various places were hidden arms, etc., especially in the houses of Mr. Blundell, of Ince, and John Holland, of Prescot; and further, that the deponent had seen and heard read a letter from the late Queen in the hand of Lord Molyneux’s son, which gave assurance from the French King of assistance in arms and men. This information led to the imprisonment of several leading Lancashire Roman Catholics.

In the May following, Mr. Robert Dodsworth declared on oath to the Lord Chief Justice Holt that the troops in Lancashire were to be joined by the late King’s forces for Ireland, while the French were to land in Cornwall, and the Duke of Berwick was to cause a diversion in Scotland, but that no rising was to take place until the late King landed in Lancashire, which he had promised to do within a month.

John Lunt in November was committed to Newgate, where he was kept for twenty weeks, and then bailed out to appear at the Lancaster Assizes, where he appeared in August, 1690, and was then committed to Lancaster Castle on a charge of high–treason. Here he remained until April, 1691, when he was brought to trial and acquitted, partly because the Custom–house officers were unable to swear to the papers, and partly because Charles Cawson, the master of the ship, had in the meantime fallen sick and died. Lunt, notwithstanding his long imprisonment and narrow escape from the scaffold, appears almost immediately to have set about raising men and collecting arms for the proposed insurrection. The destruction of the French fleet off the Hague on May 20, 1692, dispersed all thoughts of an invasion and for awhile partially arrested the designs of the conspirators.