Creating Communities in Restoration England

Studies in the History of

Christian Traditions

General Editor
Robert J. Bast
Knoxville, Tennessee

In cooperation with
Henry Chadwick, Cambridge
Paul C.H. Lim, Nashville, Tennessee
Eric Saak, Liverpool
Brian Tierney, Ithaca, New York
Arjo Vanderjagt, Groningen
John Van Engen, Notre Dame, Indiana

Founding Editor
Heiko A. Oberman

VOLUME 164

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/shct

 Creating Communities
in Restoration England

Parish and Congregation in Oliver Heywoods Halifax

By

Samuel S. Thomas

LEIDEN BOSTON
2013
Cover illustration: Oliver Heywood, from The Whole Works Of [...] Oliver Heywood Now First Collected,
Revised & Arranged. London: J. Vint, 1827.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thomas, Samuel S.
Creating communities in Restoration England : parish and congregation in Oliver Heywoods
Halifax / by Samuel S. Thomas.
p. cm. -- (Studies in the history of Christian traditions, ISSN 1573-5664 ; v. 164)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-22929-7 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Halifax (England)--Church history--17th century.
2. Heywood, Oliver, 1629-1702. I. Title.

BX5205.H35T46 2012
274.2812--dc23

2012027478

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Nowadays, historians who attempt to work with the concept
of community must watch their backs.
Christopher Marsh, Common Prayer in England
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgmentsix
List of Figures and Tablesxi

1.Introduction: Religious Communities in Restoration England1

Community and the Historians2
Im Not Dead!: Religious Community in Early Modern England6
The Parish of Halifax: In Short, It is a Monster 10
The Abridged Oliver Heywood 16
Heywoods Notebooks 27

PART ONE
ANGLICANS AND DISSENTERS IN RESTORATION HALIFAX

2.Oliver Heywood and Coley Chapelry 35

Heywoods Curacy 37
Ejection and Exile 45
Big Shoes to Fill: The Restoration Curates of Coley 49
Heywood as Preacher and Pastor 55

3.Persecution in Coley 68
Richard Hooke, Vicar and Bte Noir 69
Unofficial Persecution in Coley 78
Persecution and Accommodation 83
The Tory Reaction 89

4.Litigating Community in Revolutionary Halifax 97

Dramatis Personae100
Supporting Players105
Women, Servants, and Poor People, Oh My!108
The Battle to Define the Parish114
viii contents

PART TWO
CREATING A DISSENTING SOCIETY

5.The Laity in Heywoods Society123

The Journey into Dissent123
What Does a Dissenter Do?131
Heywoods Society in Conflict141

6.Worlds Within Worlds: A Closer Look at Heywoods Society148

Young Mens Meetings149
The Core of Heywoods Society156
The Geography of Heywoods Society162

7.Old Age and Evangelism168

A Preacher Looks at Sixty (and Sixty-Five, and Seventy)170
Old Age and Community174
New Pastoral Strategies178
Planting a Godly Seed186
Coda191

Bibliography195
Index209
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While writing a book such as this can feel like a solitary exercise (and
sometimes it is), Creating Communities would not exist without the help
of many people. I am grateful to the following individuals who read all or
part of this work in its various stages of evolution: Hal Parker, Andy Dunar,
Paul Seaver, Andrew Cambers, Lynn Botelho, Bill Shiels, and of course my
advisor, Derek Hirst. This project would also have been impossible with-
out the help of Linda Vaughan and the rest of the staff in Inter-Library
Loan at University of Alabama-Huntsville. I also received generous finan-
cial support for archival research in York and London from the University
of Alabama-Huntsville and The British Academy. I would also like to thank
the archivists both past and present at the Borthwick Center for the
Archives, especially Chris Webb, Pippa Hoskin, Danna Messer, Emma
Dobson, Alexandra Mould, Victoria Hoyle, and Esther Ormerod. I am
especially in debt to Bill Shiels, who helped me navigate the ins and outs
of Halifaxs archives and has been a great friend for over ten years now.
I would also thank Kathleen Kennedy for forcing me off a very dull and
long-forgotten title, which forced me to rethink my entire approach to the
book. I would also like to thank Cornell University Press for their kind
permission to reproduce the map of Halifax on page twelve.
But most of all, Id like to express my love and gratitude to my wife for
putting up with the ridiculous demands that marriage to a historian (not
to mention the historian himself) can make.
 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure

1. The Parish of Halifax with its Constituent Townships  12

Tables

1. Occupations of Corlass Supporters from Wills 113

2. Oliver Heywoods Ministry176
 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION: RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES

IN RESTORATION ENGLAND

The goal of this book is to examine the ways in which the men and women
of later Stuart England created and shaped their religious communities.
While the study of early modern communities is no new thing, it remains
fertile ground for historians, for there is no consensus as to how communi-
ties worked, or even what the word community meant; indeed, more
than a few historians have suggested summarily banishing the word from
the historical lexicon.1 As the title of the book indicates, and for reasons
I discuss below, I am not inclined to abandon the term. While defining
community is a difficult task, one could argue that this is a reason to
continue our analysis rather than abandon it.2 What is more, the people of
Restoration England battled over the meaning of religious community
with as much passion as todays historians, begging the question, Why
should we establish a tidy definition of community when the people of
early modern England could not? It is thus the premise of this book that
the elasticity of community presents historians with the opportunity to
examine a concept that is every bit as complicated as life itself. In my anal-
ysis, communities are not imagined or the product of formal religious ritu-
als, but religious associations deliberately created, carefully maintained,
and vigorously contested by their members.3
This study approaches community not through institutional records
produced at the parish level (though these sources are not ignored), but
through the extensive diaries and notebooks of a single individual, a
Presbyterian minister living in the West Riding of Yorkshire named Oliver

1Christine Carpenter, Gentry and community in medieval England, Journal of British

Studies 33 (1994), 34080.
2Community has thus found itself in a similar category as puritan, which Christopher
Hill famously described as an admirable refuge from clarity of thought. Christopher Hill,
Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (New York, 1967), p. 1.
3Benedict R.O.G. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism (London, 1991); John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 14001700 (Oxford,
1985). For an application of Durkheim to early modern England, see Daniel C. Beaver,
Parish Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester, 15901690 (Cambridge,
Mass., 1998).
2 chapter one

Heywood.4 Heywood lived and preached in the parish of Halifax from 1650
until his death in 1702. While the diaries could support a study focused
only on Heywood, a study that would be similar to classic works such as
Paul Seavers Wallingtons World or Alan Macfarlanes Family Life of Ralph
Josselin, I take a wider focus, analyzing not just Heywood, but the range of
communities in Halifax, with a particular interest in the role of the laity in
shaping local religious life. As we shall see in Part I, the place of religious
nonconformists in the parish community was extremely contentious.
Heywood, along with both dissenting and conforming laity, worked to
subvert denominational boundaries. Heywood continued his ministry
among his Anglican neighbors and described them as my congregation.
Laymen and women willingly crossed the denominational divide to hear
sermons by Anglicans and nonconformists alike, and insisted in court that
dissenters had a legal right to participate in parish life. In contrast, we see
Richard Hooke, the longtime vicar of Halifax, and his supporters working
to exclude dissenters from parish life, both through legal persecution and
unofficial harassment. In Part II, I take a more narrow view of religious
community, focusing on Heywoods dissenting society. Here, conflicts over
membership were less frequent (though by no means nonexistent), but
the laity continued to play an active role in shaping the community. We
see the factors that shaped an individuals decision to join Heywoods soci-
ety, and the varied routes that men and women took into membership. We
also find that the experience of Heywoods followers varied dramatically,
as some individuals placed the society at the centre of their lives, while
others existed on its periphery. Finally, I examine the effects that old age
and decrepitude had on an individuals religious experience, and the ways
that Heywood worked to overcome the limitations imposed by his own
failing health.

Community and the Historians

Since Ferdinand Tnnies described Europes transition from community

(gemeinschaft) to society (gesellschaft), community in pre-modern
Europe has been a subject of frequent and heated debate among

4Signature local studies include Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty and Piety in
an English Village: Terling 15251700 (Oxford, 1995); Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath:
Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (New Haven, 2001). The most notable use of
a diary to understand a wider community is Laurel Ulrich, A Midwifes Tale: The Life of
Martha Ballard, Based on her Diary, 17851812 (New York, 1990).
 introduction3

historians. These discussions have been particularly vigorous among early

modernists, eager to link the decline of the traditional community to the
rise of modern Europe.5 Whig and Marxist historians have often inter-
twined the supposed decline of pre-modern communities into their
broader teleologies, as the fate of early modern communal life balances
that of the middle class, with the former in constant decline, even as the
latter is ever rising; Christopher Hill has gone so far as to link the two phe-
nomena.6 Other historians have linked the decline of the local community
to various religious, political, and social transformations, including the
Reformation, the French Revolution, and industrialization.7 For many of
these historians, the disappearance of traditional communities is noth-
ing short of a disaster, particularly for the poor, as good-fellowship and
paternalisms warmth were overcome by the harsh realities of capitalism.
They have portrayed the pre-modern community as the home of all virtue
and morality, and lamented the decline of these so-called status com-
munities and their replacement by impersonal contract communities.8
The problem with these interpretations is that they take as their point
of departure a historical myth. In short, Tnniess geographically and
socially static world, a prelapsarian society based on face-to-face contacts,
never existed.9 This leaves historians with two problems. The first is how

5Ferdinand Tnnies, Community and Society, trans. Charles P. Loomis (East Lansing,
1964). For surveys of the literature of community both preceding and following Tnnies,
see Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 9001300 (Oxford,
1997), pp. xi-lxvi; Michael J. Halvorson and Karen E. Spierling, eds., Defining Community in
Early Modern Europe (Aldershot, 2008); Phil Withington and Alexandra Shepard,
Introduction, in Communities in Early Modern England: Networks, Place, Rhetoric, eds.
Alexandra Shepard and Phil Withington (Manchester, 2000), pp. 115; Richard M. Smith,
Modernization and the corporate medieval village community in England: Some scepti-
cal reflections, in Explorations in Historical Geography: Interpretative Essays, eds. Alan R.H.
Baker and Derek Gregory (Cambridge, Eng., 1984), pp. 14079.
6Hill, Society and Puritanism, p. 488; C.J. Calhoun, Community: Toward a variable con-
ceptualization for comparative research, Social History 5:1 (1980), 10529.
7Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 15001800 (London, 1977),
chap. 6; Christopher Hill, The Protestant nation, in The Collected Essays of Christopher
Hill, Vol. II: Religion and Politics in 17th Century England (Amherst, 1985); Jean-Pierre Gutton,
Confraternities, curs and communities in rural areas of the diocese of Lyons under the
ancin regime, in Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe, 15001800, ed. Kaspar von
Greyerz (London, 1984), pp. 20211; Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political
Thought, 2 vols (Cambridge, Eng., 1978); Bossy, Christianity in the West, pp. 15361. Alan
Macfarlane has argued for much earlier origins of individualism in Alan Macfarlane, The
Origins of English Individualism: The Family, Property, and Social Transition (New York,
1979); Colin Bell and Howard Newby, Community Studies: An Introduction to the Sociology of
the Local Community (New York, 1972), p. 21.
8Bell and Newby, Community Studies, pp. 2427; Hill, Society and Puritanism, p. 491.
9Smith, Modernization and the corporate medieval village community.
4 chapter one

changes in early modern communities, however we define them, fit into

our understanding of the transition from the early modern to the modern
world; life in England in 1800 was radically different than life in 1500. While
this question is certainly worth investigating, this is not one that will con-
cern us here. The second question is this: If Tnnies, Whigs, and Marxists
are wrong (and they are), if the local community cannot serve as a barom-
eter signaling the advent of the modern age, what good is it?
According to some historians, the answer is, None at all. Christine
Carpenter has argued that using the term not only indicates slack thought
but expresses an implicit hankering for some mythical past when there
were communities. Miri Rubin objected that in many cases, community
becomes a static notion [that] obscures difference and conflict, noting,
If community can describe at once the realm, the village, the town, the
neighbourhood, the fraternity, the parish, even the household, then surely
it is not much of a category at all.10 Obviously, I disagree with the proposi-
tion, but this is not to say that historians should use the term carelessly.
Indeed, Carpenters and Rubins targets were hardly straw men, for more
than a few historians have engaged in something of a bait-and-switch,
grabbing the readers attention with community in the title, and then
narrowing their examination in the subtitle. A few examples will suffice:
Beat Kmins The Shaping of a Community is about the English parish;
Joseph Wards Metropolitan Communities examines Londons guilds; and
David Shaws chosen title, The Creation of a Community: The City of Wells in
the Middle Ages, focuses on the citys burgesses families.11 In these cases,
community seems to be used more as a buzzword than anything else.
Susan Reynolds is at least honest about her misuse of the term, confessing
that her book Kingdoms and Communities should have been called by the
less elegant and alliterative title, Lay Collective Activity in Western Europe.12
What, then, can be said in defense of community as an analytical con-
cept? First, despite Rubins protests that community is too broad a term
to be of any value, the fact is that community (or communities) is ideal
if a scholars goal is to analyze more than one group. Residents of early

10Carpenter, Gentry and community, p. 340; Miri Rubin, Small groups: Identity and
solidarity in the late middle ages, in Enterprise and Individuals in Fifteenth-Century
England, ed. Jennifer Kermode (Stroud, 1991), p. 134.
11Beat A. Kumin, The Shaping of a Community: The Rise and Reformation of the English
Parish, C.14001560 (Brookfield, Vt., 1996); Joseph P. Ward, Metropolitan Communities: Trade
Guilds, Identity, and Change in Early Modern London (Stanford, 1997); David Gary Shaw, The
Creation of a Community: The City of Wells in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1993).
12Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, p. xi.
 introduction5

modern England saw themselves as members of a range of communities

simultaneously. These ranged from the international Protestant (or
Catholic) communion, the English nation, or a particular county, region,
parish, neighborhood, or prayer meeting. Some groups mattered more
than others, and a groups significance changed depending on a variety of
circumstances. Ralph Thoresby abandoned nonconformist worship when
the Catholic threat loomed large, and as we will see in chapter seven,
Heywoods physical decline forced him to focus his ministry on his nearest
neighbors.13 The flexibility of early modern religious identities requires a
similarly protean vocabulary, and community does the job. It also must
be pointed out that critics of the term community tend to pick their tar-
gets carefully. While some scholars have misused the term, many others
have not, and there is no need to throw out the rigorous baby with the
slack bathwater. Rubin undermines her argument against the use of the
term by following her criticism with a fascinating discussion of the very
subject. Nor is she alone, for a number of historians have answered the
critics of community without feeling the need to reject the term. Robert
Tittler notes that recent scholarship has treated communities not as asso-
ciations devoid of conflict, but as mechanisms for controlling conflict.14
Christopher Marsh agrees, noting that community was a mutually
agreed-upon myth intended to keep interpersonal conflicts from raging
out of control.15 Thus, while it is true that historians must use the term
community with some care, we need not avoid it altogether.
The first question we must address is how we will define religious com-
munity for the purposes of the present work. For this we shall draw on the
definition offered by Susan Reynolds:
The kind of community with which I am concernedis one which defines
itself by engaging in collective activities activities which are characteristi-
cally determined and controlled less by formal regulations than by
shared values and norms, while the relationships between members of the

13Ralph Thoresby, The Diary of Ralph Thoresby (16771724) Now First Published from the
Original Manuscript, 2 vols., ed. Joseph Hunter (London, 1830), pp. 18182.
14Robert Tittler, The Reformation and the Towns in England: Politics and Political Culture,
c. 15401640 (Oxford, 1998), p. 15.
15Christopher Marsh, Common prayer in England 15601640: The view from the pew,
Past and Present 171 (2001), 72; Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, pp. 23; Keith
Wrightson, The politics of the parish in early modern England, in The Experience of
Authority in Early Modern England, eds. Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox, and Steve Hindle
(Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 1046; Keith Wrightson, English Society, 15801680 (New Brunswick,
1982), p. 40. See also Shepard and Withington, Communities in Early Modern England.
6 chapter one

community are characteristically reciprocal, many- sided, and direct, rather

than being mediated through officials or rulers.16
Reynoldss definition of community is particularly apposite for a study
focused on Restoration Halifax for a number of reasons. First, at several
points we will examine cases in which individuals created communities
that challenged formal religious boundaries. In chapters two and four, we
will see Heywood and other residents of Halifax as they fashion religious
communities that crossed the conformist divide, while chapter six
explores the groups that Heywoods followers established without his sup-
port, or even his knowledge. Second, because no resident of the parish was
wealthy or powerful enough to place his stamp on the parish, religious life
in Halifax was controlled by clothiers, yeomen, and tradesmen. The lack of
a gentlemans guiding hand meant that the middling sort shaped the reli-
gious terrain, and the result was not consensus but conflict. Chapters two
and three demonstrate the countervailing forces at work, as some resi-
dents attempted to exclude Heywood and his followers from parish affairs,
while others accepted him despite his religious nonconformity. Reynolds
also underscores the layered and voluntary nature of pre-modern com-
munities, noting that, People [were] capable of acting collectively in all
sorts of different and overlapping groups at once, largely relying in all of
them on affective, voluntary co-operation.17 Once again, this fits Halifaxs
communities, for Heywoods dissenting followers saw no contradiction in
taking communion from Heywood and voting in an election to select a
Church of England minister; and his Anglican followers happily trooped
from the Church of England service to one of his sermons. By adopting a
definition of community that encompasses a broad range of collective
activities rather than focusing solely on religious ritual, and that fully
embraces the layered nature of individual religious identity, we gain a
more complete understanding of religious life and association in late 17th-
century England.

Im Not Dead!: Religious Community in Early Modern England

For many years, historians have battled over the effects of the Long
Reformation at the parish level.18 Two central and intimately related

16Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, p. 2.

17Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, p. 3.
18Nicholas Tyacke, ed., Englands Long Reformation, 15001800 (London, 1998).
 introduction7

questions in these debates concern the nature of religious communities,

and the place of religious minorities within them. In most cases, a schol-
ars understanding of the place of religious minorities in the local com-
munity is shaped by his or her perspective of what makes religious
community work. For Revisionists, who usually see the Reformation as
destructive to the local community, religious ritual is central to maintain-
ing the social fabric, and those who withdraw from the ritual community
often become the targets of popular antipathy. Other historians have
placed less emphasis on the role of religious ritual, arguing that the bonds
of neighborliness survived despite ritual separation, and that noncon-
formists were accepted members of the local community. As is so often
the case, the truth lies somewhere in between.
The most influential advocate of the Revisionist position has been John
Bossy, who, drawing on the work of Emile Durkheim, argued that the ritu-
als of Christianity held medieval society together, binding the living to the
dead, binding neighbors to one another, and re-creating the social hierar-
chy.19 Central to ritual life was the social miracle of the Eucharist, par-
ticularly in combination with the public sacrament of confession. Together,
these rites united (or reunited) the parish, as residents forgave the past
years trespasses and joined with their neighbors in communion.20 From
this perspective, the European Reformation was a disaster for the local
community, as it dissolved the ties that bound neighbors to one another.
Historians drawing on Bossys approach, such as Christopher Haigh and
Eamon Duffy, have made a similar case for the English Reformation, argu-
ing that attacks on the Mass, the fabric of the church, and on popular cul-
ture destroyed the parish community.21 This interpretation of the
Reformation shapes the Revisionist understanding of religious persecu-
tion in early modern England. Because they view religious ritual as central

19John Bossy, Blood and baptism: Kinship, community and Christianity in western
Europe form the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, Studies in Church History 10
(1973), 12944; John Bossy, Some elementary forms of Durkheim, Past & Present 95 (1982),
318; John Bossy, The mass as a social institution, 12001700, Past & Present 100 (1983),
2961; Bossy, Christianity in the West.
20Mervyn James, Ritual, drama and social body in the late medieval English town,
Past & Present 98 (1983), 329.
21Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, C.1400-C.1580
(New Haven, 1992); Duffy, Voices of Morebath; Christopher Haigh, English Reformations:
Religion, Politics, and Society Under the Tudors (Oxford, 1993); Ronald Hutton, The Rise and
Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 14001700 (Oxford, 1994); J.J. Scarisbrick, The
Reformation and the English People (Oxford, 1984); Lawrence Stone, Interpersonal violence
in English society 13001980, Past & Present 101 (1983), 2233.
8 chapter one

to maintaining the social fabric, they conclude that at the parish level
there was a general hostility towards those who withdrew from the ritual
community. In the Revisionists England, the persecution of nonconform-
ists and execution of heretics were enormously popular.22
While Revisionists have largely limited their investigations to the 16th
century, their approach has obviously influenced Daniel Beavers Parish
Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester, 15901690,
which picks up where the Revisionists generally leave off. Like the
Revisionists, Beaver sees ritual as a key component in the maintenance of
community, and while the Reformation certainly damaged the local com-
munity, the coup de grce came with the rise of religious nonconformity
after 1660.23 Beaver claims that the withdrawal of nonconformists from
the ritual community shattered parish unity, and that it was not until the
imposition of a secular oath of loyalty under William and Mary that these
divisions could be overcome.24
Standing in contrast to this pessimistic view of the effects of religious
dissent on the local community is the position advanced by a group of
historians working under the direction of Margaret Spufford.25 These
scholars argue that the local community survived the religious divisions of
the early modern period, as religious nonconformists, from the Lollards to
the Quakers, were accepted by their churchgoing neighbors and remained
integral to the local community. These historians have uncovered evi-
dence that Lollards, members of the Family of Love, and Quakers were not
simply integrated socially, but continued to play a role in the religious life
of their parishes, serving in various parish offices, including that of church-
warden.26 From this perspective, the ritual ties so vital in Bossys and

22Bossy, Christianity in the West, p. 80; Haigh, English Reformations, pp. 5155. See also
A.G. Dickens, The English Reformation (University Park, 1991); Susan Brigden, Religion and
social obligation in early sixteenth-century London, Past & Present 103 (1984), 67112.
23Beaver, Parish Communities and Religious Conflict.
24Here, Beaver (much too) neatly links the narratives of the decline of the local com-
munity and the rise of the modern state. Contrast this position with J.C.D. Clarks argument
that England remained an ancien regime into the 19th century. J.C.D. Clark, English Society,
16601832: Religion, Ideology, and Politics During the Ancien Regime (Cambridge, Eng., 2000).
25Margaret Spufford, ed., The World of Rural Dissenters, 15201725 (Cambridge, Eng.,
1995).
26Andrew Hope, Lollardy: The stone the builders rejected?, in Protestantism and the
National Church in Sixteenth Century England, eds. Peter Lake and Maria Dowling (London,
1987), pp. 135; Andrew Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England: The Diocese of
Salisbury, 12501550 (Oxford, 1995); Christopher Marsh, A gracelesse and audacious com-
panie: The Family of Love in the parish of Balsham, 15501630, Studies in Church History 23
(1986), 191208.
 introduction9

Beavers account were of secondary importance, as the traditional values

of neighborliness sustained the community even in the absence of ritual
bonds.27
Despite the gulf that exists between these visions of the place of reli-
gious dissenters in English society, a middle ground does seem possible,
and Christopher Marsh was among the first to stake out this territory. To
some extent, Marsh agrees with Spufford, arguing that there existed a
capacity to countenance the presence within society of those who devi-
ated from orthodoxy. The early modern mind, he claims, was flexible
enough to accommodate the inconsistencies within local society pre-
sented by ritual separation from the church.28 However, he goes on to
argue that toleration of dissenters was hardly universal and had its limits.
Some people found Familists to be beyond the pale, and hounded them
mercilessly. And at times of political uncertainty, the Familys erstwhile
sympathizers could become reluctant, or even enthusiastic, persecutors.29
More recent work by Alexandra Walsham finds similar trends throughout
the early modern period. In Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance
in England, 15001700, Walsham argues that the impulses to persecute and
to tolerate were in tension with each other throughout the early modern
period, and brilliantly lays out the factors that made both toleration and
persecution possible.30 This book offers, in part, a case study of the trends
discovered by Walsham. In it we see the parish periodically dividing
into factions, one supporting the persecution of nonconformists, and
anotherfavoring toleration. One clear trend is that national and local poli-
tics were intimately related. These battles for Halifaxs soul came at
moments of high political and religious drama, such as the Tory reaction
and the Glorious Revolution, as residents of Halifax faced the question of
what role religion and religious nonconformists would play in the local
community.

27Keith Wrightson, The decline of neighbourliness revisited, in Local Identities in

Late Medieval and Early Modern England, eds. Norman L. Jones and Daniel R. Woolf
(Basingstoke, 2007), pp. 1949.
28Christopher W. Marsh, The Family of Love in English Society, 15501630 (Cambridge,
Eng., 1994), pp. 14, 69.
29Marsh, Family of Love, pp. 11015; Anthony P. Cohen, The Symbolic Construction of
Community (New York, 1985).
30Alexandra Walsham, Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England, 1500
1700 (Manchester, 2006).
10 chapter one

The Parish of Halifax: In Short, it is a Monster

During his tour through Great Britain in the early 18th century, Daniel
Defoe was particularly struck by the parish of Halifax: Halifax, with all its
dependencies, is not to be equalled in England. [It] is, if not the largest,
certainly the most populous in England; in short, it is a monster. Defoe
goes on to claim that, a reverend clergyman of the town of Halifax, told
me, they reckoned that they had a hundred thousand communicants in
the parish, besides children. While this estimate is spectacularly high,
Defoes hyperbole illuminates an important point: Due to its sheer size
and population, to describe Halifax as a single parish is a bit misleading
(Figure 1). Defoe also noted the byzantine religious structures that devel-
oped within the parish to meet the needs of its enormous population:
There are in it twelve or thirteen chapels of ease, besides about sixteen
[nonconformist] meeting-houses, which they also call chapels, and are so,
having bells to call the people, and burying grounds to most of them, or
else they bury within them.31 Where Defoe focused on Halifaxs size, John
Taylor noted its difficult terrain:
I hired a guide and rode to Halifax, sixteen miles, the ways were so rocky,
stony, boggy and mountainous, that it was a days journey to ride so short a
wayThe sixth day I left Halifax I rode over such ways as are past compari-
son for when I went down the lofty mountain called Blackstone Edge,
I thought myself with my boy and horses had been in the land of Breakneck,
it was so steep and tedious.32
Religious communities in Halifax thus developed within a convoluted
administrative structure, and landscape that made even short journeys
difficult in the best of times, and dangerous if the weather did not cooper-
ate. Added to these factors, Halifaxs religious life was shaped by the weak-
ness of the parish gentry, which meant that leadership on religious issues
came from clothiers and yeomen of the middling sort. Taken together,
Halifaxs size, administrative fragmentation, and its freedom from gentry
influence profoundly shaped its religious communities and made
Heywoods ministry possible.

31Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 2 vols. (London, 1962),
2:19798. For chapels at ease, see Nick Alldridge, Loyalty and identity in Chester parishes
15401640, in Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion, 13501750, ed. Susan J.
Wright (London, 1988), pp. 85124; Christopher Kitching, Church and chapelry in
sixteenth-century England, Studies in Church History 16 (1979), 27990.
32John Taylor, Part of this Summers Travels, or News from Hell, Hull, and Hallifax
(London, 1639), pp. 2628.
 introduction11

In terms of size and population, Halifax was enormous. Stretching sev-

enteen miles from east to west, and eleven from north to south, Halifax
dwarfed most other parishes in Yorkshires West Riding (see Map). And
while the North Riding included larger parishes, none was as populous:
between 1548 and 1665, Halifaxs population increased from 8,500 to
18,665.33 As in other northern parishes, Halifaxs size resulted in an unusual
parochial structure.34 As Defoe hints, the parish included three adminis-
trative divisions: the Parochial District, which included the town of
Halifax; Elland Chapelry; and Heptonstall Chapelry. The ministers who
served the chapel churches at Elland and Heptonstall were theoretically
subject to the vicar of Halifax, but were often referred to as vicar. The
incumbents of these chapels had the right to baptize, marry, and bury
their parishioners, and as early as 1530 residents of Elland and Heptonstall
contested their obligation to pay tithes to the parish church at Halifax.35 In
addition to the chapel churches at Elland and Heptonstall, the parish
included ten chapelries, each of which had a chapel for worship, and
elected officials, including overseers of the poor and churchwardens.
Heywoods chapelry of Coley lay in Halifaxs northeast corner and included
the townships of Northowram, Shelf, and Hipperholm. Services in the
chapelries closest to Halifax township were led by the parish lecturer, a
Church of England minister elected by parish residents; as chapter three
shows, however, there was some disagreement within the parish over
which residents had the right to vote. More distant chapelries sometimes
hired their own minister, though such positions were not always easy to
fill. With three beneficed clergymen, a parish lecturer, six or more con-
formist clergy in the chapelries, and (after 1662) a handful of nonconform-
ist clergy, it would be an understatement to describe religious authority in
Halifax as fragmented.36

33The parish of Leeds, lying 10 miles to the east, came in a distant second in size of
population. M.E. Francois, The social and economic development of Halifax, Proceedings
of the Leeds Philosophical & Literary Society 11:8 (1966), p. 225.
34This discussion is drawn from Francois, Social and economic development of
Halifax, pp. 21718.
35Christopher Kitching has noted the role of chapelries in undermining loyalty to the
parish church. Kitching, Church and chapelry.
36The number of nonconformists in Halifax fluctuated. Heywood and two others
(Joseph Dawson and Eli Bentley) applied for licenses to preach under the Declaration of
Indulgence, and the parish was also home to Independent minister Henry Root. Other
nonconformists who were in Halifax, for some time at least, include Benjamin Denton,
Jonathan Wright, Nathaniel Priestley, Isaac Bates, Jonas Blamires, and Jeremiah Bairstow,
as well as Heywoods two sons, John and Eli. Heywood, Diaries, iv:322.
12 chapter one

Bradford
Wadsworth

Heptonstall

Warley
Heptonstall Ovenden
Hebden lllingworth Shelf
Stansfield Bridge Northowram
Midgley
Luddenden
Coley
r

Northowram
de

Midgley
Cal

r Hipperholm
R i ve
Sowerby
Halifax Hipperholme
Erringden Bridge
Langfield Sowerby Southowram
Sowerby Skircoat
Southowram Brighouse
Norland
Elland
Soyland Elland cum Greetland Rastrick

Soyland
Ripponden
Barkisland Fixby
Stainland
N

Rishworth Huddersfield

0 5 10 15 Km

0 5 10 M

Thirsk

Yorkshire
York

Bradford Leeds
Burnley Hull
Halfax Wakefield
Rochdale
Huddersfield Pontefract
Bolton
Lancashire
Manchester Sheffield Lincoln
Liverpool

Figure 1.The Parish of Halifax With Its Constituent Townships.

(Reproduced from John Smail, Origins of Middle-Class Culture: Halifax,
Yorkshire, 16601780, (Ithaca, 1995), p. 21.)

Another salient feature of Halifax was the independence of the mid-

dling and lower classes from gentry influence.37 While prominent gentry
families owned land in the parish, for many years none were resident.

37Brian Short, The evolution of contrasting communities within rural England, in The
English Rural Community: Image and Analysis, ed. Brian Short (Cambridge, Eng., 1992),
 introduction13

In addition, local landholding customs favored tenants over their land-

lords, and much land was held in freehold, giving residents of Halifax
more freedom from gentry influence than those in other parishes. The
strength of the clothing industry also played an important role in the
social structure of the parish, for it increased the ability of the middling
and lower orders to resist gentry interference.38 Perhaps the most elo-
quent testimony to the weakness of Halifaxs gentry is the judgement of
one parish historian that they simply were not worthy of examination.39
The absence of gentry influence allowed the middling sort to take the lead
in parish affairs, and as we shall see in chapter four, when a wealthy gentle-
man named Simon Sterne bought land in Halifax and tried to seize control
of the parish church, he met with vigorous resistance from parish clothiers
and yeomen. The willingness of Halifaxs residents to resist gentry influ-
ence stemmed in part from the cohesion wrought by the clothing industry.
Due to small landholdings and the poor quality of the soil, farmers and
husbandmen often supplemented their income by making the kersey
cloths for which Halifax was known. Indeed, by one estimate, half of all
households in the parish were involved in clothmaking.40 Wills from the
parish indicate the fine line between yeoman and clothier, for ten per cent
of wills left by men claiming yeoman status included looms or other cloth-
making equipment. Nor were the boundaries within the middling sort
crucial to residents; while they recognized social difference, more often
they defined themselves in opposition to the gentry.41 Thus, while the resi-
dents of Halifax were not without deference to their superiors, they
wereready to resist if they felt that their rights were threatened. Under
ElizabethI, Halifax opposed payment of ship money when York and Hull
attempted to extend the assessment to other cities within Yorkshire, and
the parish vigorously resisted royal efforts to increase the duty on kersey

pp. 2021; Francois, Social and economic development of Halifax, p. 227; Reynolds,
Kingdoms and Communities, p. 140.
38Joan Thirsk has also noted the profound change that the arrival of a gentleman could
have on the local power structure of a previously gentry-free community such as Halifax.
Joan Thirsk, English rural communities: Structures, regularities and change in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, in The English Rural Community, pp. 4461.
39John Smail, Origins of Middle-Class Culture: Halifax, Yorkshire, 16601780 (Ithaca,
1995), p. 20. Contrast with the importance accorded to the squirearchy in Donald A. Spaeth,
The Church in an Age of Danger: Parsons and Parishioners, 16601740 (Cambridge, Eng.,
2000), p. 227.
40Francois, Social and economic development of Halifax, p. 252; Herbert Heaton, The
Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, from the Earliest Times up to the Industrial
Revolution (Oxford, 1965), pp. 9193.
41Smail, Origins of Middle-Class Culture, pp. 2829.
14 chapter one

cloths in 1613 and 1638.42 In addition to the unusual autonomy of the mid-
dling sort, poorer parishioners exhibited a certain amount of indepen-
dence. Thanks to the income offered by the clothing industry, all but the
poorest of households were economically self-sufficient, and in some par-
ish townships, including Halifax itself, individuals with just one hearth
served in parish office.43
The independence of the middling sort and the willingness of many
parishioners to claim a role in parish affairs led in turn to a tradition of
religious voluntarism that endured throughout the early modern period.
Whatever Halifax may have lacked in terms of administrative order, it
made up for in enthusiasm. From the late 15th century, residents of outly-
ing areas of the parish offered their financial support to their chapels and
the parish church, and under Elizabeth I and James I they voluntarily pro-
vided for a preaching ministry.44 In 1613, the parish argued against an
increase in the tax on cloth, claiming that, out of zeal to Gods holy reli-
gion, [the parishioners of Halifax] do freely and voluntarily, at their own
charges, maintain and give wages to ten preachers, over and above the
payment of all tithes and oblations.45 Even allowing for the hyperbole
inherent in such protests, this is a remarkable level of voluntary support,
and this voluntarism continued into the Restoration. Archbishop John
Sharpes 1691 survey of the diocese noted that in every Halifax chapelry,
A great part of the maintenance is by voluntary contribution. Some
examples he notes include Illingworth, where The whole endowment of
the Chapell is but 11li. 10s. 0d. but the Inhabitants make it 35, and Coley,
which included a house and about 10li. per an. The Inhabitants contrib-
ute about 20li. more.46 Add to this the parishs voluntary support for
Heywood and other nonconformist clergy, and it becomes clear that while
Halifaxs residents might disagree on the merits of conformity, they were
never apathetic.
While much of this voluntary support went to the Established Church,
according to W.J. Sheils, withinHalifax, a tradition of congregational
independence had developed early and created a reputation for religious

42Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, pp. 8183; Smail, Origins of Middle-
Class Culture, p. 30.
43Smail, Origins of Middle-Class Culture, pp. 32, 37.
44William J. Sheils and Sarah Sheils, Textiles and reform: Halifax and its hinterland, in
The Reformation in English Towns, 15001640, eds. Patrick Collinson and John Craig
(Basingstoke, 1998), p. 134; W.J. Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation, Studies in
Church History 23 (1986), 265.
45Quoted in Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, p. 183.
46The survey was conducted around 1700. BIHR, Bp. Dio. 3, 18491.
 introduction15

radicalism known to Archbishop Grindal in the 1570s.47 Halifaxs resi-

dents demonstrated their willingness to pay for their ministry, and with
this came a precocious taste for godly religion.48 Halifax was effectively
Protestant by 1576, if not sooner, and the new religion was promoted by
lectures by combination. Godly ministers from Yorkshire and Lancashire
founded these sermons, and according to Patrick Collinson they were
puritan but not schismatic, an elastic, voluntary institution, moving from
chapelry to chapelry, sometimes devoted to a coherent course of exposi-
tory sermons, sometimes not.49 According to local lore, Halifaxs residents
justified a petition to Queen Elizabeth I on the grounds that the parishio-
ners, were zealous Protestants, and were so loyal to her majesty, as well as
so considerable, that no less than twelve thousand young men went out
armd from this one parish, andjoined her troops to fight the Popish
army, then in rebellion under the Earl of Westmorland.50 While pedants
might point out that in 1569 Halifaxs entire population did not equal
twelve thousand, the point here is that residents of Halifax saw themselves
as part of the church militant (literally in this case), and such legends were
part of the parishs religious identity.
The single most important figure for the development of puritanism in
Halifax was John Favour, who served as vicar from 1594 until his death in
1624. Favour led the expansion of the preaching exercises to the West
Riding of Yorkshire and to Lancashire. Heywood described him as a great
friend to Nonconformists, [who] maintained two famous men as lecturers
at Halifax, whom he shrouded under his authority and interest with the
bishop.51 While voluntary support had long been vital to the parish, under
Favour there was an upsurge in lay contributions, as five chapels were
built, rebuilt, or enlarged between 160032, a convincing sign of strong
religious community.52 Even after Favours death, the puritan influence
withinthe parish remained strong: parish chapelries and popular support

47Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation, p. 265.

48A.G. Dickens was characteristically eager to link Yorkshire Lollardy to Protestantism,
but more recent work on Halifax could find only a smattering of pre-Reformation religious
radicalism. A.G. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York: 15091558 (London,
1982); Sheils and Sheils, Textiles and reform.
49Patrick Collinson, Godly People: Essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism
(London, 1983), pp. 48687.
50Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, p. 198.
51J.A. Newton, Puritanism in the Diocese of York (Ph.D., 1955), p. 37; Francois, Social
and economic development of Halifax, pp. 27178. The bishop in question was Toby
Matthew, whose sympathy for puritanism is well documented. Heywood, Diaries, iv:16.
52Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, p. 132; Sheils and Sheils, Textiles and reform, p. 142.
16 chapter one

provided a safe haven for ministers at odds with the Laudian church.53
Given these historical links to puritanism, it comes as no surprise that dur-
ing the civil wars, Halifax was staunchly Parliamentarian.54 The contribu-
tions of the parish were vital to Fairfaxs army, and according to Clarendon,
Leeds, Halifax and Bradford, three very populous and rich towns (which
depending wholly upon clothiers, too much maligned the gentry) were
wholly at the disposition of the parliament.55 As we shall see, following
the Restoration, this inclination towards puritanism found expression in
the significant popular support enjoyed by Heywood and other noncon-
formists; by the time Heywood died in 1702, seven Presbyterian meetings
had been established within the parish.56

The Abridged Oliver Heywood

When a historian chooses to study the past through the lens of a single
individual, readers will (rightly) ask whether the individual in question is
typical of his or her time. Few Friulians read as widely as Menoccio and
found themselves before the Roman Inquisition, and Arnaud du Tilh was
perhaps the only Frenchman tried and executed for assuming another
mans identity, his inheritance, and his wife.57 In most cases, the answer to
the question of typicality is, In some ways, yes, and in some ways, no. So
it is with Heywood. It is clear from the previous section that Halifax was
very different from the small, agrarian parishes of central and southern
England.58 And while not as famous as men such as Richard Baxter or John
Owen, Heywood published more books than most nonconformist clergy,
and was among the most important Presbyterian ministers in northern
England. That said, Heywood had much in common with his less famous
brethren, particularly in his pastoral care and his efforts to create and sus-
tain a separating society in the midst of persecution. As W.J. Sheils notes,
Heywood was considered by contemporaries and has subsequently been

53Newton, Puritanism in the Diocese of York, chap. 3.

54Brian Manning, The English People and the English Revolution, 16401649 (London,
1991), pp. 298303.
55Quoted in Smail, Origins of Middle-Class Culture, p. 31.
56Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters (Oxford, 1978), p. 280.
57Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller
(New York, 1982); Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, Mass.,
1983).
58For the cultural differences between the chalk and cheese, see David Underdown,
Revel, Riot, and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England, 16031660 (Oxford, 1985).
 introduction17

thought of by historians as an exemplary study of the pastoral tradition

within old Dissent.59 In fact, what most distinguishes Heywood from his
peers is a historical accident. Many godly clergymen kept diaries, but
Heywoods notebooks have survived in greater number than those kept by
his peers.60 Thus, while it would be a mistake to describe Heywood as typi-
cal (which minister is?), his experience of persecution and toleration is
utterly ordinary, and the religious lives of his neighbors have much in com-
mon with those lived in other upland parishes. Moreover, as we will see
throughout this book, useful parallels can be drawn between Heywood
and ministers throughout England, ranging from Henry Newcome of
Manchester, to Isaac Archer.
Oliver Heywood was born to Richard and Alice Heywood of Bolton,
Lancashire, in March 1630.61 Richard was a merchant of uneven fortunes
whose financial mishaps loom large in Heywoods early autobiographical
writings. While Richards failures embarrassed Heywood (and inspired
inapt comparisons to his own suffering under government persecution),
he writes lovingly of his mother, and makes clear that she was the driving
force behind his religious upbringing. Alice Heywood came from a reli-
gious family, the Critchlaws, and counted herself among the hotter sort of
Protestants. According to Heywood, she was zealously anti-Episcopal and
actively sought out godly ministers to preach in chapels around Bolton.
She invited puritan ministers into the Heywood home for fasts and prayers,
and took young Oliver to hear puritan preachers, including John Angier,
whose daughter Oliver would marry in 1655. Oliver thus grew up in a godly
household, and also in a godly town, for during the civil wars royalists
described Bolton as the Geneva of Lancashire, and the Earl of Darby

59Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation, p. 261.

60Tom Webster, Writing to redundancy: Approaches to spiritual journals and early
modern spirituality, Historical Journal 39 (1996), 3840; Andrew Cambers, Reading, the
godly, and self-writing in England, circa 15801720, Journal of British Studies 46 (2007),
pp. 796825.
61While largely neglected by historians, Heywood has been the subject of a number of
antiquarian biographies. These include: Joseph Hunter, The Rise of the Old Dissent,
Exemplified in the Life of Oliver Heywood (London, 1842); John Fawcett, The Life of Oliver
Heywood (Halifax, 1809). Modern studies include: Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congre-
gation; Harold Love, Preacher and publisher: Oliver Heywood and Thomas Parkhurst,
Studies in Bibliography 31 (1978), pp. 22735; John Smail, Local politics in Restoration
England: Religion, culture and politics in Oliver Heywoods Halifax, in Protestant Identities:
Religion, Society, and Self-fashioning in Post-Reformation England, eds. Muriel C. McClendon,
Joseph P. Ward, and Michael MacDonald (Stanford, 1999), pp. 23448. The most readable
account is Wallace Notestein, Four Worthies: John Chamberlain, Anne Clifford, John Taylor,
Oliver Heywood (New Haven, 1957).
18 chapter one

sacked it in 1644. In 1647, Heywood matriculated at Trinity College,

Cambridge, where he came under the influence of the puritan divine,
Samuel Hammond. It was also here that he became friends with other
future nonconformists, including Eli Bentley and Thomas Jollie. The fol-
lowing year, Heywood was joined by his academically precocious younger
brother, Nathaniel, and in 1650 he completed his B.A. and returned to
Lancashire.
Given the godly hue of his upbringing and education, it is no surprise
that the two main pillars of Heywoods world view were Calvinism and
providentialism. From his earliest notebooks, Heywood makes clear his
belief in humanitys inherent depravity, and his own status as a vile crea-
ture deserving of eternal damnation.62 That said, by the time Heywood
began to write in his notebooks he had become convinced that he was
among the elect, that my soul is built upon the rock of ages, that I am
within the bond of the covenant. While such a statement leads logically to
his claim that I would always be in the company of them that fear god
and a day in such company is better then a thousand in the tents of wick-
edness, he was never so strict in practice.63 As chapter two demonstrates,
Heywood constantly ventured into the tents of wickedness in hope of
wooing them into more godly company. Heywood demonstrates his belief
in divine providence most clearly in the long lists he keeps of Gods harsh
judgements on sinners.64 And while God intervened most dramatically in
(ending) the lives of sinners, Heywood also saw His hand in his own life,
correcting him when he sinned. As he was riding from Halifax to Coley,
Heywood narrowly escaped serious injury when his horse fell and landed
on top of him. Heywood later noted:
I reflected upon what I was thinking of when I fell, and I had been thinking
of the great companys that came from Halifax to Coley the day before, and
pleasing myself with imagining what a great assembly I should have if god
graunt libertyand methought that was a seasonable correction to my
prideblessed be god for his gracious confutation of my pride, and withall
the preservation of my body.65

62Heywood, Diaries, i:135.

63Heywood, Diaries, i:134, 141. Patrick Collinson, The cohabitation of the faithful with
the unfaithful, in From Persecution to Toleration: The Glorious Revolution and Religion in
England, eds. Ole P. Grell, Jonathan Israel, and Nicholas Tyacke (Oxford, 1991), pp. 5176.
64Heywood, Diaries, i:34462; iii:76213. See Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early
Modern England (Oxford, 1999).
65Heywood, Diaries, iii:10607.
 introduction19

While he continued his ministry in good health, Heywood saw Gods hand
in dramatic events such as this, but old age and physical decline changed
his perspective. In chapter seven, we see that as Heywood aged, he came
to see his very existence as an ongoing example of divine providence; he
was alive because God wanted him to be alive. While such a conclusion
could have led Heywood into the sin of pride, it was in fact a desperately
disturbing realization. Heywood believed that God kept him alive so that
he could continue doing His work, but as Heywoods health deteriorated
his evangelical work became increasingly difficult to sustain.
Upon his arrival in Lancashire in 1650, Heywoods plan was to live a
while with some godly auncient minister in the country, and make
approaches to that weighty calling by degrees.66 In the end, however, fate
intervened in the person of Heywoods uncle, Francis Critchlaw, who
informed Heywood that the curacy of Coley in Halifax was vacant.
Heywood traveled there as one of two candidates for the position. The first
was one Mr. Hargreaves, who preacht too days here and was by the gener-
ality wl approved of, and almost closed with. Luckily for Heywood, godly
friends of mine expecting my coming to performeheld off, and durst not
appear for [Hargreaves]. Heywood came to Coley and was impressed by
the size and attentiveness of the congregation, but saw them, as scattered
sheep having no shepherd, and my hart compassionated themI had free
liberty for preaching, the multitude that flockt up to shew their free con-
sent and cal of me.67 Heywood was chosen for the position, with a salary
of 30 per year: 10 from the attached land, and 20 from residents volun-
tary contributions.
Heywoods dependence on the multitude highlights the power wielded
by Halifaxs middling sort, and stands in contrast to the experience of cler-
gymen who relied on gentry patronage for their positions. While Adam
Martindale also had to audition for his position in Rostherne, Cheshire,
the living became his not upon gaining the parishioners support, but only
after parish residents, went to the Patron, the Baron of Kinderton, in my
behalf. Notwithstanding this support, Martindale soon found himself
caught up in a conflict among the parish gentry as some gentlemen of
the parish thinking themselves undervalued, and not liking a man of my

66Heywood, Diaries, i:162. Had he chosen this route, his career path would have resem-
bled that of godly clergy from the previous generation, many of whom served what
amounted to an apprenticeship in the household of a senior minister. Tom Webster, Godly
Clergy in Early Stuart England: The Caroline Puritan Movement, 16201643 (Cambridge, Eng.,
1997), chap. 1.
67Heywood, Diaries, i:163.
20 chapter one

kidney, attempted my removall. Martindales enemies first appealed to

the baron, then attempted to install two other ministers, and finally
appl[ied] themselves to Sir George Booth, tell[ing] him hideous tales
about my unfitnesse.68 Another godly clergyman, Isaac Archer, faced dif-
ferent challenges when considerable persons within his parish invited
him to play cards during the Christmas holiday season. After playing on
one occasion (innocently enough, and without those oaths, and passions
some would have discovered), Archers conscience got the better of him,
and he declined later invitations. This about-face did anger of some great
ones, who, as strangers, were there; they urged, and intreated till I was
ashamed, and yet would not yield.69 Unlike Martindale and Archer, whose
livings depended on keeping on the good side of a few gentlemen,
Heywood had a larger constituency to please. It would be naive to say that
the poor residents of Coley had the same voice as their wealthier neigh-
bors; it is nevertheless true that because no one individual held the right
to appoint the curate and the salary came from voluntary contributions,
Heywood had to establish and maintain a much broader base of support
than did most clergy. As chapter two demonstrates, Heywood did this by
catering his ministry not to a godly minority of Coleys residents, but to the
broad middle who fell somewhere between the truly reprobate and the
self-declared saints.
In 1655, Heywood married Elizabeth Angier, the daughter of John
Angier, a leading Lancashire Presbyterian. Despite being little in stature
and weak in strength, Elizabeth gave birth to one son, John, in 1656, and
exactly a year later she bore another, Eli. Both boys followed Heywood into
nonconformist ministry. Heywood described Elizabeths death in 1661 as
the heaviest personal stroak that ever I experienced.70 In June 1667,
Heywood married Abigail Crompton, who, like Elizabeth, came from a
godly family of southern Lancashire.71 Abigail was thirty-two at the time of
the marriage. She and Oliver had no children, and she outlived Heywood
by three years, dying in 1705. Unfortunately, Abigails place in Olivers dia-
ries is far less substantial than it was in his life and ministry. While Oliver
rarely mentions her presence, it is likely that Abigail often accompanied
him on his frequent journeys into Lancashire; he describes the occasional

68Adam Martindale, The Life of Adam Martindale: Written by Himself, ed. Richard
Parkinson (1845), pp. 7779.
69Isaac Archer and William Coe, Two East Anglian Diaries, 16411729, ed. Matthew
Storey (Woodbridge, 1994), pp. 11011.
70Heywood, Diaries, i:170, 176.
71Heywood was related to the Cromptons through the marriage of his sister, Hannah.
 introduction21

fall from her horse, but not the times when she remained firmly in the
saddle. Abigail also served as a much-needed check on Olivers insistence
on preaching no matter what the circumstance. In the winter of 1673,
Oliver intended to preach despite a severe cold, Abigail intreated me in
the night, I would not yield, she kept urging me with teares all morning at
last I told her if she would not give me free leave, I would not goe. Abigail
displayed similarly good sense in March 1698, when Oliver proposed visit-
ing one of his followers, but it was a mighty wind and sore rain, my wife
declared her utter unwillingnes to let me goe, I durst not venture. And
while Oliver does not mention many conflicts with Abigail, she does seem
to have had him cowed on at least one occasion, when being in my house,
upon some slight occasion, my wife gave out some peevish discontented
words, I durst not speak for fear of grieving her but withdrew myself into
my study.72 As we shall see in chapters six and seven, Abigail also played
an important role in Olivers ministry in Coley, preparing meals for those
who attended prayer meetings, and literally taking his place when physi-
cal disability prevented him from traveling to funerals.
At this point we should pause to clarify two of the terms that will be
central to my analysis of religious community in Halifax. For the sake of
clarity, the title of the book uses the more common terms parish and
congregation, with the former implying Anglican and the latter non-
conformist. But these will not suffice in a more substantial discussion of
Heywoods communities, for two main reasons. First, at no point in his
career was the parish of Halifax Heywoods concern; his parish was Coley.
More importantly, modern definitions of these terms are fundamentally at
odds with Heywoods. When Heywood used the word congregation he
did not mean the men and women who followed him out of the Church of
England, but the conforming residents of Coley Chapelry, whom he served
while curate.73 They included sinners and saints, conformists and dissent-
ers, but Heywood saw all of them as members of his flock. Many in
Heywoods congregation at Coley continued to attend his sermons even
after his ejection, and some left the Church of England, but most did not.
In contrast, Heywood reserved the term society for the men and women
who largely abandoned the Established Church and joined him in the
Lords Supper after his ejection. Members of Heywoods society came from
Coley, of course, and thus had been part of his congregation there, but also

72Heywood, Diaries, iii:121, 273, 112.

73For a more conventional use, see Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation.
22 chapter one

came from other parts of Halifax and neighboring parishes. The distinc-
tion between congregation and society shapes the book, as Part I focuses
on Heywoods denominationally mixed congregation, and Part II exam-
ines Heywoods society.
Among the points I hope to make in Part I is that historians of noncon-
formity who take 1660 or 1662 as their starting point commit a grave error.
Heywood was curate of Coley for over ten years before his ejection from
office, and those years provided the foundation for all that followed.
During the Interregnum Heywood operated within the religious establish-
ment, following in a long line of curates and enjoying the support of the
parish vicar. While he was curate, Heywood conducted himself in a man-
ner appropriate for any godly minister. As we shall see, the questions of
who should have access to the sacraments of communion and baptism
were troubling issues, but he met the religious needs of his congrega-
tionhe led weekly religious worship, preached on a regular basis, and
provided the pastoral care they desired. This is not to say that Heywoods
time as curate was without conflict. But, contrary to the stereotype of the
puritan minister frog-marching his parishioners into godliness, Heywoods
most vocal critics were the godly, who demanded that Heywood withhold
the sacraments from residents whom they saw as unregenerate.74 Nor was
Heywood alone in refusing to drive a wedge between the godly and the
multitude, for when W.J. Sheils first wrote about Heywoods society in
1986, he argued for the integration of Heywoods dissenting followers with
their conforming neighbors.75 In short, Heywoods ministry crossed
denominational boundaries, and members of his society followed suit,
serving in parish and manorial offices and, as we shall see in chapter four,
participating in the election to choose a lecturer to assist the parish vicar.
With the Restoration, of course, the religious terrain shifted, and attacks
on Heywoods ministry came from supporters of the Established Church
rather than the godly fringe. As with so many godly clergy, the restoration
of the Stuart line in 1660 was a disaster for Heywoods ministry. Like most
Presbyterians, Heywood had welcomed the return of Charles II in 1660,
but soon found himself subject to the Restorations streak of meanness.76
Within a year he had been summoned before the church courts for refus-
ing to read the Book of Common Prayer, suspended from his place at
Coley, and excommunicated. In August 1662, he was formally ejected from

74Wrightson and Levine, Poverty and Piety.

75Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation.
76Ivan Roots, The Great Rebellion, 164260 (London, 1966), p. 261.
 introduction23

the curacy, though chapter two shows that his nonconformist ministry
was strikingly similar to the work he had done during the twelve years
preceding his ejection. Despite the continuities in Heywoods work after
1662, there is no question that the Restoration signaled an important
change in his place in the community. The same year that Heywood was
ejected from Coley, Halifax welcomed Richard Hooke as the new vicar, and
the religious winds began to blow against Heywood and other dissenters
in Halifax. Historians often have emphasized the sporadic and largely inef-
fective nature of religious persecution, sometimes citing Heywood as an
example, and if we limit our definition of persecution to legal action,
Heywood does seem to have enjoyed a measure of toleration. While his
goods were confiscated in 1670 and 1671, and he spent most of 1685 in
prison, these incidents were spread across a quarter century. Given that
Heywoods sermons clearly violated the law, and were Halifaxs worst kept
secret, things certainly could have been worse. However, it would be a mis-
take to judge persecution purely based on the successful legal prosecution
of dissenters, for Heywoods accounts make clear that unofficial harass-
ment and intimidation were central to the persecuting regime. While
Hooke did not hesitate to use the law against Halifaxs dissenters, he also
instigated a campaign of unofficial persecution against Halifaxs dissent-
ers, including Heywood. Heywoods accounts indicate that antipathy
against nonconformity ran high among some parishioners, and they made
clear to Heywood that he was not a part of their religious community.
Thus, while chapter two highlights Heywoods dogged efforts to build
bridges across the conformist divide, chapter three shows that some mem-
bers of the community were equally intent on burning those bridges
down. These countervailing forces epitomize the contentious nature of
religious communities, as different factions fought to implement their
particular vision.
In Part II we shift our focus from Heywoods congregation in Coley to
his society. In chapters five and six, I focus on the members of Heywoods
society, analyzing the routes individuals took into religious nonconfor-
mity, the practices that bound Heywoods followers to each other, and the
role of the laity in sustaining the society both during Heywoods frequent
preaching junkets into Lancashire and at times of government persecu-
tion. Among the most intriguing discoveries of this section is the role that
marriage played in an individuals decision to join Heywoods society. W.J.
Sheils discovered that while married couples sometimes joined the soci-
ety together, couples frequently kept their feet in different religious camps,
with one member formally joining the society and the other declining to
24 chapter one

do so. As chapter five demonstrates, however, while men and women did
not follow spouses into nonconformity, marriage played an important role
in a young mans decision to join the society. In many cases, young men
joined the society within a few months of marrying, which indicates a link
between formal membership in the society and a young mans transition
from bachelor to head of a household. Chapter five also examines other
factors that led an individual to join Heywoods society. Some members
joined soon after they started attending Heywoods sermons or prayer
meetings, but others lingered on the outskirts of the society, sometimes
for years, before taking the final step into membership. This chapter also
analyzes the role the laity played in sustaining the society. While Heywood
frequently referred to my society, I argue that the laity sustained the soci-
ety, as members traveled together to fasts and sermons, created prayer
groups to supplement the Lords Supper, and offered emotional support,
advice, and prayers to each other at times of spiritual crisis. The laity were
also key to the establishment of a number of overlapping groups within
the wider society. As we see in chapter six, members of Heywoods society
created groups within the society based on social status, neighborhood,
and religious enthusiasm. These communities helped to sustain the soci-
ety in the face of serious obstacles, including religious persecution
(if small enough, prayer meetings were legal), Heywoods frequent trips to
Lancashire, Halifaxs difficult terrain, and the fact that the society was
spread across Halifax and several neighboring parishes.
One aspect of Heywoods ministry not discussed below, but requiring
some consideration, is his work outside of Halifax. In the years after the
Five Mile Act forced him to move from his home in Coley (though he did
not move far), Heywood embarked upon a long-term itinerant ministry
throughout the West Riding and Lancashire. He established pockets of fol-
lowers as far north as Craven Deanery, around his home parish of Bolton,
Lancashire, and at points in between, such as Rochdale and Slaithwaite.
The diaries Heywood wrote during this period focus on his ministry out-
side Coley, as he offers a brief description of each days work, as seen in
this entry from 1667:
thuesday I went to Little Leaver, preacht on wednesday at my brother
Whiteheads, the house wherein I was borne, on thursday I joyned with my
cousin Bradshaw at Ralph Leavers and the same day joyned with my brother
Heywood at my Borther Thomas Cromptons, on friday we preached together
at my brother Samuel Bradleys, on Lords day at brother William Whiteheads.
In contrast, he offers far less detail about his activities when he is at home,
noting just prior to this entry, I stayd at home two Lords days [i.e. weeks],
 introduction25

followed my study, preacht thrice a week, had a large auditory, kept a fast,
and god was very gracious to me all the time I was at home.77 Heywoods
focus in his itinerant ministry offers an invaluable portrait of one minis-
ters reaction to government persecution, but it also skews our under-
standing of Heywoods ministry to the point that W.J. Sheils refers to the
years 166285 as his Roving Ministry.78 Heywood did rove during these
years, spending weeks at a time away from Coley. But it would be a mistake
to conclude that his followers in Coley ceased to matter, or that his minis-
try there atrophied. While Heywoods diaries focus on his work abroad,
other notebooks make clear that while not on the road, Heywood was
busy establishing and sustaining his society. During the course of his rov-
ing ministry Heywood welcomed at least seventy new members to his
congregation in Coley, established a regular and long-lived meeting of
godly young men, merged his society with another whose minister had
died, and cultivated pockets of followers in the nearby townships of
Norland, Skircoat, Warley, and Ovenden. In short, we must read Heywoods
diurnal writings alongside his other notebooks, for only then does it
become clear that he combined his itinerant preaching with a vibrant pas-
toral ministry.
This is not to say, however, that Heywoods time away from Halifax was
insignificant for his followers there. Rather, it gave Heywoods society a
dynamic much different than would have developed under a more present
pastor. Chapters five and six demonstrate that the laity actively sustained
the societys religious life under difficult circumstances. Members deliber-
ately engaged in a range of practices that bound the community: they sang
together as they walked to sermons, held small prayer meetings to provide
spiritual support at times of crisis, established regular meetings for fasting
and prayer, and offered each other dozens of small favors, from copying
sermons to loaning books. These practices were less visible than the Lords
Supper or a sermon, and during periodic waves of persecution that was
precisely the point, but they played a vital role in creating a cohesive com-
munity. During the course of these chapters it becomes clear that mem-
bership in Heywoods society could have different meanings for different
members. While most historians treat membership in a dissenting society
as if members uniforms were more or less similar, chapter six challenges

77Heywood, Diaries, 23435. This interest in Heywoods ministry abroad at the expense
of his work closer to home is also visible in a contemporarys extracts from his diary, which
simply omit entries he made while in Halifax. BL, Add. MS 24486.
78W.J. Sheils, Heywood, Oliver (bap. 1630, d. 1702), Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography (Oxford, 2004).
26 chapter one

this view. Here I demonstrate that there existed within the society a group
of hardcore followers so intensely dedicated to Heywood that we can only
conclude that their experience was fundamentally different from that of
most members. It then argues that members who were not a part of this
core played a vital social role by connecting the society to the wider com-
munity. The existence of these groups illustrates the complex nature of
community even within a single religious society and helps us to under-
stand the place of nonconformists in Restoration England.
In addition to this inner core of believers, Heywoods society included
small groups oriented on age and neighborhood. There were the groups of
young men who met regularly for prayer, to confess their sins, and to dis-
cuss their spiritual progress. While Heywood made his work with these
young men a key component of evangelical strategy, there is evidence that
some young men took the lead in creating and sustaining their groups.
They probably continued to meet when Heywood was on the road, and in
1692 Heywood was surprised to discover that local young men had founded
a meeting without his knowledge. Added to these young mens meetings,
there existed in Halifax small prayer groups that met in members homes.
These meetings supplemented formal gatherings of the entire society for
sermons or the Lords Supper, for while members from across Halifax
attended these larger gatherings, the prayer groups drew from a much
smaller area. Our knowledge of these meetings is sketchy, simply because
Heywood often did not attend them. While at one level this is unfortunate,
it also is precisely the point: these local prayer meetings were founded and
led by the laity, not by Heywood.
It is clear that members of Heywoods society worked to create strong
social and religious ties to one another, but this is not to say that his soci-
ety was free from conflict; as chapter five shows, the self-styled saints
could be as combative as their conforming neighbors. Analysis of the con-
flicts that erupted within Heywoods society is significant, for it offers an
important perspective on dissenting communities and how they com-
pared to their Church of England counterparts. When an adherent to the
Church of England fought with a neighbor, and withdrew or was barred
from communion, he or she had few options other than seeking reconcili-
ation. Individuals could not simply go to another parish and take the com-
munion there. However, the fissiparous nature of nonconformity meant
that dissenters were not so constrained. When members of a dissenting
society feuded, they could simply take the sacrament with another society,
a practice that undermined the godly vision of religious community. As a
result, Heywood and the members of his society worked diligently (if not
 introduction27

always with great success) to prevent disagreements from spiraling out of

control. In this development, we find evidence that the ritual community
remained extremely important to dissenters, but that the proliferation
of religious choice robbed the sacrament of its power to encourage
reconciliation.
In chapter seven, our focus shifts to the changes in religious community
that came with Heywoods old age and slow physical decline. With the
graying of Western societies, historians have begun to subject the aging
process to the same critical scrutiny as categories such as gender and race.
Like these, old age is in some part a social construct, a web of behaviour
patterns woven around a biological phenomenon.79 Shulamith Shahar
has pointed out that old age has many components, ranging from chrono-
logical age, to cognitive ability, to ones ability to function in society.80
Heywoods experience of old age was shaped in part by his chronological
age, with his sixtieth year of particular significance, and by his deteriorat-
ing health and the gradual loss of the ability to travel. Heywoods diaries
also indicate the effects that old age or illness could have on an individu-
als place in Heywoods society. Elderly members could have a difficult
time participating fully in the life of the community, but they also received
more personal attention from Heywood than did their able-bodied fel-
lows. In this chapter I examine the changes in Heywoods ministry as he
aged, the means by which he attempted to compensate for his declining
health, and the changing focus of his ministry over his lifetime.81

Heywoods Notebooks

When we consider Heywoods notebooks as a whole, the first thing we

notice is their variety; he kept a diary, of course, but this was only one
genre in which he wrote.82 Like many other clergymen, Heywood main-
tained several notebooks simultaneously: his papers include daily entries

79Joel Rosenthal, Old Age in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia, 1996), p. 1.

80Shulamith Shahar, Growing Old in the Middle Ages: Winter Clothes Us in Shadow and
Pain, trans. Yael Lotan (London, 1997), p. 12.
81David Troyansky has noted the need for just this kind of microhistorical approach.
David Troyansky, Balancing social and cultural approaches to the history of old age and
ageing in Europe: a review and an example from post-revolutionary France, in Old Age
from Antiquity to Post-Modernity, eds. Paul Johnson and Pat Thane (New York, 1998),
pp. 96109. Susannah R Ottaway, The Decline of Life: Old Age in Eighteenth-Century England
(Cambridge, Eng., 2004).
82For the reading of clerical diaries, see Webster, Writing to redundancy; Cambers,
Reading, the godly and self-writing; Margo Todd, Puritan self-fashioning: The diary of
28 chapter one

detailing his evangelical work, an autobiography, observations of remark-

able events, commonplaces, and annual reviews of his spiritual progress.
He also kept a number of different lists: members of his society; people to
whom he gave copies of his books; those to whom he loaned books; neigh-
bors who moved; neighbors who tuck-pointed their homes; sufferers from
melancholy; and, most curiously, people whose dogs went mad in the
summer of 1679. Like many of his contemporaries, Heywood was utterly
fascinated with providence, and he also recorded hundreds of examples of
divine providence visited upon saints, sinners, and even himself. Heywood
saw Gods hand everywhere, from political turmoil at the national level to
the proverbial fall of a sparrow.83
In the late 19th century, J. Horsfall Turner edited Heywoods notebooks,
and it is this edition that provides the backbone of this book. While some
Victorian editions of puritan diaries are badly transcribed or silently
edited to cut out the boring bits, Turners edition is competent and largely
complete.84 His edition consists of four volumes, and according to Alan
Macfarlane (who should know), Heywoods notebooks are matched only
by Ralph Josselins and Samuel Pepyss. But it is important to note that
while Heywoods diaries are unique among nonconformist clergy, this is
an accident of history rather than a quirk of Heywoods personality that
compelled him to write.85 Nobody has ever accused Henry Newcome of
being anything other than ordinary, but had all of his notebooks survived,
they would dwarf Heywoods.86 Other than their lucky survival, the most
remarkable thing about Heywoods diaries is that nobody has analyzed

Samuel Ward, Journal of British Studies 31:3 (1992), 23664; Michael Mascuch, Origins of the
Individualist Self: Autobiography and Self-Identity in England, 15911791 (Stanford, 1996).
83Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England; John Spurr, Virtue, religion and gov-
ernment: The Anglican uses of providence, in The Politics of Religion in Restoration
England, eds. Tim Harris, Paul Seaward, and Mark Goldie (Oxford, 1990), pp. 2947.
84The only extant manuscript not included in Turners edition is a partial transcription
made in the 18th century which is in the British Library, Add. Ms. 24486. For problems with
Samuel Wards diaries, see Todd, Puritan self-fashioning. Printed editions of Henry
Newcomes diary are bedeviled by transcription problems, and his autobiography is heavily
edited. Henry Newcome, The Diary of the Rev. Henry Newcome from September 30, 1661, to
September 29, 1663, ed. T. Heywood (Manchester, 1849); Henry Newcome, The Autobiography
of Henry Newcome, ed. R. Parkinson (1852).
85Contrast this with the Nehemiah Wallingtons compulsive journal-keeping. Paul
Seaver, Wallingtons World: A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth-Century London (Stanford,
1985).
86Alan Macfarlane, The Family Life of Ralph Josselin, a Seventeenth-Century Clergyman:
An Essay in Historical Anthropology (New York, 1977), pp. 6, 9. Hunter notes the existence of
another diary running from 1682 to 1686, and claims that the last diary begins in 1695, not
1699. They do not seem to have survived. Newcome, Diary of Henry Newcome.
 introduction29

them in their entirety. What makes this fact especially curious is that
Heywood is hardly an unknown figureHorsfall Turners edition saw to
that. Rather, he is one of the most cited diarists of the period, popping up
in scores of books on early modern England; whether the subject is puri-
tanism, popular culture, marriage, or death, Heywood has something to
say, and historians eagerly quote him. Given Heywoods notoriety, the
question becomes why no historian has seen fit to do more than mine his
notebooks for anecdotes. Heywood himself offers one answer, as he wrote
in 1700 that reading his diary was tedious.87 And it must be said that he
has a point. Heywoods entries capture the daily grind of pastoral work,
and after a few decades a description of one prayer meeting does read a lot
like the description of another. However, as Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote
of Martha Ballards diary, it is in the very dailiness, the exhaustive, repeti-
tious dailiness, that the real power of [her] book lies.88 The same is true of
Heywoods notebooks. His encounters with the so-called Sury Demoniack
or with a young man who had been bewitched are worth analysis, but such
events are spectacular exceptions to the routine of his ministry, which
focused on the less dramatic spiritual progress of Coleys residents. It is
Heywoods descriptions of his and his neighbors daily activities as they
attempted to negotiate the shifting social and religious terrain of
Restoration England that are at the heart of Heywoods diaries, and thus at
the heart of this book.
The earliest surviving notebook is Heywoods autobiography.89 It is not
entirely clear when Heywood began to compose this work, but 1660 seems
a reasonable estimate, and he continued to add to it until April 1666. At
the outset his goal was to search and see whatgrounds of hope I have to
beleeve & be persuaded that my soul is built upon the rock of ages, that
I am within the bounds of the covenant. He also hoped to become more
aware of divine providence, observe his own spiritual progress, and, by

87Heywood, Diaries, iv:198. Newcome sounded an identical note when describing the
process of the abstract of his diary. Newcome, Diary of Henry Newcome, p. 158.
88Ulrich, A Midwifes Tale, p. 9.
89Heywood mentions that upon his departure for Cambridge, his father had urged him
to record his meditations, but he does not indicate whether he heeded this advice.
Heywood, Diaries, i:133202. For Puritan autobiographies, see Paul Delany, British
Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1969); Daniel B. Shea, Spiritual
Autobiography in Early America (Princeton, 1968); Dean Ebner, Autobiography in
Seventeenth-Century England (The Hague, 1971); Owen C. Watkins, The Puritan Experience;
Studies in Spiritual Autobiography (New York, 1972); Patricia Caldwell, The Puritan
Conversion Narrative: The Beginnings of American Expression (Cambridge, Eng., 1983).
More recently, Mascuch, Origins of the Individualist Self.
30 chapter one

close examination of his past sins, to learn from his mistakes and remain
on the path to heaven.90 Heywoods writings are broadly similar to other
puritan autobiographies, and also to works by other Presbyterians, who
displayed a balanced interest in their spiritual development and broadly
humanistic affairs of daily life.91 The final pages of Heywoods autobiogra-
phy become increasingly detailed and focused on the present rather than
the past, and his autobiography slowly changes into a diary. It is no coinci-
dence that Heywood begins to keep his first diary at around the same time
his autobiography ends.
Heywoods notebooks include three sections made up of regular entries
that can be described as diaries. They cover the years 166673, 167780,
and 16991702, and in Horsfall Turners edition they run 287 printed pages.
These entries usually include only the barest details about Heywoods
activities, noting the date and location of sermons he preached, and the
names of some of the individuals with whom he met, visited, prayed, or
fasted. A typical entry from 1671 reads, I went from home, called at
Brighouse to see one Sam Beeley thats sick, so went forward to the Lidget
in Kirkburton parish, preacht at John Armitages to a great number, after-
wards went to meet a pore melancholy woman at John Moorehouses, talkt
to her and prayed with her.92 The diaries thus offer something like a quan-
titative record of his ministry, telling us the who, what, when, and where of
his daily activities. At the same time Heywood kept this bare-bones record,
he wrote in other notebooks describing some meetings in greater detail.
The notebooks thus operate as a pre-modern hypertext document, with
short entries in one volume linked to a more detailed entry in another. To
cite just one example, a diary entry from 1673 reads, On munday july 14 we
had a private fast at John Kershaws. But in another notebook, Heywood
wrote:
July 14 we had a private fast at John Kershaws, god extraordinarily helped our
hearts in prayer upon many accounts, particularly about the season of the
weather, it having been immoderate rain for a moneth togather, not above
four days in that moneth fair, which was a great obstruction to the fruites of
the earth, yet abundance of hurt is done in all parts by strange and almost
unheard of floods, behold while we were praying that afternoon god cleared

90Heywood, Diaries, i:134, 151.

91Ebner, Autobiography in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 13, 13545; Delany, British
Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 6872; Mascuch, Origins of the Individualist
Self, p. 91.
92Heywood, Diaries, i:279.
 introduction31

up the heavens, tho it had been excessive rain the day before and that day in
the forenoon.93
While these extended descriptions have received more attention from his-
torians than his brief daily entries, I have analyzed both kinds of entries,
for it is only by including Heywoods unrelenting toil in our analysis that
we get a sense of how religious community worked on a daily basis. For
example, when viewed in isolation, the significance of Heywoods 1672
visit to an ailing Richard Langley is unremarkable; Heywood constantly
visited the sick. But when we connect that visit to other entries indicating
that Langley was a notorious sinner, the picture changes; ten years after
his ejection, and despite the establishment of his dissenting society,
Heywood continued to offer pastoral care to his unregenerate neighbors.
Heywoods variegated notebooks thus can be described in terms similar to
those Michael Mascuch used to describe Samuel Wards notebooks: They
are a pile of papers representing the practice of his ministry.94 Analyzing
the diaries in their entirety is also necessary if we are to understand the
religious experience of members of Heywoods society, for by following
individuals across the years we can differentiate the members whose
involvement in the society was peripheral from those who placed it at the
centre of their lives. The complexity of early modern religious communi-
ties is only clear if we embrace the tedious details of daily life rather than
settling for the spectacular and unusual.
Having addressed the question of how we can best use the daily entries
in Heywoods diaries, we might well ask why Heywood kept such a record.
The heart of the godly spiritual diary is examination of the soul and search-
ing out of sin, but there is no introspection evident in entries such as, on
munday I went to visit old Abr. Dawson.95 While we can only speculate on
what drove Heywood to write, I would argue that his diaries can be seen as
an exercise in self- fashioning.96 As Michael Mascuch has noted, autobi-
ography is a performance, a public display of self-identity, even when
composed secretly for an audience of one.97 The same can be said of
Heywoods diary it provided graphic evidence that he was a caring and

93Heywood, Diaries, i:298; iii:157.

94Mascuch described Wards diary as a pile of papers representing his practice of
piety. Mascuch, Origins of the Individualist Self, pp. 8586.
95Heywood, Diaries, i:283.
96While Stephen Greenblatt pioneered the term, I use the term in the same way as
Margo Todd. Todd, Puritan self-fashioning; Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-
Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago, 1980).
97Mascuch, Origins of the Individualist Self, p. 9.
32 chapter one

diligent pastor. Heywoods goal in writing, however, went beyond merely

demonstrating his dedication. He used the diary tool to become the ideal
minister. Because he recorded his work in such detail, Heywood could eas-
ily identify not only sins of commission, but also his sins of omission. If, at
the end of each day, Heywood had no evangelical work to report, if he had
spent the day next to the fire with his feet up, he would have to write this;
it would be painfully obvious that he had failed in his pastoral duty.98 We
know from marginalia in his hand that Heywood periodically revisited his
diaries, and towards the end of his life he did so in order to write his annual
reviews. In January 1700, Heywood wrote, I set myself to take a view of my
Diary and though it was tedious yet it was in some sort sweet to view the
gracious providences of god concerning me all this year.99 And two years
later, he noted, I designed that day in reviewing my Diary and take an
account how I spent my time this year.100 Heywood had a very specific
vision of how he should conduct his ministry, and his diary was a means by
which he could supervise and evaluate his own work. In short, by dutifully
recording his daily activities, Heywood used his diaries to turn himself
into the minister he wanted to be.
In closing, I would simply emphasize that while Heywood and his dia-
ries are at the center of this book, in no way was my goal to write his biog-
raphy. Rather, my purpose is to take the reader through the complex and
shifting religious terrain of Restoration Halifax, with Heywood as our
guide. Through a close study of his diaries and of other documents left by
his friends and his enemies, the fine contours of religious life in Restoration
England will become visible. While Heywood and his counterparts within
the Church of England played a vital role in shaping religious life in
Halifax, it will become clear that this was a collective endeavor in which
both the conforming and dissenting residents of the parish played an
active part. This book is their story.

98Henry Newcome saw his diary-keeping as a means to make his plans for self-
improvement more permanent: Enter resolutions in your note bookes. The truth is Xtians
note bookes more faithfull registers yn yr hearts; & easier for ye devill to blot out a good
resolution out of our minds yn out of our bookes. Newcome, Diary of Henry Newcome,
p. 45.
99Heywood, Diaries, iv:198.
100Heywood, Diaries, iv:292.
 PART I

ANGLICANS AND DISSENTERS IN RESTORATION HALIFAX

 CHAPTER TWO

OLIVER HEYWOOD AND COLEY CHAPELRY

In January 1681, Oliver Heywood looked over his diaries for the past fifteen
years and recalled his reasons for keeping such a detailed record of his
ministry. The first two explanations are fairly conventional: his diary
helped him to recall what I have done and misdone in my by-past days
and served as a record of his sufferings and wanderings under the
Clarendon Code. The third reason, however, indicates a more immediate
and worldly concern. Heywood hoped that the diary would defend all
nonconformist ministers against charges that, since their ejection from
office, they had lived lives of leisure. The diary would vindicate our per-
sons and work in the sight of men that asperse us for idlenes, and say they
wonder wt we doe, thinking we have easy lives. Indeed, Heywood had
been subject to just such accusations, when in 1673 Richard Hooke,
Heywoods longtime nemesis and the vicar of Halifax, derided Heywoods
pretensions to pastoral work, saying, I had not curam animarum [cure of
souls], that I had nothing to doe to preach, if I would preach I must goe
into the mountains, or plantations where there was need for theres no
need here.1 Heywood, of course, took exception to these charges, but in
the cold light of day we must admit that Hooke had a point. With his ejec-
tion from the curacy at Coley, Heywoods pastoral work should have come
to an end: no curacy, no curam animarum. What Hooke did not realize, or
at least did not care to admit, was that despite his ejection Heywood con-
tinued to serve both conforming and dissenting residents of the chapelry.
He preached to them, visited the sick and dying, and exhibited a genuine
concern for their spiritual welfare.2

1Italics added. Heywood, Diaries, ii:22526; i:34647. On the role of the press in vindi-
cating nonconformity, N.H. Keeble, The Literary Culture of Nonconformity in Later
Seventeenth-Century England (Leicester, 1987), pp. 8392.
2As noted in the previous chapter, Coley chapelry included the townships of
Northowram, Shelf, and Hipperholme. The village of Coley lay within the township of
Hipperholme. For general discussions of the clergys pastoral duties, see Spaeth, Church in
an Age of Danger, chaps. 5 and 9; Patrick Collinson, The Religion of Protestants: The Church
in English Society, 15591625 (Oxford, 1982); Ian Green, Reformed pastors and bon curs:
The changing role of the parish clergy in early modern Europe, Studies in Church History
26 (1990), 24986; W.M. Jacob, Lay People and Religion in the Early Eighteenth Century
36 chapter two

Heywoods attachment to his former congregation at Coley is signifi-

cant for a number of reasons. It indicates that in Coley chapelry the
denominational divisions that loomed large in the literature of the period
(and in subsequent histories) had limited meaning for Anglicans and dis-
senters alike. Despite his nonconformity Heywood never withdrew into a
narrow, sectarian realm, and his former congregation never rejected his
ministry; rather, he remained integral to the religious life of the chapelry.
Heywoods ministry also serves as a corrective to historians habit of taking
the ejection of nonconformist clergy in 1662 as the start their careers.
Ejection and the experience of persecution were central to the formation
of nonconformity, but many ministers, including Heywood, had served in
parish livings for years before their ejection, and the years preceding
Black Bartholomew are vital to understanding Restoration nonconfor-
mity. It is true that Heywoods ministry entered a new phase after his ejec-
tion, but the relationships and habits of pastoral care that he developed
during his years as curate continued to shape his relationship with his
Anglican neighbors long after 1662.
It is also important that the affection between curate and chapelry was
mutual: preachers need an audience and pastors need a willing flock. The
alacrity with which Heywoods congregation attended his illegal sermons
and welcomed him into their homes can be traced to several factors. The
first of these is Halifaxs long history of godly religion. As noted in the pre-
vious chapter, Heywood was fortunate to find himself in a parish long
familiar with the puritan religious style. Unlike Quakers, whose approach
to religion struck many as radical and unsettling, to the residents of Coley
Heywood embodied the very soul of traditional religion. The second
explanation can be found in Heywoods personal history in Coley.
Heywood had served the residents of Coley for ten years before his ejec-
tion, and in that time he had preached hundreds of sermons and made
countless pastoral visits to chapelry residents. The conjunction of Coleys
long-standing affinity for godly religion and more recent ties to Heywood
himself made it unlikely that residents would view him as a threat or see
his style of religion as dangerous. Finally, we can attribute Heywoods
enduring support in Coley at least in part to the Church of Englands

(Cambridge, 1996), pp. 21, 4142; John H. Pruett, The Parish Clergy Under the Later Stuarts:
The Leicestershire Experience (Urbana, 1978); Patrick Collinson, Shepherds, sheepdogs and
hirelings: The pastoral ministry in post-Reformation England, Studies in Church History 26
(1990), 185220. For the importance of visits such as Heywoods in sustaining the social
fabric, see Susan E. Whyman, Sociability and Power in Late-Stuart England: The Cultural
Worlds of the Verneys, 16601720 (Oxford, 1999).
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry37

inability to fill the curacy after Heywoods ejection.3 As we shall see,

Heywood may have played a role in keeping the curacy vacant, but the fact
remains that in many rural areas the Restored Church had enormous dif-
ficulty winning back the people because all too often no Anglican minister
filled the vacancies created by ejection. Heywood provided preaching and
pastoral care when the Church failed to do so, and it should not surprise us
that the people of Coley took their religion where they could get it.4 Thus,
while this chapter will often focus on Heywoods work among his con-
forming neighbors, we should remember that he met with a receptive
audience: Heywood and Coleys conforming residents worked together to
bridge the nascent denominational divide, deliberately creating a local
community that included both Anglicans and dissenters.

Heywoods Curacy

When Heywood arrived at Coley in 1650, his situation was hardly ideal. While
his degree from Cambridge doubtless conferred some measure of authority,
he was far from a towering presence. He was not ordained until 1653, making
it a stretch to call him a minister during these early years. In addition, his
social status would not have inspired much respect from his congregants.
Initially, Heywood did not even live on his own, but as a boarder with a local
family, and he did not marry and become a head of household until 1655.5
Upon his arrival he was a young man with a degree, and that is all. In addi-
tion, as curate he occupied an unofficial position, relying on voluntary contri-
butions for his salary, and presumably employed at the pleasure of Coleys
residents. With no local connections, the only sure thing about Heywoods
tenure was that any conflict with his congregation would end in his
dismissal.
Heywoods insecurity was accentuated by his obvious confusion over who
his congregation was. Was he to minister to the saints only? Or to all residents
of the chapelry regardless of their religious dedication? As we shall see, the

3Watts, The Dissenters, pp. 27780; John Ramsbottom, Presbyterians and partial con-
formity in the Restoration Church of England, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 43:2 (1992),
25758. See also Heywoods complaint that Many publick places [are] ill supplyed. Oliver
Heywood, Israels Lamentation after the Lord (London, 1683), sig. A5r.
4John Spurr, Religion in Restoration England, in The Reigns of Charles II and James VII
& II, ed. Lionel K.J. Glassey (Basingstoke, 1997), p. 112; Ramsbottom, Presbyterians and par-
tial conformity, pp. 27678.
5For the significance of marriage in achieving manhood, see Alexandra Shepard,
Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003).
38 chapter two

godly and their neighbors had very different expectations of Heywood. The
former demanded that Heywood implement a rigorous moral code and limit
access to the sacraments to the visible saints. The latter preferred a more
easygoing and inclusive religion. They hoped Heywood would preach and
administer the sacraments without imposing puritan morality. In sorting out
these issues, Heywood struggled mightily, most notably over the question of
access to the sacraments. In many cases, Heywood followed the example of
Presbyterian divine Richard Baxter, whose books about his ministry at
Kidderminster offered Heywood and other godly clergy a model for their own
pastoral work. Ultimately, Heywood sought a middle ground as he tried to
reach out to a broad cross-section of chapelry residents without alienating
his most dedicated followers. Inevitably, such a strategy displeased some of
his congregation, but it also helped establish a foundation for a ministry that
would endure through five tumultuous decades.
Notwithstanding some historians claims that the Reformation her-
alded the end of the ritual community, the most difficult question facing
Interregnum clergy was the role of ritual in their ministry. From the begin-
ning of Heywoods time in Coley, he puzzled over which children to bap-
tize and which of Coleys residents should be allowed to take the Lords
Supper. In struggling with the first of these issues, Heywood was influ-
enced by Richard Baxters 1657 work, Certain Disputations of Rights to
Sacraments:6
By reading another book of Mr Baxters I have brought my selfe into a snare,
for in his disputations about right to Sacraments, one of them is levelled agt
the baptizing of the infants of scandalous parents, in reading wherof I was so
puzzled that I was not able to answer his arguments, and durst not doe as
I was wont in that administration, but turned some away that I knew were
notorious sinners, but herein I have neither satisfyed my selfe nor others.
The problem that Baxter presented to Heywood was two-fold. First,
Heywood was honestly unsure what the standard for admission to bap-
tism should be.7 His instinct was to baptize all comers, regardless of

6Richard Baxter, Certain Disputations of Rights to Sacraments (London, 1657), pp. 247
349. For Baxters dispute with Baptist minister John Tombes, see Paul Chang-Ha Lim, In
Pursuit of Purity, Unity, and Liberty: Richard Baxters Puritan Ecclesiology in its Seventeenth-
Century Context (Leiden, 2004), pp. 6165. For a broader examination of exclusion from the
Lords Supper, see Christopher Haigh, Communion and community: Exclusion from com-
munion in post-Reformation England, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 51:4 (2000), 72140.
7Dutch Calvinists wrestled with the same problem and typically found a middle path.
Benjamin J. Kaplan, Calvinists and Libertines: Confession and Community in Utrecht,
15781620 (Oxford, 1995), p. 268.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry39

whether their parents were among the godly, but under Baxters influence
he refused some parents. The second challenge stemmed from the fact
that Baxters work was theoretical rather than practical. Unlike pastoral
guides such as Gildas Salvianus, Certain Disputations shows little concern
for the effects these decisions would have on a ministers relationship with
his congregation. And while Heywood could not answer Baxters argu-
ment, he was acutely aware that limiting baptism would alienate some
members of his congregation. Indeed, he later noted that some in his con-
gregation are much offended with my practice herein.
One even more troubling question for Heywood, because its answer
had far greater ramifications, was the manifest difficulty of knowing where
to draw the line between the godly and the ungodly. While Calvinism
divided humanity quite cleanly into the saved and the damned, the divi-
sions in Heywoods congregation were not so clear. Heywood had no
earthly idea how godly was godly enough to be baptized or to take the
Lords Supper. Heywood admits his inability to separate the sheep from
the goats: I am convinced that I sometimes baptize the children of those
that are as bad as those I have sent away. So vexing was the problem of
limiting baptism to the godly, Heywoods discussion of the subject trails
off with the wishful observation, it were the easiest for one to baptize al
or none.8 It appears that Heywood learned his lesson from the contro-
versy about baptism, for when the question of al or none arose concern-
ing admission to the Lords Supper, he chose the latter.
This question of who should be allowed to take communion was prob-
lematic in large part because it raised the question of what function the
sacrament was supposed to perform. For the godly residents of Coley,
communion signaled membership in the elect. But for Heywood and hun-
dreds of other parish clergy, the goal was the creation of a spiritually pure
community not by excluding the unregenerate, but by effecting the moral
reformation of the entire flock.9 If Heywood limited communion too
strictly, he would lose his influence over parishioners who declined to

8Another factor shaping Heywoods thinking was that Richard Marsh, Halifaxs vicar,
prohibited chapel clergy from baptizing any children, that he may not loose his dues. It is
unclear just what course Heywood ultimately chose. Heywood, Diaries, i:178.
9J. William Black, Reformation Pastors: Richard Baxter and the Idea of the Reformed
Pastor (Waynesboro, Ga., 2004), chap. 5. For the relationship between puritans and the
church courts before their collapse, see Martin Ingram, Puritans and the church courts,
15601640, in The Culture of English Puritanism, 15601700, eds. Christopher Durston and
Jacqueline Eales (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 5891. For Interregnum efforts to enforce godly
rule, see Derek Hirst, The failure of godly rule in the English republic, Past & Present 132
(1991), 3366.
40 chapter two

present themselves for the sacrament, for fear of beeing troubled by

Discipline.10 The divisions that limiting communion might entail were
compounded by Heywoods uncertainty about who was a worthy recipi-
ent. Heywood worried about baptizing children of the ungodly, and the
problem was more urgent when it came to the Lords Supper. If it was dif-
ficult or impossible to determine a persons true spiritual state, how could
a minister be sure he was not admitting the ungodly to communion? We
cannot know if Heywood read Baxters Aphorismes of Justification, but
if so, Baxters claim that no Minister can groundedly administer the
Sacraments to any man but himself because he can be certain of no mans
justification and salvation cannot have helped matters.11
In pondering his options if he limited the Lords Supper, Heywood also
probably considered the more practical problems that would accompany
a militant stance. In the port city of Hull, Presbyterian John Shaw had
very much oppositionafter I set up strict church-discipline for the purer
administering and receiving of the Lords Supper, adding with a sneer that
discipline was akin to church rails to keep off dogs and swine from that
table. Shaw claimed that he had suffered much from men thereby, but
cast the choice as Gods glory versus my own advantage, and mens
friendship, and my own pay.12 Along with antagonizing the congregation,
excluding individuals from the sacrament could drive them entirely out of
the community altogether: when Heywoods friend Adam Martindale
barred one of his parishioners from the sacrament, the young man fled to
the Quakers.13 Heywoods friend, the inevitably agreeable Henry Newcome,
avoided both these hazards by offering the sacrament throughout the
Interregnum, making clear that when Heywood made his decision, many
options presented themselves.14
In theory (or at least in his diary), Heywood sounded like Shaw, noting
it hath always been my principle, that grossly ignorant and scandalous

10Baxter, Certain Disputations, sig. C1r. Claire Cross, The Church in England, 1646
1660, in The Interregnum: The Quest for Settlement, 16461660 (London, 1972), p. 107; Hirst,
Failure of godly rule, pp. 3940; Arnold Hunt, The Lords supper in early modern
England, Past & Present 161 (1998), 3983. Unlike Heywood, Henry Newcome continued to
offer the sacrament during the 1650s. Catherine Nunn, Henry Newcome and his circle:
Presbyterianism in south-east Cheshire in the 1650s, Transactions of the Historic Society of
Lancashire & Cheshire 150 (2003), p. 19.
11Richard Baxter, Aphorismes of Justification (Hague, 1655), pp. 25859.
12Heywood is never this obnoxious. John Shaw, The life of Master John Shaw A.D.
160864, Vicar of Rotherham, in Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies of the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Charles Jackson, 65 (1875), p. 142.
13Martindale, Life of Adam Martindale, pp. 11415.
14Nunn, Henry Newcome and his circle, p. 19.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry41

are to be debarred from that sealing ordinance.15 He knew well that dis-
tributing the sacrament too promiscuously was an affront to God as well
as the godly. But he was also aware that limiting it too much could drive
parishioners away and alienate some of those who stayed. Angering his
congregation would end his influence on the sinful and simultaneously
cut into his income at the very moment he was starting a family. So for
seven years, Heywood declined to offer communional or none
indeed.16 In 1657, perhaps as his position in Coley became more secure,
Heywood did an about-face and became convinced of my duty to endeav-
our to set up discipline and restore the ordinance of the lords supper. In
doing this, Heywood attempted to find a via media between godly demands
for limited communion and the resentment that such a policy would
inspire. In seeking this middle path, Heywood put into practice the advice
Matthew Henry gave to a group of young ministers: Be very cautious to
avoid extremes; let not those who are grossly ignorant, or scandalous, be
suffered to profane the holy things of the Lord,yet, let not those be
rejected who are weak in the faith; and who, in small matters, differ from
you.17 To prepare Coley residents for the sacrament Heywood, preach[ed]
many sermons about that weighty subject, partly to stirre up in believers a
desire therof, partly to show the way for the obtaining of it. The next step
was to determine who would be allowed to receive the sacrament, and to
this end Heywood called together his congregation and desired them to
make a choyce of some oficers, that might assist me in the worke. In short,
Heywood asked the laity to do the potentially divisive work of excluding
their neighbors from the sacrament. To Heywoods chagrin, that could
not be yeeled to, a failure that surely stemmed from a general reluctance
to antagonize those who were rejected. Heywood thus resolved to doe
what could be done myselfe.18

15Once again, Heywood may have taken his cue from Richard Baxter. Heywood, Diaries,
i:171; William M. Lamont, Godly Rule: Politics and Religion, 160360 (London, 1969), p. 154.
16Black, Reformation Pastors, p. 123. For Baxters pre-Reformation vision of neighborly
peace, see John Bossy, Peace in the Post-Reformation (Cambridge, 1998).
17John Bickerton Williams, Memoirs of the Life, Character and Writings of the Rev.
Matthew Henry (Boston, 1830), pp. 17677.
18From this point forward he apparently led his society without the benefit of elders or
deacons, and in this Heywoods experience was not unlike that of other ministers inclined
to a Presbyterian model, including Richard Baxter. But Thomas Jollie notes setting aside
elders and a deacon in 1675. Hirst, Failure of godly rule, p. 38; Cross, The Church in
England, pp. 10607; Thomas Jolly, The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly, ed. Henry
Fishwick (Chester, 1894), p. 28.
42 chapter two

At this point, Heywood intreated al those that desired to partake of

that ordinance to acquaint therwith, that I might discourse with them,
about the main fundamentals of religion. Initially, he was pessimistic
regarding the spiritual state of his flock, but was pleased to find that there
came to me about 120 persons, from most of wch I received abundant
unexpected satisfaction, and found more knowledge, true piety, and con-
victions of conscience then I had before made account of.19 Heywoods
approach to this problem seems to have been typical among many moder-
ate godly clergy, both conformist and nonconformist. In 1663, Isaac Archer,
who had conformed half-heartedly, faced a similar situation in his parish
of Chippenham, which had been without the sacrament for twenty years.
According to Archers diary:
I preached twice about it, laying downe such qualifications as the strictest
divines make use of, and went to the houses of such as would receive, to
speake with them concerning so weighty a busines. I found them generally
honest in their way, but ignorant, wherfore I told them what I could of the
grounds of religion, and particularly about the sacrament, and shewing the
great dangers they incurred by unworthily receiving. I left it to their owne
consciences what to doe.20
One cannot help but be struck by the similarities in these descriptions.
Heywoods account indicates that, like Archer, he cast a wide net when
fishing for souls. Heywoods godly followers would hardly have required a
discussion of the fundamentals of religion, nor would his satisfaction at
their piety have been unexpected. It thus seems that the men and women
who came to Heywood fell in the middle ground between the hardened
sinners and the visible saints, and that Heywood welcomed them with
open arms; he was treating Coley in the same way that Archer treated the
residents of Chippenham, not as a godly remnant, but a variegated flock in
need of a shepherd.21 In choosing this route, Heywood (and perhaps
Archer) followed Baxters advice, which urged pastors to focus first on the
unregenerate, then on Christians who were weak in faith, and finally on
the truly godly. After this examination, Heywood publicized the names of
those who wished to take the sacrament, and took a potentially divi-
sive step when he earnestly intreated that if any had any just grounds
of exceptionthat they would discover it before we proceeded to

19Heywood, Diaries, i:171. By his own estimate, 600 out of 1,600 residents of
Kidderminster presented themselves to Baxter for examination. Black, Reformation
Pastors, p. 105.
20Archer and Coe, East Anglian Diaries, p. 89.
21Black, Reformation Pastors, p. 92; Haigh, Communion and community, pp. 72729.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry43

administration [of the sacrament].22 This, then, was the moment of truth.
Would the godly members of the congregation attempt to bar their more
worldly neighbors from communion? And would those who rejected
Heywoods (half-hearted) discipline insist on taking the sacrament?
In the end, the members of each group kept their heads down.
The godly murmured against some names on the list, yet no objectors
appeared. Similarly, members of the congregation who Heywood feared
would disrupt the ceremony by demanding the sacrament without sub-
mitting to order absented themselves entirely. The willingness of both
parties to compromise is notable, for it signals a moderation that would
serve Heywood and Halifax well for years to come.23 Until the Tory
Reaction, conformists and dissenters found ways to maintain the peace.
Heywoods revival of the Lords Supper could have become a flashpoint,
but the residents of Coley kept events from proceeding that far, and as a
result, we injoyed the ordinance peaceably and comfortably.24 As in the
case of the Lords Supper, Archers diaries indicate that the laity worked as
hard as their ministers to maintain the peace. In 1663, one of Archers
parishioners, who formerly kept up a meeting at his house in the fenns,
approached Archer and told mee he would, with his wife, take the com-
munion, which they did, and that kneeling too as the rest; it seems they
were so much for peace that they conformed to that which others would
not have done.25
While the actual administration of the Lords Supper went smoothly,
there was some grumbling, as Heywoods decision to revive the sacrament
eventually roiled Coleys religious waters, and to some extent validated his
reluctance to offer it in the first place. Significantly, Heywoods most vocal
critics were not those whom he had discouraged from taking the sacra-
ment, but godly people who felt he was too liberal in its distribution; they
argued he placed community before purity, and thus profaned the sacra-
ment. From both sides I have received grievous buffettings and may sadly
say [the godly] hath been far more prejudicial to my work and afflictive to
my spirit[these] would throw the nation and congregation into con-
fused chaos.26

22Heywood, Diaries, i:171.

23For this dynamic, see Walsham, Charitable Hatred, pp. 27778.
24Heywood, Diaries, i:172.
25Archer and Coe, East Anglian Diaries, p. 89.
26Heywood, Diaries, i:17173. Ralph Josselin faced similar controversy. Ralph Josselin,
The Diary of Ralph Josselin 16161683, ed. Alan Macfarlane (London, 1976), pp. 23336. For
earlier efforts to limit communion, see Collinson, Religion of Protestants, pp. 27273.
44 chapter two

That Heywood was most troubled by the godly residents of the chapelry
indicates that his effort to find a middle road was not entirely successful.
But it also shows that at the moment when Heywood could create a com-
munity of his choosing, he chose inclusiveness over spiritual purity, and
did so knowing that it would alienate the godly. This tendency to reach out
to the entire chapelry rather than his strongest supporters would prove
the hallmark of Heywoods ministry long after the Restoration, and con-
tributed to the considerable freedom he enjoyed.27
In addition to adopting a position on the sacrament intended to please
the multitude rather than the self-declared saints, Heywood launched a
program of catechizing that he hoped would reach all of Coleys residents.
In 1656 or 1657, Heywood fell ill, and during his recovery he read Richard
Baxters Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor, with its vision of a parish
reformed through the heroic efforts of a catechizing minister.28 Baxters
book inspired Heywood to begin catechizing in Coley, but for reasons that
Heywood leaves unclear multitudes of busines fel in, and the conviction
dyed.29 Heywood was not alone in finding inspiration in Gildas or in his
discovery that Baxters plan was tremendously ambitious, for Adam
Martindale noted with despair the impossible task that Baxter had set
before them, citing the old ignoramusses.30 Despite this false start,
shortly after the Restoration Heywood reawoke to its necessity and:
set upon the work on the tuesday after june 25 1661 going from house to
house, resolving to spend one whole day or too halfe days in the week, and
have been at above 20 housesI found in most places very free and welcome
entertainment, and good incouragement, some better some worse than
Iexpected, al very willing to be instructed.31
According to Heywood, his decision to resume catechizing stemmed from
this awakening providence of my wives death, and further inquiring more

27Robert Atkins of St Johns parish in Exeter suffered similar badgering by both of his
constituencies. David Appleby, Black Bartholomews Day: Preaching, Polemic and
Restoration Nonconformity (Manchester, 2007), p. 39.
28Richard Baxter, Gildas Salvianus; The Reformed Pastor (London, 1656). See also Black,
Reformation Pastors; Eamon Duffy, The long Reformation: Catholicism, Protestantism and
the multitude, in Tyacke, Englands Long Reformation, pp. 4849.
29Heywood, Diaries, i:17780; Hirst, Failure of godly rule, pp. 4245.
30Martindale, Life of Adam Martindale, p. 122. It is also possible that establishing so
rigorous a program would be far more practical in nuclear settlements than upland par-
ishes of Englands north. John Rastrick was also heavily influenced by Baxter. Andrew
Cambers and Michelle Wolfe, Reading, family religion, and evangelical identity in late
Stuart England, Historical Journal 47:4 (2004), 87596.
31Unfortunately, Heywood does not indicate how long it took to catechize these twenty
homes, or for how long the program survived. Heywood, Diaries, i:178.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry45

narrowly into my sins past, and future or present duty. It would be unchar-
itable to discount the role of introspection in Heywoods decision, but we
should consider the importance of his future or present duty. In short,
Heywoods catechizing may have been a last-ditch effort to save his posi-
tion as curate, for he began this program at the very moment he was
threatened with ejection. Shortly after describing his catechizing activi-
ties, Heywood notes, But behold a black cloud thickens up on us in this
congregation, my old adversarys have now got that advantage agt me they
have been long seeking.32 Whatever the combination of motives underly-
ing Heywoods decision, what is of greatest significance is that Heywoods
reaction to the threat of ejection was to reach out to the wider community,
not to seek solace among the godly. In retrospect, Heywoods hope of
retaining his living may seem unrealistic, but the example of his friend
Henry Swift shows that survival was not impossible. Despite refusing the
requisite oaths, several citations for nonconformity, and three months
imprisonment for violating the Five Mile Act, Swift served as the vicar of
Penistone from 1649 until his death in 1689.33

Ejection and Exile

When the storm that Heywood envisioned broke over Coley, Heywood and his
followers wept bitter tears. After more than a decade ministering to the spiri-
tual needs of Coleys residents, it appeared that their relationship was at an
end. While ejection raised practical concerns, such as how Heywood would
survive without the curates salary, more serious was the fact that his flock
would be left without a shepherd. The Act of Uniformity effectively ordered
Heywood to abandon his ministry and stop working to save his congrega-
tions souls, and Heywood was in agony at this prospect. In the end, Heywoods
ministry proved more durable than he or his congregation thought. Despite
his ejection, Heywood continued to serve his congregation, and not even the
Five Mile Act, which tried to force ministers like Heywood to move away from
their congregations, proved sufficient to separate Heywood from his flock.

32Heywood, Diaries, i:178.

33Swift was able to remain at Penistone in part because the living was relatively poor,
which would have discouraged all but the most desperate Anglicans from contesting his
place, but more significant was the support of the Rich family of Bullhouse. Dissenting resi-
dents of neighboring parishes were cited traveling to Penistone to receive the sacrament.
BIHR, CP.H. 2700; BIHR, V. 1667, C.B. 1, p. 73; V. 1682, C.B. 1, fo. 70r-71r; Bryan Dale, Yorkshire
Puritanism and Early Nonconformity (Bradford, 1909); David Hey, The Riches of Bullhouse:
A family of Yorkshire dissenters, Northern History 31 (1995), 17893.
46 chapter two

While each piece of Parliamentary legislation against nonconformity seemed

disastrous, none proved quite as bad as anyone feared.
Despite these continuities in his ministry, the Clarendon Code fundamen-
tally changed Heywoods place in the chapelry. Most obviously, it made many
aspects of Heywoods ministry illegal, and by removing him from office
changed his relationship to his congregation. But these changes also affected
the way Heywood wrote. It was upon the passage of the Five Mile Act that
Heywood began to publish collections of his sermons, in the hope that they
would reach a wider audience than he could in person. And at that same
moment, Heywood adopted a new style of writing in his diaries, as he
attempted to keep a written record of his work as a spiritual shepherd despite
the apparent absence of a flock. Heywoods habits of writing illustrate his
attachment to his congregation and his determination to continue as pastor
despite the penal laws.
Notwithstanding his ten years in office and last-minute catechizing
plan, Heywood was suspended from his curacy in June 1662. His reaction
to this turn of events indicates how firmly enmeshed he was in the local
community: I tooke my leave for present of my dear congregation at
Coleyupon wch occasion I saw more strong workings of affections and
teares of sorrow then I have ever before seen in public.34 Heywoods rhet-
oric is instructive, in that he describes his departure as temporary (for
present), signaling that as of 1662, he intended to resume his work among
all of Coleys residents as soon as possible, not to found a separatist soci-
ety. When Heywood wrote of his dear congregation he meant all of his
neighbors, not just those who would follow him out of the Church, whom
he referred to as his society.35 Finally, because Heywood had no plans to
move from his home in Coley, the departure that so moved his people
could only mean leaving the curacy. In short, Heywood and his neighbors
saw his ejection as the end of his ministry and lamented that fact. Despite
these fears (and contrary to the intent of the law), Heywoods pastoral
work continued: for several years after his ejection, he remained in Coley
and maintained a close relationship with chapelry residents. Nor was
Heywood alone in continuing to care for his former flock. The enduring
influence of ejected ministers among their followers was so prevalent that

34Heywood, Diaries, i:182; For other farewell sermons and the emotions they engen-
dered, see Appleby, Black Bartholomews Day, p. 38.
35Ralph Josselin also made this distinction, referring to his gathered church as society
and the parish as congregation. John Spurr, English Puritanism, 16031689 (New York,
1998), p. 198.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry47

it demanded Parliamentary action in the form of the Five Mile Act of 1665,
which prohibited nonconformist clergy from residing within five miles
of their former living. The Five Mile Act thus hoped to achieve what
the Act of Uniformity had notto separate nonconformists from their
congregations.36
The prospect of physical separation from his congregation presented
Heywood with a second pastoral crisis. And while it was ultimately inef-
fective, in 1665 removal from Coley seemed as catastrophic as ejection.
Faced with exile, Heywood transformed the way in which he wrote in his
notebooks and at the same time began to publish his works in print.37 The
timing of the first of these changes is clearly related to the Five Mile Act.
Prior to the Act, when Heywood wrote about himself it was in autobio-
graphical form, and for several years he wrote only sporadically, making
entries every few weeks.38 But in the wake of the Five Mile Act, Heywood
bought a new notebook and began to write more and more frequently
until he had separate entries for each day.39 Heywood himself saw the new
notebook as substantially different from the old, for in January 1681 he
paused to look over this last scene of my life viz from mch. 24, 1665/6,
which was the day that the banishing Act agt poor Non-conformists took
placeat which time I begun my diary.40 In retrospect, it was not ejection
from the curacy that mattered most to Heywood, but his exile from Coley
and separation from his flock.
In addition to moving Heywood to adopt a new style of writing in his
notebooks, the Five Mile Act inspired Heywoods first printed work, Heart-
Treasure, or, An Essay Tending to Fil and Furnish the Head and Heart of
Every Christian. Heywood completed this lengthy work in June 1666 and
explicitly linked its publication to his removal from Coley. He saw print as
a means by which he could continue his pastoral work despite the
Clarendon Code, as he noted in the preface, when Preacherscannot
speak, books may remain and instruct their surviving people.41 Heywood
hoped that his book would find an audience far beyond his society or even

36Keeble, Literary Culture of Nonconformity, pp. 3436.

37Love, Preacher and publisher, pp. 22735.
38Heywood, Diaries, i:133202.
39Heywood, Diaries, i:223304.
40Heywood, Diaries, i:177, 223; ii:22526. Emphasis added.
41Oliver Heywood, Heart-Treasure, or, An Essay Tending to Fil and Furnish the Head and
Heart of Every Christian (London, 1667), Epistle Dedicatory; Keeble, Literary Culture of
Nonconformity, pp. 7882. For Catholic use of print, see Alexandra Walsham, Domme
preachers?: Post-Reformation English Catholicism and the culture of print, Past & Present
168 (2000), 72123.
48 chapter two

dissenters more broadly, for he dedicated it To my very loving and dearly

beloved Friends and Neigbours, the Inhabitants of Coley, and the places
adjacent.42 It is worth pausing to note the reciprocity of this statement: he
feels affection for his neighbors and sees himself as a beloved member of
that community. While we must read such statements with a critical eye,
we should note the choice that Heywood did not make. Under the circum-
stances, Heywood could be forgiven for casting himself as an Old
Testament prophet rejected by his own people; instead, he attempted to
reinforce the bonds that linked him to his neighbors. The most obvious
explanation for this choice is that his congregation loved him, and that the
strong workings of affections and teares of sorrow described above were
genuine.
While the dedication of Heart-Treasure to his congregation might have
constituted Heywoods fond farewell, later publications indicate that his
ties to Coley (at least as he presented them in print) remained strong. Over
twenty years later, in 1689, Heywood published Meetness for Heaven, and
in language similar to that used in Heart-Treasure, dedicated the work To
my Dearly Beloved Hearers, Friends and Neighbours. Moreover, Heywood
looked back on his lifes work and described the book as a last Legacy to
you, my dear People, amongst whom I have laboured above thirty nine
years in publick and private.43 Thirty-nine years before 1689 is, of course
1650, the year Heywood arrived in Coley, not the year he established his
dissenting society. Nor does this appeal to his neighbors seem to be a rhe-
torical move inspired by the prospect of Toleration under William and
Mary. In 1695, Heywood dedicated A New Creature to My Dear Friends
and Beloved Hearers at N[orthowram] in Yorkshire. And, once again,
when Heywood looks back over his ministry, he takes the 1650s as his refer-
ence point, recalling my Pilgrimage and Travels amongst you above Forty
Four Yeares.44 Heywood thus used his publication and his notebooks as a
means to create religious connections. In print Heywood challenged the
Five Mile Act by declaring publicly his attachment to his people at Coley,
and his intention to continue his work on behalf of their souls. And as we

42Heywood, Heart-Treasure. Patrick Collinson and others have emphasized the close
bond between pastor and people. Collinson, Godly People, pp. 54041; Seaver, Wallingtons
World.
43Oliver Heywood, Meetness for Heaven Promoted in Some Brief Meditations Upon Colos.
1.12. (London, 1689), sig. A2r, A9v. Most catalogs incorrectly date the work to 1679.
44Oliver Heywood, A New Creature: Or, A Short Discourse, Opening the Nature, Properties,
and Necessity of the Great Work of the New Creation upon the Souls of Men (London, 1695),
sigs. A5r, A2v.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry49

shall see below, his daily diary demonstrated that his pastoral work
continued despite ejection, and gave the lie to Church accusations of
idleness.

Big Shoes to Fill: The Restoration Curates of Coley

Once the Church of England had successfully removed Heywood from the
curacy, the problem for Coleys residents became finding a replacement. The
search for a new curate was complicated by a number of factors, not least of
which was that Heywood still lived in the chapelry, which would have given
some candidates pause. Moreover, Heywood may have had a hand in the
search, promoting some candidates and subtly undermining others.
Heywood attended sermons preached by prospective curates, which could
only have been off-putting, and in Heart-Treasure, published in 1667, he
urged his hearers to reject vain-glorious Mountebanks in Religion in favor
of the most heart-searching ministry.45 While Heywood is no more specific
than this (at least in print), it would have been clear to the residents of Coley
which category Heywood saw himself as fitting into. The only question was
whether a prospective successor was a Mountebank, and Heywood doubtless
made his voice heard.
When he considered the prospect of being replaced, Heywood was pulled
in a number of directions. First and foremost, he did want the chapelry to find
a replacement. He knew that his ability to preach and provide pastoral care
to his congregation had been undermined both by the penal laws and by his
frequent preaching sojourns through the West Riding and into Lancashire. If
he could not do the job, and if there were no curate, his flock would suffer. At
the same time, however, not just any minister would do, and Heywood had
several criteria that any minister had to meet. Godliness was one require-
ment, of course, as was adherence to Calvinist orthodoxy; Arminians and
antinomians needed not apply. The ideal minister also would be friendly to
dissenters and turn a blind eye to Heywoods preaching and pastoral work. In
other words, Coley needed a minister who loved the Church enough to con-
form but did not love it enough to force conformity on others. A semi-
conformist would seem to fit the bill, but (notwithstanding High Church
complaints) such ministers were few and far between. The process of finding
a replacement thus was difficult, and illustrates the extent to which Heywoods

45Heywood, Heart-Treasure, pp. 5556.

50 chapter two

tenure had shaped Coleys religiosity, as well as the role he played in local
religious life even after his ejection.
For nonconformists who remained in or near the parish where they had
served, ejection did not bring an end to their relationships with their con-
gregations. Rather, the relationships became more complex, as clergymen
such as Heywood continued to preach and provide pastoral care despite
their ejection, and in many cases they did so even after the arrival of a
replacement. The Church of England recognized this problem, of course,
and Parliament passed the Five Mile Act to remedy the situation. Despite
the Act, Heywood continued to shape religious life in Coley, both by con-
tinuing his ministry and by playing an active role in the chapelrys efforts
to find a new curate. In practical terms, Heywoods involvement in the
search was driven by self-interest: the curate could play an important role
in either promoting or interfering with persecution. But at the same time,
Heywood was motivated by a genuine concern for his congregants souls,
and believed that the good of their souls required a godly ministry.46
Heywood thus worked to ensure that Coley remained a community toler-
ant of his nonconformist ministry and inclined to his style of religion; call
it godly self-interest.
Heywood is regrettably discreet in writing about the process of finding
a successor. While it strains credulity to think that he did not discuss can-
didates with Coleys leaders, he does not mention any such conversations.
But Heywoods diaries make clear that he followed the process closely, and
held strong opinions about prospective curates. In some cases Heywood
went so far as to attend sermons preached by his successors, and he noted
their shortcomings and virtues in his notebook. The first minister that
Heywood mentions was one Mr Moore, who preached in Coley Chapel in
December 1663. Moores presence concerned Heywood not because he
feared Moore might be inclined to persecution, but because of rumored
antinomian tendencies.47 The question before Heywood was how he
would respond, and after a long debate what I should doe, at last I resolved
to goe to the chappel to hear what doctrine was delivered to my beloved
people.48 Heywoods presence probably unsettled Moore, and it seems
likely this was one of Heywoods goals: What better way to keep Moore
from expressing heterodox ideas than by sitting in judgement over his

46Appleby, Black Bartholomews Day, p. 32.

47It is unclear whether Moore had been hired to preach a single sermon or was being
considered for the curacy.
48The debate probably stemmed from the fact that Heywood had been excommuni-
cated, and thus was barred from attending Anglican services. Heywood, Diaries, i:184.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry51

sermon? More significant, however, is Heywoods motivation: Heywood

took it upon himself to protect his former congregation, his beloved peo-
ple, from the spread of antinomianism. In any event, Moore preached just
once at Coley, and was followed shortly by one Mr Fisden. Fisden appears
to have been of a more conservative bent than Moore, and according to
Heywood he received a cold reception:
[Fisden] came and offered himselfe, but that would not takemany went to
hear him in the morning, but few in the after noon: the next day he was gen-
erally deserted and as they tel me, not above halfe a score persons came to
chappelthis man threatened what conformity he would bring the people
into or punish them, yet his own party being ashamed of his deboist cariage
durst not adventure to hire him, so he went away.49
The residents of the chapelry were thus in a bindthey needed a minister
who would conform, but who would not take a hard line against dissent.
While we can point to Heywoods role in creating a community inclined to
dissent, the actors in this case were the laity. When presented with a min-
ister who offered a divisive vision of the community, the congregation,
even those who had brought him to the Coley in the first place, immedi-
ately rejected him.50
Heywood was not the only nonconformist who attended Church of
England services conducted by his successor. In some cases, a ministers
decision to do this was born of genuine affection for the Church: Leeds
antiquarian Ralph Thoresby refers to one Presbyterian minister who
described himself though a nonconformist minister, a Conformist parish-
ioner.51 Henry Newcome attended Church of England worship on a regu-
lar basis and even took communion when the priest would allow it.52
There is no evidence that Heywood was this comfortable with the
Established Church, and it is unlikely that many conformists would be
pleased to see Heywood in the audience. Indeed, the unusually violent
encounter between Edward Prime, the ejected vicar of Sheffield, and his

49Heywood, Diaries, i:18687.

50It is, of course, possible that Heywood had deliberately poisoned the chapelry against
Fisden and his ilk, but it is unlikely that he would note such subterfuge in his diary. For the
effects that a single clergyman could have on local religious practice, see Duffy, Voices of
Morebath. Christopher Haigh has argued that the laity could influence the religious style of
their clergy as well. Christopher Haigh, The taming of Reformation: Preachers, pastors and
parishioners in Elizabethan and early Stuart England, History 85 (2000), 57288.
51The minister in question was one John Humphrey. Thoresby, The Diary of Ralph
Thoresby, p. 326; Spurr, Religion in Restoration England, p. 106.
52Newcome, Diary of Henry Newcome, p. 157 and passim.
52 chapter two

successor, Edward Brown, illustrates how wrong things could go. One
Sunday in 1661, Prime came to church to hear Brown preach. The trouble
started when it came time to say the Apostles Creed, and (in Browns esti-
mation) Prime was a bit slow to remove his hat; Brown decided to remove
it for him. According to one witness, Brown:
gott hold of the brim, and therewith did violently pull downe [his] heade
the said Mr Brownes hand slipping his hold or [Brown]letting it goe
Mr Primes head went sharply uppthat it knocked against the sealinge.
In the wake of the assault, Mr Prime rose upp & went forth of the Church
& very many of the People (to about half the number of them) followed
him.53 Browns decision to charge into the audience and assault a parish-
ioner might seem a bit extreme, but Primes reluctance to remove his hat
would have been noticed by his followers, and Brown rightly interpreted it
as a deliberate attempt to undermine his authority. The issue was not sim-
ply proper behavior in church, but which of the two ministers, Brown or
Prime, would wield power within the parish. It is also significant that
Prime was followed out of the church by a substantial proportion of the
congregation, highlighting the influence that a nonconformist could wield
within his former congregation. The fact that none of Heywoods succes-
sors in the curacy felt compelled to assault him may well stem from the
fact that candidates such as Fisden, who would take offense at Heywoods
nonconformity, were unlikely to get the job. In part this was because the
right to appoint a curate lay not with the Crown, the Church, or any one
individual, but with the chapelry as a whole. The Crown could (and did)
appoint persecuting ministers to parishes inclined to nonconformity, and
it would suffer no ill effects. The residents of Coley, in contrast, had to live
with their choice every day, and as a result the leading residents were
unlikely to settle on a divisive, High Church minister. Their concern was to
maintain the social fabric, not bring the chapelry into conformity.
Much to Heywoods relief, in 1664 a satisfactory minister arrived in
Coley. Late that year, Heywood noted that at last there is an honest minis-
ter come to Coley, and is ingaged here for a quarter, one Mr [John] Hoole
a very late conformist, who preacheth wel, and is a pious man.54 It is quite
possible that Heywood played some role in securing the position for
Hoole, for even before his appointment Heywood contacted the Dean

53BIHR, CP.H. 2540.

54Heywood, Diaries, i:192. For semi-conformists in parish livings, see Spurr, Religion in
Restoration England, pp. 10203; John Spurr, The Restoration Church of England, 1646- 1689
(New Haven, 1991), p. 45.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry53

of York Minster, asking whether he might be allowed to attend Hooles

sermons despite standing excommunicate.55 Unfortunately, Hoole stayed
only a few years, and after his departure the problems of supplying the
cure returned. In 1682, however, Heywoods prayers for a godly minister at
Coley were answered:
I had been frequently much concerned for my dear and ancient congrega-
tion of Coley, for in this 20 yeares time they have had 9 or 10 several preach-
ers and frequent vacancysin answer to my prayer, god graciously sent in an
honest conformist (one Mr Ellison) who liveth soberly, preacheth zeal-
ously, agt sin, orthodoxly, a moderate man.56
This honest conformist was Timothy Ellison, who, from Heywoods per-
spective, was a perfect fit for Coley. While there is no evidence that
Heywood knew Ellison or had a role in his coming to Coley, it does not
strain credulity to think he might have. We know that Ellisons parents
were inclined to nonconformity and had hosted sermons by Heywoods
brother, Nathaniel, who was also a Presbyterian.57 This, along with Olivers
enthusiasm for Ellisons appointment, indicates that the new curate may
have harbored Low Church tendencies, and records from the church
courts support this impression. In 1681, shortly before coming to Coley,
Ellison found himself in court due to the highly unusual means by which
he gained an appointment to the curacy of Meltham, a chapelry not unlike
Coley that was located in Almondbury parish. According to John Robinson,
the vicar of Almondbury, Ellison had requested a letter of recommenda-
tion for a position in Derbyshire. Robinson wrote a short letter, stating,
These are to certifye those whom it may concerne that Mr Timothy Ellison
minister is a person of an exemplary and innocent conversation and truly
conformable to the doctrine and discipline of the church of England, and
signed the letter immediately below the text. But squeezed in between
Robinsons note and his signature (in a different ink and a laughably

55The Dean, Robert Hitch, replied, an excommunicate person is not allowed to be

present at prayers or sermon, yet it being usual for such to hear sermons without distur-
bance he wonders any church-wardens should be so ignorant or malicious as to hinder any
from hearing the word. Heywood, Diaries, i:193; ii:212, 288. For Church attacks on trim-
mers such as Hoole, see Mark Goldie and John Spurr, Politics and the Restoration parish:
Edward Fowler and the struggle for St Giles Cripplegate, English Historical Review 109:432
(1994), 57296.
56Heywood, Diaries, iv:8081.
57J. Horsfall Turner, Haworth Past and Present: A History of Haworth, Stanbury &
Oxenhope (Brighouse, 1879), pp. 4445.
54 chapter two

cramped hand), someone (Ellison?) added and I desire that hee may bee
admitted to the Curacy at Meltham.58
While this sort of chicanery is hardly evidence of Low Church tenden-
cies, other testimony in the case indicates why Heywood was so enthusias-
tic about Ellisons arrival. According to John Hemmingway, Mr Ellison is
an ill affected person to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of
England for that he told [me] that if [Parliament] agreedthe surplice and
ceremonyes would be laid aside. The formal charges against Ellison went
further, stating that:
Youhave not read the Common Prayer & administered the Sacraments in
the sd Chapell in due forme & Order, but have omitted pt thereof &jum-
bled & altered the rest at your pleasure, and have seldome or never worne &
used the SurpliceAnd that in your prayer before the Sermon, you have
wholly omitted to pray for the Kings most Excellent Majestie & the Royall
familyyou are an Encourager of faction & sedition & a person disaffected
to the Doctrine & Discipline of the Church of England.59
From Heywoods perspective, this accusation would serve as a stronger
recommendation than any clergymans letter, and once Ellison came to
Coley the two men quickly established a close friendship. In April 1683,
Heywood wrote, Mr Ellison preacher at Coley came to visit me. Was
exceeding loving.60 While it is difficult to judge the intensity of their
friendship, Heywood reportedly attended Ellisons services in Coley cha-
pel with some regularity.61 Moreover, we know that in 1695 Ellison invited
Heywood to preach at his chapel, and in August 1700 Ellison visited
Heywood and sate 2 hours almost.62
Heywoods relationship with the men who hoped to succeed him is
important on a number of fronts. Ironically, his actions validate the logic
behind the Five Mile Act, for the presence of nonconformists in their for-
mer parishes clearly complicated Church efforts to establish orthodoxy at

58BIHR, CP.H. 3500.

59BIHR, CP.H. 3500. In the end, no verdict was reached in the case against Ellison. The
case appears to have been dropped in 1682, so it is likely that he simply gave up the fight for
Meltham once he had secured the living at Coley.
60BL, Add. MS 24486, fo. 65v.
61Turner, Haworth, pp. 4445.
62BL, Add. MS 24486, fo. 76r; Heywood, Diaries, iv:15, 227. For other visits, see BL, Add.
MS 24486, fos. 66v, 76r, 77v. Ellisons career trajectory is similar to that of John Rastrick.
Cambers and Wolfe, Reading, family religion, and evangelical identity. For interfaith
friendships, see Benjamin J. Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of
Toleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, Mass., 2007), p. 9; Judith Pollmann, Religious
Choice in the Dutch Republic: The Reformation of Arnoldus Buchelius, 15651641 (Manchester,
1999), pp. 16978.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry55

the local level. Heywood continued to shape religious life in the chapelry
even after 1662, judging those who hoped to succeed him, and perhaps
haunting those of whom he did not approve. Under Heywoods influence,
Coley residents rejected Fisden, a High Church candidate, opting instead
for Timothy Ellison and his half-hearted conformity. Given that Heywood
spent a decade as Coleys curate, a High Churchman such as Fisden would
have encountered resistance in any case. But Heywoods presence also
would have made the position more difficult to fill: who but a Low
Churchman would want to work with Heywood peering over his shoul-
der? Low Church candidates such as Hoole and Ellison undoubtedly had a
warmer reception from some residents of Coley once they had gained
Heywoods stamp of approval, and during their tenures Heywood doubt-
less enjoyed a greater freedom to continue his ministry than he would
have otherwise. If this was Heywoods plan, it was a rousing success, for he
continued to work among his former congregation, both as a preacher and
pastor, for many years after his ejection.

Heywood as Preacher and Pastor

As strange as it may seem, in 1662, when Heywood contemplated the future of

his ministry after his ejection, he faced many of the same questions he had
when he became curate twelve years earlier. While the problem of who to
admit to the sacraments was moot, the question of whom he would serve, the
godly or the multitude, was not. It seemed a foregone conclusion that he
would establish a dissenting society, but what about his former congrega-
tion? What would be his relationship to the men and women whom he had
served for his entire career, but who chose to remain within the Established
Church? Unlike his nonconformist brethren who were forced to move
from their parishes, Heywood had the ability to sustain the close and long-
standing ties to his neighbors. And it is clear he still felt a sense of responsibil-
ity for their spiritual welfare, and as a result he continued to work with a
broad cross-section of Coleys residents.
Not surprisingly, Heywood welcomed the opportunity to preach to his for-
mer congregation and took great pleasure from their presence at his ser-
mons. Heywoods success stemmed in part from the chapelrys problems
finding a replacement, for in the minds of most chapelry residents, even those
who remained loyal to the Church, a sermon by Heywood was better than no
sermon at all. As Lancashire MP John Birch put it in a Parliamentary debate
over the second Conventicle Act, A man that has no preaching near him will
56 chapter two

take it where he can, and the same was true of pastoral care.63 In addition to
his preaching Heywood also continued the pastoral work he set out for him-
self when he was curate. In contrast to the pervasive and misleading stereo-
type of the godly minister who cared for nothing but preaching, Heywood
maintained a vibrant and personal ministry, visiting the sick and aged resi-
dents of the chapelry. Heywood also continued to work towards the conver-
sion of Coleys sinners, but significantly, he never fit that other hoary
stereotype of the puritan minister, the one who constantly harangued sinners
in the act. Throughout his career, Heywood chose to maintain the local peace
and catch souls by gentle persuasion rather than public rebuke.
It is unclear whether Heywoods ejection had any effect on his ministry,
but an entry from 1664 indicates that any interruption must have been
brief. In April of that year, Heywood noted the appointment of one
Mr Pattison to the curacy. Pattison lodged with one of Heywoods near
neighbors, which forced Heywood to curtail his private religious activi-
ties, such as hosting fasts, and divorced me frommy dear congregation,
and from al opportunitys of doing good in publick.64 The implications of
this entry are two-fold. First, we know that Heywoods private gatherings
were an open secret. It was only when a Church official from outside Coley
might get wind of his work that Heywood began to worry. Second, we see
that in 1664, two years after his ejection, Heywood was active among his
former congregation, not just his dissenting society. Happily for Heywood,
Pattison did not remain long at Coley, but after he had got 3li he run away
we heard no more of him.65 This sort of behavior would have further
enhanced Heywoods status within the chapelry, particularly among resi-
dents already suspicious of the Established Church, for Pattisons flighti-
ness provided an ideal foil for Heywoods dedication: Heywood stayed
despite his ejection, while Pattison fled as soon as he had been paid. As we
saw in the previous section, Pattison was hardly alone in abandoning
Coley; indeed, the argument could be made (and may well have been
made by Heywood) that the Church of England itself had abandoned the
chapelry. When the Church ejected Heywood and then proved unable to
supply a successor, what other conclusion were residents to draw?

63William Cobbett, John Wright, and Thomas Curson Hansard, The Parliamentary
History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 (1808), pp. 44546, quoted in
Anthony Fletcher, The enforcement of the Conventicle Acts 16641679, Studies in Church
History 21 (1984), 237.
64Heywood, Diaries, i:187.
65Heywood, Diaries, i:187.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry57

Because of the difficulty in filling the curacy there were often no con-
formist services in Coley, so chapelry residents often resorted to Heywood
for sermons. In February 1665, Heywood preached in his home:
through gods rich providence we injoyd a blessed sabboth, and a greater
company then usually before, because that day there was no preaching at
Coley, and many of our neigbours spent the sabboth with us, to our abun-
dant inlargement and satisfaction, without disturbance.66
Similarly, in April 1667 Heywood reported that, because there was no
body at Coley chapel in the afternoone I had the more in my house, which
tho it be very capacious was wel filled, with strangers and neighbours.
A year later, Heywood still attracted residents of Coley, for on two consec-
utive Sundays in 1668,
I stayd at home and preacht in my house, but it was not able to contain the
number of hearers, because there was no preaching at the chappel, both
afternoones we were in the hall-body, which was abundantly filled with
some hundreds of people, I was much affected to see so many of my old
hearers at a private place.67
The size and makeup of the audiences for these sermons help us to under-
stand Heywoods complicated place in Coley. The fact that those in atten-
dance included both members of Heywoods society and his old hearers
speaks to his enduring popularity among Coleys conforming residents. It
is also evidence of the laitys attitude towards both the Established Church
and Heywood. Given their druthers, Heywoods neighbors preferred a con-
formist minister, but failing that Heywood would do.68
In addition to preaching to chapelry residents in his own home,
Heywood occasionally preached in his former pulpit in Coley chapel,
often with the consent of one of his successors. One Sunday in January
1668, John Hoole proved unavailable to preach, and Heywood took the

66Heywood only occasionally offers estimates for the number of people in his audi-
ences, and these varied greatly. Heywood, Diaries, i:196; Spurr, English Puritanism, p. 136.
67Heywood, Diaries, i:239, 251.
68For neutralists who attended both Church of England and nonconformist gather-
ings, see Ramsbottom, Presbyterians and partial conformity. Spurr, English Puritanism,
p. 135. It is also unlikely that many of Heywoods hearers understood (or cared about) the
differences between conforming and nonconforming clergy. For lay indifference to the dif-
ferences between Catholic and Calvinist in France, see Gregory Hanlon, Confession and
Community in Seventeenth-Century France: Catholic and Protestant Coexistence in Aquitaine
(Philadelphia, 1993), p. 151. In some eyes, Heywoods ministry would have deflected charges
of separatism that often antagonized dissenters neighbors. Daniel C. Beaver, Parish
Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester, 15901690 (Cambridge, Mass.,
1998), pp. 141, 26365.
58 chapter two

advantage of the vacancyin the afternoon there was a very great assem-
bly. In 1669, Heywood again filled in for Hoole and reported, what sud-
den congregation was raised! In the wake of the second Conventicle Act,
around the time Hoole left the chapelry, Heywood received yet another
invitation to preach in the chapel: whit-sunday came too men waiting for
my rising, they told me there was no preaching at the chappel, and if
I durst venture the dores should be open.69 In light of the warm relation-
ship between the two men, Hoole likely approved of Heywoods guest
appearances. Heywood continued to preach unmolested, writing in
December 1675:
I fell to preaching again, many flockt to ordinancesthere was no danger,
not a dog moving his tongue against us, and thus we have continued in as full
assemblysthe heads of the chapelry of Coley have been consulting to give
me a call to preach in publick and say things will not be right till I be brought
to it again.70
Despite official proscription, Heywood continued to preach to his Coley
congregation, remained a vital presence in the chapelry, and retained the
support of Coleys leading residents.
All of this would have presented Coleys residents with a confusing and
contradictory mix of messages about nonconformity. The rhetoric from
the Church linked nonconformity with sedition and, as noted above,
Heywood himself had been excommunicated. Parliament took a similar
line, passing a series of laws intending to suppress nonconformity. But the
attacks on nonconformity, particularly the claim that it represented a
threat to political order, were undermined by Charles IIs decision in 1672
to issue a Declaration of Indulgence. If the King himself thought noncon-
formists should be allowed to establish meeting houses, how dangerous
could they be? Nicholas Morgan has noted that many northern Justices
decided who to prosecute based less on the law than on perceived atti-
tudes of the Crown.71 Nor was the picture any clearer at the local level, for
while the vicar of Halifax was a vocal opponent of nonconformity, pub-
lishing and preaching against Heywood and his ilk, Heywood attended

69Heywood, Diaries, i:248, 265, 269.

70Heywood, Diaries, iii:140. Nor were these men alone in their optimism. In 1692,
Clement Ellis, the rector of Kirby, wrote to Archbishop John Sharp with the very odd
request that a nonconformist be licensed to preach in a parish church. A. Tindal Hart, The
Life and Times of John Sharp, Archbishop of York (London, 1949), pp. 2829.
71Nicholas Morgan, Lancashire Quakers and the Establishment, 16601730 (Halifax,
1993), p. 66.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry59

Church services with the approbation of the Dean of York, and preached
in Coley chapel with the approval of a conforming minister.72 In the
absence of any national or local consensus on the threat posed by noncon-
formity, the residents of Coley had unusual license to draw their own con-
clusions about Heywood. In many cases they concluded not only that
Heywood was not a danger, but was in fact an integral part of the local
religious landscape. While Heywoods eagerness to preach to his former
congregation doubtless contributed to their loyalty, Heywood also contin-
ued to act as a pastor, a practice that may have had an even greater effect
on local attitudes.
While preaching remained the most visible aspect of Heywoods minis-
try, it is vital to recognize that pastoral care was central to his ministry
both while he was curate and for many years after his ejection.73 As in so
many other aspects of his ministry, Heywoods pastoral strategy was influ-
enced by Richard Baxter, who urged his readers to offer special care and
over- sight of each member of the Flock.74 The pastoral care Baxter had in
mind included the public work of administering sacraments and preach-
ing, but also to be known Counsellor for their soulsso that each man
that is in doubts and straits should bring his case to him and desire
Resolution. Baxter encouraged ministers to visit the sick, and [comfort]
the consciences of the troubled.75 Indeed, J. William Black has argued
that Baxters work reoriented Puritanism from its traditional emphasis on
preaching, to a more pastoral approach, and brought godly clergy into
more intimate contact with their followers.76 And while Heywood took
particular pride in his preaching, he continued to visit his sick and dying
neighbors whether or not they joined his dissenting society, and he con-
tinued to work for the conversion of the chapelrys less-godly residents.

72For similar examples, see C.E. Whiting, Studies in English Puritanism from the
Restoration to the Revolution, 16601688 (London, 1968), pp. 1819, 33, 3739; Brigden,
Religion and social obligation in early sixteenth-century London, pp. 67112. For the con-
fusion wrought by early modern changes in official religious policy, see Walsham, Charitable
Hatred, pp. 1320.
73Mark Smith has noted a pastoral focus among 19th-century Dissenters. Mark Smith,
Religion in Industrial Society: Oldham and Saddleworth, 17401865 (Oxford, 1994), p. 148;
David Harley, Mental illness, magical medicine and the devil in northern England, 1650
1700, in The Medical Revolution of the Seventeenth Century, eds. Roger French and Andrew
Wear (Cambridge, Eng., 1989). For the relationship between Dutch Catholics and their
clergy, Charles H. Parker, Faith on the Margins: Catholics and Catholicism in the Dutch
Golden Age (Cambridge, Mass., 2008), chaps. 34.
74Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, p. 81.
75Baxter, Gildas Salvianus, pp. 82, 8894. For similar demands made on Dutch priests,
see Parker, Faith on the Margins, pp. 12122.
76Black, Reformation Pastors.
60 chapter two

Taken together, these activities indicate that far from withdrawing from
the local community after his ejection, Heywood deliberately remained a
part of it. In continuing to minister to the spiritual needs of his neighbors,
Heywood made official efforts to drive nonconformists out of parish life
and the establishment of religious uniformity, far more difficult. He helped
to create a community in which the boundary between conformity and
dissent blurred into nothingness.77 Such work sprang in part from his call-
ing to the ministry, but it also had practical value because, for a time at
least, it helped shield him from persecution under the Clarendon Code.78
Because Heywood did not keep a daily record of his work at the begin-
ning of his career, we cannot tell how important work as a pastor was to his
curacy. What is significant, however, is that he worked as a pastor for many
years after his ejection. In 1669, Heywood, went to visit the sick and aged
about homesaw 4 that day wch togather made 330 Yeares. In a two-week
span at the end of 1675, Heywood visited sick persons at Norwood-green
and recalls having been abroad to see some sick persons. In August 1679,
nearly two decades after his ejection, Heywood visited sick persons at
Widow Clays, discoursed, prayed with them.79 It is possible that Heywood
knew some of these people, but his diaries indicate that he often visited
individuals with whom he was not close. There are many examples scat-
tered throughout the diaries, but a few will suffice. In 1668, Heywood was
sent for to visit one Samuel Starkey not long since a lusty yong man, now a
miserable object having his tongue taken from him and the rest of his
members with a palsy. Two years later, Heywood visited one Daniel
Pickles, and the following year he went to see one Sam: Brooksbank lying
sick of consumption brought on by his intemperance.80 What is striking
about the individuals Heywood visited in their times of trouble is that
many of them are found nowhere else in his diaries. In 1673, Heywood vis-
ited Elizabeth Booth when she was ill, and that visit appears to be the only
contact between the two. Between 1677 and 1684, Heywood records visits
to Mary Longbottom, Simon Lord, the daughter of George Boyle, Jeremiah
Crook, Henry Spencer, and the unnamed wife of Edward Preston.81
Some of these people may have attended Heywoods sermons, but none
hosted or attended a fast or prayer meetings, nor do they appear on any

77For the existence of a religious style that bridged the conformist divide, see Cambers
and Wolfe, Reading, family religion, and evangelical identity.
78Walsham, Charitable Hatred, pp. 27778.
79Heywood, Diaries, iii:16970; ii:101. See also Parker, Faith on the Margins, pp. 12122.
80Heywood, Diaries, i:249, 274, 282. Emphasis added.
81Heywood, Diaries, ii:48, 54.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry61

membership lists for his society. Indeed, these single visits are the only
occasions upon which Heywood mentions these people. But all of them
lived within Coley chapelry and were members of Heywoods former con-
gregation, and as a result Heywood felt compelled to care for them as best
he could.
In addition to ministering to sick residents of the chapelry regardless of
denomination, Heywood sought deathbed repentance of Coleys sinners.
Indeed, part of Heywoods agenda when visiting the sick was to evangelize
them in hope that the illness would inspire them to repent and reform.82
In 1673, Heywood lamented his failure to visit one neighbor, Giles Tenant.
According to Heywood, Tenant was a covetous scraping man all his days,
a great swearer, a very vain talker, but an old hearer of mine, he dyed when
I was at York, and I never heard of his sicknes else I should have visited
him.83 Here we see that ten years after his ejection, the pastoral tie
between Heywood and Tenant remained strong, despite Tenants less than
godly carriage. Heywood was more timely in his efforts to convert a notori-
ous drinker, Daniel Drake, who sd his liver was blistered and raw with
strong stuff. Heywood visited him repeatedly, but found him very stupid,
only desiring he might live but one half year to discover what a new man
he would be, but god thought not fit to trust him. I prayed with him Jan.
18 [1680], and within 2 or 3 houres he dyed.84 Heywood had no more luck
with Timothy Starkey, who fell ill after drinking brandy. I endeavoured to
convince him of his sin, take him off his vain reasonings, but I fear, spent
my breath for no purposethat night after he dyed.85 Heywood engaged
in a more protracted campaign on behalf of another local tippler, Richard
Langley.86 In 1670, Heywood comforted Langley as his son lay dying, and
two years later Heywood received an urgent message that Langley wanted
me being very sick, whom I went to see [him]found him ill prayed with
him.87 Langleys prayers for recovery were answered, but Heywoods for
his moral reformation were not, and Langley lived to sin another day. On
16 February 1673, Heywood returned to Langleys bedside when he:

82Such a strategy mirrored the pastoral work of his Anglican counterparts and, in all
likelihood, his own work as curate prior to his ejection.
83Heywood, Diaries, iii:203.
84Heywood, Diaries, ii:27677.
85Heywood, Diaries, iv:4748.
86According to Heywood, Langleys illness was the result of sore drinking, for he hath
been a man of great strength in drinking sack, brandy, strong waters and ale. Heywood,
Diaries, i:346.
87Heywood, Diaries: i:275, 289, 294; ii:4849.
62 chapter two

was judged near death, then prayed and religion was good, but upon thues-
day following when I went again, he was much better, in hopes of recovery,
and wn I then tryd to speak of spiritual things it would not down, he was
sleepy or heedles, I was not then desired to pray or praise god with him.88
Despite these failures, Heywood did not give up, and in 1677 he and his son
John visited Langley, with whom I discoursed, prayd.89
Heywoods post-ejection ministry thus complicates our understanding
of the relationship between nonconformists and their neighbors, particu-
larly those who lived sinful lives. For decades after he was ejected from the
curacy, and even after the chapelry had found a replacement, Heywood
continued to do the work of both a preacher and a pastor. Indeed, in his
day-to-day ministry, he looked and acted as if he were still the curate to the
entire chapelry rather than the leader of a dissenting society. And while it
would be going too far to say that sinners such as Drake, Starkey, or Langley
liked Heywood, it is apparent that they needed him at moments of crisis,
and that despite their backsliding Heywood felt compelled to offer them
spiritual comfort and make one last effort to win their conversions. In
these cases, we see people who were in no way inclined to dissent seeking
or accepting pastoral care from a nonconformist minister. It is, of course,
hard to find evidence that Heywoods pastoral work by itself changed peo-
ples attitudes towards nonconformity more broadly, but the fact that
Heywood was welcomed into homes throughout Coley indicates a signifi-
cant level of social integration. Such integration would have been self-
perpetuatingas more people invited Heywood into their homes, it
would have become increasingly acceptable for others to do so.90
The relationship between godly clergy and sinners who sought assur-
ance of their salvation as death approached is an intriguing one, and not
peculiar to Heywood and Coley. In some cases, the clergy may have been
motivated by the prospect of a spectacular repentance, as in the case of
London nonconformists who evangelized condemned criminals and then
published a long pamphlet trumpeting their success.91 Heywood never

88Heywoood, Diaries, i:34546. See also Henry Newcomes unsuccessful efforts to con-
vert Mary Prince. Despite her reluctance, Prince clearly welcomed Newcomes attention.
Newcome, Diary of Henry Newcome, p. 46.
89Langley survived until August 1683. Oliver Heywood, Thomas Dickenson, and
J. Horsfall Turner, The Nonconformist Register of Baptisms, Marriages, and Deaths
(Brighouse, 1881), pp. 65, 68.
90Whyman, Sociability and Power in Late-Stuart England, pp. 9193.
91Peter Lake, Popular form, puritan content? Two puritan appropriations of the mur-
der pamphlet from mid-seventeenth-century London, in Religion, Culture and Society in
Early Modern Britain: Essays in Honour of Patrick Collinson, eds. Anthony Fletcher and Peter
Roberts (Cambridge, Eng., 1994), pp. 31334.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry63

went this far, but had he carefully noted the names of many of the indi-
viduals who had been affected by his ministry, and had he been able to
engender a significant change in the lives of Drake, Starkey, or Langley, it
certainly would have redounded to his credit within Coley. When we
approach this issue from the perspective of the sinner on his or her death-
bed, we see a rather different dynamic. In some cases, the dying sinner
might have had no love for nonconformity, but took what help was avail-
able; in Coley this often would have been the case. What we cannot know
is how such visits might have affected attitudes towards nonconformists.
In his diary, Henry Newcome notes that on one occasion a longtime oppo-
nent of nonconformity summoned him and another Presbyterian, John
Machin, when she went into labor. But it is unclear whether this visit was
a one-time event, or constituted a new relationship between the two.92 In
1662, during one of his frequent visits to the sick and elderly, Newcome
met with Mary Prince: I desired to deale truly wth her, & wished her not
to deceive her own soule. Shee thanked mee for my faithfull dealinge, tho
I did not find her yield so much to wt I thought was faulty as would have
had her. But I desire to pray for her.93 In this case, and indeed throughout
his career, Newcome (like Heywood) provided pastoral care for his neigh-
bors regardless of their denominational bent, and it seems that such min-
istrations were welcome. The willingness of the ejected clergy to reach out
to their neighbors, and the acceptance of that help, served to maintain the
social fabric even as many within the Church of England worked to make
religious dissent noxious and to drive nonconformists from the parish.
Heywoods efforts to convert dying sinners also raise a much thornier
question, one that challenged both Heywood and modern students of the
relationship between the godly and the profane. How would Heywood
relate to his healthy sinful neighbors? In an undated entry, probably writ-
ten during the Interregnum, Heywood seems to make his position clear:
I desire to bring shame and punishment on grosse offenders, and to speak
to them in publick and private, to warn them from their evil ways.94
Historians have often portrayed this combative attitude as typical of the
puritan clergy, and the puritan minister plays a particularly important
rolein the purportedly endemic conflict between the godly and the multi-
tude.95 The godly, we are told, took the lead in remonstrating against

92Nunn, Henry Newcome and his circle, p. 21.

93Newcome, Diary of Henry Newcome, p. 46.
94Heywood, Diaries, i:146.
95John Spurr has taken a rather extreme position on this issue, putting the harassment
of neighbors at the center of 17th-century puritanism. Spurr, English Puritanism, p. 201. See
64 chapter two

sinners, hectoring them publicly and leading the legal crusade against
popular festivities. All told, blame for these early modern culture wars lay
squarely at the feet of the puritans. When we examine Heywoods diaries,
however, we see that his relationship to his sinful neighbors was far more
complex than historians or his own rhetoric allow.96 Heywoods behavior
after a 1676 funeral underlines this point:
[I] was at the funerall of old Rich: Boocock [and] after the drinking at
Stump-cross, a company of fellows would needs drink 2d a peece, I sate
down with them, and though I did not drink, yet I did not appear so much as
I ought agt their vain way of drinking shots.97
This encounter roasts a number of historical chestnuts. Godly clergy have
often been accused of disrupting the local community by opposing occa-
sions such as this, but here we see Heywood attending and remaining
resolutely silent.98 While Heywood may have considered discretion to be
the better part of valor, he certainly could have made himself scarce. His
decision to sit with his fellow mourners even as they sinned indicates he
had a sense of community that does not fit with traditional notions of the
godly mindset. Indeed, in joining the mourners, Heywood momentarily
resembles a century-old puritan punching bag: he is the parish minister
who spends his time at the alehouse rather than in the pulpit.99 And while
the creation of community often involved deliberate action, here it is
Heywoods deliberate inaction that helped to sustain traditions of neigh-
borliness and good fellowship, for the drinkers may well have stum-
bledhome with a new and improved opinion of Heywood. Like London

also Margaret Spufford, Puritanism and social control, in Order and Disorder in Early
Modern England, eds. Anthony Fletcher and John Stevenson (Cambridge, Eng., 1985),
pp. 4157; Marjorie McIntosh, Controlling Misbehaviour in England, 13701600 (Cambridge,
Eng., 1998); Wrightson and Levine, Poverty and Piety; Martin Ingram, Reformation of man-
ners in early modern England, in Griffiths, Fox, and Hindle, eds., The Experience of
Authority in Early Modern England, pp. 4788; Ingram, Puritans and the church courts;
Peter Lake, A charitable Christian hatred: The godly and their enemies in the 1630s, in
Durston and Eales, eds., The Culture of English Puritanism, pp. 14583; Collinson, The
cohabitation of the faithful with the unfaithful, pp. 5176; Eamon Duffy, The godly and
the multitude in Stuart England, Seventeenth Century 1:1 (1985), 3155.
96Heywoods experience seems not unlike that of Richard Baxter. Duffy, The Godly
and the multitude, pp. 3940.
97Heywood, Diaries, i:339.
98Contrast Heywoods silence with Thomas Jollies decision to admonish men he
encountered in an alehouse. Jolly, The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly, p. 47.
99See George Giffords criticism of the minister who will not sticke when good fel-
lowes and honest men meete together toe spend his groate at the alehouse. George Gifford,
A briefe discoursewhich may bee termed the countrie diuinitie (London, 1582), fo. 1v.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry65

puritan Robert Hill, Heywood offers a vision of the community which

recognizes the godly without severing them from their neighbours.100
One remarkable aspect of Heywoods diaries is that while he held many
aspects of popular culture to be sinful, and he condemned them in his
diary, he rarely confronted the sinners.101 Indeed, Heywood mentions
doing so on only a handful of occasions, as when he reprimanded his
neighbor, one John Stevenson, who tented cloth on Heywoods property.102
After Heywood saw Stevensons workers bringing in cloth on a Sunday in
1674, he told [Stevenson] plainly the sabboth should not be broken where
I had anything to doe, required him to take away his tenters he sd they
would forbear. While this is exactly the sort of behavior we would expect
from Heywood, closer examination makes it difficult to read this encoun-
ter as a conflict between a godly minister and a hardened sinner. First,
Heywoods willingness to reprimand Stevenson is grounded in the fact
that the sin was committed on Heywoods land: he would not tolerate the
sin where I had anything to doe. It was this, rather than Heywoods status
as a minister, that gave him the authority to reprimand Stevenson. Second,
Stevenson is hardly a model of depravity: during the 1670s Heywood gave
him copies of four different books, baptized his daughter in 1679, and
loaned him money in the 1680s.103 While this might not be a case of
Heywood preaching to the choir, he nevertheless was telling Stevenson
something that he already knew and believed.104
Just how Heywood arrived at the point of reprimanding only the godly
while leaving the reprobate to their sins is an intriguing question; an
answer may be found in the writings of other godly clergy. While never
inclined to a fire-and-brimstone style of preaching, in June 1662 Newcome
preached against an upcoming cocking, a popular recreation in which
participants threw weighted sticks at a cock until it was killed. In keeping
with his meek character, Newcome preached in as coole a manner as

100Julia F. Merritt, The pastoral tightrope: A puritan pedagogue in Jacobean London,

in Politics, Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain: Essays in Honour of Conrad Russell,
eds. Thomas Cogswell, Richard P. Cust, and Peter Lake (Cambridge, Eng., 2002), p. 156.
Wrightson, The decline of neighbourliness revisited, pp. 1949.
101In theory, godly clergy were supposed to reprimand sinners, but even they wanted a
harmonious parish. Webster, Godly Clergy, pp. 10001.
102J. Sears McGee, The Godly Man in Stuart England: Anglicans, Puritans, and the Two
Tables, 16201670 (New Haven, 1976), pp. 19496.
103Heywood, Diaries, ii:95, 192, 212, 214, 241; iii:52.
104Heywood also admonished one JA for some faults I head he was guilty of. Because
Heywood only used initials for close associates, the most likely candidate is John Armitage,
who hosted sermons and later joined Heywoods society in 1676. Heywood, Diaries, i:290.
66 chapter two

Icould, and to his satisfaction they observed me as to make an order &

penalty for every oath in the Pit.105 Following his ejection, however,
Newcome changed from a (mild) critic of popular recreation to a passive
observer. In December of the same year, Newcome learned that local
youths planned to hold quarterly feasts, and lamented in his diary, If they
had attempted it whilst I had had my Liberty, I should have thought myself
bound to have preached against itI use[d] to tell some of them that their
fathers & masters did not get their Estates by such Courses.106
When we turn to godly clergy who remained in Church of England liv-
ings, a different picture emerges. In March 1660, Ralph Josselin noted he
saw the youth openly playing at catt on the green, I went up rowted them,
their fathers sleeping in the chimney corner, lord heale us through grace
these disorders.107 Isaac Archer was even more aggressive than this,
attempting on several occasions to enforce observation of the Sabbath. In
1663, he asked the constables assistance in emptying an alehouse. The
constable declined, saying he should get the ill will of his neighbors, so
Archer went himself: and foundone of my owne parishI told him he
must not fuddle (as I perceived he was in that case) upon any day much
lesse upon thatWhen I was gone, he railed on mee for medling where
Ihad nothing to doe.108 Three years later, Archer first preached against
alehouses and other games, and then with the help of a more compliant
contingent of parish officers:
we looked that no children played, and I went to search the alehouses, and
frighted them with threatening seveerly to execute the law against them etc.
Thus after a promise from all of them that they would be strict heerafter in
their offices I dismissed them; and hope that the whole towne will grow
better.109
Archer does not note his parishioners reaction, but we would be safe in
assuming that he alienated at least a few of his parishioners. And this is
where ejected ministers had an advantage over their conforming counter-
parts. Newcome and Heywood were no less godly in their outlook than
Josselin and Archer, and few would doubt Heywoods courage in the face
of danger. But for Heywood especially, ejection meant not just the loss
ofhis official position but the loss of the authority to reprimand sinners.

105Chethams Library (CL), A.3.123, 15 June 1662.

106CL, A.3.123, 29 December 1662. Emphasis added.
107Josselin, Diary of Ralph Josselin, p. 476.
108Archer and Coe, East Anglian Diaries, p. 91.
109Archer and Coe, East Anglian Diaries, pp. 11112.
 oliver heywood and coley chapelry67

And while the loss of this authority was something he may have lamented,
it nevertheless made godly clergy into better neighbors.110 In short, ejec-
tion from the curacy may well have improved Heywoods relationship to
some in his congregation. As curate, he had to exclude some from the sac-
rament and (perhaps) reprimand sinful behavior. As ex-curate, he was free
from these obligations. He could preach and provide pastoral care, neither
of which can be described as socially divisive, and he could do so without
engaging in the more disruptive work of enforcing godly morality and
(even worse!) demanding tithes.111
The role of ejected ministers in their former parishes is one that the
Cavalier Parliament took more seriously than have subsequent historians.
Parliament clearly recognized that during the Interregnum godly clergy
had created close ties to their parishioners, and that ejection had not dis-
solved this relationship. The affective bond between ejected ministers and
their congregations endured beyond 1662, or else the Five Mile Act would
hardly have been necessary. Heywood and many other ejected ministers
continued to attend their former congregations at times of need, and they
continued to welcome them into their homes. Together, Heywood and his
neighbors in Coley created a community that could accommodate both
conformists and dissenters.112 But it would be a mistake to paint Coley or
Halifax as some sort of island of tolerance, safe from the waves of persecu-
tion that swept away many dissenting societies. Alongside this accommo-
dating vision of community there existed one that saw the mingling of
nonconformity and dissent as an anathema, and worked vigorously to
stamp it out. During the early 1680s, it was this vision that dominated reli-
gious life in Restoration Coley.

110Contrast this approach with Thomas Jollies more confrontational style. Jolly, The
Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly, p. 47.
111For another example, see the opposition faced by John Rastrick when he attempted
to withhold the sacrament from his sinful parishioners. Cambers and Wolfe, Reading, fam-
ily religion, and evangelical identity, p. 881.
112For the desire to maintain a sense of community despite divisions, see Marsh,
Common prayer in England, pp. 7172.
 CHAPTER THREE

PERSECUTION IN COLEY

Oliver Heywood and others in Halifax envisioned a denominationally

inclusive community and worked to create it by reaching across the
conformist divide. But for many of Halifaxs conformists, this vision was a
nightmare. For those who held to the High Church, toleration of even
moderate nonconformists weakened the Church of England and invited a
return to the violence and chaos of the civil wars and Interregnum. This
High Church faction, led in Halifax by the vicar, Richard Hooke, sought to
create a very different community. In their vision, the parochial commu-
nity would be denominationally pure, as parish officials impoverished,
imprisoned, or drove nonconformist clergy out of the parish altogether,
and coerced their followers into conformity. Attacks on Heywood and his
followers took a variety of forms, ranging from unofficial surveillance and
verbal abuse to raids by parish officials on religious gatherings. In 1670 and
again in 1671, officials confiscated Heywoods household goods, and he
spent much of 1685 in prison. In this chapter, I first will examine the ways
in which Richard Hooke shaped local attitudes towards nonconformity,
and the role his pamphlets and sermons may have played in inspiring pop-
ular persecution. I will also explore the nature of official and unofficial
persecution, and argue for two discrete but complementary interpreta-
tions of persecutions frequent failures.
In recent years, historians have begun to view religious persecution not
as a product of ignorance or mere bigotry, but a phenomenon with an
underlying (and sophisticated!) logic in need of historical exploration.
Simultaneously, historians began to question the assumption that during
the 17th century Europe progressed from being a persecuting society to
one that cherished religious toleration.1 According to Mark Goldie,

1Grell, Israel, and Tyacke, From Persecution to Toleration; Ole P. Grell and Robert
W. Scribner, eds., Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation (Cambridge,
Eng., 1996); Ole Grell and Roy Porter, eds., Toleration in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge,
Eng., 2000); Kaplan, Divided by Faith; John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant
England, 15581689 (Harlow, 2000); Walsham, Charitable Hatred. Alongside this reassess-
ment of European progress Charles Parker has questioned whether the Dutch Republic
was as tolerant as historians have argued. Parker, Faith on the Margins.
 persecution in coley69

Restoration religious persecution rested on three main theoretical pillars.2

The first of these was political: religious dissenters were rebels, and to tol-
erate them was to invite the return of civil war and regicide. The second
was ecclesiological, and took as its starting point the belief that a unified
church was inherently good, and it was the job of the magistrate to impose
religious order. The third was theological, and argued that coercion served
an educative and persuasive functionwhile there was some question as
to whether belief could be coerced, the threat and reality of persecution
could persuade its targets to reassess their position and recognize reli-
gious truth. Hooke and his allies, however, were chiefly inspired by the first
of these ideas: the political threat posed by nonconformists was the most
important factor motivating persecution.

Richard Hooke, Vicar and Bte Noir

When Heywood looked at Coleys conformists he saw his congregation. But

when Richard Hooke looked at Heywoods followers he saw rebels and
regicides. Throughout his career, in print and in person, Hooke proved an
enthusiastic supporter of the High Church. At moments of political crisis,
Hooke published works attacking nonconformists as seditious, and even
advocated the creation of a standing army to counter the nonconformist
threat. He also echoed divine-right theories of monarchal power, telling his
readers that the king was Sacred, only lower then God, only accountable to
God.3 He sounded similar notes from the pulpit, railing against religious dis-
sent and suggesting that torture and execution would be a suitable fate for
those who had separated from the Church. Hookes sermons encouraged
some residents of Halifax to take action in defense of the Church, and they
engaged in a campaign of harassment and intimidation against Heywood
and his followers. Not surprisingly, Hooke himself took the lead in efforts to
suppress nonconformity in his parish, zealously enforcing the laws against
nonconformity. Significantly, Hookes enthusiasm for persecution may have
been inspired by Heywoods ministry in Coley. Hooke was deeply hostile to the
inclusion of dissenters into parish society, and Heywood was the most visible
example of their social integration.

2Mark Goldie, The theory of religious intolerance in Restoration England, in Grell,

Israel, and Tyacke, From Persecution to Toleration, pp. 33168. See also Walsham, Charitable
Hatred, pp. 4956.
3Richard Hooke, The Royal Guard, or, The Kings Salvation (London, 1662), sig. A4r.
70 chapter three

In many ways, the careers of Oliver Heywood and Richard Hooke mirror
each other and epitomize the tensions that characterized religious life in
Restoration England. While Heywood studied under godly teachers at
Trinity College, Cambridge, Hooke attended Peterhouse, Cambridges
Laudian stronghold. Heywood was ordained by a Presbyterian Classis in
1650, and Hooke by a bishop in 1646. During the Interregnum, Heywood
took up the curacy in Coley and laid the foundation for the rest of his
career. Hooke served as rector in the West Riding parish of Thornton-in-
Craven, and may have been ejected from the living there in 1655.4 Hookes
experience during the Interregnum likely hardened his commitment to
the Church of England, turning him into its most militant supporter in
Halifax.5 Soon after the Restoration, Heywoods and Hookes fortunes
began heading in different directions, and they crossed in 1662. In that
year, Heywood was ejected from Coley, and Hooke assumed the vicarage at
Halifax. Hookes petition was accompanied by a note in his favour by
Gilbert, Bishop of London.6 Gilbert, Bishop of London, is of course Gilbert
Sheldon, who would soon be created Archbishop of Canterbury, and
who became the very face of religious persecution. Sheldon saw religious
dissent as a legal rather than a pastoral problem, and as a result treated
dissenters as criminals, not wayward sheep. He believed that if church and
state rigorously enforced the penal laws, schism would be defeated and
the Church of England would once again become a unified and uniform
body of believers.7 Within a month of petitioning the Crown for the living
at Halifax, Hooke assumed the vicarage, and he was also admitted to
several Prebendaries, including Ripon in 1662, Grindal in 1669, York in
1670, and Southwell in 1675. From that point forward, Hookes career

4Hooke also served in the parish of Lowdham in Nottinghamshire, perhaps as a plural-

ist. Richard Hooke, The Laver of Regeneration, and the Cup of Salvation (London, 1653). For
his departure from Craven, see Lambeth Palace Library COMM/2/667. Hooke does not
appear in Walkers Sufferings of the Clergy. A.G. Matthews and John Walker, Walker revised,
being a revision of John Walkers Sufferings of the clergy during the Grand Rebellion, 164260
(Oxford, 1948).
5Anne Whiteman, The Restoration Church of England, in From Uniformity to Unity,
16621962, eds. Geoffrey F. Nuttall and Owen Chadwick (London, 1962), p. 39.
6Calendar of State papers 13th February 1689 April 1690, (London, 1969), p. 352.
7Daniel C. Beaver, Behemoth, or civil war and revolution, in English parish communi-
ties 164182, in The English Revolution c.15901720: Politics, Religion and Communities, ed.
Nicholas Tyacke (Manchester, 2007), pp. 14041. Beaver, Parish Communities and Religious
Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester, pp. 26978; John Spurr, The Church of England, compre-
hension and the Toleration Act of 1689, The English Historical Review 104:413 (1989),
92746; Harris, Seaward, and Goldie, The Politics of Religion in Restoration England.
 persecution in coley71

seemed to stall, perhaps due to Sheldons death in 1677.8 As one would

expect, Hooke was an ardent opponent of nonconformity, and while he
worked to enforce the penal statutes, his campaign against nonconformity
went far beyond these narrow bounds. Hooke had the good fortune to die
in January 1689, sparing him the reality of life after the Act of Toleration;
indeed, had he not died before its passage, apoplexy would likely have
carried him off soon after.
In some ways, Hooke and Heywood were destined to clash.9 In 1653,
nearly a decade before coming to Halifax, Hooke published Laver of
Regeneration, which he provocatively presented to all, both Pastors and
People, in the Church of ENGLAND.10 In Laver he wrote specifically against
ministers like Heywood who acknowledge the Lords Supper to be the
Lords holy Ordinance, yet in their practise have laid it aside. In contrast
with Heywood, Hooke argued in favor of a broad communion, and explic-
itly rejected the idea that parish clergy should exclude the unworthy from
the Lords Supper.11 Hookes writings after 1660 show him to be a strong
supporter of the Restored Church and an eager warrior in the polemical
battles of the period.12 He published each of his four books at particularly
fraught moments for Church and state: two came shortly after Charless
return, and two came in the early 1680s when the fury of the Tory reaction
was at its height. The first two works were dedicated, respectively, to
Accepted Frewen, Archbishop of York, and (not surprisingly) to Charles II.
In The Bishops Appeale (1661), Hooke urged Frewen to enforce ecclesiasti-
cal discipline in his archdiocese. Although this appeal to ecclesiastical
authorities to enforce discipline was quite common following the
Restoration, it is significant that Hooke reserved his most pointed criti-
cism for moderate nonconformists rather than their more radical counter-
parts. This is the wonder, and the pitty, that now, not Phanaticks, and
giddy Sectaries, but those who are reckoned among the wise, godly, and
soberwould ratherbring us back to Anarchythen to not obtaintheir

8Joseph Thomas Fowler, Memorials of the Church of SS. Peter and Wilfrid, Ripon, 4 vols.
(Durham, 1886), 2:30708.
9Such conflict was not inevitable. For cooperation between conformists and noncon-
formists, see Whiting, Studies in English Puritanism, pp. 3234.
10Hooke, Laver of Regeneration, t.p. Emphasis in original.
11Hooke, Laver of Regeneration, p. 48. There are numerous errors in pagination and
foliation.
12John Spurr has emphasized the Churchs sense of insecurity throughout the
Restoration period. Spurr, Religion in Restoration England, pp. 90124; B.R. White, The
twilight of puritanism in the years before and after 1688, in Grell, Israel, and Tyacke, From
Persecution to Toleration, pp. 31011.
72 chapter three

wild Fancies, and exorbitant wills.13 The following year Hooke published
The Royal Guard, or, the Kings Salvation, which emphasized the obedience
that all Englishmen owed to Charles II. The work appeared when Hooke
was still rector at Thornton-in-Craven, and he may have written it in order
to curry favor with the Crown. If so, he was successful, for in the same year
he was appointed vicar of Halifax and prebendary of Southwell. In a
pointed reference to the Civil Wars, Hooke claimed that monarchs are
Sacred, only lower then God, only accountable to Goda sword never
ought to be used against an Evil Prince, that if the King offend, Subjects
may only supplicate and entreat him, to amend his Error.14 Hooke went
on to urge clergymen to conscionably preach and press upon our people
the duty of Subjection, Loyalty, and Christian Obedience to Kings and
Rulers.15 While Heywood was no radical, and would have rejected any
effort to tar him with the brush of sedition, the connection was clear to
Hooke, and he made every effort to impress it upon his readers.
In the early 1680s, as the Tories went on the offensive against both their
Whig opponents and nonconformists, Hooke followed suit, publishing
two more attacks on nonconformity and once again linking it with sedi-
tion.16 In The Non-Conformists Champion, His Challenge Accepted, or, An
Answer to Mr. Baxters Petition for Peace, he describes Richard Baxter as so
great a Troubler of Israel and of a hot Brain and hasty Pen, the Hector of
the Old Cause, the Non-conformists Pope. Hooke also charges Baxter and
all ejected ministers such as Heywood with treason, claiming that they
had drawn a spiritual sword against the Established Church and were,
making new Assaults. And here too you muster your holy Army, Two
thousand Ministers.17 Two years later, Hooke recycled one of his earlier
titles and published The Royal Guard, or, The King and Kingdoms Sure
Defensative. His main point, that Conventicles are nurseries of Schism
and Sedition, was hardly original, but coming at such a dangerous
moment it remained an extremely potent charge.18 Hooke also argued

13Richard Hooke, The Bishops Appeale, or, An Addresse to the Brethren of the Presbyteriall
Judgement (Newcastle, 1661), sig. C2r; Appleby, Black Bartholomews Day, p. 5.
14Hooke, The Royal Guard, or, The Kings Salvation, sig. A4r.
15Hooke, The Royal Guard, or, The Kings Salvation, sig. H5v.
16Tim Harris, Restoration: Charles II and his Kingdoms, 16601685 (London, 2005),
pp. 21420.
17Richard Hooke, The Non-Conformists Champion, His Challenge Accepted, or, An
Answer to Mr. Baxters Petition for Peace (London, 1682), sigs. A3r, B1v, B2r.
18Richard Hooke, The Royal Guard, or, The King and Kingdoms Sure Defensative
(London, 1684), sig. H3r; Walsham, Charitable Hatred, pp. 4749; Justin Champion, My
kingdom is not of this world: The politics of religion after the revolution, in The English
 persecution in coley73

that while Catholics and nonconformists were bitter and implacable

Adversaries one to another, they had the same goal: to destroy the Church
of England, and the King, because [he is] the Defender of it. Presbyterians
and Jesuits alike have taught, That it is lawfull to resist Kings, and have
stirred up the People to arm against their lawfull sovereign upon pretence
of Reformation in Religion.19
At the same time Hooke was focusing his attention on national figures
such as Baxter and the threat nonconformists posed to the entire king-
dom, he occasionally wrote (albeit obliquely) about religious affairs at the
local level. And while many historians have pointed out that it was not
uncommon for people to hate popery but get along famously with their
Catholic neighbors, such was not the case with Hookehe despised non-
conformity and nonconformists alike.20 Hooke never deigns to attack
Heywood in particular, but Heywood nevertheless looms in the back-
ground of Non-Conformists Champion, His Challenge Accepted. In this
work, Hooke derides nonconformists pretended sufferings, noting that,
The Non-conforming Ministers are generally fat and full, rich, and build,
and buy Land. I profess I know not any one in the Countrey where I live,
but is able in Estate.21 In writing this, Hooke probably had Heywood in
mind, for in 1682 Heywood was both rich and fat. Through good luck and
smart investment, Heywood earned substantial sums from land in Halifax
and Lancashire, and received 68 from his followers. With an income of at
least 100 per year, Heywood could hardly claim that persecution had
impoverished him. Moreover, in 1681 Heywood noted that he tipped the
scales at 17 stone, or 245 lbs; fat and full indeed.22 While Hooke set his
sights on (figuratively) bigger game than Heywood, he was fully aware of
the challenge closer to home.23
For the most part, Hookes attacks on nonconformity were pretty stan-
dard stuff, and very much in tune with the High Churchs national agenda.

Revolution c.15901720: Politics, Religion and Communities (Manchester, 2007), pp. 185202.
Such was also the view of Laudians under Charles I. Webster, Godly Clergy, pp. 8788. For
similar charges under Charles I, see Peter Lake, Puritanism, arminianism and a Shropshire
axe-murder, Midland History 15 (1990), pp. 3764.
19Hooke, The Royal Guard, or, The King and Kingdoms Sure Defensative, sig. B1r; Hooke,
Non-Conformists Champion, His Challenge Accepted, sig. E6v.
20Walsham, Charitable Hatred, pp. 27879.
21Hooke, Non-Conformists Champion, His Challenge Accepted, sig. G6v, D1r.
22The figures are for 1678. For Heywoods weight, see Heywood, Diaries, ii:184; for his
inheritance and income, see Heywood, Diaries, i:337; ii:18889.
23As Dan Beaver has noted, fear and hatred of dissentreflected an awareness of [the]
nonconformist element in the parishes. Beaver, Behemoth, or civil war and revolution,
p. 142.
74 chapter three

But in The Royal Guard, or, The King and Kingdoms Sure Defensative (1684),
Hooke turns his eye to the place of dissenters in Halifax, and he is alarmed
by what he sees. Initially, Hooke observes that we have generally an
Aversation from Papists, and a Compassion for Dissenters, which was
undoubtedly true. And as we have seen, his claim that We Converse with
them, Match with them, Trade with them, Esteem them Members of our
Church, they sometimes, and in some Duties Communicating with it also
had some basis in fact. And while this integration was key to Heywoods
vision of community, and such informal toleration draws praise from his-
torians, Hooke was alarmed rather than pleased. He saw integration not as
a sign of dissenters peaceful intentions, but as evidence of the danger they
posed. Dissenters, he wrote, are more formidable and we in much greater
Danger from them, then from the Papists.24 For Hooke, the integration of
dissenters with their conforming neighbors, and the consequent blurring
of denominational boundaries, threatened the social and political order.25
Dissent was a problem for all of England, of course, and Hooke used the
press to enter into national debates over nonconformity. But he also
believed that dissent threatened the religious life in Halifax, and thus
worked to create a community that was hostile to Heywood and his
followers. While his published works may have shaped discussions in
Halifax, Hooke also spoke loudly against dissent from his pulpit and
actively persecuted his dissenting parishioners.
Hookes attacks on nonconformity took a number of forms, including
sermons, harassment, and legal persecution, and they often coincided
with the religious and political crises that characterized much of
Charles IIs reign.26 According to Heywood, shortly after Charles II can-
celed the Declaration of Indulgence, Hooke preached a series of sermons

24Hooke, The Royal Guard, or, The King and Kingdoms Sure Defensative, sig. D3v, D4r.
Emphasis in original.
25Walsham, Charitable Hatred; Beaver, Behemoth, or civil war and revolution, p. 142;
Anthony Milton, Religion and community in pre-civil war England, in Tyacke, The English
Revolution c.15901720, pp. 6566. For the threat posed by nonconformist clergy were they
to be comprehended within the Church of England, see Spurr, The Church of England,
comprehension and the Toleration Act, pp. 94142.
26Adrian Davies has found a similar link between national ferment and the persecu-
tion of Quakers. Adrian Davies, The Quakers in English Society, 16551725 (Oxford, 2000),
chap. 13. The Declaration also served as a milestone in nonconformity, for in taking out a
license ministers such as Heywood gave up hope of comprehension. Edward Stillingfleet
dated Presbyterian separation to the acceptance of licenses. Keeble, Literary Culture of
Nonconformity, p. 59; C. Gordon Bolam, Jeremy Goring, H.L. Short, and Roger Thomas,
The English Presbyterians, from Elizabeth Puritanism to Modern Unitarianism (Boston,
1968), p. 90.
 persecution in coley75

comparing the non-conformists (by name) to papists in many things

principally in putting the late King to death &c.27 Perhaps suspecting that
his sermons did not reach dissenters ears, Hooke took his message to the
streets, and he intercepted men and women who were on their way to hear
Heywood preach. Unwilling to suffer defections to Heywood, Hooke
spoke to very many of them, some he bad turn back to the chappel and
serve god, others he told they would be disappointedsome, (tho few) he
affrighted to goe to the chappel, being in a most fearful rage.28
The Declaration of Indulgence also helped drive a war of words between
Hooke and Joshua Horton, a wealthy member of Heywoods society who
took out a license for Heywood to preach on his property. In a letter to
Horton, Hooke implicitly dismissed the legality of the sermons, arguing
that Indulgence or no, nonconformity was a sin, a scandal, a schisme, a
danger. Hooke added that, If you shal please in thankfulnes to god
to express our pious charity, you may doe it more piously in making an
addition to the chappel of Sowerby. Hortons response is significant, for
he replied, what he did was neither in opposition to or in prejudice of
publick ordinances upon the Lords day, to wch he bore a due reverence,
and at wch he gave attendance.29 Moreover, Horton added that Hooke
hath little reason to find fault with his slighting of the public ordinance,
for as he attends dayly those at Sowerby[and] he is not behindin con-
tribution, giving Mr Booker minister there 8 li per annum.30 From this
exchange it is clear that Horton and Hooke had fundamentally different

27Heywood, Diaries, iii:154. For the Anglican clergys disillusion with Charles and con-
sequent efforts to seize control of the Church, see Spurr, Restoration Church of England.
Christopher Marsh has argued that attacks on religious dissenters constituted implicit
criticism of Crown religious policy. Marsh, Family of Love, pp. 11618.
28Heywood, Diaries, iii:110. Alexandra Walsham notes that when official persecution
waned, the populace might assume the responsibility. Walsham, Charitable Hatred,
pp. 13839. In Englands North American colonies, religious diversity and competition
among religious groups led to two different reactions among the laity: a latitudinarian one,
in which they remained neutral, taking religion where they could get it; and a denomina-
tional one, in which they became more aware of their own religious identity. Patricia
U. Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America
(New York, 1986), pp. 5758, 73.
29The sermons were scheduled for Tuesdays, and thus would not have conflicted with
Church services.
30For this exchange, Heywood, Diaries, i:34748. According to a survey conducted
around 1700, the curacy at Sowerby was worth just over 12, so if Hortons claims are
correct, despite being a member of Heywoods society he personally paid the lions share of
a conforming curates salary. BIHR, Bp. Dio. 3, 191. For Anglican belief that separation was
sinful, see John Spurr, Schism and the restoration Church, Journal of Ecclesiastical History
41:3 (1990), 410; Spurr, Restoration Church of England, pp. 23536.
76 chapter three

visions of the parish community. Horton saw the boundary between con-
formity and dissent as permeable, and in his mind there was no contradic-
tion between providing nonconformists with a place to preach and making
an extremely generous contribution to the conforming curate at Sowerby.
Hooke, in contrast, saw (and sought) a clear line between conformity and
dissent, and considered Hortons behavior to be hypocritical at best and
subversive at worst.31 While it may seem odd that a dissenter such as
Horton would invest so heavily in a Church of England chapel, even more
extreme examples exist. Shortly after the Restoration, the Catholic resi-
dents of Egton in Yorkshires North Riding joined their Anglican counter-
parts in petitioning the Archbishop to increase the stipend of the parish
curate.32 Residents of Restoration England saw the provision of effective
pastoral care as in the best interests of the entire community, not simply
members of a particular denomination. In Egton as in Halifax, individuals
crossed denominational boundaries to ensure that everyones religious
needs were met.
Another key moment in Hookes attacks on dissent was the Exclusion
Crisis of 167881 and the subsequent Tory reaction.33 After Whigs in
Parliament failed to exclude the Duke of York from the succession, Tories
struck back, and a wave of persecution swept across Englands dissenting
societies. The vigorous enforcement of the penal laws coincided with
rhetorical assaults from Hooke and other High Churchmen. In 1682, Hooke
preached a sermon in Wakefield in which he announced, if I were a sepa-
ratist, and acted agt the laws as they doe, I should thing myself worthy of
death, and if magistrates should adjug me to the most cruel torturing
death that ever any suffered I should judg that I had nothing but my just
deserts.34 Nor was Hooke alone in using the pulpit in this way, as Heywood
noted a sermon by the vicar of Milnow (Lancs.), in which he inveighed
bitterly agt dissenters, as the worst in the kingdom, saying that all must

31Spurr, Restoration Church of England, p. 131.

32William J. Sheils, Catholics and their neighbours in a rural community: Egton
chapelry 15901780, Northern History 34 (1998), 10933.
33For the popular attacks on London Whigs and nonconformists during this period, see
Tim Harris, London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II: Propaganda and Politics from the
Restoration until the Exclusion Crisis (Cambridge, Eng., 1987), chap. 6. He has also argued
that public support for Tories skyrocketed during the Exclusion Crisis. Tim Harris, Politics
Under the Later Stuarts: Party Conflict in a Divided Society, 16601715 (New York, 1993),
pp. 10208. See also Andrew M. Coleby, Central Government and the Localities: Hampshire,
16491689 (Cambridge, Eng., 1987), pp. 20204. For the increasingly conservative bent of the
Church during this period, see Spurr, Restoration Church of England, pp. 8285.
34Heywood, Diaries, ii:228.
 persecution in coley77

actively obey, throwing down the distinction between active and passive
obedience.35 Ralph Thoresby of Leeds describes similar sermons, includ-
ing one from 1679 that was a passing mean sermon, and, so far as I could
judge, out of spite, to render Protestant dissenters odious. The following
year he heard another that was full of nothingbut railleries against
Protestant Dissenters, who, in [the ministers] opinion were far more
dangerous enemies than the Papists.36 Hooke and his allies expressed
similar sentiment when they encountered nonconformist books, many of
which they considered subversive. When Heywood published Israels
Lamentation after the Lord in 1683, Hooke was one of his first readers.
According to Heywood, he sent for it and greedily, (and I fear captiously)
read it over, sd it was a seditious piece, another sd it was full of faction,
consulting with his clergy they all censured it deeply.37 The following year,
the vicar of Sandal was similarly incensed when he saw a shop selling a
nonconformist catechism, and expressed himself with such scorn and
ragesaying we should be called in question for selling such stuff, using
horrid opprobrious language as ever was agt the vilest pamphlet.38
When Hooke and likeminded clergy gave voice to such opinions about
religious dissent, their primary objective was to convince their parishio-
ners that dissent was a danger to the social and political status quo. And
while historians have often used the arrest and imprisonment of dissent-
ers as a measure of persecution, this approach misses the fact that words
such as these were an important part of the persecuting regime. When
preaching against nonconformity in such violent terms, Hooke and his
colleagues engaged in what John Whitgift aptly called the persecution of
the tongue.39 Sermons that equated dissent with treason and argued that
torture and execution would be appropriate punishments for noncon-
formist clergy clearly created a hostile environment for Heywood and his
followers; indeed, that was the idea. Equally significant is the fact that
Hookes sermons legitimized popular attacks on Halifaxs dissenters, and
may even have inspired some to violence. Jacqueline Eales has argued that

35Heywood, Diaries, ii:223.

36Thoresby, The Diary of Ralph Thoresby, pp. 6162. For additional examples see
pp. 7273, 10809, 14243, 157, 165.
37This version of the text was probably milder than the original. At the urging of his
publisher, Thomas Parkhurst, Heywood excised some passages, thinking it was not safe to
print them, being a very hazardous time. Heywood, Diaries, iii:335.
38Heywood, Diaries, ii:223. Ian Green has pointed out that most catechisms avoided
religious controversies. I.M. Green, The Christians ABC: Catechisms and Catechizing in
England c.15301740 (Oxford, 1996).
39Walsham, Charitable Hatred, pp. 12029, quotation at 127.
78 chapter three

in the years leading up to the civil war, preaching helped both to shape
public opinion and to pave the way for war. John Miller makes the same
case for Restoration sermons against Quakers.40 Such arguments are
inevitably tentative, but Heywood certainly saw a link between Hookes
sermons and popular violence. In the wake of one series of sermons Hooke
preached against nonconformity, a group of dissenters was accosted by a
company of ranters in a shop [who] fell a railing at them in most unworthy
scurrilous languagecalled them hypocritescursing them in an horrible
manner. Heywood laid the blame for this harassment squarely at Hookes
feet, noting, it was no wonder that prophane wretches dare revile out of
shops when Dr Hook shamefully rates at us out of the pulpit.41 Nor did
persecution end here, for, thanks in part to the environment created by
Hookes sermons, there existed a small but active minority in Halifax who
made it their business to harass Heywood and his followers through both
legal and extralegal means.

Unofficial Persecution in Coley

It is impossible to know if Richard Hooke would have regarded his effort to

turn popular opinion against religious dissenters as successful, but it is
patently clear that he found at least a handful of enthusiastic supporters
among parish residents, both rich and poor. A local gentleman named
Nathan Whitley made veiled threats against Heywood and other noncon-
formists, and gave his servants the task of watching Heywoods house for
illicit religious gatherings. Other neighbors, including a local widow, joined
in this surveillance, which clearly met its goal of unnerving Heywood. On at
least one occasion, Heywoods enemies stopped outside his house and
screamed insults at him, and others may have vandalized his property. Those
involved in this sort of harassment believed that they were doing Gods work,
that the violence they visited upon Heywood was holy. Moreover, they acted
with Hookes tacit (and perhaps explicit) approbation, particularly at times

40Jacqueline Eales, Provincial preaching and allegiance in the first English Civil War
(16406), in Cogswell, Cust, and Lake, eds., Politics, Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart
Britain; Jacqueline Eales, So many sects and schisms: Religious diversity in revolutionary
Kent, 164060, in Religion in Revolutionary England, eds. Christopher Durston and Judith
Maltby (Manchester, 2006), pp. 22648; John Miller, A suffering people: English Quakers
and their neighbours c. 1650c. 1700, Past and Present 188 (2005), 78; Walsham, Charitable
Hatred, p. 128.
41Heywood, Diaries, iii:154. It is likely that the heated rhetoric used by this crowd served
as an outlet for hostility, making peaceful coexistence possible. Marsh, Family of Love, p. 69.
 persecution in coley79

when Heywood seemed beyond the reach of the law. These popular persecu-
tors hoped to make clear that not everyone in Halifax approved of Heywoods
presence or ministry, and tried to push him to the margins when the law
could not.
For the residents of Halifax who agreed with Hooke that religious
dissenters were beyond the pale, persecution was the logical solution and
they used a variety of means to this end. Some forms of religious persecu-
tion, whether the prosecution of dissenters in court or violent attacks
such as the Sacheverell riots, leave easily identifiable marks in the archives,
and as a result historians often have focused on these.42 And while legal
and extralegal violence were important parts of the High Church arsenal,
dissents enemies had many other options at their disposal. They are
hardly as dramatic (or historically visible) as arrest or physical assault, but
unofficial or semi-official intimidation contributed to Heywoods unease,
and must be counted as part of the persecuting regime.
We can discern a number of factors driving popular persecution in
Halifax. The most visible and vocal of these was, of course, Richard Hooke.
While he may not have encouraged specific acts of popular persecution,
early modern clergy set the bar for what constituted acceptable discourse
and behavior regarding nonconformity, and the laity followed their lead.43
Hookes parishioners thus had to take only a short leap from hearing him
attack dissenters as a threat to the nation to acting against that threat.
While popular attacks on dissenters seem to the modern eye to be exam-
ples of vigilantism, or signs of a society not entirely governed by the rule of
law, in the early modern period virtually every aspect of local law enforce-
ment lay in the hands of the populace.44 Indeed, given the breadth of
office-holding in the early modern period (and this was particularly true
in Halifax), it is likely that most of the men involved in the popular perse-
cution of Heywood had at some point held public office.45 Heywoods
antagonists thus acted with the approval of the religious establishment,
and did so in a way that was entirely consistent with conventional patterns
of law enforcement.

42Fletcher, Enforcement of the Conventicle Acts, pp. 23546; Harris, Restoration,

pp. 30009.
43Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven, p. 162; Barbara B. Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross:
Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth-Century Paris (New York, 1991), chap. 9.
44Cynthia B. Herrup, The Common Peace: Participation and the Criminal Law in
Seventeenth- Century England (Cambridge, Eng., 1987).
45Mark Goldie, The unacknowledged republic: Officeholding in early modern
England, in The Politics of the Excluded, c.15001800, ed. Tim Harris (Basingstoke, 2001),
pp. 15394. See below, chap. 4.
80 chapter three

A second factor that likely drove extralegal persecution was that parish
officials often proved unwilling or unable to enforce the Clarendon Code.46
This inability stemmed from a variety of sources, the most obvious of
which was that many of Heywoods regular hearers and even members of
his society served in parish office. Other officials had friends or family who
attended Heywoods sermons, and thus would have sympathized with
their dissenting neighbors legal plight.47 Finally, some officials may have
had no love for dissent, but recognized that the tumult that would result
from legal action would exceed the threat posed by Heywoods work.48
Faced with a legal system that was incapable of persecuting religious dis-
sent, people took upon themselves that responsibility, and enforced law
on their own terms.49
When Heywoods enemies wanted to intimidate him, the most readily
available means to this end was informal surveillance. While only parish
officials armed with a warrant had the legal right to arrest Heywood or
search his home, anyone could sit and watch him. Moreover, even if those
watching saw nothing of interest, Heywood was aware of their presence,
and it clearly unsettled him. During a burst of persecution that followed
Heywoods ejection, soldiers entered and searched his house for men who
had attended a sermon in Coley by Thomas Jollie, and according to
Heywood, they often watch my house to get a clear advantage aft me. In
1664, Heywood wrote that the church-warden and constable be very near
neighbours to us, yea the one is so malicious that he hath been seen to
watch the house himself, and hath been known to set others to watch my
house. In the same year, Heywood heard that there are several persons
suborned to watch my house, who comes to me upon a lords day, and give
notice to sir John Armitage who purposeth to surprize us togather as a
conventicle according to the act and cary us to prison. And in October,
Heywood noted that Nathan Whitelys man and one Widow Bancroft

46Miller, A suffering people, p. 77.

47For Quakers and other dissenters serving in parish office, see Bill Stevenson, The
social integration of post-Restoration dissenters, 16601725, in Spufford, The World of Rural
Dissenters, 15201725, pp. 36087; Walsham, Charitable Hatred, pp. 26980.
48Keith Wrightson, Two concepts of order: Justices, Constables and jurymen in
seventeenth- century England, in An Ungovernable People: The English and Their Law in the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, eds. John Brewer and John A. Styles (New Brunswick,
N.J., 1980), pp. 2146; Muriel C. McClendon, Religious toleration and the Reformation:
Norwich magistrates in the sixteenth century, in Tyacke, Englands Long Reformation,
pp. 87116; Kaplan, Calvinists and Libertines; R.W. Scribner, Civic unity and the Reformation
in Erfurt, Past & Present 66 (1975), 2960.
49For additional examples of this, see Walsham, Charitable Hatred, pp. 13839.
 persecution in coley81

watcht under the gates in the forenoone while I both prayed and preacht.50
Whitley was one of the richest men in Halifax, rated at nine hearths, but
his servant and Widow Bancroft likely hailed from the lower orders.
Whitley was not the only persecutor to delegate the harassment of dis-
senters to his servants, as Quakers suffered at the hands of the clergys
servants, as well as their wives and children.51 In Halifax and elsewhere,
persecution truly was popular.
Nor did this unofficial persecution stop with surveillance, for non
conformists were subject to verbal harassment and vandalism.52 Even
when nonconformists gatherings were legal under the Declaration of
Indulgence, Richard Hooke confronted Heywoods hearers in a most fear-
ful rage, and badgered them into abandoning Heywood. And at the same
time Widow Bancroft watched Heywoods home, she and Whitleys ser-
vant gave out many bitter threatening words both to my servant and to
others.53 On another occasion, Heywood returned home one night and
happened upon two chapelry residents standing in the road outside his
house: The one was ill drunk, as they came up they ranted and roared say-
ing where art thou Heywood, come and pay thy fourty pound. Luckily for
Heywood, the men did not recognize him in the dark, but he wondered,
what would they have done if they had known it had been I?54 Heywood
was also threatened by Nathaniel Whitley, the local gentleman who sent
his servant to watch Heywood. In 1673, Heywood enjoyed the irony of
Whitleys barn burning down, after Whitley had sometimes sd of our
meetings if the house were his he would burn us out. And a decade later,
in the midst of the Tory reaction, Whitley rated agt me and Mr [Joseph]
Dawson [saying] he would put us on to be constables, church-wardens,
&c, adding that we were no more but laymen.55

50Heywood, Diaries, i:183, 186, 192.

51Miller, A suffering people, p. 76. Benjamin Kaplan has shown that Dutch non-elites
were also active in the process of confessionalization. Kaplan, Calvinists and Libertines.
Ripon Historical Society, The Hearth Tax List for Agbrigg and Morley Wapentakes West
Riding of Yorkshire: Lady Day 1672 (Ripon, 1992), p. 32.
52Walsham, Charitable Hatred, pp. 12428; Parker, Faith on the Margins, p. 53. John
Rastrick suffered similar harassment. Cambers and Wolfe, Reading, family religion, and
evangelical identity, p. 883.
53Heywood, Diaries, i:192.
54Heywood does not name the individuals, but apparently knew who they were, saying
that he did not speak for they would have known my voyce. Heywood, Diaries, i:227.
55Whitley likely assumed that Heywood and Dawson (who also was a Presbyterian
minister) would refuse the requisite oaths, and thus expose themselves to legal sanctions.
Heywood, Diaries, ii:224; iii:186.
82 chapter three

Presbyterian minister John Shaw had a similar experience during a visit

to his son-in-laws home in Rotherham in the West Riding. He recalls that
he and his family were watched (and many observed to go in there), by a
wicked, loose, young fellow, Franc. Mountney, and his complices, this
Mountney sent immediately to Sir Francis Fane, to Aston, for a warrant to
apprehend us. The warrant arrived after Shaw had moved on, but the
persecution continued all the same: yet the next day we were carried
before Sir Francis; but, nothing being proved, we came off clear and with
honor.56 This incident highlights the pressure that a single individual
could put on dissenters simply by watching them, and supports the thesis
that legal intimidation was part of the extralegal machinery of perse
cution. When Mountney dragged Shaw before Fane, he had no evidence
against him, only suspicions, and as a result Fane released him. If
Mountneys objective was to secure a conviction, then in this case the per-
secuting regime failed. However, if his goal was to inconvenience and
intimidate Shaw, his efforts were a success, and he may well have viewed
them as such.
Not all persecution had such undertones of violence, as dissents
enemies mocked nonconforming clergy, sometimes in very funny ways.
In 1680, Richard Thorpe, a Presbyterian minister from Pontefract, encoun-
tered one Justice Horton and his brother-in-law Thomas Thornhill, who
were on their way to a race at Wakefield: Mr. Th. Thornhill followed asking
Mr. Horton if he would have a baudy song, and so sung one bec. Mr. Thorpe
was there. More amusing was the occasion upon which Heywood found
himself mocked by a wild young schollar, one Ratliff. According to
Heywood, Ratliff attended a Sabbath sermon Heywood preached, yet on
munday night he helpt down liquor with his companions by sporting with
my sermonhe canted as he pretended like me: his companions were
all oxford scholars but very prophane.57 While singing a dirty song or
parodying Heywoods preaching style does not constitute persecution on
a par with the sufferings of the Quakers, it was part of the constant stream
of harassment that nonconformists endured.
In addition to threats and verbal harassment, in 1674 Heywood discov-
ered that vandals had pulled down a portion of his wall and set up a stile
so that they could walk more easily through his fields. This event caused

56Shaw, The life of Master John Shaw, p. 159.

57Heywood, Diaries, ii:274; iii:13839. For the role of women and young people in reli-
gious persecution, see Walsham, Charitable Hatred, pp. 13132; Natalie Zemon Davis,
Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays (Stanford, 1975), pp. 18284.
 persecution in coley83

some discomposure to my spirit, partly bec I knew it was done out of

malice, there being a better way in the lane then field.58 In this case,
Heywoods interpretation of this event seems misguided. While it is pos-
sible that the culprits were malicious, there really is no evidence to suggest
that they wanted anything more than to walk through Heywoods field
if the vandals intended to destroy the wall, they were unlikely to stop their
rampage to build a walkway. While Heywoods analysis likely was mis-
taken, his reaction is significant. When he became the victim of an unex-
ceptional act of vandalism, his immediate assumption was that it was
religiously motivated. Heywood was likely wrong, but understandably so,
simply because previous incidents of intimidation and harassment were
religiously motivated and effectively persuaded Heywood that some of his
neighbors really were out to get him. And while convincing Heywood that
some of his neighbors did not like him may seem like a paltry achieve-
ment, as the next section demonstrates, marginalization and intimidation
may have been one of the goals of official persecution as well.

Persecution and Accommodation

While those without legal authority were reduced to hectoring Heywood and
his followers, parish officials made intermittent attempts to capture Heywood
at a conventicle. If they were successful, as they were in 1684, they could then
charge him with the serious crime of riot. In most cases, however, efforts to
capture Heywood came to naught, as news of an impending raid usually
reached Heywood in time for him to change his plans or to dismiss his hear-
ers before officials arrived. The inability of local officials to catch Heywood
can be interpreted as reluctance to persecute Heywood, and for some officials
this was doubtlessly true. However, there are other factors in play, and such a
reading mistakenly assumes that a persecuting officials only goal was to
arrest Heywood, and that anything else constituted failure. Parish officers
took a more thoughtful approach to persecution, adopting a strategy that
made clear to Heywood that he was a religious outlaw and a persona non
grata in the community, but did so without alienating their moderate neigh-
bors who would object to a rigorous enforcement of the law. When arresting
Heywood was politically impossible, which was usually the case, scaring him
silly was an acceptable outcome.

58Heywood, Diaries, i:333.

84 chapter three

Given the nature of Heywoods ministry, parish officials must have been
well aware of his activities, particularly his public sermons. Despite this,
Heywoods enemies raided his conventicles successfully on only a handful
of occasions; more often officials arrived only after Heywood had dis-
missed his hearers. Heywood mediated at length on the explanations and
significance of his freedom, and in many cases ascribed it to divine inter-
vention. After a 1665 prayer meeting for a dozen followers, Heywood wrote,
we hear that the constable and church-warden were met towards our
house, but the lord strangely turned them another way. A few years later,
Heywood preacht at home as usually, had a numerous assembly god
helpt. Hopkinson and knight sheriff-bailiffes of Bradford, were at a neigh-
bour house, took a man but god either hid our liberty from them, or
chained them up.59 Even in cases where Heywood received advance
warning of a raid, presumably from a neighbor, he saw God as instrumen-
tal. In 1684, Heywood wrote, set my self to seek god being alone in my
housegod helped me graciously, and that evening gave me intelligence
that the officers would come at 8 a clock.60 Thomas Jollie, Heywoods
friend since their days at Cambridge, also saw Gods hand behind unsuc-
cessful attempts to prosecute him. In 1671, a judge at the Assizes quashed
an indictment against Jollie, and the business was soe ordered by the
providence of god that they could not renew it against mee, but went away
confounded for the work was of god. On another occasion, Jollie recalled
that his nemesis, Captain Nowell, came by the very door where the meet-
ing was when wee were together, yet the lord hid us.61
While a providential outlook naturally led men like Heywood and Jollie
to see Gods hand in their liberty, Heywoods diaries indicate that many
chapelry residents, including parish officials, sympathized with him.62
Soon after the Restoration, in an early test of Heywoods conformity,
Stephen Ellis, a local gentleman and Heywoods longtime foe, procured
one Robert gibson a church-warden living in Light[c]liffe to tender to me

59Heywood, Diaries, i:197, 281. For other examples, see i:183, 198, 227, 231, 263, 271.
60Heywood, Diaries, iv:103.
61Jolly, The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly, p. 2.
62On one occasion, Heywood acknowledged this, attributing his freedom to the
moderation of our officers. Heywood, Diaries, iii:214. Christopher Marsh has argued for
collective schizophrenia as communities tried to choose between persecution and tolera-
tion of religious dissenters. Marsh, Family of Love, p. 15; Harris, Restoration, pp. 30506. For
the administrative structures behind persecution, see G.C.F. Forster, Government in pro-
vincial England under the later Stuarts, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 33
(1983), 2948; Davies, Quakers in English Society, pp. 17378.
 persecution in coley85

an old common-prayer book.63 The fact that Ellis had to go outside Coley
to find a churchwarden to do his dirty work indicates Heywoods popular-
ity within the chapelry and foreshadows the difficulty that opponents of
nonconformity would face in their efforts to enforce the penal laws. Three
years later, Heywoods enemies succeeded in obtaining a writ of excom-
municato capiendo against him, which required his arrest. According to
Heywood, the bailiff who had been ordered to arrest him,
hath been exceeding civil and courteous towards me: and was willing to dis-
misse me so that I injoy my ful libertyonely promising to be forth-coming
wn I am called for by the sheriffs; it is a matter of admiration and thank-
fulnes to see how many arewilling to assist me in what they can.64
Similarly, in January 1672, Heywood preached at his home, but about one
a clock tidings came to me from an officer that Steph Ellis had got a war-
rant and was resolved to break us up wch occasioned me to break off and
dismissse them.65 It is thus evident that despite his obstinate nonconfor-
mity, Heywood retained the sympathy of many, or even most, chapelry
residents, and even officials themselves. When persecution threatened,
there always seemed to be an official willing to turn a blind eye to his activ-
ities or warn him of an impending raid.66 While some officials may have
simply wanted to avoid the social strife that an arrest would cause, other
officers appear to have been in the group that attended both Anglican ser-
vices and Heywoods sermons. Writing of an unsuccessful attempt to arrest
him in 1670, Heywood noted that the constable, who dragged his feet until
the sermon ended, hath been many times with us formerly, and in at
least one case a raid on a Quaker meeting failed because the necessary
officials were in attendance.67 Quakers found that constables were often
the most tolerant of local officials, probably because they would suffer
most from their neighbors ire. Some returned goods that they had confis-
cated from their dissenting neighbors or paid fines rather than serve war-
rants against them. Sir John Colesby, the Recorder of Colchester, raged
that local officials would not persecute without many and great threats.68

63Heywood, of course, refused to read it. Heywood, Diaries, i:179.

64Heywood also noted the civility of his jailor in York, who arranged for him to have a
private cell. Heywood, Diaries, i:187; iv:114.
65Heywood, Diaries, i:286. Italics added.
66For Anglicans reluctance to persecute their Quaker neighbors, see Stevenson, Social
integration of post-Restoration dissenters, pp. 37475.
67Heywood, Diaries, i:275. Davies, Quakers in English Society, pp. 17677; Stevenson,
Social integration of post-Restoration dissenters, p. 387.
68Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS, C 983, no. 26, fo. 59, quoted in Davies, Quakers in
English Society, p. 178.
86 chapter three

We gain further insight into the tensions between religious persecution

and accommodation by examining Heywoods description of life during
the Tory reaction.69 Heywoods account of the period leading up to his
imprisonment in 1684 illustrates both the tremendous pressure on local
officials to suppress conventicles, and the ways these officials avoided
doing so. In May 1682, Heywood received notice that warrants had been
issued for a raid on a sermon scheduled for the following Sunday. When he
sent to Halifax for details, the bailiffs sd they would doe me no hurt if they
could help it, only they told my friend they would not have me preach that
sabbath, but on Saturday. In July, Heywood noted one example of officials
doing their duty by raiding one of his meetings, but they did it in a way
that ensured no arrests would be possible: I heard that the officers would
come at 10 oclock. I appointed to begin at 5 oclock in the morning. The
officers were very civil and courteous, stayed a little, came exactly at 10.70
The next year, officials learned the time and place of one prayer meeting,
and the Constable and Officers were to come, to see whether we kept a
conventicle, but being friends they came before we met.71 In each of these
cases, the goal of the parish officials was to observe the letter of the law
without actually enforcing it. They could truthfully attest to their superi-
ors that they had searched the suspect house on the day in question but
had not found any illegal activity, deliberately omitting the fact that they
had carefully timed their raid to avoid making any arrests.
While officials who winked at Heywoods work found favor with their
neighbors, other officials were not always pleased.72 Matthew Morrice, a
constable bent on arresting those attending one of Heywoods sermons,
must have been furious when he sent to Mr Wade a justice of peace, who
refused to go with him. And when the vicar of Batley told Justice Copley
what a multitude of people ther was at Morley hearing a Non-Conformist,
he cannot have been pleased that Copley tooke no notice of it, bad let us

69For the post-revisionist rejection of English society as either harmonious or

divided, see Peter Lake, Retrospective: Wentworths political world in revisionist and
post-revisionist perspective, in The Political World of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford,
16211641, ed. Julia F. Merritt (Cambridge, Eng., 1996), pp. 25283; Kevin Sharpe, Reading
Revolutions: The Politics of Reading in Early Modern England (New Haven, 2000).
70BL, Add. 24486, 61v62r.
71Prior to a 1679 sermon at Alverthorpe, the officers sent word they would come about
3 a clock [so] we begun sooner, dispatcht all before, but they came not, it was a good day.
Heywood, Diaries, iv:71, 88; ii:99. Emphasis added.
72Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts, pp. 6667. For Church efforts to stampede
waverers into unflinching and energetic support for the suppression of Whigs and dissent-
ers, see Goldie and Spurr, Politics and the Restoration parish, p. 576.
 persecution in coley87

alone.73 The tensions that persecution could cause among those charged
with suppressing conventicles are vividly illustrated in a violent encounter
between Francis Jessop, a local squire and Justice of the Peace, and
Sir John Rearsby. Prior to the quarter sessions at Rotherham in July 1682,
Jessop announced his opposition to the prosecution of constables who
turned a blind eye to conventicles. Rearsby, who was no friend to dissent,
replied that if that was the case, Jessop should be prosecuted. The exchange
continued, and ultimately Rearsby took up a lead standish and threw it at
Mr Jessops face, hit him on the cheek, made a great wound, Mr Jessop
reacht to his cane, Sr John starts up on the floor, [and] drew his rapier.
Further bloodshed was narrowly avoided when Jessops son forcibly dis-
armed Rearsby and the brabble was stopt.74 Significantly, this fight and
others like it led to a more moderate atmosphere at the sessions, as those
favoring persecution stepped back from the precipice. Also according to
Heywood, one Justice at the quarter sessions was so raging that his fury
moderated other justices.75 It was rare for conflicts over the persecution
of nonconformists to draw blood, but this bout makes clear that even dur-
ing the Tory reaction persecution was controversial and required its advo-
cates to coerce their opponents into cooperation.
Among the more intriguing possibilities that Heywoods freedom raises
is that he retained popular support not despite his nonconformity but
because of it. As a nonconformist minister Heywood was able to offer the
same pastoral care as a conformist, but without the more divisive and
onerous responsibilities he would have had in an official position.
Heywood never had to report his neighbors for drunkenness, sexual incon-
tinence, or any of the other moral failings to which so many parishioners
succumbed. And while Donald Spaeth has demonstrated the endemic
conflict between clergy and laity over the payment of tithes, Heywood
never had to fight these battles: he relied on rental income and voluntary
contributions for his livelihood.76 In short, he was all carrot and no stick,

73Heywood, Diaries, i:255, 263.

74Heywood, Diaries, ii:293. A standish was a stand for ink and pens.
75Heywood, Diaries, ii:29293.
76Naturally enough, clergy who relied on gifts were more attentive to their parishio-
ners. Jonathan Barry, The parish in civic life: Bristol and its churches, 16401750, in Parish,
Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion, 13501750, ed. Susan J. Wright (London,
1988), p. 155. For the conflict between parsons and parishioners over tithes, see Spaeth,
Church in an Age of Danger, chap. 6. See also Andrew Pettegree, The clergy and the
Reformation: From devilish priesthood to new professional elite, in The Reformation of
the Parishes: The Ministry and the Reformation in Town and Country, ed. Andrew Pettegree
(Manchester, 1993), pp. 121.
88 chapter three

nurturing chapelry residents without having to discipline them. Because

Heywood provided much-needed pastoral care in the chapelry, his ene-
mies had to fight him with a limited arsenal. While more radical dissenters
such as the Quakers frequently found themselves in prison, locking up
Heywood was far more difficult, for doing so would have deprived resi-
dents of vital services and angered a broad cross-section of the parishs
population.
While Heywoods service to the parish offers one credible explanation
for the apparent failure of persecution, there is another possibility, and it
requires historians to rethink the purported de facto toleration that
prevailed in Halifax and elsewhere during the Restoration. The mistake
that many historians have made in understanding persecution during the
Restoration is to assume that in order to be a success, a raid on a conven-
ticle had to capture and imprison its targets. And while it is likely that
Hooke was never as happy as the day Heywood went to prison, we should
not assume that he viewed the near-misses described above as unsuccess-
ful.77 However much Hooke and his allies might have liked to drive non-
conformity out of Halifax, and however much they would have liked to see
Heywood in prison, such goals usually were out of reach. Dissent was too
firmly rooted in Halifaxs soil and Heywood had too many powerful allies
for the Clarendon Code ever to be enforced efficiently.78 An effective raid
would force parish officials to arrest their friends and neighbors, and
would disrupt the pastoral ministry that Heywood offered to conformists
and dissenters alike. Vigorous persecution might have helped to restore
religious uniformity, but it also would have wrought tremendous damage
on the social fabric.79 Because successful persecution was not politically
possible, or even desirable, Halifaxs High Church faction chose to intimi-
date Heywood and his followers rather than arrest them. In 1665, while
Heywood was in the midst of family prayer, there came to my house
Joshua Whittley, the Constable, and too other men to surprize us, they
disturbed us, and though they would shew me no order yet they came
furiously in, searcht the house.80 While it is possible that Whitley had a
warrant and hoped to find a conventicle, it is also not unthinkable that

77My analysis here is influenced by Parker, Faith on the Margins, pp. esp. 4858.
78Newton, Puritanism in the Diocese of York, chap. 3. In the pivotal years 164041,
Yorkshire saw no active petitioning in favor of the Book of Common Prayer. Judith D.
Maltby, Prayer Book and People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England (Cambridge, Eng.,
1998), p. 185.
79Walsham, Charitable Hatred, pp. 27375.
80Heywood, Diaries, i:19899.
 persecution in coley89

they were simply trying to harass Heywood. While this raid was a failure in
the sense that Whitley did not make any arrests, it disrupted Heywoods
life and introduced an element of insecurity into his daily routine. Who
could say when the next raid would come? Failed raids such as this
allowed Halifaxs persecutors to have their cake and eat it too. Moreover,
even if no raid materialized, the mere threat of persecution forced
Heywood to hold gatherings at odd hours. And if Heywood were discov-
ered, he had to cancel the gathering at the last moment or flee the scene
like a common criminal. Whatever the case, these failed raids kept
Halifaxs dissenters in a heightened state of anxiety, reminded Heywood
that he was a criminal, and made clear to his followers that they were
not a part of lawful society.81 Writing after a sermon in 1669, Heywood
encapsulated this odd mix of freedom and persecution, I preacht at Coley
chappell, oh what a good day was it, and what sudden congregation was
raised! We had great peace notwithstanding many threatenings and
feares.82 And while we can interpret this statement as evidence that tol-
eration prevailed in Coley, we must also consider the possibility that these
threatenings and the consequent feares were both the means and the
end of popular persecution. It was only under certain circumstances that
Heywoods enemies crossed the line between intimidating Heywood and
taking effective legal action against him. And as in so many other English
parishes, the height of persecution came with the Tory reaction, and it is
that dark chapter of Heywoods ministry that the following section
examines.

The Tory Reaction

When Halifaxs less tolerant parish officials surveyed their religious land-
scape, they did so with an eye to local politics, trying to intimidate Heywood
without alienating their moderate neighbors. The opportunity for more vig-
orous enforcement of the penal laws came when crises at the national level
lifted the moderates restraining hand and persecutors were able to run free.
One such moment came during the early 1680s when the Tories launched a
concerted campaign against Whigs and dissenters, sending Whig leaders to
the scaffold, to prison, or into exile, and visiting unprecedented persecution
upon even moderate nonconformists such as Heywood. During the Tory

81Christopher Hill, A Tinker and a Poor Man: John Bunyan and His Church, 16281688
(New York, 1989), p. 146; Keeble, Literary Culture of Nonconformity, pp. 4950.
82Heywood, Diaries, i:265.
90 chapter three

reaction, Heywoods meetings were under constant assault, and his enemies
successfully convicted him of riot and imprisoned him for most of 1685.
The question that such a dramatic change begs is why previously indul-
gent officials would allow this sort of persecution or, in several remarkable
cases, join the ranks of Heywoods enthusiastic persecutors. The most easily
comprehensible motive was fearmany local officials, including Heywoods
neighbor, James Oates, faced the choice between sending their dissenting
neighbors to prison or going there themselves. But it is also true that peoples
outlooks towards dissent changed depending on the political situation. When
individuals perceived a religious threat, whether in the form of popery or
dissent, they consciously rethought their religious communities, and changed
both their religious attitudes and practices. At moments of political crisis
some residents of Halifax came to see Heywood and his followers not as
harmless dissenters, but very real dangers to both church and state.
While the toleration of the 1660s and 1670s was extremely limited,
there is no question that dissenters fortunes deteriorated in the 1680s
after Whigs in Parliament failed to exclude James, Duke of York, from the
throne. In the backlash that followed, supporters of persecution had a free
hand to pursue their enemies, and the power to coerce more reluctant
officials to follow suit.83 Persecution during the Tory reaction affected all
manner of English religious dissenters. According to Adrian Davies, the
period between 1682 and 1685 accounted for nearly a quarter of all prose-
cutions of Quakers in Essexs quarter sessions, and the proportion was
even higher in Lancashire.84
The threat of persecution was at its most serious just before the quarter
sessions, when local officials came under intense pressure to enforce the
penal laws; those who failed to do so were subject to fines or imprison-
ment. Heywood himself noted the connection between the sessions and
persecution in an entry from 1682, when he wrote, we had notice that the
officers would come about 9 o clockThey came that they might signify
[compliance] to Justices. Similarly in 1684, being a little before the
Sessionsstrict warrants [came] to the Constables to search for al conven-
ticles, and bring them in at the sessions.85 In some cases, the constables
managed to evade their duty, but it is clear that they were under enormous
pressure from their social superiors to enforce the law. As noted above,

83Harris, Restoration, pp. 211328.

84Davies, Quakers in English Society, pp. 16973; Morgan, Lancashire Quakers and the
Establishment, p. 63.
85BL, Add. 24486, 61r; Heywood, Diaries, iv:103.
 persecution in coley91

Sir John Shaw complained of local officials reluctance to prosecute

Quakers without being threatened, and in 1685, a Friend from Colchester
noted that magistrates there prosecuted Quakers not out of malice but
because they feared punishment if they failed to do so.86
The pressure on local officials could have a dramatic impact on the
relationship between Heywood and conforming residents of Coley, turn-
ing a generally tolerant neighbor into a zealous persecutor. In July 1683,
just prior to the opening of the quarter sessions at Leeds, Heywood
received a visit from his neighbor, James Oates, who was then High
Constable. Oates came to my house knockt at the gates, wanted to speak
to me, I went, he told me, he was come to warn me against any meetings at
my house, sd it would not be suffered, I must forbearhe urged me to
promise to forbear preaching the day following. To Oatess great annoy-
ance, Heywood (obviously, and perhaps deliberately, missing the point)
denied that his meetings were disorderly. Oates insisted that Heywood
cancel the next days sermon, adding, I come as a friend in a neighbourly
way, and you must take it as a kindnes. Heywood again refused, and Oates
departed with a veiled threat, saying, well you will not promise, but you
must take what falls. Shortly after this encounter, Oates personally raided
Heywoods home, and in April 1684, he rated strangely towards me,
calling me rogue, traytor rebel, and wt. not saying he hath meetings and
will preach, butI will catch him.87
What is significant in Heywoods description of his encounter with
Oates is that when pressed to suppress conventicles, Oatess main concern
is to avoid persecuting Heywood, and it is Heywood who put him in an
intolerable position. Heywood forced Oates to choose between the ancient
obligations of neighborliness and the obedience he owed to his superi-
ors: he must either raid Heywoods conventicle, potentially arresting
his friends and neighbors, or disobey instructions from his superiors.
Flaunting a superiors orders would not come naturally to a man like
Oates, and the pressure he felt was doubtless accentuated by the penalties
imposed on officials who refused to crack down on nonconformists. At the
Leeds quarter sessions the same year, William Briggs, the constable at
Batley, was fined 10 for failing to report conventicles, and at Pontefract,
seven constables found themselves in prison for the same offense.88

86Davies, Quakers in English Society, p. 174.

87Heywood, Diaries, iv:93; ii:224. Magistrates sympathetic to the Quakers suffering
were similarly vexed by the Friends refusal to promise not to meet. Miller, A suffering
people, p. 87.
88Heywood, Diaries, ii:28788; 29293.
92 chapter three

The significance of Heywoods refusal to cooperate has a number of

important layers. Because Heywood refused what Oates saw as a charita-
ble act (you must take it as a kindnes), Oates saw him as behaving in
an unneighborly fashion. Unneighborliness was a charge often leveled
against nonconformists, but usually for withdrawing from the ritual
community or disrupting popular festivities. In this case, the conflict
stems not from broad denominational or cultural differences, but from
Heywoods petty refusal to reach across a narrow divide.89 Oatess persecu-
tion thus is not a product of antipathy for nonconformity, for Oates made
every reasonable effort to avoid prosecuting Heywood. Because Oatess
hostility to Heywood found expression in the language of sedition, rogue,
traytor rebel, we must consider the possibility that during the course of
the 1680s he became convinced that dissent really did pose a political
threat. But the evidence we have at hand makes a stronger case that such
fears played a small role, if they played any at all. Oates turned against
Heywood because he was squeezed between the irresistible force of the
Tory reaction and the immovable object of the local community, and
Heywood put him in that uncomfortable position.90
Nor was Oates alone in undergoing the transformation from in indul-
gent official to a zealous persecutor, for Heywood describes a similar
change in Lancashire gentleman Thomas Greenhalgh. In April 1668,
Heywood preached in Cockey chapel in Lancashire, and there was a
numerous congregation, god granted liberty of the place, and peace, tho
the high sheriff Mr Greenhaugh[was] within two miles of us. Heywood
assumed that Greenhalgh knew about his sermon but ignored it, and he is
probably right. The cure at Cockey was vacant, and Greenhalgh likely saw
Heywood as filling a void that the Church could not. By 1684, however,
Greenhalgh had changed his mind about dissent: Mr Greenhaugh of
Brandlesome (Justice of the peace in Lanc.) hitherto moderate is now
grown unreasonable, fining people for going to Cockey chappel.91 Green
halghs motives remain obscure, but the pressure on officials to suppress

89Walsham, Charitable Hatred, p. 277.

90The importance of political events at the center to nonconformity in the provinces
can be seen in Heywoods explanation for his release from prison, which came in the wake
of James IIs prorogation of Parliament in 1685, I hear that the [High Sheriff] upon the
proroguing of thes parlt from Nov till Feb 10 was much moved, and stormed saying, have
I displeased my neighbours to please the court, and doe they serve me thus? Heywood,
Diaries, iv:117.
91Heywood, Diaries, i:253; ii:223. Anthony Fletcher has argued that in rural areas, perse-
cution (understood as a legal event) required a dedicated JP. Fletcher, Enforcement of the
Conventicle Acts. For the effectiveness of Tory propaganda, see Harris, Restoration, p. 304.
 persecution in coley93

conventicles was intense. In the years between 1668 and 1684 Greenhalgh
may have come to see nonconformity as a threat that required drastic
action, or he may have been pushed into action by his superiors, or some
combination of the two. Whatever the explanation, we see in Oates and
Greenhalgh the significance of national events on local religious politics;
they shaped the officials decisions and made the difference between lib-
erty and imprisonment for Englands nonconformists.92
While Oatess antipathy towards Heywood was not purely religious, it is
important to note that the political and religious crises of the period did
cause people to change their minds about dissent.93 Ralph Thoresby, a
friend of Heywoods from Leeds, grew up in a Presbyterian household and
for many years leaned towards dissent. After a brush with the law in 1683,
however, he began to attend Church services on a regular basis, although
he also continued to hear nonconformists. Thoresby rethought his
sermon-going habits after James IIs accession made the Catholic threat
far more real and terrifying. In that year Thoresby ran into the arms of the
Church of England with new enthusiasm:
The danger that our holy religion was now in, from the common enemy
[Catholicism], made me more sensible of, and I hope penitent for, a practice
I had unwarilyslipped into viz.: reading some piece of practical divinity at
home to my family when I should have been joining with the congregation
in publicI therefore more constantly, as heretofore, joined in the public
prayers and worship as Judging the Church of England as the strongest
bulwark against Popery, and a union of Protestants absolutely necessary.94
In each case, Oates, Greenhalgh, and Thoresby adapted their religious
outlook to the larger political landscape. The latter two turned their
attention to the suppression of dissent after the Whigs had threatened the
monarchy, and Thoresby embraced conformity when he was confronted
by a Catholic king. It is also true that Oates, Greenhalgh, and Thoresby
placed national concerns ahead of local peace, though in different ways.
Greenhalgh and Oates risked angering their neighbors, while Thoresbys
concerns lay closer to home. Thoresbys dissenting friends likely were
disappointed with his change of heart, but his wife, Anna, was positively

92Christopher Marsh, The gravestone of Thomas Lawrence revisited (or The Family of
Love and the local community in Balsham, 15601630), in Spufford, The World of Rural
Dissenters, 15201725, p. 219; Marsh, Family of Love, pp. 11315; Hanlon, Confession and
Community in Seventeenth-Century France.
93Beaver, Behemoth, or civil war and revolution, p. 146.
94Thoresby, Diary of Ralph Thoresby, pp. 18182; Bolam, Goring, Short, and Thomas,
English Presbyterians, pp. 10001.
94 chapter three

incensed. According to Thoresby, Anna was eminent formeekness,

modesty and submissionexcept in the matter of baptizing and educat-
ing our children, (after I changed my sentiments as to conformity.).95
While Thoresby saw his decision as politically necessary, it apparently
caused Anna to forget her meekness, modesty, and submission.
The examples of Oates, Greenhalgh, and Thoresby are significant
because the pressures they faced were felt throughout the realm. The dra-
matic increase in the pace and ferocity of persecution during the Tory
reaction offers vivid evidence that the combination of official pressure
and the increasingly popular belief that dissenters threatened the Church
and monarchy were enough to convince previously moderate officials to
join the ranks of persecutors. And while Thoresby feared Catholicism
rather than dissent, the challenges of mixed marriages such as his were
not uncommon.96 Left to their own devices, many local officials probably
would have chosen to tolerate moderates like Heywood, particularly
when they provided services that the Established Church could not. Under
pressure from other local officials or their superiors, however, these offi-
cials had to choose whether to suffer for their neighbors beliefs or join the
ranks of the persecuting state. In these cases, we see the intertwined
nature of local and national religious issues, the effects that events in
Parliament or at Court could have on life in the parishes, and the evolution
of individual attitudes towards their religious communities.
It is also important to note that the persecution during the Restoration
is very much of a piece with other attacks on religious nonconformists
during the early modern period, and Christopher Marshs research on the
Family of Love is particularly revealing. According to Marsh, persecution
of Familists took place amid godly concerns that Queen Elizabeths dedi-
cation to militant Protestantism was less than sincere, particularly when
marriage negotiations with the French raised the prospect of a Catholic
match, and in the wake of Grindals suspension. As we have seen, Hooke
and his allies acted in a similar fashion, acting against dissent when the
Crown seemed unwilling to do so. Marsh has also argued that puritans
attacked Familists when it became clear to them that the wider popula-
tion had no intention of heeding their message of godly reform, and such

95Thoresby, Diary of Ralph Thoresby, pp. 18182. Arnoldus Buchelius reacted similarly
when the Dutch Republic was under threat. Pollmann, Religious Choice in the Dutch
Republic, pp. 9293, 101.
96Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation, pp. 26177. For Heywoods role in
negotiating the marriage of one of his followers to a conformist woman, see Heywood,
Diaries, ii:6162.
 persecution in coley95

a scenario is plausible for Restoration Halifax as well. Despite his best

efforts, the majority of Hookes parishioners ignored his warnings that
Heywood and his ilk threatened the nation, and he responded by lashing
out at the nonconformists themselves.97 Similar trends are visible in the
experience of Catholics and Quakers during the Restoration, as the Popish
Plot soured previously amicable relations between Catholics and their
neighbors in Madeley, Shropshire, and the suffering of Quakers frequently
coincides with the periods of political tumult that battered English society
under Charles II.98 This is to say that while some of the factors that shaped
religious life in Restoration Halifax were peculiar to that parish, many
others have echoes in other times and places in English history.
In this chapter we have seen that Heywood was not alone in his efforts
to shape the nature of religious community in Restoration Halifax. Richard
Hooke spent nearly three decades on the same project, though obviously
with a different goal in mind. Through his publications and sermons
Hooke made the case that moderate dissenters such as Heywood consti-
tuted a more serious threat to the nation than radical sectaries or popery,
and he was joined in his efforts by men and women from across the social
spectrum. Just as Heywood had help from the laity in creating an inclusive
religious community, Hooke relied on his lay supporters to create an exclu-
sive one. Hookes refrain that religious dissent equaled sedition drew an
explicit connection between local and national politics, and his rhetoric
affected the everyday relationships between dissenters and their neigh-
bors. In response to Charless emasculation of the Clarendon Code, Hooke
went on the offensive against dissent. He preached against religious gath-
erings that had been legal; his followers joined the fray, harassing and
intimidating their dissenting neighbors. During the Tory reaction, pres-
sure from above forced moderate parish officials into the role of persecu-
tors, although it does seem that Whig attacks on Charles and James really
did convince some officers that dissenters threatened the nation.
The tensions between persecution and toleration are also visible in
Hookes legacy in Halifax. On the one hand, there is evidence that he may
have done his cause more harm than good. Donald Spaeth has argued that
clergy who adopted a militant stance against nonconformity alienated

97Marsh, Family of Love, pp. 11315, 12224.

98William J. Sheils, Getting on and getting along in parish and town: Catholics and
their neighbours in England, in Catholic Communities in Protestant States: Britain and the
Netherlands C.15701720, eds. Benjamin J. Kaplan, Bob Moore, Henk van Nierop, and Judith
Pollmann (Manchester, 2009), p. 72; Davies, Quakers in English Society, p. 169.
96 chapter three

their moderate parishioners, turning some against persecution and

perhaps driving others into dissent.99 It is also possible that Hookes
uncompromising nature led to the appointment of a more tolerant minis-
ter upon his death, for his successor, Edmund Hough, proved himself a
great friend to religious dissent. Indeed, Hough not only tolerated dissent,
but positively embraced nonconformist ministers such as Heywood. For a
community that had tired of persecution and the social turmoil that it
engendered, Hough was an ideal choice.100 This is not to say, however, that
Hookes vision of community died with him, for in 1689 a local gentleman
named Simon Sterne pushed it forward even as Parliament debated the
Act of Toleration. As we shall see in the next chapter, the residents of
Halifax continued to battle over the question of which vision of religious
community, Heywoods or Hookes, would prevail in their parish.

99Spaeth, Church in an Age of Danger, chap. 7.

100William Sheils has argued that in parishes where the Crown held the right to appoint
a minister the local populace played a prominent role in the selection process. W.J. Sheils,
Religion in provincial towns: Innovation and tradition, in Church and Society in England:
Henry VIII to James I, eds. Rosemary ODay and Felicity Heal (London, 1977), pp. 15676.
 CHAPTER FOUR

LITIGATING COMMUNITY IN REVOLUTIONARY HALIFAX

Sixteen eighty-nine was a year of revolutionsfor England, of course, but

also for Halifax.1 The same year that William of Orange overthrew James II
and Parliament passed the Toleration Act, Richard Hooke died and
Edmund Hough (who was even more tolerant than Parliament) became
the vicar of Halifax. Upon Houghs arrival in Halifax, Thomas Hanson, the
parish lecturer and Hookes assistant, resigned his position to accept
Houghs old position as vicar of Thornton-in-Craven.2 Hough then called
for an election to replace Hanson, which gave the residents of the town of
Halifax and four neighboring townships the opportunity to choose a new
lecturer and, in a sense, to choose the direction that the parish would take.
They met to choose between two candidates, William Corlas and Abraham
Walker.3 On the day appointed, interested parishioners met at the parish
church, but according to Hough, there was then so great a Crowd & throng
of people and many of them were so noisy & unruly, that no Eleccion was
nor could well bee then made.4 Those present then resolved that the
supporters of each candidate would collect signatures in support of their
candidate, and in two weeks time the parish would reassemble to count
the votes. This is where the trouble started. The parties came together as
scheduled, and Corlass supporters produced their list of names. However,
according to one witness who supported Corlas, Walkers party refused to
produce its list, by reason as this Examinate supposes the same was farr
short in numbers.5 Walkers supporters, of course, had a very different
take on these events. Simon Sterne, the leader of Walkers faction, claimed

1An earlier version of this chapter appeared as Samuel S. Thomas, Religious commu-
nity in revolutionary Halifax, Northern History 40:1 (2003), 89111.
2The lectureship was an unofficial position within the parish. The lecturer assisted
the vicar, often reading prayers on Sunday and occasionally serving Halifaxs outlying
chapelries. According to W.J. Sheils, in cases in which the Crown had right of appointment,
parish residents often played a role in choosing their own minister. For lecturers in market
towns, see Sheils, Religion in provincial towns, pp. 15676.
3The four townships were Northowram, Ovenden, Skircoat, and Southowram. For the
structure of the parish, see chapter one.
4BIHR, CP. H. 4220. Testimony of Edmund Hough.
5BIHR, CP. H. 4219. Testimony of Richard Hoyle.
98 chapter four

that the vast majority of Corlass supporters had no right to vote, but
rather:
were and are either wives who have voted against their husbands minds
children, servants, apprentices, poore and indigent people[or] dead, and
that many of thosewho had right of electionwere at that time and now
are now Dissenters from and disaffected to the Church of England& fre-
quenters of conventicles.6
Predictably, the result of this dispute was a lawsuit, as Sterne sued Hough
to install Walker as the lecturer.
What makes Sternes accusations particularly interesting is that they
seem to have been true. Many of those who voted for Corlas or collected
signatures on his behalf maintained close ties to nonconformity: some
were members of Heywoods society or would join after the election, while
others counted nonconformists among their friends and relatives. Corlass
voters also included young, unmarried women, wealthy widows and
spinsters, and even men and women who received charity. Houghs
response adds another layer of significance to the case. Rather than dis-
puting the voters nonconformity and poverty, Hough and his allies offered
a principled defense of their right to vote. The case thus became less about
who would serve as lecturer than about who would have a voice in parish
affairs.
In a sense, the dispute represents the culmination of a three-decade
debate over the nature of religious community in Restoration Halifax, and
the efforts of partisans to effect their vision. As we saw in chapter two,
Oliver Heywood and some among the laity had long worked to maintain
an inclusive community in which denominational boundaries were less
important than the bonds of neighborhood, while chapter three demon-
strated that Hooke and his followers made every effort to create a more
circumscribed community with the parish church at its center. Now these
divergent visions of religious community clashed in court. Hough and his
supporters followed Heywood in imagining a parish community that
included all residents, regardless of religious bent or social status. This
sense of the parish was not shared by Simon Sterne and his supporters
who, like Hooke, adopted a more rigorous standard for full membership,
arguing that only rate-paying residents who exclusively attended Anglican
worship should be allowed a voice. The battle over who could participate

6BIHR, CP. H. 4220. Testimony of Simon Sterne. This quotation is drawn from two
separate statements.
 litigating community in revolutionary halifax99

in parish affairs illuminates the contested nature of religious community

in England on the eve of toleration and foreshadows the religious conflict
that would endure into the reign of Queen Anne and beyond.
In light of its timing, analysis of Sterne c. Hough must begin with the
national political circumstances.7 In the fall of 1689, at the very moment
the controversy over the lectureship was brewing, the nature of the Church
of England was once again up for debate. In November of that year, a group
of MPs tried to forge a compromise that would incorporate moderate non-
conformists within the Church. Some Churchmen were horrified by these
proposals, seeing them as akin to introducing a schism into the very bow-
els of the Church.8 Hough and Corlas had strong links to religious dissent,
and Sterne may have seen their appointment to positions in the Church as
little different from an Army that fills up its company with Mutineers.9
This election and ensuing lawsuit thus came at a particularly fraught
moment for both Halifax and England, and also represented a local con-
test over an issue faced by communities throughout England: What would
be the place of religious dissenters in the parish?10 Sterne c. Hough pitted

7In this chapter I stress the religious background of the case, but the suit also may be
read (without contradiction) as a conflict between established residents of the parish and
Sterne, a relative newcomer. For factional conflicts clothed in language of religion, and in
Halifax, see Collinson and Craig, eds., The Reformation in English Towns,15001640; Smail,
Origins of Middle-Class Culture, pp. 2829. There exists a large body of scholarship on con-
flicts that intertwined the political and the religious, as well as the national and the local.
Some examples include: John Miller, Containing division in Restoration Norwich, English
Historical Review 121:493 (2006), 101947; Jonathan Barry, The politics of religion in
Restoration Bristol, in Harris, Seaward, and Goldie, The Politics of Religion in Restoration
England, pp. 16389; Paul Seaward, Gilbert Sheldon, the London vestries, and the defence
of the Church, in Harris, Seaward, and Goldie, The Politics of Religion in Restoration
England, pp. 4973. See also Mark Knights, Representation and Misrepresentation in Later
Stuart Britain: Partisanship and Political Culture (Oxford, 2005). Jonathan Barry has argued
that the middling sort who formed the core disputants in this case were highly attuned
to the connection between local and national issues. Jonathan Barry, Introduction, in
The Middling Sort of People: Culture, Society, and Politics in England, 15501800, eds. Jonathan
Barry and C.W. Brooks (New York, 1994), pp. 2022.
8Spurr, The Church of England, comprehension and the Toleration Act, pp. 94142.
Justin Champion, Political thinking between Restoration and Hanoverian succession, in
A Companion to Stuart Britain, ed. Barry Coward (Oxford, 2003), pp. 47475.
9A Letter from the Member of Parliament in Answer to the Letter of the Divine Concerning
the Bill for Uniting Protestants (London, 1689), p. 5. Cited in Craig Rose, England in the 1690s:
Revolution, Religion, and War (Oxford, 1999), p. 162.
10Tim Harris and others have shown that the religious and political battles of the
Restoration were fought at the parish and the national levels. It may also be helpful to think
of the election as a civic ritual, and the lawsuit resulted from the fact that it forced into the
open long-standing tensions and rivalries. Jacqueline Eales argues that during the 1640s the
parish church and congregation were a focal point for public declarations of allegiance.
Eales, Provincial preaching and allegiance, in Cogswell, Cust, and Lake, eds., Politics,
100 chapter four

against each other two incommensurable visions of religious community,

one inclusive and one exclusive.11

Dramatis Personae

The identities of the leading figures in the election and subsequent lawsuit
make clear that, notwithstanding any wrangling over electoral procedure,
the implications of the suit extended far beyond the mere selection of the
parish lecturer. The question at the heart of the case was simple, if vexing:
Which religious and social groups would control the parish? The suit
pitted Low Church Anglicans and nonconformists, many of whom came
from the trades, against High Church Anglicans who described themselves
as gentlemen or yeomen. It was the latter group that launched the suit, as
they asserted the primacy of wealthy and conforming residents in parish
affairs.12 In contrast, the Low Church group, along with its nonconformist
allies, attempted to defend what it saw as the traditional role of virtually
all residents in the life of the parish.
The leader of the High Church faction trying to overturn the election
was Simon Sterne, the third son of Richard Sterne, Archbishop of York
from 1664 to 1683. Richard served as a chaplain to Archbishop William
Laud and attended him during his last days before execution; in 1677, he
published Lauds scaffold farewell. Not surprisingly, Richard was also a

Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain, p. 187. For the interaction of local and
national politics, see Coleby, Central Government and the Localities; Roger Howell,
Newcastle and the nation: The seventeenth-century experience, in The Tudor and Stuart
town: A Reader in English Urban History, 15301688, ed. Jonathan Barry (London, 1990),
pp. 27496; Richard P. Cust and Peter Lake, Sir Richard Grosvenor and the rhetoric of mag-
istracy, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 54 (1981), 4053; Colin Lee, Fanatic
magistrates: Religious and political conflict in three Kent boroughs, 16801684, Historical
Journal, 35:1 (1992), 4361; John Miller, Cities Divided: Politics and Religion in English
Provincial Towns, 16601722 (Oxford, 2007); Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts.
11Donald Spaeth has noted that while some people saw conformity and dissent in
binary terms, most approached the issue from a more nuanced perspective. Spaeth, Church
in an Age of Danger, p. 169. See also Mark Knightss argument that the boundary between
conformity and dissent would remain contested territory into the 18th century. Mark
Knights, Occasional conformity and the representation of Dissent: Hypocrisy, sincerity,
moderation and zeal, Parliamentary History 24:1 (2005), 4157.
12An election that breaks so cleanly along religious lines raises the issue of whether it
can be read as a contest between Whigs and Tories. And while I am reluctant to use these
labels explicitly, if for no other reason than the fact that none of the participants described
it as such, it should nevertheless be read in the context of party politics. For the rise of
party politics in the decades leading up to 1689, see Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts.
Smail, Origins of Middle-Class Culture, p. 2; Smail, Local politics in Restoration England,
pp. 24445.
 litigating community in revolutionary halifax101

staunch supporter of Charles II, and upon the Restoration the monarch
rewarded him for his loyalty with the bishopric of Carlisle, and ultimately
the archbishopric of York. According to Gilbert Burnet, Archbishop Sterne
was a sour, ill-tempered man, and minded chiefly the enriching of his
family. [H]e was more than ordinarily compliant to the court, and was
very zealous for the duke [of York].13 Simons older brother, Richard,
served as an MP from Ripon and cleaved to the court, supporting James
during the exclusion crisis.14 Simons son, Jacques, followed his grandfa-
ther into the Church, holding a number of lucrative appointments, includ-
ing the prebendaries of York, Southwell, and Durham, the precentorship
of York, and the archdeaconries of Cleveland and the East Riding.15 Simon
Sterne was quite wealthy, having purchased his manor in Halifax for 1800,
and according to testimony from a 1699 lawsuit was a person of good rank
and quality and has a considerable estate within the said parish of Hallifax
and elsewhere that he is one of his Majesties Justice of the Peace for the
West Riding of the County of Yorke.16 His affection for the Church is seen
in his will, which includes the bequest, I [give] all my bookes of Divinity
unto the eldest of my sonsthat shall goe or Enter into orders.17
Given Sternes conservative religious lineage, it is not surprising that his
allies were more than typically hostile to religious nonconformity. At the
time of the election, Abraham Walker, Sternes candidate for the lecture-
ship, was serving as curate of Rastrick, one of the townships in the chapelry
of Elland, and of Chapel le Breares. His supporters testified that he was of
sober life and conversation, and William Wilson added that he was very
well beloved by the inhabitants within both of the said chapellryes
(excepting Dissenters).18 This hostility to nonconformists can also be
seen in another of Walkers supporters, Thomas Hanson, the father of the
outgoing lecturer. Hanson testified on Walkers behalf and also makes a
dramatic appearance in Oliver Heywoods diary.19 According to Heywood,
on 13 July 1670:

13Gilbert Burnet, Bishop Burnets History of His Own Time, iv vols. (Oxford, 1873), ii:427.
14Basil Duke Henning, The House of Commons, 16601690, iii vols. (London, 1983), i: 485.
Ralph Thoresby notes sharing a coach with Richard, who proved very good company,
(not so hot as I feared, being the Archbishops son). Thoresby, The Diary of Ralph Thoresby,
p. 154.
15Jacques was also father to Lawrence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy.
16BIHR, CP. I. 49, Testimony of Simon Sterne. Edward Parsons, The Civil, Ecclesiastical,
Literary, Commercial, and Miscellaneous History of Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Dewsbury,
Otley, and the District Within Ten Miles of Leeds, ii vols. (Leeds, 1834), ii:386.
17BIHR, OW, May 1703.
18BIHR, CP. H. 4220. Testimony of William Wilson.
19BIHR, CP. H. 4220. Testimony of Thomas Hanson.
102 chapter four

they came on Wednesday morning ie James Mitchel of crow-nest constable,

Thomas Hanson of Mitham church-warden, Samuel Wadington of Norwood-
green overseer, and brought three men with themto take down and help to
hurry out my goods, they swept all away, three good chests, three tables,
chaires, stooles, my bed, bedding, curtaines all my goods except a cup-
board and a few chaires are gone.20
Hansons willingness to act against Heywood should be read against
evidence in chapter three demonstrating the widespread reluctance of
local officials to prosecute him and broader patterns of noncompliance
throughout England.21 Hanson could have avoided involving himself in
the confiscation of Heywoods goods, but he did not. It is also significant
that Hansons son chose to leave Halifaxs lectureship upon Houghs
arrival. The younger Hanson served under Richard Hooke for six years, a
relationship that would not have lasted if the two men disagreed on the
suppression of nonconformity.22 As we shall see, Hough was far more sym-
pathetic to nonconformity than Hooke, which may have hastened
Hansons departure. Indeed, it seems likely that Hough helped Hanson
find another position, for he left Halifax for Houghs old living at Thornton.
In contrast to the High Church leanings of Sternes party, Hough and his
supporters had Low Church proclivities. Hough was appointed to the vic-
arage soon after the accession of William and Mary.23 Before conform-
ing to the Church, Hough was ejected from a position at Cambridge,
and according to Calamy, Though he conformd, he was one of great
Moderation, and frequent in Private Fasts. He constantly preachd on
Fridays before the Sacrament, and carried it in a very friendly Manner to
the Dissenters.24 Heywood and Hough eventually became friends, but
Houghs reputation preceded him. In 1675, Heywood wrote:
I met with a religious young man John Hey who tho he lives in Gisburn
parish yet is a constant hearer of Mr Hough at Thornton a godly man with

20Heywood, Diaries, i:27071.

21Fletcher, Enforcement of the Conventicle Acts 16641679, pp. 23546.
22BIHR, Inst. Act Book 9, p. 1.
23Hough was presented to the vicarage in April 1689, and thus had only been in the
position a few months when the battle over the lectureship began. It is possible that Sterne
and his supporters felt that as a newcomer to the parish Hough was vulnerable to this sort
of pressure. Calendar of State papers 13th February 1689 April 1690., (London, 1969), p. 49.
Goldie and Spurr, Politics and the Restoration parish,, pp. 57296.
24Edmund Calamy, A Continuation Of The Account Of The Ministerswho were Ejected
and Silenced after the Restoration (London, 1727), pp. 12829. J.A. Newton argues that the
Church in Yorkshire had a long tradition valuing devotion over precision and accommo-
dating clergy who had qualms about some ceremonies. Newton, Puritanism in the Diocese
of York, chap. 7.
 litigating community in revolutionary halifax103

whom he & other two keep private of fasting & prayer, tho he be a conform-
ist, yet [he] takes great pains amongst his people to do their souls good
Mr Houghs ministry being plain convincing edifying does much good.
Blessed be God that hath planted his Gospel in that barren soyle.25
Later, Hough attended Heywoods sermons in Thornton and demonstrated
a pastoral style redolent of nonconformity, at least to Hookes ultrasensi-
tive nose:
Mr Hough parson of Thornton a godly man, keeps private days of fasting &
prayer has been at our meetings to hear me preach for which he was threat-
ened to be endicted. Dr Hook of Halifaxdealt plainly or roughley rather
with him threatened to tell the Bishop, Mr Hough told him he did it in per-
formance of the articles of the Creed, the Communion of Saints which we
not only ought to believe, but practise accordingly.26
While seriousness in religion was hardly exclusive to Low Churchmen,
Houghs ties to nonconformity ran deeper than this. In 1678, he married
Lydia Bentley, the widow of Presbyterian minister Eli Bentley, who had
served as vicar of Halifax prior to his ejection.27 Houghs nonconforming
tendencies got him in some trouble during the Tory reaction. According to
Heywood, in December 1684:
some officers while [Hough] was preaching consulted to put him out of the
pulpit as being a [Nonconformist]they have cited him for not praying right
for the king; saying he was a Presbit. for 3 things, 1 for matter, 2 manner,
3 length of his sermons, for 1 in speaking of such enthusiastical points,
2 manner in his zeal, affectionateness, 3 length they were tyred before he
had half done.28
Heywood called on Hough at Thornton, repeatedly attended his sermons,
and even lodged with him during the Tory reaction in 1683.29 The diary of
Ralph Thoresby relates that while vicar of Halifax, Hough visited Heywoods
newly built chapel, and entering with him, put off his hat, and, with
fervency, uttered these words: The good Lord bless the word preached in

25Hey brought his son, David, to Heywood for baptism in 1678. Guisburn is approxi-
mately five miles from Thornton. Heywood, Dickenson, and Turner, Nonconformist Register,
p. 30. BL Add. Mss. 4460, 18v. Emphasis in original.
26BL Add. Mss. 4460, fo. 21v. Emphasis in original. According to Calamy, He was sadly
persecuted by some hot Men, who were the Occasion of his taking a great many wearisome
Journies in his Old-age, to the Court at York, Archbishop Lamplugh no way favourd him,
but was rather against him. So that he died (as I am informd) Heart broken with Grief.
Calamy, Account, pp. 12829.
27Heywood, Dickenson, and Turner, Nonconformist Register, p. 43.
28Heywood, Diaries, ii:22425. Whiting, Studies in English Puritanism, p. 28.
29Heywood, Diaries, ii:40, 100, 107, 121; BL, Add. Mss. 24486, 66r, 67r, 74r.
104 chapter four

this place.30 Hough brought a godly spirit to his ministry and a general
tolerance for nonconformity, and these manifested themselves when the
parish lectureship fell vacant.31
William Corlas, Houghs choice for a lecturer, was also a Low Churchman.
At the time of the election, he was the rector of both Newton Kyme and
Long Marston, but he and Hough had known each other for years.
According to Heywood, Mr Corlascame from [Christs] Colledge [and]
was high flown, grievously tainted with the Arminian principles, against
the morality of the Sabbathbut by the blessing of God Mr Hough
reclaimed him, & he is very pious.32 The bond between the two men
endured beyond the election, and in 1692 Corlas preached Houghs funeral
sermon. Hough and Corlas thus shared a form of religiosity that, even in
1689, was associated with puritanism and the civil wars. That Hough
reclaimed Corlas from Arminianism would simultaneously have bound
the two together and solidified High Church opposition to Corlass
candidacy.
In the end, however, the lectureship went neither to Walker nor to
Corlas, but to a third candidate, Francis Parratt, a native of Staffordshire
and graduate of St Johns College, Cambridge.33 Parratt remained in the
lectureship until his death in 1741, delivering sermons throughout Halifax
and in other West Riding parishes.34 We do not have Heywoods assess-
ment of Parratt, but there is evidence of Low Churchmanship in addition
to the simple fact that he was handpicked for the position by Hough. While
Parratts sermons are hostile towards atheists, Quakers, and Catholics, he
displays a different attitude toward nonconformists. In sermons from 1702

30Quoted in Hunter, The Rise of the Old Dissent, p. 357. Hough was also friends with
Manchester Presbyterian Henry Newcome. Newcome accompanied Hough to Cambridge
when he was preparing to matriculate at Jesus College, and according to Newcome, he
continued there till near B.D., standing in good repute for learning and religion, and went
out of his Fellowship on August 24, 1662, though since he hath conformed; but a precious
soul he hath been, and is. Newcome, Autobiography of Henry Newcome, pp. 2829. For
correspondence and social calls between the two men, see Newcome, Diary of Henry
Newcome, pp. xxii, 6, 105, 138.
31For a similar effort to include Anglicans and nonconformists in an inclusive parish,
see Justin Champion and Lee McNulty, Making orthodoxy in late Restoration England:
The trials of Edmund Hickeringill, 16621710, in Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society:
Order, Hierarchy and Subordination in Britain and Ireland, eds. Michael J. Braddick and
John Walter (Cambridge, Eng., 2001), pp. 23334.
32BL Add. Mss. 4460, fo. 21v. Emphasis in original.
33Anna B. Bisset, York Clergy Ordinations: 16621669 (York, 1998).
34A book of Parratts sermons in Dr Williamss Library includes the dates and locations
at which he delivered each sermon. DWL, MS 24.193.
 litigating community in revolutionary halifax105

and 1704, Parratt outlines the various dangers faced by the Church of
England, including atheism, Quakerism, and popery; nonconformity is
conspicuously absent.35 In a sermon first delivered in 1703, Parratt made a
direct appeal to his nonconformist hearers:
Come then my dissenting brethren at least so many of you as comply with
occasional conformity, & consider whether theese forecited texts of scrip-
ture do not oblige you to a constant communion with our Church. & in affec-
tion let us bee like David & Jonathan who loved each other so entirely that
the text tells you their very souls were knit together.36
None of Parratts sermons were ever published, so it seems likely that he
believed that there would be nonconformists in his audience. Such lan-
guage shows Parratt to be a less irenic figure than Hough, but it neverthe-
less places him far closer to Stillingfleet than Sachevrell.

Supporting Players

Hough and Corlas thus came from the Church of Englands tolerant wing,
but when we turn to the men who collected signatures on their behalf we
cross the line from Low Churchmanship into outright nonconformity.
While it is not possible to confirm that all the men who collected signa-
tures for Corlas did indeed frequent & goe to Conventicles, or that they
were disaffected persons to the Church of England, some had at least one
foot in the nonconformist camp, and others were members of Heywoods
society.37 Sympathy for nonconformists is evident in Richard Hoyle, a sta-
pler from Northowram. In 1679, Hoyle was one of the first people to whom
Heywood gave a copy of his book Life in Gods Favour and was also one of
the men who petitioned Hooke to allow Low Churchman John Hoole to
preach in Coley chapel.38 Hoyle also left two of his best suits to Nathaniel
Baxter, who attended private fasts hosted by Heywood, and Jeremiah
Baxter, who was a member of Heywoods society.39 It is possible that men
such as Hoyle, who had ties to Heywood but was not a member of his soci-
ety, joined another of Halifaxs nonconformist societies, but Sternes accu-
sation indicates that they may have occupied a more indeterminate space.

35DWL, MS 24.193, fo. 146rv, 103rv.

36DWL, MS 24.193, fo. 151v152r.
37BIHR, CP. H. 4220. Testimony of George Ramsden.
38For Hoole, see chapter two.
39BIHR, Original Wills, January 1694; Heywood, Diaries, iv:224; ii:2224. Jeremiah also
conducted an inventory of Heywoods estate.
106 chapter four

Quite simply, one did not need to be a member of a nonconformist society

to goe to Conventicles, or to be disaffectedto the Church of England.
Heywood often preached to Anglican audiences, sometimes in Anglican
chapels, and these gatherings would have qualified as conventicles.
Nevertheless, many of the individuals in attendance saw themselves
as members of the Church of England. While the practice of attending
both Anglican and nonconformist services is most often described as
occasional conformity, occasional nonconformity might be more
appropriate; presence at the occasional conventicle hardly made one a
nonconformist.40
In contrast to Hoyle, there is no doubt that John Brearcliffe and Daniel
Gill were dyed-in-the-wool nonconformists. Brearcliffe, an apothecary in
Halifax, first appears in Heywoods diary in 1673, when he warned Heywood
that Dr Hook threatened to get a writ agt me for making a marriage this
week. By 1700, Brearcliffe had joined Heywoods society, for in May of that
year Heywood noted, god help in my public work all day praying and
preaching on Isai 53:11, administering the Lords supper many dined with
us Jo Brearcliffe and his wife, old Josiah Stansfield stayd after.41 Despite his
nonconformity, Brearcliffe served as a parish churchwarden and adminis-
tered two local charities.42 Daniel Gill, who collected signatures for Corlas
in Northowram, joined Heywoods society in May 1689, but their relation-
ship dated at least to 1679. Like Brearcliffe, Gill was a community leader. In
1699, Gill came to Heywood to ask his advice about a suit betwixt Abr
Milner and John Nolson and Tho Whitly the matter being referred to
him.43 None of these three were members of Heywoods society, so Gills
selection as a mediator indicates that despite his nonconformity, he
retained the social authority to mediate disputes among his Anglican
neighbors. Nonconformity thus did not prevent individuals from acting as
leaders of the parish; whether in an official or unofficial capacity,
Brearcliffes and Gills involvement in the election was in keeping with
their roles as local leaders.44

40The infinite varieties of religious practice among the laity prompted Tim Harris to
note the difficulty historians would have in identifying out-and-out Anglicans rather than
nonconformists. Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts, pp. 911; Goldie and Spurr, Politics
and the Restoration parish, p. 581; Spurr, English Puritanism, p. 135.
41Heywood, Diaries, iii:133; iv:213. In later years Brearcliffe treated Abigail Heywood.
Heywood, Diaries, iv:162, 169, 272.
42For Quakers serving in parish office, see Davies, The Quakers in English Society,
pp. 20407.
43Heywood, Diaries, ii:33, 109; iv:138, 187.
44Brearcliffe served as churchwarden in 1685 and 1702. BIHR, Halifax Bishops
Transcripts, Reel 421. CDA, Halifax Poor Law Records, MISC: 93/1/4; CDA, Waterhouse
 litigating community in revolutionary halifax107

In addition to objecting that those who collected votes for Corlas were
nonconformists, Sternes supporters claimed that the same was true for
the voters. After testifying that only 100 of the 348 persons who voted in
Halifax township were rate-payers, Richard Scarborough added, many of
the said number of 100 are disaffected persons to the Church of England &
frequenters of Conventicles.45 And once again, the complaint seems to be
on the mark, for among those who voted for Corlas were dozens of people
with ties to Heywood as well as formal members of his society. Given that
members of Heywoods society collected signatures, this is not startling,
but some surprises do remain. Most remarkably, the voting list from
Ovenden includes Nathaniel Priestley, who was not only a member of
Heywoods society but a nonconformist minister.46 While this is an
extreme example, the voting lists include at least nineteen members of
Heywoods society.47 But, as in the cases of Brearcliffe and Gill, many of
these men also served in parish office. Nathan Bates, who subscribed to
Corlas from Skircoat, hosted monthly sermons by Heywood as early as
1676 and joined his society the following year.48 Nevertheless, Bates served
as churchwarden in 1693. During the 1670s, Thomas Bentley hosted fort-
nightly sermons for Heywood, prayed with him on a regular basis, and
attended at least one of his many private fasts; he also served as overseer
of the poor in 1696 and 1697.49 Another Corlas voter, Ralph Higson, was a
member of Heywoods society and maintained very close social ties with
other nonconformists. Yet in his will, Higson specified that all of his church
dues be paid.50 Despite their membership in Heywoods society, these

Charity Records, MIC 3/1; CDA, Brian Crowthers Charity Account Book, HAS B.12/1.
In addition, writing in 1673, Heywood notes the excommunication of two members, James
Brooksbank and Robert Ramsden, who had refused the churchwardens oath but faithfully
served the office. Heywood, Diaries, i:356.
45BIHR CP. H. 4220. Testimony of Richard Scarborough.
46Priestly was also the only voter singled out by name in Sternes complaints. While he
was not ordained until 1694, by 1689 he had begun to preach, and is described as a minister
in the depositions. Another Corlas supporter was Robert Duckworth, who registered a non-
conformist meeting house in Halifax. BIHR, CP. H. 4220. Testimony of James Bates. Robert
M. Faithorn, Nonconformity in Later Seventeenth Century Yorkshire (M.A., 1982), p. 745.
47In addition to those I discuss below, members of Heywoods society who voted for
Corlas were: Tim Bancroft, John Bland, Mary Broadley, William Butler, Samuel Drake,
Thomas Gill, Susan Hall, Anna Ilbeck, Dan Illenworth, Sarah Spencer, James Taylor, Thomas
Wakefield, John Waterhouse, Joseph Wilkinson, and Joseph Wood.
48While no date is given for Batess admission, members listed before him joined in July
1677, and those after joined in August.
49CDA, Skircoat Township Book, HAS 770; CDA, Northowram Town Book, Misc 183;
CDA, Halifax Poor Law Records, MISC: 93/1/125.
50Higsons bond was signed by Oliver Heywoods great friend Jonathan Priestley, and
the inventory was conducted by Priestly, Priestleys son, and Robert Baggerley, all noncon-
formists. Heywood, Diaries, ii:29; BIHR OW, June 1696.
108 chapter four

individuals determinedly remained involved in parish life.51 While the role

of these individuals in the election incensed Sterne and his followers, such
involvement was not unusual during the early modern period. In the 16th
century, members of the Family of Love served in parish offices and even
as constables, and the same is true of Quakers after the Restoration.52
More striking than this is the role that Catholics played in ensuring that
their Anglican neighbors received adequate pastoral care in the Yorkshire
parish of Egton.53
It would be lovely if Heywoods diaries offered some additional insight
into the election, but among the gaps in the diary is the period around
1689. That said, there is one hint that Heywood may have played a role in
the election, at least in encouraging his supporters to participate. In the
prefatory epistle to 1689s Meetness for Heaven, Heywood offers a laundry
list of rules for godly life. Most are unexceptional (Dayly act Faith on
Christ, Walk in the Spirit, etc.), but he also includes, Mingle Religion
with civil acts.54 While Heywood is never more specific than this, the civil
acts in question could include service in parish office, which Heywood
supported, but also voting in the parish election.55 It is thus important to
emphasize that collecting signatures and voting in the election were part
of a broader pattern of nonconformist participation in parish affairs.

Women, Servants, and Poor People, Oh My!

While all this evidence makes clear the religious tensions underlying
Sterne c. Hough, the case raises much broader questions about the nature
of the parish community. Sternes complaints focused not just on the reli-
gious practice of Corlass supporters, but also their sex and social status.
In addition to his objection to dissenters role in the election, Sterne com-
plained about votes cast by wives who have voted against their husbands
mindschildren, servants, apprentices, poore and indigent people.56

51Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation, pp. 26177.

52Stevenson, Social integration of post-Restoration dissenters, pp. 369, 387; Morgan,
Lancashire Quakers and the Establishment, p. 37; Marsh, Family of Love, p. 96.
53Sheils, Catholics and their neighbours in a rural community pp. 10933.
54Heywood, Meetness for Heaven, sig. A11r.
55Bill Stevenson has shown that in Cambridgeshire, even Quakers continued to serve in
parish office. Stevenson, Social integration of post-Restoration dissenters.
56BIHR, CP. H. 4220. Testimony of Simon Sterne. For the corrosive effects of increasing
social differentiation on neighborliness, see Wrightson, The decline of neighbourliness
revisited, p. 35.
 litigating community in revolutionary halifax109

This complaint is particularly significant because (once again) Sterne was

right: the voting lists include wealthy men, whose participation Sterne
could hardly protest, but they also include a significant number of women
and a handful of paupers. While Halifax was not a democratic utopia, the
case vividly illustrates the breadth of popular involvement in parochial
affairs and the opposition that this sort of participation could arouse from
men like Sterne.
To the modern eye, one of the most remarkable things about the
election is the number of women who voted: of the 836 voters who
subscribed to Corlas, 149, or nearly 18 per cent, were women.57 Of the
women who voted, twenty-eight identified themselves as widows, and at
least four were spinsters.58 A number of married couples voted for Corlas,
as did the entire Thomas familyWilliam and his daughters, Mary and
Grace.59 At the time of the election, neither Mary nor Grace was married,
and at ages twenty-six and twenty-two, respectively, both may have been
working as maidservants, which doubtless would have incensed Sternes
party. While family played a role, equally powerful factors underlying
womens involvement in the election were their religious leanings and
social status.
The prominence of women in the election can be explained in part by
the strength of the nonconformist tradition in Halifax. Historians have
argued that women inclined to godly religion could be more assertive and
perhaps more inclined to undermine and resist established authority.60
And while radicals such as Quakers were the most visible examples of this,
Heywood, who was no radical, counted a disproportionate number of
women among his followers as well.61 Among the women who supported

57Unfortunately, the names of those who voted for Walker were not entered into
evidence, probably because Houghs party did not challenge their legitimacy.
58The former figure is based on the voting lists themselves (i.e., Judith Fairbank wid.),
while the four spinsters described themselves as such in their wills.
59The couples include George and Judith Ramsden as well as Alice and John Sugden.
George Ramsden mentions Judith in his will (BIHR OW, October 1698), while the will of
Esther Brigge, a Halifax widow, explicitly notes that Alice and John Sugden were married
(BIHR OW, March 1700/01). Thomass estate was valued at just over 23. Thomass son
Benjamin also voted, and he had younger children who did not vote. West Yorkshire
Archives, Halifax Parish Register, D53/1/7, 1663; 1669. (Register is unfoliated.) See also
William Thomass will, BIHR OW, July 1697.
60Peter Lake, Feminine piety and personal potency: The emancipation of Mrs. Jane
Ratcliffe, Seventeenth Century 1:2 (1987), 14365; Diane Willen, Godly women in early
modern England: Puritanism and gender, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 43:4 (1992),
56180; Patricia Crawford, Women and Religion in England, 15001720 (London, 1993).
61According to Heywoods congregation lists, in 1655 his female congregants outnum-
bered the males 44 to 29, and men and women joined in approximately equal numbers
110 chapter four

Corlas was Mary Drake, a spinster from Halifax. Drake joined Heywoods
society in 1696, and the two remained close for several years. During
Drakes final months, Heywood and his wife visited and prayed with her on
many occasions, and he wrote a personalized treatise for her just before
she died.62 Another Corlas voter was Esther Brigge, a widow from Halifax.
In 1700, Heywood called upon Brigge, discoursed and prayd with her, and
in the same year presented her with a copy of his The General Assembly.
Despite this association, Brigges will indicates an enduring attachment to
the parish. She left 20s to Francis Parratt, whom Hough chose to replace
Corlas, and an additional 20s to Houghs successor, provided he suffer
David Hartley to preach my funerall sermon. At the time, Hartley was the
curate at Luddenden, a chapelry lying just west of Halifax. Brigges deci-
sion to vote in the election thus should be interpreted as one example of a
habitual assertiveness in religious matters; she would choose her lecturer
just as she later would choose her eulogist. While women casting votes
seem out of place in the 17th century, it is important to note that both of
these women were wealthy. Upon her death in 1701, Drakes estate was val-
ued at 62 17s. and included 2 19s. in books.63 In her will Brigge gave more
than 50 to friends and distant relatives and made even larger bequests to
immediate family.64 The wealth of these women helped to legitimize their
votes, but their ties to Heywood would have complicated matters. Indeed,
the coincidence of female enthusiasm and nonconformity would have
conjured spectres of Interregnum excesses, giving Sterne and his allies fur-
ther impetus to efforts to overturn the election.
In addition to voting for Corlas, it is likely that a number of women
affected the votes of the men around them. Mary Ingham may have done
so from a position of strength, as the wealthy matriarch of her family.
Ingham joined Heywoods society in 1690, and her estate was inventoried
by three Corlas voters as well as Nathaniel Holden, whom Heywood had

thereafter. Women also outnumbered men in Baptist and Independent congregations.

Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation, pp. 26869; Crawford, Women and Religion
in England, 15001720, p. 131. For Heywoods lists, see Heywood, Diaries, ii:1736. For Quakers,
see Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England
(Berkeley, 1992). On the earlier period, Richard L. Greaves, The role of women in early
English Nonconformity, Church History, 52:3 (1983), 299311; Keith Thomas, Women and
the civil war sects, Past & Present, 13 (1958), 4262.
62For membership in the society, see Heywood, Diaries, ii:35; for examples of her meet-
ings with Heywood, see Heywood, Diaries, iv:221, 233, 246, 257, 265.
63Unfortunately, the inventory does not include any titles. BIHR OW, February 1701/02.
64BIHR OW, March 1700/01.
 litigating community in revolutionary halifax111

baptized as an adult.65 Ingham left generous bequests to family members

and their children: over 20 to the children of her nephews, Henry Driver
and Joseph Higgins; and 10 to each of the children of another nephew,
James Haworth. All three menDriver, Higgins, and Haworthvoted for
Corlas. Two other beneficiaries who voted for Corlas were Inghams cous-
ins Theophilous Worrell and William Ellis.66 The only beneficiary of
Inghams will who did not vote for Corlas was John Holdroyd, who lived in
Sowerby, and thus would not have been eligible to vote. It is possible that
these people would have supported Corlas without Inghams influence,
but they also knew of Inghams religious views (not to mention her wealth
and lack of heirs) and would have tried to avoid alienating her.
It is important to note that while Sterne claimed that the majority of
the votes cast for Corlas were illegitimate, at no point did he try to exclude
the votes of all women. His concern centered not on female voters sex, but
on their religious and social status. Sternes supporters challenged votes
cast by wives and maids not because they felt that no women should vote,
but because only religiously conforming householders should vote.67
Thomas Hanson, the father of the former lecturer, ignored the issue of
gender entirely, claiming that voters in past elections included substan-
tiall householders[who] paid and contributed towards the maintenance
of such Lecturer. While the vast majority of householders were men,
women such as Drake, Brigge, and Ingham controlled significant estates,
and Sternes party does not seem to have objected to their participation
based solely on their sex. The acquiescence of Sternes party to these votes
is particularly important because it seems to run counter to trends
elsewhere in England. During a 1640 election in Suffolk, Sir Simonds
DEwes acknowledged that some women had the legal right to vote, but
he prevented the registration of their votes, claiming that it would be

65BIHR OW, May 1697. These men were Samuel Stead, John Cook, and William Whittell.
Heywood occasionally mentions adult baptisms but does not offer any explanation for
them. Heywood did not believe rebaptism to be necessary, so it is possible that Holden was
raised a Quaker. See Heywood, Diaries, ii:64.
66Worrell received the farm on which he lived, and Elliss son received another plot of
land.
67The lone exception to this is the testimony of John Walton, a sixty-year-old cloth-
dresser from Halifax. Walton testified that he did never know or heard that any women
ever pretended to have any right or vote in the eleccion of a Lecturer. Given that the depo-
sitions often echo each other, the fact that this complaint is unique to Walton indicates
that others did not share his concern. BIHR CP. H. 4220. Testimony of John Walton. For the
role of women in local politics, see B.S. Capp, When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and
Neighbourhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003), chap. 7.
112 chapter four

dishonourable.68 While voting for an MP is not the same as voting for a

parish lecturer, Steve Hindle has argued that the century before 1650 saw
the gradual exclusion of women from parish government.69 The political
strength of women in Halifax probably stemmed from its tradition of non-
conformity and the relatively flat social structure (see chapter one), but it
does seem that the exclusionary process described by Hindle came more
slowly to Halifax than in other parts of England.
When we turn our attention to the social and economic status of those
who voted for Corlas, we find the expected members of the middling sort,
but also some of Halifaxs poorest residents: once again, Sternes com-
plaints were on the mark. The leadership of the pro-Corlas party came
from the trades, and voters included at least twenty-six clothiers, sixteen
yeomen, and five gentlemen (see Table 1). In addition, sixty of Corlass sup-
porters served in parish office, though it is important to note that it was
not uncommon for individuals with just one hearth to do so.70 If we exam-
ine the wills of Corlass supporters, we see that he received votes from
across the economic spectrum. The mean value of his supporters estates
was a respectable 32, but it varied widely, with the smallest estate worth
3 and the largest over 1200.71 Among the poorer men who voted for
Corlas was Abraham Ambler, who served as churchwarden for Southowram
in 1689; his estate was valued at just over 5.72 The involvement of poor
officeholders such as Ambler is to be expected, but it is more surprising
that at least fourteen voters had received charity.73 In June 1691, the
Nathaniel Waterhouse Charity paid for repairs to Jacob Pools house, and
in the same year he received 2s. from Brian Crowthers Charity.74 Also in
1691, the Waterhouse charity paid for repairs to Edmund Butterworths

68Derek Hirst, The Representative of the People? Voters and Voting in England under the
Early Stuarts (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 1819.
69Steve Hindle, A sense of place? Becoming and belonging in the rural parish,
15501650, in Shepard and Withington, Communities in Early Modern England, p. 109.
70Smail, Origins of Middle-Class Culture, pp. 32, 37.
71These figures are based on sixty-two surviving inventories. These figures give us a
general sense of Corlass supporters but likely overestimate their wealth, for poorer voters
would have been less likely to leave wills.
72BIHR OW, November 1705.
73This number is probably low, for poor people receiving aid were not usually listed by
name. A typical entry in a charity account book is, 10s. given to several poor people. We
are able to identify these fourteen only because two local charities, the Nathaniel
Waterhouse Charity and Brian Crowthers Charity, occasionally recorded beneficiaries
names.
74CDA, Waterhouse Charity Records, MISC 3/1; CDA, Brian Crowthers Charity Account
Book, HAS B.12/1.
 litigating community in revolutionary halifax113

Table 1:Occupations of Corlass Supporters from Wills

Occupation Number
Clothier 26
Yeoman* 16
Gentleman 5
Mercer 3
Maltster/Brewer 3
Innkeeper 2
Salter 2
Stapler 2
Shoemaker/Cordwainer 2
Pewterer 1
Nailor 1
Joiner 1
Glover 1
Carpenter 1
Mason 1
Dyer 1
Total 68
*The inventories of some self-described yeomen included items
such as looms, which link them to the clothing industry.

home in Halifax, and the Crowther charity gave him cloth to work in 1685
and 1687. Both of these men voted for Corlas. Other recipients of charity
who voted for Corlas include Thomas Firth, who received either cloth or
cash from Crowthers charity every year from 1683 to 1686; Abraham
Fielden, who received 2s. from Crowthers charity in 1691; and Sara Craven,
a widow from Halifax, who received 1s. from the Waterhouse charity, also
in 1691. While the willingness of the very poor to vote in the election is
intriguing, it is possible that they may have received some encouragement
to do so. John Brearcliffe and Richard Hoyle, both of whom collected votes
for Corlas, administered the Waterhouse and Crowther charities on at
least one occasion. Indeed, Brearcliffe was running the Waterhouse char-
ity at the time of the election.75 Other charity administrators included
Corlas supporter John Hodgson, who worked with Brearcliffe at the

75CDA, Waterhouse Charity Records, MISC 3/1.

114 chapter four

Waterhouse charity and administered Crowthers charity in 1690. While

there is no evidence that Brearcliffe, Hoyle, or Hodgson coerced votes, the
poor of Halifax knew these men had the power to dispense aid and would
have been hard-pressed to deny Corlas their support. Members of the mid-
dling sort such as Brearcliffe, Hoyle, and Hodgson thought it was appropri-
ate to include recipients of charity on their lists, a decision that speaks
volumes about their sense of the parish community. And while it is rea-
sonable to think that the decision to include the poor in the election was
more pragmatic than principled, when these votes were challenged Hough
and his supporters offered a coherent defense of their right to vote, one
that underscores the breadth of popular participation in the religious life
of the parish.

The Battle to Define the Parish

The language of Sternes complaints and of Houghs defense of the

election reveals that the fight over voter eligibility masked a larger conflict
over the nature of parish government. In suing to overturn the election,
Sterne attempted to remake the parish by ending the involvement of the
poor and nonconformists in parish affairs. This idea of a circumscribed
community was contested by Hough and his followers who hoped to
preserve a parish community that included Anglicans and nonconform-
ists, rich and poor. Following the chaotic and abortive effort to count the
votes (there was then so great a Crowd & throng of people and many of
them were so noisy & unruly, that no Eleccion was nor could well bee then
made76) and the undesirable outcome, Sterne and his followers acted.
Their goal was not just to overturn the election, but to redefine the parish
in a way that would shift power from a broad cross-section of parishioners
to their coterie of wealthy and staunchly Anglican residents.77
Sterne constructed his case upon a foundation of hierarchy and tradi-
tion. When yeoman William Walker read over the list of voters, he claimed
that divers of them [are] very poore people Servants, Apprentices &
Children who never had nor pretended to haveany right or vote in the
eleccion of a Lecturer. And as noted above, Sterne characterized Corlass
supporters as wives who have voted against their husbands minds, chil-
dren or young people under age, servants, apprentices, [or] poore and

76CP. H. 4220. Testimony of Edmund Hough.

77Hindle, A sense of place?, p. 103.
 litigating community in revolutionary halifax115

indigent persons who were and are maintained by the charity and contri-
bucions of the Towne.78 What servants, wives, children, and the poor have
in common, of course, is that in an orderly society they were expected to
be under the control of an adult male, whether master, husband, father, or
parish official. More to the point, they should not have been voting, and
their participation in the election would have been troubling to men who
could well remember the world turned upside down. Sternes supporters
wanted to return order to Halifax.79 In light of his age, seventy-year-old
James Bates was well positioned to describe Halifaxs parish traditions,
and he testified that he never knew or heard of any wife Children or
Servants ever pretend to have any vote in the eleccion of a Lecturer. He
went on to add what was in essence a property qualification: Noe parish-
ioners or Inhabitants of the Parish or towne of Hallifaxever pretended to
have a right to elect, give a vote or chuse a Lecturer there, but those who
were substantial persons, & contributed to the said Lecturer, & to the
repaires of the Church.80 The importance of social status to the election is
even clearer in the statement given by John Walton, who explained that he
had been acquainted with the Custom for these forty yeares & upwards
by which the best of the parishioners & Inhabitants of and within the towne
& parish of Hallifax aforesaid [did]chuse an elect a Lecturer.81 The
superscript addition of the best of was made after the initial deposition,
probably at Waltons insistence, strengthening the impression that the
social status of the electorate was a vital part of the case. Sternes
supporters thus draped their efforts to restrict voting rights in the lan-
guage of tradition, but Houghs supporters had very different ideas of what
constituted traditional practice, and they too cited it in support of their
case.82
In contrast to Sterne, Houghs supporters appealed to a tradition that
allowed virtually all adult parishioners to vote. Several of Houghs wit-
nesses explicitly rejected a property qualification, stating that anyone who
promised to support the new lecturer should have a vote. Daniel Gill stated
that his voters did promise to contribute to the said Mr Corlass mainte-
nance in case he should be Lecturer att Hallifax. And William Kitchingman

78CP. H. 4220. Testimony of William Walker, George Ramsden, and Simon Sterne.
79For the importance, flexibility, and contested nature of custom, see Wrightson, The
politics of the parish, pp. 2225.
80CP. H. 4220. Testimony of James Bates.
81CP. H. 4220. Testimony of John Walton.
82For recent discussions of popular participation in local government, see Tim Harris,
ed., The Politics of the Excluded, c. 15001850 (Basingstoke, 2001).
116 chapter four

agreed that the people on his list promised to contribute to [Corlass]

maintenance in case he should be Lecturer att Hallifax. The testimony of
Samuel Stead, however, adds a twist to this story. According to Stead:
itt was agreed upon by both parties that all those who would contribute to
the maintenance of a Lecturer should be duly qualifyed to give their votes,
and he also saith that there are no persons mencioned in the said first sched-
ule but who did accordingly promise to contribute.83
The election may therefore have been bedeviled in part by a misunder-
standing over what exactly was meant by maintenance of the lecturer.
Sternes supporters argued that only householders who could make sub-
stantial contributions should have voted, but Gill, Kitchingman, and Stead
claimed to operate under the assumption than an agreement to make any
contribution, however small, conferred eligibility. In some parishes, poor
residents received charity but also paid nominal church-rates as a marker
of their membership in the parish, which would place them in Sternes
category of those very poore people but also would allow Hough to argue
that they did indeed contribute to the parish fund.84 A liberal interpreta-
tion of what constituted a contribution would include anything from a
few pennies, to gifts of food, or even a days labor in the lecturers glebe.
Houghs supporters took this more liberal position, allowing them to enroll
all adult residents save the poorest and most decrepit.
If we consider questions of religious conformity and social status
simultaneously, issues of who should be allowed a voice in parish affairs
become even more fraught, particularly for Sternes faction. While many
nonconformists saw themselves as having a role in the parish, Sternes
supporters opposed their participation on religious grounds regardless of
their wealth. The exclusion of substantial residents from parish affairs was
no small step, and Sternes party recognized that it had wandered into
uncertain territory.85 Sterne himself stated that many of thosewho
had right of eleccionwere at that time and now are Dissenters from and
disaffected to the Church of England& frequenters of conventicles,
and thus should be barred from voting.86 Similarly, when asked about the

83CP. H. 4219. Testimony of Daniel Gill; Testimony of William Kitchingman; Testimony

of Samuel Stead.
84Alldridge, Loyalty and identity in Chester parishes 15401640, pp. 9294.
85Given the many social and administrative functions of the parish, withdrawal from
parish government would have been a remarkable leap, but it is not one that Heywoods
followers were inclined to take.
86BIHR, CP. H. 4220. Testimony of Simon Sterne. This quotation is drawn from two
separate statements. Emphasis added.
 litigating community in revolutionary halifax117

character of the men who had collected signatures for Corlas, the former
lecturer replied that he knows nothing to the contrary but that [they] are
honest men, but sayes that they are reputed followers of the Dissenting or
presbiterian party.87 Sterne and his supporters were thus in a difficult
position. While Sterne claimed that nonconformists should be excluded
from parish affairs, he simultaneously acknowledged that as rate-paying
residents they had every right to vote.88 Similarly, Hanson admits to non-
conformists honesty but expresses unease at their role in the election. The
exclusion of honest, substantial residents from parochial affairs was a
truly radical move. While some of Corlass supporters may have withdrawn
from the ritual life of the parish and joined nonconformist congregations,
they contributed to the parish church, served in parish office, and, in a
more general sense, acted in a neighborly fashion. We must also remem-
ber that Sterne rejected the votes not of separatists but of those who fre-
quent & goe to Conventicles, and as we saw in chapter two such behavior
was not peculiar to Halifaxs nonconformists. In trying to bar voters simply
because they attended nonconformist gatherings, Sterne overplayed his
hand, for the prospect of excluding a significant number of residents from
parish government may have driven some moderates into Houghs camp.89
The case of Sterne c. Hough opens an unusual window on parochial
politics during the Restoration, but the questions of denominational iden-
tity and parochial authority at the center of the case were hardly limited to
1689 or to Halifax. Evidence of other conflicts between conservative min-
isters and their parishioners exists for other northern parishes. In 1680,
Heywood noted a similar conflict in the chapelry of Wibsey, some 35 miles
from Halifax. According to Heywood, upon the death of the curate Samuel
Crowther:
there arose a very great contention about the choyce of a minister: one Mr
Emmerson of Hedingly was chosen by the people, Will Paulard of Wibsey
and Will Paulard of Wyke going about to get hands. Mr Rooks opposed
them[and] would bring in one Mr Oldroyd of Duesbury.90

87BIHR, CP. H. 4220. Testimony of Thomas Hanson. This testimony is echoed by John
Wilson and John Walton.
88Knights, Representation and Misrepresentation, pp. 10506.
89For the desire of parish elites to maintain unity, and thus stability and political
control, see Wrightson, The politics of the parish, p. 32. For a relevant discussion of
the complex relationship between local and religious identities, see Karen E. Spierling,
The complexity of community in Reformation Geneva: The case of the Lullin family, in
Halvorson and Spierling, Defining Community in Early Modern Europe, pp. 81101.
90Heywood, Diaries, ii:274.
118 chapter four

It is likely that there were religious elements in this case as well, for William
Pollard of Wyke attended Heywoods conventicles and in 1670 was fined 5
for his trouble.91 Like Sterne, Rooks did not get his way, and Crowther was
succeeded by a Low Churchman named Henry Lund, who in 1676 attended
a fast alongside Heywood and Hough.92 Nor did these conflicts between
parsons and parishioners end with the Toleration Act, a lesson that the
vicar of Leeds learned the hard way in 1754, when his efforts to impose a
curate on one of his chapelries without first consulting the residents led to
a riot.93
In the dispute between Hough and Sterne we have seen efforts to
create two very different communities. When threatened with arrest for
attending Heywoods sermons, Hough justified his decision by asserting
his membership in the Communion of Saints, a community in which
denominational division had no place. Hough was unwilling to accept
the exclusion of nonconformists demanded by Parliament (and Sterne),
preferring to include moderate nonconformists in a denominationally
heterogeneous parish. Sterne, however, had a very different idea of what
should determine membership in Halifaxs religious community. He
argued that nonconformists had withdrawn from the parish community
and thus surrendered their right to vote in the election. The evidence seen
here indicates that we must recognize the validity of both positions:
nonconformists were not a part of Sternes parish but were a part of
Houghs.94 Historians, however, must not adopt either position, for in
doing so we take sides in this conflict and, even worse, fail to see that
religious community meant different things to different people.95 Evidence
that nonconformists remained active in the parish and were accounted as
honest by their Anglican neighbors might lead us to conclude that there
was no significant division between the groups; Houghs defense of the

91Heywood, Diaries, i:270.

92Heywood, Diaries, iii:147; John James, Continuation and Additions to the History of
Bradford, and Its Parish (London, 1866), p. 262.
93Jacob, Lay People and Religion, pp. 2930.
94The conflicting definitions of community asserted by Hough and by Sterne are
unconsciously echoed by recent historians. Bill Stevensons argument for the social inte-
gration of nonconformists is based on evidence that denominational division was over-
come by the bonds of neighborhood, a belief which is mirrored in Houghs inclusive view
of the parish. In contrast, Dan Beaver argues that the ritual divide between Anglicans and
nonconformists was of paramount importance, a position with which Sterne certainly
would have agreed. Stevenson, Social integration of post-Restoration dissenters; Beaver,
Parish Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester.
95Marsh, Common prayer in England, p. 73. See also Cohen, The Symbolic Construction
of Community.
 litigating community in revolutionary halifax119

election would seem to support this view. However, it is clear that for
Sterne and his allies, nonconformist religious practice constituted in itself
schism from the Established Church, and nonconformists had to be
excluded from the parish. Denominational boundaries were permeable,
but they remained important to people like Sterne. Indeed, Sternes
suit sprang from the fact that some parishioners had crossed the denomi-
national line, undermining his vision of religious community.96 While
Sterne rejected Houghs inclusive community, many parishioners did not.
Hough had no qualms about allowing nonconformists to vote for an
Anglican lecturer, and most of Halifaxs parishioners saw nothing inap-
propriate in nonconformists collecting these votes. In both theory and
practice, ritual community was not always coterminous with parish com-
munity. Inclusion and exclusion were in constant tension with each other,
as the parish community attempted to come to terms with the changing
ecclesiastical landscape of Restoration England.97

96Ironically, Patrick Collinson has made a similar point about Puritans, arguing that
religious separatists often got on better with their neighbors than the godly who remained
in the church. Collinson, The cohabitation of the faithful with the unfaithful, pp. 5176;
Duffy, The godly and the multitude, pp. 3155.
97For the tensions and inconsistencies that existed within individuals and society
more broadly over the toleration of nonconformists, see Marsh, Family of Love, p. 15;
Christopher W. Marsh, Popular Religion in Sixteenth-century England: Holding Their Peace
(Basingstoke, 1998).
 PART II

CREATING A DISSENTING SOCIETY

 CHAPTER FIVE

THE LAITY IN HEYWOODS SOCIETY

When we turn from the tumult of parish politics to Heywoods dissenting

society, our focus narrows, and we explore questions of community from a
very different perspective. Analysis of Heywoods diaries allows us to
understand how his society functioned and what it meant to be a member
of that community. In this chapter, we will see that for most of Heywoods
followers, there was no Damascene moment; like spiritual conversion,
membership in Heywoods society was more a process than an event, as
individuals made their own way into the community. Heywoods diaries
also demonstrate the religious practices that bound members of the
society and illuminate the role of laity in sustaining the society. Heywoods
society was far from a homogenous body; its members varied widely in
age, social status, and dedication to the society. Members all moved in
Heywoods orbit, but they did so at different distances and on their own
terms. Creating and maintaining a sense of community was a collec-
tiveresponsibility, as members established small prayer groups, repeated
sermons to one another, offered spiritual support and guidance, and
worked with Heywood to overcome conflicts within the society. Heywood
was a key figure in his society, but he was hardly the only active member.1
While historians have spent much time examining religious dissent from
the clergys perspective, in this chapter we shall see that the laity were
central figures in the creation and maintenance of Heywoods society.2

The Journey into Dissent

Unlike membership in the parish community, which was a birthright of all

English subjects, joining Heywoods society was a matter of choice. Family
connections played a role, of course, and while members such as Isaac Sonier

1Adrian Davies has taken a similar approach to English Quakers. Davies, The Quakers in
English Society. For conforming clergy and their parishioners, see Spaeth, Church in an Age
of Danger.
2Patrick Collinson sees similar trends in the pre-civil war period. Collinson, Godly
People, chap. 1.
124 chapter five

had been raised in the society, the journey into membership was not always
smooth or quick. Joseph Woods and Susannah Clatyons spiritual journeys
began with one of Heywoods soul-shaking sermons, but this was only the
starting point, and nobody joined the society in a moment of religious crisis.
Rather, they hovered on the edges of the society for years, attending prayer
meetings and getting to know established members. Nor was joining the soci-
ety simply a question of dedication or spiritual readiness; rather, it was part
of a larger social process. Young men such as Samuel Hopkinson and John
Smith were enthusiastic supporters of Heywoods ministry but delayed join-
ing the society until they married. Marriage brought with it a whole host of
spiritual obligations, and many of Heywoods young men saw joining the
society as a way to better fulfill their duties as husbands and householders.
It is not possible to know the names of all of Heywoods followers, in
part because many of his hearers never formally joined his society. But
identifying those who did join is fairly straightforward: Heywoods diaries
contain six lists of members, five of which he compiled and the sixth being
compiled eight months after his death. These lists, though incomplete,
provide the names of 353 people and give us a good starting point for our
investigation.3 Naturally, the great majority of Heywoods congregants
were drawn from Coley and had followed him into nonconformity after
his ejection from the curacy. Such was also the case for Congregationalist
John Goodwin, who gathered his church while simultaneously serving as
vicar of St. Stephens parish in London.4 Other members of Heywoods
society came from more distant townships within Halifax, particularly
Warley, or from the parishes of Bradford, Birstall, and Calverley, which lay
to the north and east. The same was also true of Ralph Josselins society,
which drew about a quarter of its members from outside Earls Colne.5

3One list, for example, includes members only when they died or left the area.
W.J. Sheils provides an essential starting place for any engagement with West Riding
nonconformity, and with Heywoods society in particular. Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his
congregation, pp. 26177.
4Ellen S. More, Congregationalism and the social order: John Goodwins gathered
church, 164060, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 38:2 (1987), 218.
5We should thus reassess Sheilss claim that 10 per cent of Coleys residents were
members of Heywoods society, for he appears to assume that all of his congregants came
from within the chapelry. Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation, p. 268. Josselin,
The Diary of Ralph Josselin 16161683, p. xxiv. For the geographic dispersion of other noncon-
formist congregations, see Alan Everitt, The Pattern of Rural Dissent: The Nineteenth Century
(Leicester, 1972), p. 8; Margaret Spufford, Figures in the Landscape: Rural Society in England,
15001700 (Aldershot, 2000), p. 265; Geoffrey Nuttall, Dissenting churches in Kent before
1700, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 14:2 (1963), 108; More, Congregationalism and the
social order, p. 215.
 the laity in heywoods society125

Not surprisingly, there is evidence of generational continuity among

the members of Heywoods society, as the children of older members often
would follow in their parents footsteps.6 In 1682, Heywood noted that
Isaac Balme Jr. hosted a day of thanksgiving at which Balme, John Hanson,
and Joseph Hodgson prayed aloud. Afterward, Heywood wrote, blessed
be god for this rising generation, they are all my hearers, and the children
of my dear Christian friends.7 In 1670, Heywood baptized Isaac Sonier, the
son of Joshua Sonier, who had hosted fasts on a number of occasions. In
1692, Isaac attended a young mens prayer meeting, and in 1697, at age
twenty-seven, he formally joined the society. Stronger family connections
existed for Eliezer Tetlaw, whom Heywood baptized in 1676. Eliezers
father was one of Heywoods earliest supporters, and his mother had been
Heywoods maid for sixteen years; when Eliezer was in his twenties,
he began to attend prayer meetings for Heywoods younger followers.8
A family tradition of nonconformity served to strengthen younger
members attachment to the society, for the bonds of family and tradition
reinforced those of religious sociability, and individuals raised in the
society formed close and long-lasting relationships with other young
members.9 But such generational continuity was not inevitable. In 1679,
Heywood attended the funeral of Joshua Horton, who had hosted many of
his sermons and whose home was licensed as a nonconformist place of
worship under the Declaration of Indulgence. Afterwards, Heywood met
with Hortons children to plead for a successionto his room. Joshua Jr
hosted a single sermon the following week, but that appears to have been
the end of their relationship.10
For many of those not born into Heywoods society, the impetus for the
journey to membership was one of Heywoods sermons.11 Heywood took

6For the genealogy of nonconformity, see R.C. Richardson, Puritanism in North-West

England: A Regional Study of the Diocese of Chester to 1642 (Manchester, 1972), pp. 9495;
Nesta Evans, The descent of Dissenters in the Chiltern hundreds, in Spufford, The World
of Rural Dissenters, 15201725, pp. 288308.
7Heywood, Diaries, iv:79.
8Heywood, Dickenson, and Turner, Nonconformist Register, p. 29; Heywood, Diaries,
i:274; ii:35, 90, 191; iii:13738, 159; iv:146, 186, 222, 239, 24849.
9For godly intermarriage, see Seaver, Wallingtons World, pp. 18990.
10Heywood, Diaries, ii:91.
11For the puritan conversion narrative and the role of gospel ministry in conversion,
see D. Bruce Hindmarsh, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in
Early Modern England (Oxford, 2005), p. 1; Charles Lloyd Cohen, Gods Caress: The
Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (New York, 1986); Edmund S. Morgan, Visible
Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea (New York, 1963); Seaver, Wallingtons World, p. 2;
Webster, Godly Clergy, pp. 10512.
126 chapter five

great pride in his successes and diligently noted when adherents told him
of his role in their conversion. Joseph Wood, who joined Heywoods
society in 1681, told Heywood that about 5 yeares agoe by the sermons
I preacht on Jer 17 9 upon the hearts-deceitfulnes, god awakened his
conscience, laid him very low, and then god quickened, comforted him by
some sermons I preacht on Hos 2 14 about a door of hope.12 Hosea also
provided a profitable text for Susanna Clayton, who in 1682 told Heywood
how god wrought great covictions upon her spirit by some sermons
I preacht upon Hos 2 15and much heightened by a sermon I preacht, on
Act 16 30she expressed her desire to come to the Lords supper.13 In 1682,
James Tetlaw, one of Heywoods most dedicated followers, hosted a fast,
and during his extemporaneous prayers, Tetlaw expressed his thankfulnes
to god solemnly for the Lords laying hold upon his heart by some sermons
I preacht above 20 yeares agoe in Coley chappel. Michael Broadley dem-
onstrated a similarly long memory, recalling a sermon Heywood had
preached twenty years earlier that had so rivitted him at that sermon that
he thought the word was spoke to none but him.14
While Heywoods followers often pointed to a particular sermon as a
key moment in their spiritual journey, conversion for most was a process
that often took years. Some converts might remember a Pauline moment,
but for most it was a journey akin to Christians in Pilgrims Progress.15 In
the case of Heywoods society, this meant that many of his followers
hovered on the societys margins, sometimes for years, attending scores or
even hundreds of sermons, fasts, and prayer meetings before taking the
final steps towards formal membership. Some people joined only a few
months after discussing their membership with Heywood, while others
took much longer. Elizabeth Barkers first appearance in Heywoods dia-
ries comes in June 1679, when she visited Heywood in his home. During
this visit, Heywood presented her with a copy of his newest book, Life in
Gods Favour, and the two probably discussed her membership; two
months later she received formal admission to the society.16 Susan Hurd

12Heywood, Diaries, ii:30; iv:65.

13Heywood, Diaries, iv:79.
14Heywood, Diaries, iv:73; iii:133.
15Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines
in Seventeenth-Century New England (Chapel Hill, 1982), pp. 7677; Cohen, Gods Caress,
pp. 14147; McGee, Godly Man in Stuart England, pp. 5560.
16Heywood, Diaries, ii:97, 212, 30.
 the laity in heywoods society127

moved almost as quickly, visiting Heywood in May 1701 to talk with me

about soul-concerns, prior to her admission the following October.17
Edmund Pollard first visited Heywood in November 1699, and the follow-
ing May he spoke to him about joining the society. These discussions con-
tinued into June, when Pollard visited Heywood and discoursed with me
about sitting down at the Lords supper. He attended a preparatory
sermon for the sacrament in July 1700 and joined the society in 1701.18 In
these latter cases, Heywood was into his seventh decade of life, so we must
entertain the possibility that the speed with which Hurd and Pollard
moved was a product of Heywoods failing health as much as their own
enthusiasm.
While these examples offer the possibility that the route from hearer
to member could be short and straight, many other examples indicate
that the decision to join was often made over many years, as individuals
slowly moved into Heywoods orbit. Among New England puritans,
private prayer meetings served as a gateway for new members, where
prospective and current members could get to know each other, and they
seem to have served a similar purpose for Heywoods society.19 Timothy
Bancroft attended a prayer meeting in 1686, and there prayed aloud for the
first time. At this meeting, he and Abraham Ashworth, who was already a
member, owned me as the instrument of good to both their soules.
Despite this early contact and a long- standing spiritual influence, Bancroft
did not join Heywoods society until 1693.20 Esther Kershaws journey was
even longer. Her husband Timothy hosted prayer meetings and fast days
(including one for Esther when she was pregnant) starting in 1679, and
Heywood baptized their daughter in 1679. Despite this, Esther did not join
the society until 1691.21 Stephen Hall followed a similarly circuitous
path, for he received a copy of Meetness for Heaven in 1690, and in 1691
Heywood baptized his son, Samuel; he did not join Heywoods society
until 1697. In the years that followed, Hall became increasingly close to
Heywood, hosting both fasts and sermons, and Heywood visited him

17Heywood, Diaries, iv:258; ii:36.

18Heywood, Diaries, iv:188, 215, 219, 220; ii:35.
19Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety, p. 139. The meetings also would have helped to
socialize their members into godly society and inculcated a godly habitus. Webster, Godly
Clergy, pp. 14041; Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice
(Cambridge, 1977).
20Heywood, Diaries, ii:3031; iv:123, 260.
21For Timothys activities and Esthers membership, see Heywood, Diaries, ii:31, 105, 112;
iii:51; iv:12021, 219.
128 chapter five

several times after preaching in Warley or in the nonconformist chapel

at Halifax.22
For some young men, the decision to seek full membership in the
society seems to be linked to life-cycle: bachelorhood may not have been
conducive to membership, while marriage made it an attractive option.23
Examples of followers who joined the society shortly after marriage are
not hard to find. Samuel Hopkinson began hosting sermons in 1676, but he
delayed membership until 1680. Given this early activity, it is difficult to
know why he waited, but his marriage to Martha Midgley in late 1678 may
have played a role; the two joined the society together.24 The time between
marriage and membership is even shorter in the cases of James Oates and
John Smith. Oates attended a meeting of young men in 1676, married in
February 1680, and in 1681 he joined the society. John Smith attended his
first young mens meeting in 1692, married in 1697, and joined the society
in June of the same year.25
The diary of Roger Lowe, an apprentice mercer from Ashton, Lancashire,
suggests that the coincidence of marriage and membership might
have made sense, for youth and godliness were not always comfortable
bedfellows. Lowe was an ardent opponent of episcopacy, took commu-
nion from James Woods, a Presbyterian minister, and counted himself
among the godly. And while Lowe aspired to live a godly life, he gambled,
bowled, raced horses, and spent an endless succession of nights (as well as
a Sabbath or two) in the alehouse.26 On one occasion, Lowe was repri-
manded by Woods, his minister, who thought much I was in Ale, warned

22He also sent young Samuel to Heywood for catechizing in 1701. See also Abraham
Broadly, who accompanied Heywood on at least one journey through Halifax five years
before joining. BL Add. MS 24486, fo. 74r; Heywood, Diaries, ii:35; iv:190, 198, 220, 225, 227,
234, 275.
23For other factors, see John M. Triffit, Believing and belonging: Church behavior in
Plymouth and Dartmouth, 171030, in Wright, Parish, Church and People, pp. 17981;
Pollmann, Religious Choice in the Dutch Republic, p. 3. For factors shaping the decision to
convert between Calvinism and Catholicism (and back), see Hanlon, Confession and
Community in Seventeenth-Century France, chap. 7.
24Heywood, Diaries, ii:30, passim; iii:145; Heywood, Dickenson, and Turner,
Nonconformist Register, p. 42.
25Other examples of this include Isaac Sonier, who joined the congregation in 1697, a
year after his marriage to Elizabeth Milner; Samuel Hopkinson, who joined two years after
marrying; and William Naylor, who joined seven months after his marriage. Heywood,
Diaries, ii:30, 35; iv:14647; Heywood, Dickenson, and Turner, Nonconformist Register,
pp. 4243, 49.
26For Lowes alcohol consumption, see A. Lynn Martin, Drinking and alehouses in the
diary of an English mercers apprentice, 16631674, in Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History,
ed. Mack P. Holt (Oxford, 2006), pp. 93105.
 the laity in heywoods society129

me to take heed. Lowe lamely replied that I could not trade if att some
times I did not spend 2d [on alcohol].27 While Lowes excuse in this case
was that his clients demanded he drink, time spent in the alehouse was
part of bachelor life and integral to his search for a wife. And while Lowe
lamented his frequent visits to the alehouse after the fact, this kind of
sociability would have been far more problematic if he had been a house-
holder and member of a dissenting society. This is not to say that there
were no young members of Heywoods society; simply that the higher
moral standards to which members were held would have severely con-
strained a young mans social life.
The diaries of London artisan Nehemiah Wallington also indicate that
marriage could have ramifications for a young mans religious life. When a
young man married he gained a voice in local politics and became eligible
to serve in parish office, but with these rights came responsibility for a
new and (often) growing family.28 Upon his marriage, Wallington wrote:
My Family incressing and now having a wife a child a man sarvent and
a maid sarvent: and thus having the charge of so many souls I then bought
Mr Goughes Booke of Domesticall Duties that so every one of us may larne
and know our Dutyes and honour Godfor I was resolved with Joshua that
I and my house would sarve the Lord.29
Becoming the head of a godly household thus came with significant
religious obligations. The family was the most basic unit of religious wor-
ship and instruction, and a new husband was accountable for the spiritual
welfare and edification of his household, including his wife, children, and
servants. Such responsibility weighed heavily on Wallington, who wrote of
the anxiety that grew out of his obligations as a householder: Then I had
some thoughts of my charge haveing tenn souls in my family and how God
hath set me as a watch man over them & if any perish for want of my care
theire blood God will requier of mee.30 For some young men, then, the
decision to join Heywoods society was probably part of the larger transi-
tion from bachelorhood to married life. Once safely married, young men

27Roger Lowe, The Diary of Roger Lowe, of Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire, 166374, ed.
William L. Sachse (New Haven, 1938), p. 59.
28Alexandra Shepard, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003).
29Folger MS V.a.436, 134.
30Folger MS V.a.436, 454, 519. Seaver, Wallingtons World, pp. 3334, 188; Cambers and
Wolfe, Reading, family religion, and evangelical identity, pp. 87596; Patricia Crawford,
Public duty, conscience and women in early modern England, in Public Duty and Private
Conscience in Seventeenth-Century England, eds. John S. Morrill, Paul Slack, and Daniel R.
Woolf (Oxford, 1992), p. 60.
130 chapter five

could leave behind alehouse culture and live the godly life expected of
society members. And faced with the responsibility of heading a house-
hold, young men would have sought the additional support that member-
ship would bring.31
The examples of Heywoods congregants, as they moved from
occasional hearer to member, offer insight into the experience of non
conformity. For some people, nonconformity ran in the familytheir
parents were members of Heywoods society, and their grandparents
may well have followed Halifaxs great puritan vicar, John Favour. In the
years prior to full membership, people attended sermons, fasts, and
prayer meetings. Over time, they became more comfortable with other
members and earned acceptance by the community; membership in the
society was simply the final step in a long journey. The fact that many
hearers hovered on the edges of Heywoods society, sometimes for years,
before joining supports Sheilss argument that membership in the society
was a decision of the individual and highlights the amount of calm con-
sideration that went into the choice.32 People did not make the decision to
join lightly, or in the wake of a spiritual crisis. Nor did a person join simply
because his or her spouse was a member. Rather, individuals joined
when they and Heywood agreed the time was right. The length of time
preceding this commitment, and the deliberation that went into the deci-
sion to join, helped ensure the stability of the society, for it meant that
both the individual and the group knew each other before any formal
commitment was made. So deliberate a decision would not have been
reversed lightly.

31Unfortunately, the picture is less clear when we look to the women who joined
Heywoods congregation, but it does not appear that marriage played a significant role in
the timing of the decision to join. And while there were a number of married couples in the
society, they often joined the society at different times, sometimes years apart. It is likely
that Hannah Tetlaw met her husband John Rigg through Heywood, for they joined
separately a full ten years before they married. Anne Bolton joined a year before her
future husband James Holstead did, and two years before the two married. In contrast,
Mary Firth joined two years after her husband John. See also John Sonier, who joined nearly
two years after his wife Mary Broadley, and a full year before they married. Heywood,
Diaries, ii:2931, 34; Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation, pp. 27072. For mar-
riages between Catholics and Protestants, see Alexandra Walsham, Church Papists:
Catholicism, Conformity, and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (Woodbridge,
1993), pp. 7881.
32Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation, p. 271. Indeed, the dissenting com-
munity was thus less imagined than created by voluntary religious practice. Keeble,
Literary Culture of Nonconformity, p. 74; Anderson, Imagined Communities.
 the laity in heywoods society131

What Does a Dissenter Do?

Once someone had joined Heywoods society, he or she became a part of an

intensely social and religious network. This is not to say that members
stopped associating with non-members, but that the godly created a wide
variety of occasions upon which they could enjoy each others company.
Members came together for the Lords Supper, of course, and more often for
sermons, but these were only the beginning of the societys communal life.
Heywoods followers from outside Coley would travel together to sermons.
Along the way they would pray, sing psalms, and, when they encountered
people engaged in profane activities, they would gain a distinct sense of their
own holiness. Members of the society provided spiritual support when John
Hodgsons daughter fell ill, and Robert Ramsden hosted a prayer meeting to
mark the birth of twins. Members gathered for fasting and prayer at moments
of personal crisis or to give thanks for a crisis averted. Some hosted regular
prayer meetings, scheduled on a weekly or fortnightly basis. In Lancashire,
Roger Lowe repeated sermons to other godly youth, copied sermons for a
local widow, and worked with his friends towards mutual spiritual edifica-
tion. The laity created these small gatherings for their own spiritual suste-
nance. Through them, members of the society cemented the ritual ties of the
Lords Supper and deliberately bound themselves into a cohesive godly
community.
Godly religious practice entailed a whole host of religious activities,
but the fact remains that for the clergy and laity alike, sermons constituted
the summit of religious practice.33 The intensity of the preaching experi-
ence for Heywood is captured in a passage from 1671:
it was the sweetest day that ever I had in publick in all my life that I remem-
ber, oh how was my heart affected in that sweet ordinance, my father
[-in-law, John Angier] preacht in the forenoon, and I in afternoone, I was
loath to have come down from that day into the world again how sweet were
gods appointmts.34
It is difficult to know how many of Heywoods hearers were similarly trans-
ported, but there is ample evidence that for some in the audience the

33Seaver, Wallingtons World, p. 37. Arnold Hunt challenges so stark a conceptualization

but accepts the general point. Hunt, The Lords supper in early modern England,
pp. 4445. For nonconformity and the Lords Supper, see Margaret Spufford, The impor-
tance of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in Spufford, The World of
Rural Dissenters, 15201725, pp. 1102.
34Heywood, Diaries, i:283.
132 chapter five

experience was intense and emotional. During an extemporaneous prayer

preceding a sermon in 1669, Heywood reported that, god so melted and
inlarged my heart as was not ordinary, scarce any in the roome had dry
eyes, blessed be god for that sweet season. Four years later, after a sermon
in Sowerby, Heywood recalled, I continued till two a clockI doe not
remember I saw such weeping while I was preaching this many yeares.35
And while the puritan practice of taking notes during sermons gives the
impression that an academic tone prevailed, one of Heywoods hearers
was so overcome by emotion that after the sermon he was unable to read
his own handwriting.36 The emotional nature of these events should serve
as a reminder that while early modern sermons live on in printed form,
most were delivered in public and were heard by groups rather than read
by individuals. Indeed, for Protestants in England and on the continent,
sermons took on many of the characteristics of formal ritual.37 Moreover,
a range of communal activities took place before and after Heywood
mounted his pulpit, and these accentuated the sense of religious fellow-
ship among members of his society.
At first blush, it would seem that the dispersed settlement patterns of
Halifax would weaken the bonds among Heywoods followers, but lay men
and women adopted a range of religious practices to ensure that the
society remained strong.38 Patrick Collinson has vividly described the
gregarious sociability inherent in gadding to sermons.39 The journeys to

35Heywood, Diaries, i:262; iii:129.

36It would be a mistake to accept Heywoods claims at face value, but the passionate
nature of puritan preaching and the equally enthusiastic response have been well docu-
mented. Spurr, English Puritanism, pp. 17274; Appleby, Black Bartholomews Day, pp. 5961;
Patrick Collinson, Elizabethan and Jacobean puritanism as forms of popular religious cul-
ture, in Durston and Eales, eds., The Culture of English Puritanism, p. 47; Francis Bremer
and Ellen Rydell, Performance art? Puritans in the pulpit, History Today 45:9 (1995), 5054;
David Appleby, Issues of audience and reception in Restoration sermons, in Readers,
Audiences and Coteries in Early Modern England, eds. Geoff Baker and Ann McGruer
(Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2006), pp. 1027. Heywood, Diaries, iv:125.
37Spurr, Religion in Restoration England, p. 112; Raymond A. Mentzer, Communities
of worship and the reformed churches of France, in Halvorson and Spierling, Defining
Community in Early Modern Europe, pp. 2542; Lori Anne Ferrell and Peter E. McCullough,
eds., The English Sermon Revised: Religion, Literature and History 16001750 (Manchester,
2000). Christopher Hill, of course, disagrees, arguing that sermons targeted individuals,
and thus undermined the community. Hill, Society and Puritanism, p. 486.
38Diane Willen, Communion of the saints: Spiritual reciprocity and the godly com-
munity in early modern England, Albion 27:1 (1995), 1941; McGee, Godly Man in Stuart
England, pp. 18485. Neil Keeble has pointed out that Christian fellowship was central to
Christians progress. Keeble, Literary Culture of Nonconformity, pp. 756, 23539.
39Collinson, The Religion of Protestants, pp. 25960; Collinson, Godly People, p. 538.
Given northern Englands dispersed settlement patterns, and the dispersion of Heywoods
 the laity in heywoods society133

and from sermons provided godly hearers with long hours together, and
they used this time to strengthen their sense of spiritual kinship as they
prayed, sang psalms, and repeated sermons. Gadding was integral to godly
religious sociability, and it would have been particularly important in
upland parishes such as Halifax; the parishs settlement patterns meant
that members saw each other less often than if they lived in a small village,
and gadding filled this gap, binding believers more closely to one another
and supplementing formal rites. In short, the farther Heywoods followers
walked to a sermon, the closer they became.40 At the same time that
gadding gave Heywoods followers an opportunity to socialize, it also
could confirm their godliness. After a 1681 sermon, a group of Heywoods
hearers:
went from us through Halifax there was hundreds of people at Clark brig, in
the church- yard, on the green, and all along the townplaying at Stool-ball,
and other recreations, without any controll, several told me with some
trouble on their spirits to behold the sabboth so broken.41
In this moment, Heywoods followers were bound not by singing or godly
conversation, but by the frisson they felt when confronted by the profana-
tion of the Sabbath. This group probably came from Warley, and there
existed pockets of followers scattered throughout nearby townships and
parishes, who also would have gadded to Coley and become a stronger and
more cohesive community as a result.42
In addition to gadding to and from the sermon, Heywoods followers
joined in a range of other Sabbath-day social activities.43 Informal conver-
sations preceded and followed a sermon, of course, and society members
often enjoyed an after-sermon meal together. Such meals date at least to

congregation across Halifax and neighboring parishes, such sociability was probably more
common there than in lowland parishes. It is also worth noting that in Halifax and other
upland parishes, gadding would not have been restricted to the godly, for many residents
would have had to travel some distance to the parish church or their chapel.
40Collinson, The Religion of Protestants, pp. 25960; Collinson, Elizabethan and
Jacobean puritanism, pp. 4850; Richardson, Puritanism in North-West England, pp. 8485;
Gerald R. Cragg, Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution, 16601688 (New York,
1971), p. 181.
41Heywood, Diaries, ii:279.
42Cohen, Gods Caress, pp. 159, 273.
43Collinson, Godly People, p. 475; Peter Lake, William Bradshaw, Antichrist and the
community of the godly, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36:4 (1985); Spurr, English
Puritanism, pp. 3641; Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety; Jeremy Boissevain, Friends of
Friends: Networks, Manipulators and Coalitions (New York, 1974); Davies, Quakers in English
Society, chaps. 57.
134 chapter five

the 1670s, and by the 1690s the provision of food after sermons had become
quite a production:
theres scarce a Lords day but I have 6 or 8 or 10 at dinner at my table besides
many others in the house that have broth and bread, but upon sacrament-
days which is every 8 weeks we have usually 20 at table and that eat with us,
besides abundance more, thick and threefold that have broth and bread and
[beer], sometimes my maid sth she hath 50 upon her hands to serve.44
The fifty people milling about Heywoods house came from townships
throughout Halifax and neighboring parishes, and they came together not
just to hear Heywood, but to talk with each other. In offering this sort of
hospitality, Heywood may have been modeling his ministry on that of
John Angier who, according to Heywood, freely entertained Gods
Servants, Ministers and Christians, so that he seemed to be an host to the
Church, it is incredible to relate what variety of strangers and friends came
weekly, almost daily to his house, and were handsomly treated.45 Thus,
while the sermon and the Lords Supper were important in creating a
sense of community within Heywoods society, they were simply the most
obvious parts of the Sabbath, for they also provided his followers an occa-
sion for the informal socializing that allowed such a scattered community
to cohere.
Sermons and the administration of the sacrament brought together the
entire society, and smaller meetings for fasting and prayer, often driven by
the laity, supplemented these activities. Members would call for a fast in
the face of local or national crises, and some of the most dedicated mem-
bers of the society hosted regular meetings.46 In 1673, John Kershaw hosted

44Chapter six will address the intriguing question of which hearers sat at the table, and
which settled for broth, beer, and bread. Heywood, Diaries, iii:276.
45Oliver Heywood, A Narrative of the Holy life, and Happy Death of Mr. John Angier
(London, 1683), pp. 5859. Andrew Cambers made the useful point that similarities
between Heywood and Angier may stem less from Heywood taking Angier as his model
than writing himself into the biography. Cambers, Reading, the godly, and self-writing,
pp. 81415.
46Patrick Collinson has argued that An anthropologist, wanting to describe puritan
culture with the Clifford Geertzian technique of thick description, should be led without
further delay to the puritan fast. Collinson, Elizabethan and Jacobean puritanism, p. 56;
Collinson, The Religion of Protestants, pp. 249, 26168; Webster, Godly Clergy, chap. 3;
Cambers and Wolfe, Reading, family religion, and evangelical identity; Christopher
Durston, For the better humiliation of the people: Public days of fasting and thanksgiving
during the English Revolution, Seventeenth Century 7:2 (1992), 12949; Hambrick-Stowe,
The Practice of Piety, pp. 10001; Cragg, Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution,
pp. 16364. These meetings might have assumed greater importance after the Conventicle
Act, as they may have avoided the legal definition of conventicle. Walsham, Charitable
Hatred, pp. 6364; McGee, Godly Man in Stuart England, p. 196.
 the laity in heywoods society135

a particularly effective meeting concerned with the weather, it having

been immoderate rain for a moneth togatherbehold while we were
praying that afternoon god cleared up the heavens.47 Fasts for the nation
were also called at times of political turmoil, and their frequency thus acts
as a sort of barometer of the political and religious instability of the period.
In the midst of the Popish Plot, Heywood noted, We had appointed a
solemn private fast monthly at our houses round amongst my society,
12 houses, for 10 or 12 yeares, in reference chiefly to the state of the
nation.48 Adrian Davies has argued that rank-and-file Friends were
central figures in the spread and survival of Quakerism, and the same is
true of Heywoods society.49 The laity played a vital role in founding and
sustaining these fasts, and while Heywood supported these meetings and
could influence them, they were hardly in his control.50
Individual concerns also occasioned innumerable meetings, often
regarding the ill health of a society member or relative.51 Over the years,
Jonathan Priestley hosted fasts on behalf of his children when they were
ill, a day of thanksgiving upon his own deliverance out of a grievous
and tedious disease, and other days for his familys recovery from various
illnesses, including smallpox.52 In 1672, John Hodgson, another of
Heywoods leading members, hosted a fast on behalf of his daughters,
Rachel and Hannah, who were suffering from consumption. Both girls
recovered quickly, and a week later Heywood hosted a fast to give thanks.53

47In this case, the success seems to have been short-lived, for a few weeks later John
Angier preached at Heywoods home at a time of excesive & Immoderat raine in so much
that much hay and corne was rotted & marred by excesive wett. Heywood, Diaries, i:231;
iii:157; Beinecke Library, Osborne Shelves B. 370. For a fast that ended drought, see Josselin,
Diary of Ralph Josselin, p. 173. Cited in Durston, For the better humiliation of the people,
p. 138.
48These fasts continued well into the 1690s. Heywood, Diaries, iv:145. See a similar
round of fasts overseen by John Rastrick. John Rastrick, The Life of John Rastrick, 16501727,
ed. Andrew Cambers (Cambridge, forthcoming). I am grateful to Dr Cambers for an
advance copy of his edition.
49Davies, Quakers in English Society.
50Heywoods journal mentions his presence at many fasts, but they clearly took place
whether he was there or not.
51Lucinda McCray Beier, Sufferers & Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-
Century England (London, 1987), p. 155; Andrew Wear, Puritan perceptions of illness in
seventeenth century England, in Patients and Practitioners: Lay Perceptions of Medicine in
Pre-industrial Society, ed. Roy Porter (Cambridge, Eng., 1985).
52Heywood, Diaries, i:237; iii:125, 163; iv:159.
53Hodgson also hosted fasts upon his sons departure for York, to give thanks for the
clearing of the weather, and out of anxiety over Parliamentary politics. Other examples
include William Hurd and William Clay, who each hosted days of thanksgiving upon their
recovery from sickness in 1672, and John Stancliffe, who hosted a fast to celebrate his own
136 chapter five

When Heywood recovered from a serious illness in 1691, the community

celebrated with two fasts.54 Fasts also could help individuals suffering
from spiritual malaise, as when in 1686 James Holstead hosted a fast for his
wife, who was hurryed with temptations and sore perplexities, and
another for Joshua Bates, one of Heywoods hearers who fell into a kind of
a phrenzy over the theft of corn from his father.55 In the same vein, Roger
Lowe frequently attended small prayer meetings, including one for a dis-
tempered woman.56
In response to the mortality rates among mothers and newborns, the
laity often called fasts of supplication before a woman went into labor; a
successful birth prompted a day of thanksgiving. A 1682 fast on behalf of
Alice Holdsworth was particularly urgent, for she had fallen ill towards the
end of her pregnancy. In 1667, Robert Ramsden hosted a similar fast for
his wiues delivery of two liuely children and for another child in 1672. In
1678, Heywood and many others joyned at Joshuah Stansfields for his wife
near her time.57 More unusually, in 1666 Roger Lowe noted that John
Hasledens wife was under the pangs of child birth, and they sent for me to
pray with her which I did.58 Postpartum days of thanksgiving, usually
held a month or so after the birth of a child, filled a function similar to the
traditional churching, without the superstitious elements decried by
puritans.59 During the early modern period, prayer and fasting could cure
both body and soul, and through these meetings members of the society
offered each other invaluable physical and spiritual aid. Those in atten-
dance shared their hopes and fears for the future, the joy that accompa-
nied childbirth or recovery out of illness, and the grief that came with
death; at an emotional level, they were vital to the life of the community.

recovery out of illness and his sons spiritual awakening in 1676. Heywood, Diaries, i:275,
279, 29293, 298; iii:102, 153, 157, 174.
54Heywood, Diaries, iv:141.
55Heywood, Diaries, iv:31, 123.
56Lowe, Diary of Roger Lowe, p. 33.
57Heywood, Diaries, ii:77; iv:107. Similar events were hosted by Joseph Wilkinson
(iv:195), John Bentley (iv:184), and John Ramsden (iv:121).
58Lowe, Diary of Roger Lowe, p. 100.
59Richard Baxter proposed substituting a fast for the popish ritual. David Cressy,
Purification, thanksgiving and the churching of women in post-Reformation England,
Past & Present 141 (1993), 106146; Adrian Wilson, The ceremony of childbirth and its inter-
pretation, in Women as Mothers in Pre-Industrial England, ed. Valerie Fildes (London,
1990), pp. 68107. For the occasionally raucous sociability of churching, see Samuel S.
Thomas, Midwifery and society in Restoration York, Social History of Medicine 16:1 (2003),
1315.
 the laity in heywoods society137

Society members supplemented these emergency fasts with unending

rounds of monthly and fortnightly fasts. While these regular gatherings
did not have the same sense of urgency as those held at moments of
crisis, they were hardly staid affairs. There was no set schedule, but most
meetings included singing psalms, praying as a group or individuals, and
confessing sins to the group.60 These extemporaneous prayers and confes-
sions often were saturated with emotion. At a meeting in 1682, Joseph
Wood came to Heywoods house, and:
I [got] him to goe to prayer with us, wch he did, and that with such affection-
atenes in confessing sin, self-loathing, pleading with god for grace, pardon
communion with god, for the church, soules conversion, for me, my wife,
sons, blessing god for us &c for above an hour togather, tht I stood admiring,
thought strange that such expressions, warmth, solidity and extraordinary
workings should be in such a young man.61
At a fast hosted by John Hodgson, John Foster, George Ward, went to
prayer, and oh how my heart was affectedoh what strugglings was there
especially for the church! After another fast, Heywood approvingly
recalled that my two sons prayed with abundance of affection, many
teares.62 These meetings took on a confessional tone, as individuals
exposed their moral failings to the group; this intimacy would have served
as an important bond among those present, giving participants a sense of
involvement in each others lives.63 As Roger Lowe enthused after a 1663
meeting, I went to old John Robinsons was all night. O how comfortable
is the comunion of saints!64
In London and perhaps in other densely populated areas, the clergy
dominated prayer meetings such as these; this seems to have been the
case for Nehemiah Wallington.65 But in Halifax and other upland parishes,

60John Walsh, Religious societies: Methodist and evangelical, 17381800, Studies in

Church History 23 (1986), 279302; Ann Taves, Fits, Trances, & Visions: Experiencing Religion
and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, 1999), p. 64; Lowe, Diary of
Roger Lowe, pp. 35, 51.
61An hour seems to have been the usual length for individual prayers, as at one of
Heywoods young mens meetings, where seven attendees spent a total of six hours in
prayer. Heywood, Diaries, iv:65, 15152.
62Heywood, Diaries, i:275; ii:120.
63Seaver, Wallingtons World, pp. 38, 10809. For the significance of public confession,
see John Bossy, Christianity in the West, pp. 4549. There are many continuities between the
fasting practices of nonconformists and conformists, particularly among Methodists. For
Methodist meetings, see Walsh, Religious societies; Taves, Fits, Trances, & Visions, p. 64.
64Lowe, Diary of Roger Lowe, p. 107.
65Seaver, Wallingtons World, p. 38.
138 chapter five

distance and a relative shortage of clergy made such involvement

impossible. Heywoods society stretched across several parishes and
difficult terrain, and Heywood himself was often traveling through the
West Riding and into Lancashire. As a result, more often than not laymen
conducted the meetings.66 Like Heywood, Lancashire Presbyterian James
Woods maintained some level of supervision, for Roger Lowe notes one
occasion upon which Woods preached after Lowe prayed. But Lowe also
attended prayer meetings with no minister present.67 The next chapter
explores these local meetings in greater depth, but for our current
purposes, the point is that the laity created these meetings for their own
edification; while Heywood doubtless offered advice and guidance, they
were largely out of his control. In addition to helping the laity compensate
for their scattered settlement, these local meetings would have been enor-
mously important to aged or ill members of the society. Halifaxs rugged
terrain and dispersed population meant that for members with difficulty
walking or riding a horse, attending a sermon or taking the Sacrament
with the rest of the society was impossible. For these people, local prayer
meetings were their last link to other members and their only means to
participate in the life of the society.68
Notwithstanding the emphasis that Heywood (and modern scholars)
have placed on sermons and prayer meetings, such gatherings are only
the tip of a much larger social iceberg. The diaries of Roger Lowe and
Nehemiah Wallington offer glimpses of the frequent but unspectacular
connections that the laity created among themselves as they attempted to
live godly lives. While Heywood did not remark upon this sociability, it

66See chapter seven for young men who created a meeting without Heywoods
knowledge.
67Lowe, Diary of Roger Lowe, pp. 19, 3536, 51. Patrick Collinson has argued that when
such unsupervised meetings ventured from repetition to discussion, the laity quickly ven-
tured into heterodoxy. Collinson, The Religion of Protestants, pp. 26468.
68Webster, Godly Clergy, p. 68. For the challenges faced by elderly members of
Heywoods society, see chapter seven. W.J. Sheils has argued that these gatherings had the
character of family or household worship with [or without] a minister present, the small
and exclusive attendance owing as much to a sense of kinship and social relationship as to
any spiritual exclusivity. Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation, pp. 26364;
Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety, p. 138; Hill, A Tinker and a Poor Man, p. 91; Cambers
and Wolfe, Reading, family religion, and evangelical identity. It is also possible that these
meetings both bound those present to one another and served as a kind of ritual of separa-
tion from the wider community, particularly during the waves of persecution that occa-
sionally swept through Halifax. John Bossy, The English Catholic Community, 15701850
(New York, 1976), p. 109. Mark Smith has described Methodists effective use of cottage
meetings similar to Heywoods prayer groups. Smith, Religion in Industrial Society.
 the laity in heywoods society139

was the mortar that held the community of the saints together.69 The most
visible form of this was the lay practice of repeating sermons. Roger Lowe
took particular pride in his ability to re-create sermons, and his neighbors
may have recognized this skill. In 1665, Anne Barrow sent for meand
there I repeated Mr. Henmars sermons.70 For Lowe, at least, sermon rep-
etition may also have been a way to impress young women (something
that was never far from his mind), for in 1663 he noted that he had repeated
a sermon for Thomas Smith and severall young women.71 In addition to
repeating sermons, the godly laity offered spiritual advice to their troubled
neighbors.72 In 1654, Nehemiah Wallington gave thanks that This day God
did uphold my Spirit and gave me much inward Comfort and inabled me
to Comfort othersfor which they gave me many thankes.73 The same
year, he wrote, And in furder serch what glory I brought to Godit was in
Instructing, Counselling and Comforting those that I fell in company
with.74 In addition to providing comfort to troubled souls, the godly could
build on a solid spiritual foundation, as when Roger Lowe planned to meet
with Thomas Smith, intending to have spent the night to the edification
of one another.75 In doing this kind of work, Lowe and Wallington helped
to sustain the godly community, and, intriguingly, they did so in a way that
mirrors the work of the clergy. There is no indication that Heywood or any
other godly minister objected to this; indeed, given the geographic breadth
of his ministry Heywood might have welcomed the help. And by allowing
the laity to take up an active role in the society, these practices strength-
ened ties among the godly and made the spiritual strength of the commu-
nity their responsibility.
In addition to these quasi-clerical practices, Heywoods followers
engaged in all manner of social activities that bound them to one another.

69Collinson, Godly People, p. 547; Patrick Collinson, The English conventicle, Studies
in Church History 23 (1986), 22359; Keeble, Literary Culture of Nonconformity, pp. 23559.
70It is possible that Barrow was ill and unable to attend the sermons in person. David
D. Hall and Alexandra Walsham, Justification by print alone?: Protestantism, literacy and
communications in the Anglo-American world of John Winthrop, in The World of John
Winthrop: Essays on England and New England, 15881649, eds. Francis J. Bremer and L.A.
Botelho (Boston, 2005), p. 348; Lowe, Diary of Roger Lowe, p. 88.
71Lowe, Diary of Roger Lowe, p. 88.
72Willen, Communion of the saints, p. 20.
73Here Wallington borrows from 2 Corinthians 1:35. Folger Shakespeare Library MS
V.a.436, 299; Wallingtons spiritual authority allowed him to counsel godly women far
above his own modest social status. Seaver, Wallingtons World, p. 109; Cohen, Gods Caress,
pp. 17374.
74Folger MS V.a.436, 421.
75Lowe, Diary of Roger Lowe, p. 49.
140 chapter five

In previous chapters, we have seen the importance of printed texts to

Heywoods religious networks, and the laity were vital to the distribution
and circulation of these books. To take one example, James Smith, a mem-
ber of Heywoods society in Halifax, received multiple copies of many of
Heywoods books and presumably passed them on to other members of
the society.76 Such gifts would have been appreciated and would have
marked both the giver and receiver as Heywoods adherents. Roger Lowe
borrowed books from his godly friends, including Treatise of Prayer and of
Divine Providence as Relating to It, by Presbyterian divine Edward Gee.77
Manuscripts also circulated among the godly, and in this case the godly
could actually participate in the creation of the texts. In his later years,
Heywood had godly young men make copies of religious works, and Lowe
copied a sermon for a local widow.78 Lowe also copied a poem written by
nonconformist James Woods upon the death of Alice Lealand, a very
godly young woman, and made yet another copy for Lealands equally
godly father.79 And finally, there is the undeniable (and largely unre-
corded) godly practice of praying for each other. While the godly prayed
for the conversion of sinners, of course, the saints had a special place in
their hearts. In 1654, Wallington noted that, This day a gracious mayd sent
for mee giving me many thankes for my prayers saying she knew I prayed
for herand it was true for often shee was in my prayers earnestly to
God for her.80 The connection offered by prayer worked in two ways:
Wallington felt connected to the maid because he prayed for her, and he
also made sure that the maid knew about his prayers, which ensured that
she too felt the connection. The significance of these small acts of kind-
ness and charity, whether giving a book or saying a prayer, becomes appar-
ent when they are multiplied by the thousands and spread across many
years. Membership in Heywoods society, or the community of the saints
more broadly, was a function not just of belief, but of social practice. Such
social practices often passed without remark by even the most dedicated
diarists. But, together with the sermons and sacraments, practices such as
these played a vital role in creating religious community at the local level.

76Heywood, Diaries, iii:6669, 71. See also James Brooksbank, Edith Brooksbank,
Margaret Rushworth, and Josiah Stansfield.
77Lowe, Diary of Roger Lowe, p. 54.
78Heywood, Diaries, iii:284; Lowe, Diary of Roger Lowe, p. 51.
79Lowe, Diary of Roger Lowe, pp. 27, 3536, 57. Religious elegies such as this often
existed in manuscript form. Hall and Walsham, Justification by print alone?, p. 349.
80Folger, MS V.a.436, 473.
 the laity in heywoods society141

In this section, I have argued that if we are to understand Heywoods

society, we must look beyond formal religious occasions such as sermons
or the Lords Supper, for as Charles Cohen has argued, Sainthood entailed
constant intercourse with Gods other elect children.81 Public events
mattered, of course, but were only part of a much larger array of social
practices that bound the laity to one another. Significantly, the laity
created and dominated these informal occasions, whether it was gadding
to sermons or attending prayer meetings. The difficulty of maintaining
religious community in upland parishes such as Halifax is by now a his-
torical commonplace.82 And while there is no doubting that religious
community would have functioned differently in upland parishes than it
did in downland regions, historians should hesitate before concluding
that upland communities functioned poorly. Because members of Hey
woods society were scattered across Halifax and neighboring parishes,
they could not rely on causal sociability to supplement formal religious
ties. As a result, they gadded to sermons, spent long hours socializing
afterwards, and summoned each other for prayer, fasting, and spiritual
assistance.83 All of this implies a coherent community bound by a variety
of spiritual and social ties, which is true enough. Nevertheless, it would
be a mistake to think that Heywoods society was immune to the social
tensions and petty disputes that characterized so much of early modern
life.84 Such conflicts still occurred, and the danger they posed to noncon-
formist societies made their resolution a matter of utmost importance.

Heywoods Society in Conflict

Through the religious sociability described above, members of Heywoods

society created strong and enduring bonds, but they were also neighbors and
therefore subject to the same worldly passions as Halifaxs conformists. From
time to time the world intruded, and members found themselves involved in

81Cohen, Gods Caress, p. 159. Italics added. Association with the godly also was a sign of
election. Webster, Godly Clergy, p. 6; Francis J. Bremer, Congregational Communion: Clerical
Friendship in the Anglo-American Puritan Community, 16101692 (Boston, 1994), pp. 68.
82Underdown, Revel, Riot, and Rebellion; Collinson, The cohabitation of the faithful
with the unfaithful, p. 73.
83Patrick Collinson described the godly laity as a vigorous source of initiative, and
such trends clearly continued into the Restoration. Collinson, Godly People, p. 541.
84J.A. Sharpe, Such disagreement betwyx neighbours: Litigation and human relations
in early modern England, in Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the
West, ed. John Bossy (Cambridge, Eng., 1983), pp. 16787.
142 chapter five

long and bitter conflicts over worldly concerns that rent the communal
fabric. When John Ramsden and Samuel Holdsworth fell out over a bag of
wool, Holdsworth quit the society and began to attend dissenting meetings in
a neighboring parish. Such conflicts were particularly dangerous because if
left to fester they could interrupt the ritual life of the entire society and even
split it into factions. A dispute between James Brooksbank and Anthony Lea
raised the spectre of a conflict finding its way into the public eye, or even the
Church Courts. Heywood and his followers knew full well that public disputes
would bring scandal on the entire society, as their conformist enemies cast
them as hypocrites. Thus, Heywoods society worked to mend tears in the
social fabric, often looking to Heywood to take the lead.
If Heywood or his followers wondered what kind of damage could
result from a conflict within a dissenting society, they only had to cast
their eyes a few miles to the east, where the dissenting society at
Alverthorpe had collapsed. According to Heywood:
there was at this time a sad breach in the church upon occasion of a civil
dissention betwixt two brethrenJoseph Jackson lends Willm Bolton a
horse worth 5 li.; the horse dyes in W.B. hands, was never restored, sever-
all church-meetings have been about it, sharp-contests, the pastor and
Mr. Pickering take J. Ja. part, the two elders take W. Bol. side, partys join with
both, it cannot be decided. W.B. is willing to pay if the church order it so, J.J.
is willing to lose it if the church so appoint it, in the meantime contentions
are growing, grudges, side-takings, searchings of heart, yea the Lords Supper
is suspended 3 or 4 months upon this account.85
This conflict is notable not simply for the speed with which it infected the
entire society, but for the fact that it was raised upon civil accounts.
Moreover, despite its worldly origins, the conflict split the Alverthorpe
society into factions, led to the suspension of the Lords Supper, and
threatened the community with dissolution. Faced with a conflict between
two of his followers, Lancashire nonconformist Thomas Jollie took more
decisive action:
A brother and sister of this Society having given offence to each other and to
the church, it being also made publique (through their own folly) to those
without to the scandall of religion, the church (after 5 or 6 yeares striving
with them to bring them into frame to give suitable satisfaction, and to carry
as becomes the gospell, yet failing in their expectation after all other meanes
used) were necessitated to conclude upon casting them out of communion

85Heywood, Diaries, ii:24344. Emphasis added.

 the laity in heywoods society143

in order to the vindication of religion, the cleering of the church, and the
healing of the offenders.86
Faced with a conflict that threatened to destroy the entire society, Jollie
took the dramatic but necessary step of cutting off the gangrenous
limb. Maintaining the social peace was a delicate and vital process, for if
left unchecked any dispute could destroy a community. Such problems
were particularly acute for dissenting societies because, unlike the
Church of England, a member who was out of charity or even excommu-
nicated couldand in these cases didsimply start taking communion
elsewhere.87
While Heywoods society never had to contend with a conflict as severe
as that which split Alverthorpe, and he never excommunicated any mem-
bers, the society recognized the danger inherent in civil disputes, and it
made their resolution a priority. One significant case came in 1692, when
James Brooksbank and Anthony Lea fell out during the course of a convo-
luted land deal. Heywood and a dozen members of the society brought
together Brooksbank and Lea in an effort to resolve the conflict. These
efforts failed, and Heywood lamented that the case would eventually find
its way to the courts where, he feared, his followers would in many things
contradict one another in open court, which would turn to great Scandal,
being professors and my hearers.88 As in the case of the dead horse of
Alverthorpe, the dangers here were manifold. The conflict divided the
congregation, reflected badly on the godly community as a whole, and
impugned Heywoods name. As a minister, it was part of his duty to resolve
conflicts such as this, and he had failed to do so.
In 1700, Heywoods society faced another conflict among its members
after Samuel Holdsworth and his wife had stopped attending the Lords
Supper with the rest of the society.89 When Heywood asked Holdsworth
why they had withdrawn from communion, Holdsworth explained that
he had quarreled with another member of the society, John Ramsden,
over the purchase of a shillings worth of wool. In withdrawing, the
Holdsworths were continuing the centuries-old practice of refusing to
take communion because they were not in charity with another member

86Jolly, The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly, p. 60.

87Members who refused communion were a practical challenge (for what is commu-
nity without communion?), but they also risked incurring Gods anger towards the entire
community. Wrightson, The decline of neighbourliness revisited, p. 30.
88Heywood, Diaries, iv:14243. If so, no record survives.
89For this dispute, see Heywood, Diaries, iv:16667.
144 chapter five

of the community.90 As in the dispute between Brooksbank and Lea, the

society was to play a role in reconciling the feuding parties: Heywood
proposed resolving the conflict through arbitration before 2 or 3 christian
friends. Unfortunately, Ramsden refused, began to attend dissenting
meetings in neighboring townships, and sent a sharp letter to Heywood.
At this point, Heywood may have resorted to subterfuge to resolve the
dispute. He invited Ramsden to his house to discuss the matter but failed
to mention that Holdsworth would be there as well. Not surprisingly, the
dispute flared once again, but I told them I would hear no more arguings
at last they yielded to peace laid by their weapons, drunk to each other
promised to be quiet[Ramsden] was at chappel Lds day. The dispute
between Ramsden and Holdsworth presented a number of challenges.
First, as in the case of the dead horse of Alverthorpe, it had the potential
to undermine the community and thus required active involvement
by Heywood and other members of the society. But Ramsdens willful
refusal to reconcile with Holdsworth also constituted a direct challenge to
Heywoods authority and his status as leader of the society. Heywood
recognized these threats, and by explicitly ordering the two men to end
the conflict, he simultaneously restored the social fabric and reasserted
his authority over the disputants. Heywoods ability to settle the dispute
by sheer force of will speaks both to the importance he placed on resolving
conflicts within the society and the power he wielded within the
community.91
While conflicts among members were always dangerous, beginning
around 1687 the society faced a far more difficult challenge when Heywood
himself became involved in a longrunning dispute with Jonathan
Priestley.92 As with the conflicts described above, the split between
Heywood and Priestley had nothing to do with religion. Rather, in true
English fashion, it was over land. Priestly had agreed to buy a field from
Heywood in exchange for a loan of 40, but there was some confusion in
the arrangement, and the two men fell out over exactly which piece of
land they had been discussing. Angry letters were exchanged, and
Heywood noted, it often broke my sleep. As with other disputes, Heywood

90Bossy, Christianity in the West. For a corrective to Bossys pessimistic take on the
Eucharist in Reformation England, see Hunt, The Lords supper in early modern England;
Spaeth, Church in an Age of Danger, pp. 17688.
91For other disputes, see Heywood, Diaries, ii:45, 286. For similar efforts among north-
ern abolitionists, see Lawrence J. Friedman, Gregarious Saints: Self and Community in
American Abolitionism, 18301870 (Cambridge, Eng., 1982), p. 51.
92Heywood, Diaries, iii:274; iv:142, 157.
 the laity in heywoods society145

turned to members of his society for help. The first attempt at reconcilia-
tion came in early 1692, as Heywood, Priestley, and four other members
met to discuss the matter. After some initial resistance from Priestley, we
forgave one another, burnt letters, became friends before them all.93
Despite the ritual burning of these letters in the presence of members of
the society, the settlement did not hold. Priestley withdrew again upon
no provocation on my part, gave hard words both behind my back and to
my face sent me very sharp letters went to little Horton sate down there at
the Lords supper, would not come to private fasts with us. In 1697,
Heywood tried to arrange another meeting with Priestley, but he refused
to attend. Heywood then took the unusual step of calling together nine
prominent members of the society, including Priestleys son. In their pres-
ence (but not Priestleys), Heywood acknowledged his fault in the matter,
agreed that there may have been some merit in Priestleys claim to the
disputed field, and stated that Priestley had done him no wrong. Finally,
he denied accusations that he had publicly questioned Priestleys fitness
for communion. Priestleys son and the other members then went to
Priestley, certifying him of these things he was satisfyed and sate down
with us at the Lords supper Nov 29 1697. The means by which Heywood
resolved this dispute are revealing. Heywood was able to mollify Priestley
not by apologizing to him, but by making a public confession before other
members of the society. This tells us Priestley was not only concerned with
his personal relationship with Heywood, but also with his standing in the
community. Thus, while the conflict was between individuals, its most
important implications were for the society as a whole. Because of this,
Heywood required a solution that included not just Priestley, but the
entire community.
These battles among the godly illuminate a number of important issues.
The fact that these intensely religious people fell out over a purely
civil matter reminds us that despite their appellation, the godly were
hardly immune from worldly disputes. We also find that pre-Reformation
concepts of charity and communion endured to the 18th century; Jonathan
Priestley and Samuel Holdsworth withdrew from the Lords Supper
because they were out of charity with another member of the society.
Communion was not simply a point of contact between God and the
individual, but remained an important communal event. While this

93According to Heywood, he was not contentbut would have me say it was the lower
field not the upper that we contracted about, I durst not say so, knowing the contrary.
Heywood, Diaries, iv:142. Italics added.
146 chapter five

signals a measure of continuity with the broader contours of English

religious life, these cases also highlight a significant change that came
with the Restoration. Because they were members of dissenting societies,
Priestly and the Holdsworths were not bound to their parish church, and
thus had other options for worship. Rather than resolve the dispute, they
began attending another dissenting meeting. By worshipping among
acquaintances from Horton, rather than close friends and neighbors from
Coley, Priestley and Holdsworth were able to avoid the hard work that
resolving their disputes required. Such solutions may have made life easier
in the short run, but one cannot help feeling, as Heywood clearly did, that
they undermined a very effective means of maintaining the community;
something of great social and religious significance was in danger of being
lost. Heywood and the members of his society recognized the importance
of maintaining this unity and were willing to do whatever it took to restore
the peace, whether it meant knocking together members heads or for
Heywood to publicly confess his own fault. These disputes and the dogged
determination to resolve them indicate that ideas of community that
predated the Reformation still retained some vitality as late as 1700.
The history of dissent has long been one of denominations and the
clergy. Earlier chapters complicated our understanding of the denomina-
tional boundaries so popular among historians, and this chapter shifts our
focus from the clergy to the laity, with a particular interest in how men and
women came into Heywoods society and their role in creating the social
bonds that made the community work. We have seen the different paths
that Heywoods followers took to membership, with some people joining
soon after coming into his orbit and others spending years on the fringes
before becoming members. Many young men took a pragmatic approach
to joining the society, delaying the final step while they enjoyed their
youthful revels and sought wives. After marriage, when the benefits of
membership outweighed its limitations, they started taking communion.
And while the geographic spread of Heywoods followers worked against
the formation of a single, coherent community, members of the society
created informal groups to fill their spiritual needs and secure their spiri-
tual bonds. The periodic fasts and prayer meetings brought together mem-
bers in small groups, satisfying their desire for godly company and filling
the time between congregational gatherings for sermons and the Lords
Supper. The laity also offered all manner of assistance to one another,
giving spiritual advice, repeating sermons, and copying religious tracts.
These quotidian ties connected the godly in ways that historians often
miss and helped the society survive the inevitable conflicts that broke out
 the laity in heywoods society147

between members. Heywood also relied on his followers to resolve

disputes within his society, and as we have seen, the reconciliation
between feuding parties took place before prominent members of the
society; disputes between individuals endangered the entire community,
and as a result, the community played a prominent role in their resolution.
In summary, I have argued that while there is no denying that the society
was Heywoods, we must give the laity their due, for they played a vital
role in creating and sustaining the society, and without their efforts
Heywoods ministry would have come to naught.
 CHAPTER SIX

WORLDS WITHIN WORLDS: A CLOSER LOOK

AT HEYWOODS SOCIETY

There are 4 sorts of meetings amongst my constant hearers at home, 1 our

stated fast among the members of our society, every Friday before the
sacramt at my house, and monethly for the nation: 2 theres W. Butler, Will
Hurd, Tho Gill, John Nickol, Jer Watson [who] have kept a meeting every
fortnight for prayer at some of their houses by turns: 3 my young men for
conference monethly, and at other times and places.4 there is a society set
and kept up in Southourum keeping monethly a day of prayerand since my
going to Jo Butterworths in Warley theres 3 meetings set up there, 1 every
fortnight at J Butterworths.2 another every moneth at Nathan Bates house
in Norland.3 and now lately since I begun to preach at Sam. Hopkinsons
another meeting of christians is set up about Soyland at Tim Stansfields.
These meetings are a token for good to Englandthis is July 20 1676.1

In the previous chapter I argued for the significance of prayer groups to

Heywoods society, but as the passage above demonstrates, we have hardly
exhausted this avenue of enquiry. Heywoods followers created a range
of small groups that gathered for fasting and prayer on a regular basis,
often on their own initiative and even without Heywoods knowledge or
approval. These groups often brought together residents of a particular vil-
lage within the parish, but there also existed prayer meetings for young
men and women. In addition, Heywoods society included a group of fol-
lowers whose dedication to the society went above and beyond that shown
by most members. Thus, while the society as a whole was bound through
the ritual of the Lords Supper, Heywoods followers created a range of
other communities to supplement the sacrament. Significantly, a sense of
membership in one of these communities did not diminish an individuals
dedication to the society as a whole, nor did it preclude membership in
other groups; the same person could be part of a local prayer group, the
young mens meetings, and the dedicated core of the society. By creating
these smaller groups, the men and women of Heywoods society strength-
ened the bonds that Heywood created through preaching and dispensing
the Lords Supper.

1Heywood, Diaries, iii:14546.

 worlds within worlds149

Young Mens Meetings

When a young man chose to enter Heywoods orbit, he found himself part of
a sprawling network of young people. Some, such as James Tetlaw, came to
Heywood after hearing him preach, while others, including Isaac Sonier,
were the children of society members. The young mens meetings brought
together a dozen or so youths for prayer in Heywoods home. The meetings
lasted five or six hours, as the young men prayed aloud, discussed practical
religious issues, ate supper, and formed fast friendships. The earliest of
Heywoods young followers were also good friends with his sons, Eli and John,
and these relationships would have strengthened their ties to Heywood
himself. The young mens experience in the meetings also paved the way for
membership in the society, and men such as William Clay and James Tetlaw
went on to prominent positions within the society. By attending the meetings,
these young men transformed themselves into a godly vanguard within
Halifax and helped Heywoods scattered society cohere.
Heywoods first experience with a young mens meeting came as a
junior member of one such group many years before he founded the meet-
ings in Coley.2 When he was fourteen, Heywood joined a group of godly
young men who met fortnightly by the instigation of an ancient godly
widow. Years later, while at Cambridge, Heywoods affinity for godly com-
pany continued, as he met with some ingenious and gracious schollars
with whom I had intimate familiarity and was much furthered by them in
the ways of god.3 Heywood does not explicitly link his own work among
young people to this experience, but he saw these early communities of
prayer as key to his own spiritual development, and he worked to give local
youths an environment in which they could do the same.
Although the origins of Heywoods young mens meetings are not
entirely clear, it is apparent that they were part of a broader interest in

2Meetings of godly young men have been understood as an urban phenomenon that
came into their own during the 1670s under the supervision of an Anglican minister named
Anthony Horneck. Such meetings were intended to provide a religious community for
unmarried men in search of real Holiness of heart and life, and according to one historian
were a product of the atmosphere of crisis in Church and nation during the last fifteen
years of the seventeenth century. Heywoods meetings clearly do not fit this narrative.
John Spurr, The Church, the societies and the moral revolution of 1688, in The Church of
England, c.1689c.1833: From Toleration to Tractarianism, eds. John Walsh, Colin Haydon,
and Stephen Taylor (Cambridge, Eng., 1993), pp. 12742; Walsh, Religious societies, p. 280;
Jacob, Lay People and Religion, pp. 7792.
3Heywood, Diaries, i:156, 160. For the existence of such groups at Cambridge before the
civil wars, see Webster, Godly Clergy, pp. 1523. In some cases, the friendships developed at
Cambridge lasted for life. Bremer, Congregational Communion.
150 chapter six

evangelizing young people, and there is evidence that they responded

positively and proactively to his ministry. In January 1672, a full year before
his first meeting of young men, Heywood preacht at home, had a large
auditory, god graciously assisting in speaking to young people. In 1678,
Heywood, preacht at home to young peopleat night we had the young
mens conference. And in 1682, during one of his frequent trips into
Lancashire, Heywood preached in the township of Stansfield, where god
hath begun a hopefull work upon the hearts of several young persons.
Heywoods hopes were realized a few months later when some of these
youths traveled from Stansfield to Warley and Heywood put two young
men to pray a very sensible savoury spirit appeared in them.4 While
Heywood deliberately cultivated this particular group, other young men
created their own meetings. In 1682, a young man informed Heywood that
severall persons that had some hopefull workings tending to conversion,
but could not expresse themselves to me, but desired I might treat on Isai
40 11 which they judged was proper to their case.5 Heywood received a
similar surprise during a visit to the home of Captain John Hodgson, where
he found some persons I knew not, Mr Hodgson told me they were some
young men, that were my hearers, hopefull for religion, and that they had
set up a monethly meeting, wch they [spent] in prayer.6 Presumably,
these youths attended sermons Heywood preached at home, but the sheer
numbers of those present precluded Heywood from getting to know them
individually. These young men desired a more intimate society to supple-
ment Heywoods sermons, and took it upon themselves to create one cen-
tered on Hodgsons home. Here, then, we have two examples of young
men who avidly attended Heywoods sermons, and on their own initiative
created a group to discuss them. Remarkably, they did so without seeking
Heywoods guidance or mentorship. While this kind of initiative among
local youth pleased Heywood to no end, he was not content to preach to
young people and hope for their eventual conversion. His goal was to act
as a spiritual mentor, and in 1673 he established his first meeting of young
men.
The most likely explanation for Heywoods decision to start his young
mens meetings at this point is that the year before, his sons, Eli and John,

4Heywood, Diaries, ii:80; iv:8990, 100.

5Heywood, Diaries, iv:72. The verse in question confirms that the hearers were young:
He shal fede his flocke like a shepherd: he shal gather the lambes with his arme, & carie
them in his bosome, and shal guide them with yong. The Geneva Bible, a Facsimile of the
1560 Edition (Madison, 1969).
6Heywood, Diaries, iii:141.
 worlds within worlds151

left Coley to begin their studies in Morley. While the boys were at home,
Heywood did not need to formalize his young mens meetings, since his
sons provided the necessary connection to local godly youth. Heywood
lost this connection when the boys left for school, and within a year he
called the first meeting:
according to my doctrine to put young people upon private meetings
I appointed some to come to my house upon thuesday night wch they did,
I put four of them upon prayer whom I never heard before, I discovered a
very serious sensible spirit, good gifts, I was much affected with their hope-
fulnes for future usefulnes, blessed be god, we propounded a question,
designing conference every fortnight.
Heywood made a list of the young men who attended these meetings; it
includes fourteen names and ends with &c, indicating that in addition to
these regulars, there were others who attended from time to time.7 It is not
clear how Heywood selected whom to invite, but many of the young men
were friends with Eli and John, and the friendships formed in these meet-
ings endured for years. In 1678, the day before the boys departed for
Richard Franklands academy in northern Yorkshire, 6 or 7 of my young
men came to my house, spent some time in prayer for my sons going
abroad.8 And upon Elis return from a 1682 journey to London, Heywood
appointed:
our conference of young mento come to my house, and assist me in the
work of thankfulnes7 of them came we begun about half hour after one in
the afternoon.I desired a blessing, told them of the occasion of the day,
T Holt went to prayer, then NP then I Sonier, then Is Smith, in which my
heart was much drawn out, then and before him my son Eliezer prayed and
praised go so warmly, affectionatly, that I admired gods grace in him.9
Tim Holt, one of the young men who prayed at this meeting, later accom-
panied John Heywood as he journeyed into Craven and Westmorland dur-
ing his first preaching trip after his ordination. Years later, another young
man, James Tetlaw, lodged with John in Pontefract and brought Heywood
news that Johns wife had gone into labor.10 The strength of the bonds that
developed among godly youth is evident in Roger Lowes reflections on his
own experience. Writing in 1663, Lowe lamented the loss of community
when some of his godly friends left Ashton: we being some younge people

7Heywood, Diaries, iii:12021, 128.

8Heywood, Diaries, ii:72.
9N.P. was probably Nathaniel Priestley. Heywood, Diaries, iv:8687, 82.
10Heywood, Diaries, ii:205; iv:153.
152 chapter six

that som times associeted togather, and providence seemeing to make a

breach amongst us, we ware sore discomforted, some in theire removall
far of[f].11 Unfortunately, Lowe does not describe these gatherings, but it
is likely that Heywoods support and enthusiasm meant that meetings in
Halifax were longer and more frequent. The logical consequence of this is
that the friendships formed at Heywoods were even more intense than
those Lowe describes.12
While Heywood counted fourteen young men among his first group,
these numbers fluctuated as members came and went; anywhere from
seven to twelve young men attended a typical meeting. Heywood held the
meetings fortnightly, usually on Thursday afternoons, from 1:00 or 2:00
until 7:00; Heywood apparently recognized that one way to a young mans
heart was through his stomach, and the meetings broke for supper around
5:00.13 On either side of the meal, Heywood and his young men would
begin and end with prayer, conferre upon a subject.14 The most common
topics the young men discussed dealt with matters of practical piety and
the believers relationship to God. In some cases the group addressed par-
ticular themes over the course of several weeks, as in late 1699 and early
1700, when the group discussed questions such as, What may and must
a sinner doe towards his own conversion? and What are the lets, hin-
drances of conversion?15 In 1701, the group explicitly addressed questions
surrounding communion, as they spake well to the Qu- What is union
with Cht? and a few weeks later, spake well off communion with Christ,
and finally asked, what is the communion of the Holy Ghost?16 The
young people who attended these meetings would have already counted
themselves among the godly, and by choosing to attend these meetings,
Heywoods young men secured their faith and solidified their ties to other
saints.17
Heywood refers to the group as his young men, but there is intriguing
evidence that women also attended these meetings and that in some cases

11Lowe, Diary of Roger Lowe, p. 49.

12Bremer, Congregational Communion, pp. 1112.
13Heywood, Diaries, i:322; ii:77; iii:173; iv:82.
14For examples, see Heywood, Diaries, ii:56, 77; iii:128; iv:72.
15Heywood, Diaries, iv:195, 200.
16In between they discussed the Kingdom of Cht within. Heywood, Diaries, iv:254,
257, 269, 279. Other topics of discussion included perseverance, Qu about suffring for cht,
wt hindrances, incouragements, sincere tho weak grace, and wt improvement must we
make of the work of Redemption. Heywood, Diaries, ii:58, 120; iv:216, 244.
17Following Bourdieus thinking on cultural reproduction, these meetings would have
helped to create a godly habitus that would shape the participants lives for years to come.
Webster, Godly Clergy, pp. 14041; Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice.
 worlds within worlds153

women created their own prayer groups.18 In 1691, after recovering from
a very serious illness, Heywood hosted two separate fasts: one was for
forty or so friends and neighbors, and four days later he hosted another
day of thankfulness, wherein we had near 20 young men and women.
While this meeting was held on a special occasion, the next year we find
that Heywoods regular young mens meetings may not have been as
exclusive as the name indicates. As was his custom, Heywood listed the
names of those who prayed aloud for the group and goes on to note that
there was also 2 other young men with us, at that timeand 2 young
women. And in 1701, Heywood wrote, I went to young mens conference
in the chapelMartha Bins stayed discoursed. The fact that Binns stayed
after the meeting indicates that while she did not pray aloud, she probably
was present throughout the conference.19
The near invisibility of women at these meetings comes from the
fact that when Heywood wrote about prayer meetings and fasts, he made
particular note only of those who prayed aloud. Because only men
could do this, the presence of women at these young mens meetings
would have passed without comment.20 But it also seems that Heywood
had something of a blind spot when it came to the role of women in
sustaining his evangelical work, and these omissions are particularly
egregious in the case of his wife and maidservant.21 Heywood hosted
countless fasts and prayer meetings in his home, and many (or most) of
these included food and drink for those in attendance. While Heywood
rarely mentions the fact, Abigail Heywood and Martha Bairstow prepared
the food. The two cooked for Heywoods young men, and in 1682
Heywood hosted a day of thanksgiving with over thirty people in atten-
dance, for whom my wife made a good dinner. Ten years later, after his
recovery from illness, forty people came to another day of thanksgiving,

18Patricia Crawford writes that women took notes at sermons in order to facilitate later
discussions, but does not address the phenomenon of womens meetings. Crawford,
Women and Religion in England, 15001720, p. 78. For the prominence of women in some
dissenting groups, see Thomas, Women and the civil war sects, Past & Present 13 (1958),
pp. 4262; Richardson, Puritanism in North-West England, pp. 10910; Willen, Godly
women in early modern England, pp. 56180; Diane Willen, Women in the public sphere
in early modern England: The case of the urban working poor, Sixteenth Century Journal 19
(1988), pp. 55973; Lake, Feminine piety and personal potency, pp. 14365.
19Heywood, Diaries, iv:141, 14647, 264.
20An exception to the prohibition against female speaking appears to have been in the
course of family prayer, during which both Abigail Heywood and Martha Bairstow prayed.
Heywood, Diaries, iii:115.
21Kenneth Douglas Brown, A Social History of the Nonconformist Ministry in England
and Wales, 18001930 (Oxford, 1988), p. 173.
154 chapter six

and according to Heywood, my wife feasted them nobly.22 Similarly,

Heywood only rarely mentions the role of his servant Martha Bairstow in
preparing the house for religious worship, though it was clearly one of her
main duties. In one exception, he gave thanks for: My servant maid,
whose work is cut out for her, much of whose time is spent in dressing the
meeting-place, setting seats on Lords day in laying cushion, bringing hour-
glasse, helping people, ordering boys, providing meat, and such acts of
service needful to our meeting.23 Abigail Heywood and Martha Bairstow
thus played vital roles in creating the setting for Heywoods work and mak-
ing his ministry a success. However, because Heywood was intensely
focused on preaching and praying, these forms of religious expression
often passed without notice.
Heywoods diaries offer glimpses of female religious practice and hint
at the existence of a discrete community of worship. In 1697, Heywood
dined at the home of Joseph Stansfield, after which Stansfields wife told
me she had been the week before at a private fast of women, they were all
much concerned for me, hearing I was not well prayed heartily for me.24
While this evidence suggests that women had their own regular prayer
meetings, we know that just such a group existed within Thomas Jollies
society. Writing in 1690, Jollie refers to days of meeting for prayer of the
young men by themselves and of the young women by themselves.25
These meetings are important because they add an intriguing dimension
to our understanding of female religiosity. While women were barred from
praying aloud in mixed company, they must have done so in these all-
female meetings, perhaps building on and adapting the forms they had
witnessed in young mens meetings. It would be a mistake to cast these
gatherings as oppositional to the mens meetings, but they gave women
the opportunity for religious expression and to create a distinctive reli-
gious space in which they could worship. While womens prayer groups
might have worried some clergy, it seems that Heywood and Jollie had no
such concerns. Indeed, Stansfield told Heywood about the gathering, and

22Heywood, Diaries, iii:215; iv:82, 141. For clerical marriages, see Michelle Wolfe, The
Tribe of Levi: Gender, Family and Vocation in English Clerical Households, circa 15901714
(Ph.D., 2004).
23Heywood, Diaries, i:33132.
24Heywood, Diaries, iv:157.
25Jolly, The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly, p. 102. During one of his visits to
Lancashire, Heywood mentions preaching to a number of good women who there kept a
private fast. Heywood, Diaries, i:228.
 worlds within worlds155

Jollie noted the womens meeting without comment, indicating that they
were not controversial in the least.
The young mens meetings were thus socially and religiously complex
occasions. Heywood used them to evangelize local youths, initially so his
sons would have godly friends, and in later years so that godly religion
would continue after his death.26 But many of these meetings were the
creation of the young men themselves. This was true of the anonymous
young men who requested a sermon on Isaiah, as well as the youths who
met at John Hodgsons home. And in 1692, Heywood noted that without
his knowledge, god had set the faces of some young menheavenwards,
and that they met together frequently in the night to pray.27 Heywood
subsequently invited these young men to meet in his home, but the impe-
tus for these meetings came from the young men themselves. These meet-
ings were entirely voluntary, and thus survived only as long as the young
men continued to attend. Heywood influenced the meetings, but they
belonged to the youth.
At the same time the young men created these meetings, the meetings
transformed the young men by increasing their religious zeal, their dedi-
cation to the society, and by strengthening their ties to Heywood and to
each other. These meetings brought together believers from throughout
Halifax, supplementing larger gatherings for sermons or the Lords Supper
and giving the most enthusiastic believers an additional opportunity for
religious exercise. Moreover, because the meetings were illegal under the
Clarendon Code, there likely was a sense of danger about them, a fact that
would have both strengthened the ties between the young men and
stressed the importance of sustaining their faith in the face of religious
oppression.28 In light of this point, it seems natural that membership in
these young mens meetings paved the way for members to assume a lead-
ing role in the society. One of Heywoods young men, William Clay, became
one of his most committed followers, hosting regular prayer meetings and
even allowing Heywood to preach in his home during the Tory reaction;
later, in 1688, he provided land for Heywood to build his chapel.29 James
Tetlaw attended meetings with Clay, hosted monthly fasts, and, like Clay,

26In this sense they were a site of cultural reproduction. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory
of Practice.
27Heywood, Diaries, iv:14647. See chapter seven for a fuller discussion.
28Cragg, Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution, pp. 7075.
29Heywood, Diaries, iii:128, 234; iv:106.
156 chapter six

hosted sermons during waves of persecution.30 The young men from these
meetings thus provided Heywood with an intensely dedicated group of
adherents. This inner circle, the contingent of believers who were at the
core of Heywoods society, is the subject of the next section.

The Core of Heywoods Society

While Heywoods hearers numbered in the thousands, and the members of

his society in the hundreds, there existed within the society a few dozen men
and women whose devotion to Heywood and the dissenting community was
truly exceptional. Many members hosted fasts, but those in the inner circle
hosted dozens of them. Many visited Heywood, but only a few did so regu-
larly. Many received copies of Heywoods books, but only those closest to him
were allowed to borrow books from his private library. The experience of most
members would fall between Elizabeth Barkers, who visited Heywood once in
1679, and William Clays, who did so over 100 times between October 1699 and
May 1702. In short, it was members such as Clay who formed the core of
Heywoods society. Another key figure was William Naylor, who, like Clay,
hosted sermons at particularly dangerous moments and fasts on many other
occasions. Such dedication was recognized by persecuting officials, who in
1685 imprisoned Naylor alongside Heywood himself. Anthony Lea also played
an important role in the society, hosting monthly fasts, visiting Heywood
constantly, and helping to reconcile several disputes within the society. Lea,
like other members of this core group, also married within the society, a prac-
tice that helped set the inner circle apart from less enthusiastic members and
connect them to one another. Heywoods inner circle enabled the society
to survive government persecution, but by living more denominationally
circumscribed lives, they may not have been seen by conformists as good
neighbors. They thus provide an important point of comparison with those
on the margins of the congregation and illuminate the complex relationship
between conformists and dissenters during the Restoration.
The existence of an inner ring within Heywoods society becomes
evident when we analyze Heywoods diaries in detail and distinguish
between those who appear only a few times in the diary and those who
were fixtures in the community. When we do this, the range of members
experiences becomes evident, and the question shifts from whether a

30Heywood, Diaries, iii:128; iv:239; BL, Add. Ms. 24486, 69v. See below for further
examples.
 worlds within worlds157

person was a member of the society to what kind of member they were. We
must differentiate between the experience of members whom Heywood
mentions only once and those who placed Heywood and the society at the
center of their lives, for they had very different places in the community.
The existence of this core within Heywoods society also speaks to ques-
tions of how religious dissenters fit into parish life, for individuals on the
societys fringes occupied a very different social space than their more
dedicated peers and thus would have been viewed differently by their con-
forming neighbors. In this section, I explore the practices that marked an
individual as a member of Heywoods inner circle and argue that the rela-
tionships between members of this group were stronger and qualitatively
different than the ties that bound the society as a whole.31
Any distinctions drawn between the sorts of members of Heywoods
society are a matter of degree rather than kind. There was no single prac-
tice that signaled an individuals membership in the inner circle in the
way that taking the sacrament conferred membership in the society. The
intensity and variety of contacts between Heywood and members of his
inner circle were much greater than for most members of the society, and
the same can be said of connections within this group. Simply put, mem-
bers of the inner circle devoted more time and energy to Heywood and
to each other.32 Heywoods core group appears to have included around
two dozen individuals. By way of comparison, John Goodwins congrega-
tion in London included fifty core members, including four women.33
In Heywoods society, this group consisted of married couples, such as
James and Mary Brooksbank, James and Martha Tetlaw, James and Ann
Holstead, and John and Hannah Hodgson. In other cases, husbands were

31Many of the characteristics marking Heywoods inner circle are found among
Quakers. Davies, The Quakers in English Society. My analysis draws on Boissevain, Friends of
Friends. See particularly pp. 4547 for his discussion of multiplex relationships. See also
Cohen, The Symbolic Construction of Community, pp. 2829.
32The imprecision of these criteria is, of course, a point of vulnerability for this analy-
sis. I will limit my discussion to those individuals for whom there is the strongest evidence
of membership in the core group. For the special relationship between the godly and their
ministers, see Seaver, Wallingtons World, p. 105.
33Curiously, More makes no effort to determine the overall membership, dismissing
the importance of less-active church members. See also Euan Cameron on the formation
of an inner ring consisting of a churchs most devout adherents, and Lawrence Friedman
on the special intimacy that developed within a small segment of William Lloyd Garrisons
Boston abolitionist society. More, Congregationalism and the social order, pp. 21415;
Euan Cameron, The godly community in the theory and practice of the European
Reformation, Studies in Church History, 23 (1986), pp. 13153; Barry, The parish in civic
life, pp. 15278; Triffit, Believing and belonging, pp. 18182; Friedman, Gregarious Saints,
pp. 5557.
158 chapter six

part of the group but their wives were not, and we can include one unmar-
ried woman, Dinah Tetlaw. Most members of the society came from the
middling sort, but, as was the case for John Goodwins most devout follow-
ers, Heywoods core members were better off than both their conforming
and dissenting neighbors, averaging between three and four hearths.34
We would expect to find a strong correlation between personal wealth and
social prominence, but in the case of Heywoods society there was more to
the story than this, for many of the societys religious activities took place
in members homes. Heywood could only preach in houses large enough
to accommodate dozens, if not scores, of hearers. Moreover, because
private gatherings often included a meal, hosts were obligated to provide
food and drink for everyone present; hosting sermons on a regular basis, or
a fast every fortnight, thus involved considerable expense.35 These prac-
tices thus would have added an unusual wrinkle to the societys hierarchy,
dividing it between those whose homes and larders were large enough for
them to host a sermon or prayer meeting and those whose were not. While
there were wealthy members of Heywoods society who were not part of
the inner circle, it would have been enormously difficult for a poor congre-
gant to play a similar role, regardless of his or her devotion.36
If a member of Heywoods society wished to demonstrate his dedica-
tion to the dissenting community, the waves of persecution that buffeted
Halifaxs dissenters provided an ideal occasion. To a certain extent, perse-
cution and membership in Heywoods inner circle reinforced each other:
those at the core of the society willingly suffered for their beliefs, and
through their suffering they proved their devotion to Heywood and the
society.37 William Naylor hosted several sermons in the midst of the Tory

34Eleven of Heywoods core supporters can be identified in the hearth returns. The
number of hearths range from one to eight, but six of these had either three or four. The
average for Heywoods congregation as a whole, based on fifty-four homes, is 2.8. More,
Congregationalism and the social order, p. 220; Triffit, Believing and belonging, p. 183;
Ripon Historical Society, The Hearth Tax List for Agbrigg and Morley Wapentakes West
Riding of Yorkshire.
35See the description of a prayer meeting that followed the marriage of James Holstead
and Anne Bolton and the supper hosted by Robert Walker after the Lords Supper. Heywood,
Diaries, i:342; BL Add. Ms. 24486, fo. 78v.
36The poorest member of Heywoods inner circle was William Butler, who received
charity from Heywood. It is not clear whether Butler ever hosted a fast. For socioeconomic
divisions among communities of Catholic women, see Susan E. Dinan, A community of
active religious women, in Halvorson and Spierling, Defining Community in Early Modern
Europe, pp. 6380.
37Patrick Collinson has argued that persecution imbued a sense of apartness and
solidarity among dissenters from the time of Mary I. Collinson, The Religion of Protestants,
 worlds within worlds159

reaction, including during the particularly dangerous weeks preceding the

quarter sessions and another at the very moment officers raided Heywoods
house. In 1684, Naylor was fined 20s for attending conventicles, and when
he refused to stop doing so he was imprisoned overnight; the following
year he went to prison rather than testify against Heywood.38 James
Brooksbank also suffered prosecution, for in 1673 he was arrested for refus-
ing the churchwardens oath. A further sign of Brooksbanks insider status
was that Heywood allowed Brooksbank to borrow a book from his per-
sonal library, in a favor reserved for his closest associates.39 In 1676, in the
face of an impending raid, society insider William Clay offered to hide
Heywood in his home until the danger passed. Clay also hosted a sermon
just prior to the quarter sessions in April 1684; additionally, he hosted a
fast upon the death of Heywoods grandson and namesake.40 Naylors,
Brooksbanks, and Clays dedication to Heywood and the society were
exceptional, and indicate that their place in the society was substantially
different from that of most members. The majority of Heywoods society
simply kept their heads down and tried to ride out the persecution. The
willingness of these individuals to suffer demonstrated a level of dedica-
tion usually reserved for the clergy themselves, which would have served
as a powerful bond with Heywood and within the societys core.41
In addition to forging ties to Heywood, members of this inner circle
formed a tightly knit community within the society as a whole. Like other
members of Heywoods inner circle, Anthony Naylor hosted fasts and
attended sermons and was among those who visited Heywood just before
his death. He also maintained close ties to James and Anne Holstead, one
of the couples in Heywoods inner circle. He executed their wills, oversaw
Heywoods purchase of land from their estate, and after their deaths he
talked with Heywood about the sad spiritual state of their son, Enoch.42

pp. 25556; Brad S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe
(Cambridge, Mass., 1999), pp. 45.
38Heywood, Diaries, iv:103, 106, 115. BL Add. Ms. 24486, 71r.
39Brooksbank received three copies of Heart-Treasure, which he likely passed on to
other hearers. The borrowed book, Robert Boltons Discourse about the State of True
Happiness, was last published in 1638, which likely made it difficult to replace. Heywood,
Diaries, i:251, 356; ii:236; ii:66, 6869, 212, 21415; iii:51, 56, 71; iv:260.
40As noted above, Clay visited Heywood over 100 times during the last 10 months of his
life, and hosted over two dozen fasts. Heywood, Diaries, i:325, 339; ii:212, 21415; iii:51, 5455,
69; iv:106, 16768, 26162.
41For the importance of suffering to nonconformist identity, see chapter three;
Walsham, Charitable Hatred, pp. 21213.
42Heywood, Diaries, iii:301; iv:70, 100, 139, 208, 210, 245, 247, 305. Davies, Quakers in
English Society, p. 87.
160 chapter six

Anthony Lea was a second-generation member of the society, one of

Heywoods young men, and he hosted monthly fasts at his home. He also
married within the society, helped settle the dispute between Heywood
and Jonathan Priestley, and appraised the estate of the societys clerk.43
Finally, Samuel Holdsworth was another of Heywoods young men and a
host of monthly fasts. He attended and spoke at the baptism of a society
members son, frequently brought Heywood letters, and accompanied
Heywoods Lancashire relatives when they were traveling in Yorkshire.
Holdsworth married Alice Mellen, a member of Heywoods society, and
was among those who helped reconcile Heywood and Priestley.44 While
this litany of connections makes for dull prose, it underscores the extent to
which the social networks of Heywoods inner circle were intertwined.
For these people, membership in the society involved far more than
attending sermons and taking the sacrament. The core members of the
society willingly suffered for their beliefs and maintained atypically close
connections to Heywood and to each other. They fasted and prayed
together more frequently than ordinary members, married more often
within the society, and took on leadership roles within the community.
While these connections helped to sustain the society during times of
persecution, we should note that they also may have isolated members
of the societys core from their conforming neighbors. The men and
women in Heywoods inner circle executed wills and appraised the estates
of other members, and it is possible, even likely, that these people lived a
more denominationally circumscribed existence than other members of
the society. Unlike most dissenters in Heywoods society, they deliberately
associated with their like-minded neighbors, eschewing the company of
Halifaxs conformists.45

43Lea also received ten of Heywoods books and borrowed at least one, Treatise of
Angels. Heywood, Diaries, ii:207; iii:128; iv:26, 142, 158, 195, 212, 242, 255; Heywood,
Dickenson, and Turner, Nonconformist Register, p. 43.
44Another of Heywoods young men, John Learoyd, also helped appraise Smiths estate,
and witnessed two versions of Heywoods will. He received Heywood into his home over
sixty times in eighteen months between 1699 and 1702, visited him forty more in the same
period, and carried him to and from his chapel once he could no longer walk. Learoyd was
also the nephew of Mary Hall, for whom Heywood preached a funeral sermon, and was one
of those chosen to speak at a day of thanksgiving for Heywoods recovery from an illness.
Heywood, Diaries, iv:193, 19697, 209, 257, 287, 305, and passim. For Holdsworth, see
Heywood, Diaries, iv:218, 295, and passim; Heywood, Dickenson, and Turner, Nonconformist
Register, p. 44. For the importance of social calls in maintaining personal connections,
see Whyman, Sociability and Power in Late-Stuart England, chap. 4.
45Thus, while I disagree with the overall thrust of his thesis, it is possible that Daniel
C. Beavers arguments about the social segregation of nonconformists are valid for this
 worlds within worlds161

The insularity of this inner circle is important because at the same time
that it complicates our understanding of dissent, it adds a new wrinkle to
ongoing debates concerning the relationship between dissenters and
conformists. Notwithstanding the importance of Heywoods inner circle,
their experiences were far from typical. There were many members of
Heywoods society who existed on the communitys margins, including
fifty people whose names appear on the membership lists and nowhere
else in the diary; dozens more appear only once or twice. These people
were not religiously neutral, for they took the trouble to join the society,
but their sense of membership was quite different than it was for the inner
circle. W.J. Sheilss analysis of wills left by members of Heywoods society
indicates that they were not a particularly insular group; when selecting
executors and witnesses, they were as likely to choose conforming neigh-
bors as fellow dissenters.46 While his point is well taken, its significance
shifts when we recognize that the experience of dissent varied greatly,
even among members of a single society.
The members of Heywoods inner circle were vital to the societys sur-
vival, particularly during times of persecution, but we should also note
that those who were not so dedicated played an important role in protect-
ing the society from persecution. Heywoods closest followers may have
limited their most substantial social contacts to dissenters, but we know
that most did not, and these individuals would have provided an invalu-
able link between the conformist and dissenting communities. Heywood
avoided all but the most violent episodes of persecution, in part because
members on the periphery of his society maintained extensive social and
marital ties with their conforming neighbors. No matter how local officials
felt about Heywood himself, or about hardcore dissenters such as Jonathan
Priestley and Anthony Naylor, they knew that arresting Heywood or
raiding one of his sermons would affect (and anger) members of his
society who were thoroughly integrated with the wider community. The
social integration of Heywoods outer circle with their conformist neigh-
bors thus undermined the logic behind persecution in the same way his

small group. Beaver, Parish Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester.
Christopher Marsh has argued that the tightly knit Family of Love was nevertheless firmly
integrated with their neighbors. Marsh, Family of Love, p. 97.
46Sheils, Oliver Heywood and his congregation, p. 273. This was also true of Quakers,
who were far more insular than Heywoods society. Davies, Quakers in English Society,
pp. 20203. Patrick Collinson has pointed out that religious separatists might have gotten
on better with their conforming neighbors than dissidents remaining within the estab-
lished church. Collinson, The cohabitation of the faithful with the unfaithful, pp. 5176.
162 chapter six

pastoral work did. If Heywood and his followers looked and acted like
good neighbors, why should they suffer religious persecution?

The Geography of Heywoods Society

When individuals joined Heywoods society, they became a part of a cohesive

community, united by the Lords Supper and their presence at Heywoods ser-
mons. At the same time, they acknowledged Heywood as their rightful pas-
tour and agreed to beleeve and practice what truths and dutys he shall
make manifest to us to be the mind of god.47 Notwithstanding the power that
members apparently ceded to Heywood, the decision to join the society was
far from the last religious choice that they made. They may have been
Heywoods followers, but they nevertheless took the lead and created their
own religious communities within the society. Because the society was spread
across Halifax, John Butterworth established one prayer meeting for the resi-
dents of Warley, and other members, including Nathan Bates of Norland and
Tim Stansfield of Soyland, followed suit. While Heywood exercised a measure
of influence over these meetings, they were created and sustained by the laity.
In some cases, these local prayer groups took on a life of their own and com-
peted with each other for Heywoods attention. And in the 1680s, Heywoods
followers in Warley hired a minister of their own and created a new dissent-
ing society.
The laity established most of the prayer meetings that sprang up within
Heywoods society. In many cases Heywood inspired the founding mem-
bers but, as in the case of the youths who established meetings on their
own initiative, some members of Heywoods society acted without his
knowledge. In 1682, Heywood met with one M.B. who was:
a gracious young womantold me when she first came [to Sowerby], and a
considerable time after, she was much discouraged, having no society to
converse with, no religious meetings, but now in two or three yeares time
god hath raised up at least twenty persons, men and women, that are exceed-
ing forward and hopeful for a sound work of graceone whereofownes
Mr Wittar of Sowerby as the instrument of his conviction, most of the rest
own the labors of this poor worm.48

47Heywood, Diaries, ii:22.

48Here, Heywood omits mention of Congregationalist minister Henry Root, who
preached at Sowerby until his death in 1669, and many from Roots congregation joined
Heywoods society. Heywood, Diaries, iv:64.
 worlds within worlds163

As with the young men at Hodgsons house, Heywood started these people
on the road to godly religion, but they took the initiative and founded their
own meetings.49 These communities were a product of lay initiative under
Heywoods influence. They were also a part of Heywoods larger evangeli-
cal strategy, as he planted the seeds of godly religion in neighboring town-
ships and then nurtured budding communities with frequent visits,
attendance at prayer meetings, and by preaching in his followers homes.
His efforts were most successful in the township of Warley, and it is to this
community that we shall now turn.
Heywoods ministry in Warley began around 1672, when there was not
a praying family in that township but one, one John Wilkinson, who when
he prayed, wild people gathered about his house, mockt abused him,
called him witch.50 Here Heywood appears to have indulged in a bit of
hyperbole, for it is clear that Wilkinson had plenty of godly company
within the township. That very year, another resident of Warley, John
Butterworth, registered his home as a place of nonconformist worship
under the Declaration of Indulgence, and Heywood preached there into
the 1690s.51 Moreover, in May 1672, Heywood noted, there is several of
that neighbourhood [Warley] that have come to hear me in mine owne
house above a year, and have set up religious dutys and meetings
together.52 By 1676, Heywoods people in and around Warley had estab-
lished not just one private meeting, but three: one every fortnight at
J Butterworths, or at James Wadingtons or at Tho: Bentlysanother every
moneth at Nathan Bates house in Norland, where my hearers in Norland
and Steneland meet, andanother meeting of christians is set up about
Soyland at Tim Stansfields.53
The most intriguing implication of these Warley prayer meetings is that
Heywoods followers there developed a special bond among themselves,
which other members of the society did not share. When Heywoods
Warley-people formally joined the society, they often did so as a group.

49Richardson, Puritanism in North-West England, pp. 8990.

50The religious unorthodoxy of Fifth Monarchist Anna Trapnel led to similar name-
calling. Anna Trapnel, Anna Trapnels Report and Plea (London, 1654), p. 21. Heywood,
Diaries, iii:147.
51Heywood took out three licenses to preach under the Declaration: one at his own
home, one at Coley Chapel, and the third at Butterworths. Butterworth joined Heywoods
congregation in 1677. Heywood preached his funeral sermon, as well as that of his wife,
Mary. Heywood, Diaries, i:28990; ii:29; iv:148; Dale, Yorkshire Puritanism and Early
Nonconformity, p. 270.
52Heywood, Diaries, iii:108.
53Heywood, Diaries, iii:146.
164 chapter six

When Heywood recorded the membership of Nathan Bates, James

Holstead, and John and Mary Butterworth, he added the notation, all
these being of a society there [Warley] were entertained with us Aug. 26.
1677. James Wadington joined in October of that year with the notation
of Warley Society, and John Bancroft, yet another one of the Warley
Society, was admitted the following February.54 The foundations of the
Warley society lay in the local prayer meetings, and there existed a range
of other religious activities that strengthened the sense of religious
fellowship among the townships residents. Logically enough, when more
distant members of Heywoods society gadded to a sermon or to receive
the sacrament, they did so with their neighbors. Thus, when the Warley-
people took the Lords Supper, they forged a ritual bond with the entire
society, but the sacrament was preceded and followed by the singing of
psalms and conversation with other members from Warley. In addition,
when a member sought religious advice or spiritual support, he or she
probably went first to a near neighbor, to another resident of Warley. Thus,
while the Warley-people were dedicated to the society as a whole, their
distance from Heywood and from members in Coley drove them to create
even stronger bonds among themselves.
In the late 1680s, the society in Warley entered a new stage in its devel-
opment. It had grown in numbers, but the more significant change was
that Heywoods deteriorating health meant that he could no longer offer
the pastoral care that members there demanded.55 As a result, the Warley
society became more independent: they hired their own minister and
began moving towards forming a separate society. Given the time and
effort Heywood had invested in his Warley-people (and he makes clear
that they were his people), this was a delicate moment. In July 1680, deci-
sions made by dissenters in Craven bruised Thomas Jollies feelings:
I thought I was neglected by my friends in Craven (after all my paines
among them) concerning the choosing and calling of their pastor.56
Heywoods Warley-people managed to avoid this pitfall, perhaps because
they chose one Matthew Smith, whom Heywood had ordained in 1687.57

54Heywood, Diaries, ii:29.

55See below, chapter seven.
56Jollie had been working in Craven at least four years, noting in 1678 that he preached
there every third Sunday because they did not have a minister of their own. Heywood also
maintained a pocket of followers there, though it is unclear if there was any overlap
between the two. Jolly, The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly, pp. 43, 29, 35.
57Hunter, The Rise of the Old Dissent, pp. 353, 355, 398. Hunters sources for this informa-
tion are unclear, though he seems to be working from diaries not included in Horsfall
Turners printed edition. Heywood does not mention Smiths ordination in his diaries.
 worlds within worlds165

Smiths arrival did not diminish the Warley societys affection for Heywood
or even signal an end to his ministry among them. When Heywoods fol-
lowers in Warley came into conflict with Smith, they sought Heywoods
help in mediating the dispute.58 For his part, even after he became too ill
to leave his home, Heywood continued his ministry in Warley by sending
letters and short religious treatises, including a sacramental discourse for
Warly-people.59
The meetings at Warley underline the complex structure of Heywoods
society and the extent to which the communities within it overlapped.
Heywoods followers in Warley were integral to his society: they traveled to
Coley for the Lords Supper, asked Heywood to baptize their children, and
contributed to his salary, and several were part of his inner circle.
Notwithstanding their connections to Heywood and the larger society, the
Warley-people created a discrete and close-knit community of their own.
This community was expressed first in prayer meetings, and later in the
formation of an independent society. It is also intriguing that in many
ways the relationship between Heywoods society as a whole and his fol-
lowers in Warley was similar to the relationship between the parish of
Halifax and its chapelries.60 When the vicar of Halifax could not serve the
entire parish, residents of outlying townships hired curates to fill the void.
And when Heywood could no longer meet the religious needs of his
Warley people, they did the same thing. We do not know if Heywood had
Halifaxs parochial structure in mind as he developed his own society. But
as a former curate he was acutely aware of the difficulties of maintaining a
religious community across so large a territory, and would have thought
deeply about how these challenges could be overcome.61
While the members of Heywoods society were united by the Lords
Supper and presence at his sermons, conflict could develop as residents of
different townships competed for Heywoods attention. In a revealing
episode from 1687, Heywood noted that:

58Hunter indicates that Smith maintained two congregations, one near Thornton-in-
Craven and the other in Halifax, and wished to move to Bingley. There is also evidence that
Smith held opinions judged heterodox by other nonconformist clergy. It is not clear
whether the dispute between Smith and the congregation at Warley sprang from either of
these issues or if it was a combination of the two. Hunter, The Rise of the Old Dissent,
pp. 399400. Heywood, Diaries, iv:29497.
59Heywood, Diaries, iv:240, 24599 passim.
60See above, chapter one.
61Barry, The parish in civic life, p. 164.
166 chapter six

my friends at Halifax, Southourum, Skircot, Warly, Ovenden &c have taken

an house at Halifax bank top a very large, capacious place, that will hold
many hundreds of people, that I should preach in it on Lords-days in the
afternoon.but my people at Coley were much discontented that I left them
in the afternoon, tho I had advised with them before and had consent of
most of them for that day, but they are not willing I should goe every day in
the afternoon, murmurings arose, and I heard some peevish words uttered
by some of them, I was much troubled, could not sleep.
Eventually, Heywood met with his Coley followers, and they reached an
agreement that he would preach at Halifax Bank until the completion of a
new meeting house in Shelf township.62 The incident is important because
it illustrates the difficulty of creating and sustaining a community that was
scattered across an upland parish like Halifax and the potential problems
such communities could face. Equally significant, however, is the fact that
Heywood faced this kind of conflict only once in his long career, and he
was able to find a solution without splitting the society.63 By all accounts,
Heywoods society should not have worked. It was scattered across at least
three parishes, and as this last incident shows us, he occasionally had
trouble satisfying all of his adherents. Despite these challenges, Heywoods
society was extremely successful, and we can attribute this success in part
to Heywoods unflagging energy. At the same time, however, we must
recognize the laitys contribution to the success of the society, for it was
they who created and sustained the communities that were at the heart of
local religious practice. It would be going too far to call Heywoods society
a confederation of local communities, but it is clear that local communi-
ties were central to the strength of the society.
There is no doubting the importance of Heywoods sermons or the
Lords Supper to his society, but I have argued that a variety of small-scale
religious meetings supplemented these larger gatherings. The coherence
of these smaller communities sprang from the fact that they brought
together people who had something in common, whether it was age,
level of dedication, or township of residence. Through a variety of reli-
gious practices, members of these groups created strong and enduring
relationships with one another. Young men and women came together for
prayer and socializing, and also created friendships that lasted for years.64

62Heywood, Diaries, iv:12627.

63We should also note that it was about this time that Heywood ordained Matthew
Smith, and his presence would have helped meet the spiritual needs of dissenters in that
area and reduced their demands on Heywood.
64For courtship among the Quakers, see Davies, Quakers in English Society, chap. 7.
 worlds within worlds167

The members of Heywoods inner circle associated more frequently within

the society than did other members, often married within the society, and
executed each others wills. And the prayer groups in Warley met indepen-
dently, often for fasts in preparation for the Lords Supper, and then
gadded together to Heywoods. And while these neighborhood groups
could come into conflict, the overall effect of these communities was
to strengthen the society, for they often overlapped with one another, sup-
plementing the societys ritual bonds. Some of Heywoods young men
hailed from Warley, and in the course of the young mens meetings, they
joined in prayer with young men from other townships. Similarly, mem-
bers of Heywoods inner circle were drawn from across Halifax, bridging
any divisions that might have developed between townships. Each of
these communities mattered to their members, but their significance
shifted from moment to moment in accordance with a members imme
diate religious needs; during a fast in Warley, the local community
mattered, while at the Lords Supper the entire society did. Paradoxically,
the complex nature of these religious ties meant that each persons sense
of community was both secure and in constant flux. These overlapping
communities bound their members to each other in many different ways,
and ensured that no member could easily drift away.
 CHAPTER SEVEN

OLD AGE AND EVANGELISM

Throughout his adult life, Heywoods overriding concern was for the
survival of godly religion. While this goal remained constant, his means to
this end changed constantly. Most obviously, Heywood adopted different
strategies in response to government policy towards nonconformity, but
there were other factors in play, including, as we have seen, the local politi-
cal landscape and the age of his sons.1 But as Heywood grew old, his min-
istry changed in two important ways. First, upon turning sixty, Heywood
reassessed his evangelical work and took a new interest in the religious
education of local children. His goal was to create a godly community that
would outlive him. Second, in Heywoods final years, physical decay under-
mined his ability to sustain the religious communities that he had spent a
lifetime creating. For decades, he had spent long hours traveling within
Halifax to visit the elderly and ill and to deliver sermons to members of
his society in Warley; when he could no longer ride a horse, he could no
longer do this work. Heywood developed a range of strategies to overcome
these challenges, writing when he could not preach and sending represen-
tatives to events he could not attend. The effectiveness of these strategies
is uncertain, but they vividly illustrate the efforts by Heywood and his
followers to sustain religious community in the face of his failing health.
In the early modern world, growing old was a complex phenomenon
barring sudden death, people did so not once, but several times. The first
phase of old age was known to contemporaries as green old age. Green
old age usually began in an individuals fifties or sixties, and while these
years might see some physical decay, it was understood as a time of good
health and continuing activity.2 For some people, green old age was a time

1For his sons role in young mens meetings, see chapter five. For Heywoods work with
young ministers, which coincided with Elis and Johns ordination, see Samuel S. Thomas,
Individuals and Communities (Ph.D., 2003), chap. 3.
2L.A. Botelho, The 17th century, in A History of Old Age, ed. Pat Thane (Los Angeles,
2005), p. 117. See also Shahar, Growing Old in the Middle Ages, pp. 2431; Keith Thomas, Age
and authority in early modern England, Proceedings of the British Academy 62 (1976), 237;
Pat Thane, Social histories of old age and aging, Journal of Social History 37:1 (2003), 9899;
 old age and evangelism169

of contentment: Lady Sarah Cowper finally found the peace that had
eluded her for decades, and Sarah Savage, the daughter of nonconformist
minister Philip Henry, depicted her old age as a period of spiritual frui-
tion.3 Dating the start of old age, green or otherwise, is a tricky business,
to say the least. For wealthy and leisured men such as Heywood, old age
usually began at sixty; the poor reached old age as soon as ten years earlier,
as did many women.4
Over time, however, green old age faded to brown and the elderly grew
weaker, sicker, and less likely to recover from illness.5 In extreme old age,
physical decay became a central fact in an individuals existence, as it
became more difficult to see, hear, breathe, and walk.6 Along with these
physical challenges, many elderly people suffered from memory loss and,
increasingly after 1650, melancholy.7 An individuals reaction to and ability
to cope with the challenges of extreme old age varied with social status.
The wealthy obviously lived in greater comfort than the poor. When
Heywood could no longer walk, he paid two men to carry him in a spe-
cially built chair, a luxury which most of his followers would not have
enjoyed.8 Heywoods diaries make clear that he experienced green and
advanced old age as distinctive stages in his life and ministry and recre-
ated his ministry in response to each.

L.A. Botelho, Old age and menopause in rural women of early modern Suffolk, in Women
and Ageing in British Society Since 1500, eds. L.A. Botelho and Pat Thane (London, 2001),
p. 45.
3Anne Kugler, I feel myself decay apace: Old age and the diary of Lady Sarah Cowper
(16441720), in Botelho and Thane, Women and Ageing in British Society Since 1500,
pp. 7879; Anne Kugler, Women and aging in transatlantic perspective, in Power and
Poverty: Old Age in the Pre-Industrial Past, eds. Susannah R. Ottaway, L.A. Botelho, and
Katharine Kittredge (Westport, Conn., 2002), p. 70.
4Botelho, The 17th century, p. 117. Elizabeth Frekes green old age lasted from age fifty
to sixty-six. L.A. Botelho, When the healer becomes the patient: Old age and illness in the
life of Elizabeth Freke, 16411714, in Ageing Stories: Narrative Constructions of Age and
Gender, ed. Christiane Streubel (Frankfurt & New York, 2009); Sara Mendelson and Patricia
Crawford, Women in Early Modern England, 15501720 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 18494; Ottaway,
The Decline of Life, pp. 48.
5Botelho, When the healer becomes the patient. For the relationship between mor-
bidity and mortality, see James C. Riley, Sickness, Recovery, and Death: A History and
Forecast of Ill Health (Iowa City, 1989).
6We are quite fortunate that Heywood never fell victim to the myriad illnesses of old
age that could make diary-keeping impossible. Margaret Pelling and Richard M. Smith,
Introduction, in Life, Death, and the Elderly: Historical Perspectives, eds. Margaret Pelling
and Richard M. Smith (London, 1991), p. 2.
7Botelho, When the healer becomes the patient; Ottaway, The Decline of Life, p. 33.
8Heywood, Diaries, iii:285.
170 chapter seven

A Preacher Looks at Sixty (and Sixty-Five, and Seventy)

Oliver Heywood got old several times during the last decade or so of his life.
The first time came in 1690 when he turned sixty and began his green old age.
Notwithstanding his continuing good health, from this point forward, death
was much on his mind. The following year, Heywood grew old again when he
nearly died of a fever. This close call caused Heywood to reexamine his rela-
tionship to his followers in Coley and to seek anew the conversion of the
young. A few years after this, old age happened a third time, as Heywoods
deteriorating health made it difficult (and eventually impossible) for him to
continue to care for his followers as he had done for decades. Heywoods reac-
tion to old age was shaped by a deep and abiding belief in divine providence.
The combination of old age and this providential outlook cast Heywood into
an ongoing existential crisis, for every year he lived offered more evidence
that his work on earth was not yet done. From this perspective, the physical
ailments that plagued his final years were not warnings that he was pushing
himself too hard or evidence that it was time to retire, but obstacles to over-
come. Such a view was not for the faint of heart, and it pushed Heywood to
test the limits of his physical endurance even as his body decayed.
One key to Heywoods experience of growing old was his chronological
age, with his sixtieth year standing out in his mind. In March 1689, on the
occasion of his fifty-ninth birthday, Heywood exulted in his continuing
vigor, I blesse the Lord, I am as fit for studying and preaching this day as
ever I was in all my life. At sixty, however, he took a rather more dramatic
tone:
Oh my dear Lord, I am now arrived at the 60th year of my age, and not one
amongst a thousand live to this age, and I have passed many changes and
revolutions in the course of my pilgrimage.how soon are these 60 years of
my life past, like a tale thats told, a dream when one awakes, its but t other
day that I was an infant, a child, a school boy, and now I am grown of the
older sort, and anon I shall not be here my place will know me no more.9
Heywood also raised the issue of turning sixty in his 1689 work Meetness
for Heaven, in which he wrote of having passed to the sixtieth year of my
Life, (the date of the life of Paul the aged) within a few days; and my Lord
only knows how soon my sun may set.10 Nor was Heywood alone in seeing
his seventh decade as particularly significant. When Thomas Jollie noted

9Heywood, Diaries, iii:237, 23940, 249.

10Heywood, Meetness for Heaven, sig. A8v9r.
 old age and evangelism171

the death of fellow nonconformist Adam Martindale, he added, hee dyed

in the close of his great climactericall year (63), which is accounted most
dangerous.11 Notwithstanding Heywoods dramatic language, there is
no evidence that his body had begun to fail him. In 1690, he traveled
1,100 miles and delivered 135 weekday sermons. While Heywood had
begun to see himself as old, it was clear that this old age was of the green
variety.
From his sixtieth birthday forward, Heywood regularly meditated on
his advancing years, expressing a sense of isolation as he remained sepa-
rated from God and outlived many members of the communities he had
created:
But oh methinks I am long kept from my dearest Lord, and from that blessed
society above: I could almost envy the happines of dear and ancient Christian
friends, whom I could name, and with whom I have had sweet communion
in private duties and publick ordinances 20 30 40 yeares agoe, that are now
before the thrown, and see his blessed face, and god hath wiped all teares
from their eyes, whenas my teares are yet on my cheeks: Lord may not this be
the blessed Jubile, and year of Release?12
Like Heywood, Thomas Jollie wrote about the challenges of old age in his
diary. As early as 1683, when he was fifty-four, Jollie noted his meditations
upon occasion of decays of body and spirit. In September 1687, Jollies
mind was upon manifold occasion, viz.the infirmityes I feel by reason of
my naturall temper and age creeping on. By 1691, his thinking darkened as
he noted, My retiring in the beginning of the 5th m. was upon account of
my dull and dead frame which my age gives advantage to.13 Heywoods
lamentations over the onset of old age were tempered by a belief that his
survival was part of Gods larger plan, as he added, O Lordif thou hast
any service for a poor worm in thy church militant, I am both willing to it
and thankfull for it.14 Turning sixty thus inspired Heywood to take stock

11Jolly, The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly, pp. 7879; Steven Smith, Growing old in
early Stuart England, Albion 8 (1976), 129. Gregory King estimated that 10 per cent of the
population was over sixty, and modern demographers reached similar conclusions, for in
the late 17th century, approximately 9 per cent of the population was over the age of sixty.
Heywood, of course, would have recognized his own hyperbole, for he had a number of
friends and congregants who lived well past sixty. Pat Thane, Old Age in English History:
Past Experiences, Present Issues (Oxford, 2000); E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, The
Population History of England, 15411871: A Reconstruction (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), p. 528;
Smith, Growing old in early Stuart England, p. 127.
12Heywood, Diaries, iii:253.
13There is no indication of how the prospect of old age and death shaped Jollies minis-
try. Jolly, The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly, pp. 7879.
14Heywood, Diaries, iii:253.
172 chapter seven

of both the life he had lived and what life he had left, and to ask what God
had in mind for him.
Heywoods belief that his longevity was part of Gods plan became even
more pronounced in 1691 when he nearly died of an ague attack so severe
that it kept him from the pulpit for nearly two months. Heywood saw his
survival not simply as a matter of good luck or a hearty constitution, but as
an event in which God played a deliberate and decisive role. After his
recovery Heywood recalled that many judged me a gone manbut my
dear Lord fetcht me back again from the grave. The question that troubled
Heywood was why God had stayed His hand: Oh that my soul could
understand for what End my Lord did carry me to the grave, and then
countermand that Arrest, and say return!15 Heywood noted the possibil-
ity that one of Gods goals may have been to magnify his power, goodnes,
but he was intensely concerned with the personal significance of his
recovery. Even before he fell ill, Heywood saw his longevity as something
of an ongoing example of divine intervention, but his recovery from this
illness made clear to him that his work on earth was not complete.16 Over
the next ten years Heywoods concern with the religious significance of
his longevity became more urgent. By 1700, Heywoods green old age had
drawn to a close, as he found it difficult to travel even to his closest neigh-
bors. In that year he wrote, What cause I have to admire the good hand of
providence that hath kept me alive thus long whatever his design is
thereby when I dayly hear of many others younger then I that are pluckt
away by death. The following year, Heywoods perplexity increased, as he
wondered, o what have I been doing? what doth the Lord spare my life for,
from year to year? In asking these questions, Heywood may have recalled
that this would not be the first time God had chosen aged men to lead His
flock, for as Fulk Bellers noted in a 1656 sermon, god chose Moses and
Aaron when they were stricken in years, to lead Israel out of gypt.17
For Heywood, the questions of what he had been doing with his time and
why God had spared his life were intimately related and encapsulate the

15Heywood, Diaries, iii:25456. Lady Sarah Cowper had a similar reaction to her own
brush with death. Kugler, Old age and the diary of Lady Sarah Cowper, p. 71.
16This view of old age as a providential event is an interesting variation on conven-
tional thinking, which tended to focus on more dramatic events. As we shall see below, this
introspection appears to have shaped Heywoods pastoral work, for his recovery coincided
with a renewed interest in Halifaxs young people. Walsham, Providence in Early Modern
England.
17Heywood, Diaries, iii:283, 302; Fulk Bellers, Abrahams Interment: or, The Good Old-
Mans Buriall in a Good Old Age (London, 1656), p. 19.
 old age and evangelism173

existential problems of old age. Every passing year was evidence that God
had still more work for him to do, making Heywoods drive to serve Him
more intense even as his body weakened. For Heywood, there could be no
retirement, no matter how decrepit he became.18
At the same time Heywoods providentialism drove him to continue his
ministry, it is likely that Heywood felt a certain amount of pride in his
willingness to soldier on. Thomas Jollies notebook indicates that godly
clergy took satisfaction in their ability to continue their work despite
earthly obstacles. In 1671, Jollie had the tydings of my eldest sons danger-
ous condition in a deep consumption, this did much break my heart upon
several accounts, yet did the lord pour down a spirit of prayer on mee and
others on his behalf and there was noe intermission of my labours. Jollie
was similarly determined to continue his work after a fall left him light-
headed, weak, and fearful that he might go blind. Upon his recovery, he
proudly recalled, yet I went on with my work in my study and preaching,
through much sickness and pain.19 Godly ministers such as Jollie and
Heywood viewed obstacles to their work not as mere practical challenges,
but as opportunities to demonstrate their religious dedication to God, to
their neighbors, and to their followers. Who but the most devoted minister
would continue his work even after hearing his son was deathly ill, when
he might be going blind, or, in Heywoods case, when he had to be carried
to his pulpit?
We shall explore changes in Heywoods ministry below, but we should
briefly note the scope of Heywoods work in his final years. In 1700, the year
he turned seventy, Heywood admitted seven new members to his society,
including Susanna Wilkinson, who joined in February 1702, three months
before he died.20 Nor did he give up preaching despite asthmatick fits,
as he noted in 1700, my wind hath been exceeding short so that it hath
been great difficulty to goe up into my chamberyet when I have got set-
tled in my pulpit, I have prayed and preachedwith as strong a voyce as
formerly, which many people have wondered at.21 Heywoods summary of

18Botelho, The 17th century, p. 169. For retirement during the Middle Ages, see
Rosenthal, Old Age in Late Medieval England, pp. 10712; Richard M. Smith, The manorial
court and the elderly tenant in late medieval England, in Life, Death and the Elderly:
Historical Perspectives, eds. Margaret Pelling and Richard M. Smith (New York: 1994),
pp. 3351.
19Jolly, The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly, p. 106. Italics added.
20Others included Ann Ambler (who may have been related to Wilkinson), Edmund
Pollard, Mary Sugden, Susan Hurd, Isabel Woodhead, and Mary Priestley. Heywood, Diaries,
ii:35.
21Heywood, Diaries, iii:284.
174 chapter seven

his activities for 1701 indicates the continuing breadth of his work, as he
baptized 8 children, kept 8 conferences, preacht on week-days 23 times,
writ 7 treatises104 letters, observed 14 fasts, 3 days of thanksgiving
2 Books printed.22 Such work was demanded by God, but it also would
have undergirded Heywoods position within his religious communities.
Heywood hoped that his followers would imitate his devotion to God in
their own lives and also that his dedication to his flock would be recipro-
cated by his followers.

Old Age and Community

Curiously enough, the unsung heroes of Heywoods long career were the
horses that hauled him over the hills and valleys of Yorkshires West Riding. In
1675 Heywood noted this phenomenon, My horse is in some sort imployed
(though more remotely) in a subserviency to gods work, in carrying me up
and down to preach the gospel, he hath been a faithful and willing servant
now about 12 yeares.23 Thanks to some combination of his age and perhaps
his girth (Heywood tipped the scales at 245 lbs. in 1680), in his later years
Heywood found riding increasingly difficult and dangerous. Eventually, he
was unable to ride at all. It is difficult to overstate the impact that this change
had on Heywoods ministry, for it fundamentally changed his place in Coley
and in his society. In short, Heywood lost the ability to offer pastoral care to
any except his closest neighbors. While his most dedicated followers could
come to visit, his evangelical work among his more reluctant neighbors
ground to a halthe could no longer win a death-bed repentance from a
hardened sinner if he could not get to the bedside. Heywood recognized the
challenge and sought to overcome it in a variety of ways, the most important
of which was the printed word.
The physical ramifications of old age for Heywoods ministry became
clear to him when he was sixty-two and fell from his horse while riding
across the moor from Wakefield to Halifax. In noting the dangers to which
he had exposed himself, he includes 1 I was alone. 2 it was a solitary
place, not in the road had I been hurt it might have been long ere I had

22Heywood, Diaries, iii:285.

23The following year, Heywood also noted the perils of riding an older horse, which was
eventually replaced by one named Guy. Heywood, Diaries, iii:143; iv:134. Karl Westhauser
has noted the importance of owning, or being able to borrow, a horse to early modern
sociability. Karl E. Westhauser, Friendship and family in early modern England: The socia-
bility of Adam Eyre and Samuel Pepys, Journal of Social History 27:3 (1994), 51736.
 old age and evangelism175

been found. 3 I am very unwieldy, and helpless.24 Despite the fact that it
was hardly the first time he had fallen from his horse, this incident pre-
saged his slow descent into physical disability and brought home the fact
that his traveling days would eventually end. In 1693 he noted, I shall be
63 next moneth, and my journeys must lessen.25 Despite this prediction,
Heywood maintained a vigorous preaching schedule, traveling at least
700 miles every year from 1692 to 1697. While he traveled less than he had
in the 1680s, he maintained a vibrant ministry for the better part of a
decade.
If we take Heywoods tally of sermons preached and miles traveled as
indicative of his transition from green old age to advanced old age, it
appears to have happened between 1697 and 1700, as his travel declined
from 700 miles per year to just 157, and the number of sermons he preached
fell from 82 to 45 (see Table 2). In the winter of 1700 Heywood only rode
once in seventeen weeks, and on that occasion he was ill toyled in getting
on and off horseback. As a result, he was scarce able to walk to my chap-
pel or any neighbours house.26 In the final months of his life, even walk-
ing the short distance from his house to his chapel proved impossible, but
Heywood soldiered on. In December 1701, he wrote that Asthmahath
so increased upon me that I could not walk to my chappel on foot but
my friends have provided me a chair in which two men carry me.27
Heywoods followers carried him to and from his chapel until he died five
months later.
The effects of Heywoods declining health and mobility transformed his
religious networks in his final years. In short, the polarity of Heywoods
relationships changedhe could no longer visit his friends, neighbors,
and followers, so they visited him. In his advanced old age, the decades of
pastoral work paid rich dividends, as the men and women for whom
Heywood had served as pastor now returned the favor, visiting him in his
old age. Their visits not only sustained his connections to his society,

24Heywood, Diaries, iv:146.

25For many of Heywoods contemporaries, sixty-three was as significant a milestone as
sixty. Smith, Growing old in early Stuart England, p. 129.
26Heywood, Diaries, iv:168; iii:284. During the medieval period some members of the
House of Lords were excused from their duties when they lost the ability to ride. Rosenthal,
Old Age in Late Medieval England, p. 102. Louise Gray argues that immobility, alongside
blindness and frailty, was frequently seen as being irrevocably linked to the experience of
old age. Louise Gray, The experience of old age in the narratives of the rural poor in early
modern Germany, in Ottaway, Botelho, and Kittredge, Power and Poverty, p. 112.
27Heywood, Diaries, iv:176; iii:285.
176 chapter seven

Table 2:Oliver Heywoods Ministry28

Year Weekday Fasts Days of Miles Baptized Treatises Letters
Sermons Thanks Travelled Written Written
giving
1665 26 18 3 600
1666 60 20 3 700
1667 89 20 7 900
1668 69 18 3 700
1669 48 16 4 600
1670 53 20 3 700
1671 55 29 5 870
1672 62 28 8 728
1673 69 30 3 1070
1674 72 33 5 910
1675 48 1097
1676 67 56 12 1052
1677 60 40 8 1198
1678 64 50 4 1034
1679 77 52 7 1386
1680 91 53 8 1250
1681 105 50 9 1400
1682 100 41 12 1100
1683 103 49 7 900
1684 126 51 7 746
1685 74 8 70
1686 132 37 15 1004
1687 124 44 15 1400
1688 132 42 14 1300
1689 131 34 8 1358
1690 135 40 17 1100
1691 103 37 11 833 sick
1692 97 49 14 966
1693 109 35 12 841 22
1694 90 38 17 735 23
1695* 70 38 5 700 6
1696 85 34 15 700 17 6
1697 82 40 15 700 12 4 100
1698 78 34 16 410 11 4 123
1699 67 36 9 300 13 4 120
1700** 45 22 3 157 8 7 147
the year I lay prisoner at York, from Jan 26 to Dec. 19.
*7 conferences of ministers, writ 6 treatises, (2 printed).
6 meetings of ministers.4 meetings.** 8 conferences.

28Heywood, Diaries, iv:22728. Footnotes are Heywoods.

 old age and evangelism177

but they also helped connect him to the wider world.29 Jeremiah Baxter
visited Heywood at least fifty-four times between 1699 and Heywoods
death in 1702, bringing Heywood news from around the parish and the
nation, as well as letters from Leeds and elsewhere.30 In the same period,
Jonathan Priestley visited well over 100 times on both social and religious
occasions, bringing Heywood copies of the Mercury, letters from his sons,
money from his followers, a copy of a speech by King William, and news
from around the nation.31 Other members of his society visited regularly
and performed similar services, which helped him retain a connection
with his followers, the chapelry, and the nation despite his declining
health.32 When Heywood could not travel into the world, it was the mem-
bers of his congregation who brought the world to him.33
Despite these visits, age fundamentally changed Heywoods relation-
ship to his followers, as he slowly became a revered religious figure whom
people visited rather than a pastor who personally tended his flock. As
Heywood aged, his friends from Coley visited him more frequently, and his
more distant followers made the trip to Coley for the first time. Among the
latter group were John Hey and Martha Mitchell, both of whom lived in
Craven Deanery.34 Over the years, Heywood visited both Hey and Mitchell
on many occasions, and Hey hosted fasts, prayer meetings, and even the
ordination of nonconformist ministers.35 There is no evidence that Hey or
Mitchell ever visited Heywood before 1700, but once Heywood could no
longer ride to Craven, both made the journey to Halifax.36 Similar changes
can be seen in Heywoods ties to Josiah Oates. Oates lived in the parish of
Dewsbury, east of Halifax, and Heywood often stayed at his home during
trips to Wakefield in the 1670s. Like Hey and Mitchell, there is no evidence
that Oates visited Heywood before 1700, but he did so several times after.37

29Martin Dinges, Self-help and reciprocity in parish assistance: Bordeaux in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, in The Locus of Care: Families, Communities, Institutions,
and the Provision of Welfare Since Antiquity, eds. Peregrine Horden and Richard Smith
(London, 1998), pp. 11125. Rituals of sociability became increasingly important as death
neared. Whyman, Sociability and Power in Late-Stuart England, p. 16.
30For a sample, see Heywood, Diaries, iv:199, 242, 253, 280, 299.
31Heywood, Diaries, iv:249, 265, 281, 297, 299.
32See the examples of Anthony Lea, William Clay, Joshua Sonier, and Samuel
Holdsworth.
33The irony, of course, is that it was members of Heywoods inner circle who most often
formed the bridge between him and the outside world.
34As noted in chapter four, Hey attended sermons and private gatherings with Edmund
Hough, but he was also very close to Heywood.
35Heywood, Diaries, ii:19, 59, 67, 19899, 20204; iii:150.
36Heywood, Diaries, ii:184; iv:205, 223, 252, 294; BL, Add. 24486, 74r.
37Heywood, Diaries, i:291; ii:45, 54; iv:188, 195.
178 chapter seven

While Hey, Mitchell, and Oates all worked to sustain their ties with
Heywood, Heywoods age meant that he was receiving visitors rather than
doing the visiting. The effects of this change are difficult to assess, but
given Heywoods age these visits likely became more poignant, for they
were visible markers that the pastors days were numbered.
These later entries in Heywoods notebooks make clear the changes
that old age wrought on his relationship to his friends and followers, but
the relationship that he does not discuss is also importanthis ties to his
congregation in Coley. As we saw in chapter two, Heywood continued to
work with his conformist neighbors long after his ejection, preaching to
them in their chapel, visiting them in their homes, and even sitting with
them in the alehouse. In his final years, Heywood continued to preach in
his chapel, but old age made it impossible for him to shepherd his former
flock as he had in the past. Members of his society would seek him out, but
those on the denominational fence or indifferent to religion probably
would not. While dying sinners such as Giles Tenant and Daniel Drake
welcomed Heywood into their homes to attempt a last-minute conver-
sion, they were not the sort to seek out Heywood when they were healthy.
Heywoods pastoral ministry was built on the assumption that he could
seek out the uncommitted and work for their reformation, but old age
made this approach impossible to sustain. Towards the end of Heywoods
life, he could no longer visit the sick and the elderly around Coley because
he was sick and elderly. We should also note that as Heywood aged, pro-
gressively fewer of his neighbors remembered his time as curate or even
his dedication in the face of government persecution. Heywood was part
of a dying generation, and while many residents might have attended his
sermons as children, by 1700 few knew of the time when he was part of the
religious establishment. Thus, while old age was significant for Heywoods
ties to his dissenting society, it was equally important for his congregation.
Heywood created his congregation in his youth chiefly through his vigor-
ous pastoral ministry, and as his health failed his ministry demanded a
new approach.

New Pastoral Strategies

There is no question that Heywood was acutely aware that old age slowly and
surely undermined his place in the religious communities he had built over
the course of his lifetime. As he wrestled with the practical difficulties of con-
tinuing his ministry, Heywood sought ways to sustain a sense of community
among his followers and to maintain his place within his society even when
 old age and evangelism179

he was not able to travel. In some cases, when summoned to a religious gath-
ering he sent a representativeoften his wife Abigail or a servantin his
place. And when he found himself unable to preach he sent copies of sermons
or other religious texts to his followers. He continued to publish and distrib-
ute his books, and for the first time he hired a scrivener to make copies of
shorter works for distribution among his followers. However effective these
strategies may have been in giving Heywood a sense of involvement in local
religious life, it is less clear how his followers viewed the change. However
beloved, Abigail Heywood was not Oliver, and even if read aloud with great
enthusiasm, a written sermon cannot have had the power of one delivered by
Heywood himself. Heywoods efforts to answer the challenges of old age
simultaneously underline the importance of aging to the creation and main-
tenance of religious communities, and testify to the flexibility of religious
sociability during the early modern period.
Heywoods inability to travel made it impossible for him to sustain the
same patterns of pastoral care that characterized his earlier years, and this
naturally affected his place in the community. Sometimes he had to
decline invitations to preach, as in 1701, when the sons of John Foster
came to desire me to preach their fathers funerall sermon at Kipping [in
Bradford.] I denyed as not able to goe so far.38 Heywood also found him-
self unable to travel within Halifax for the funerals of his friends and fol-
lowers. In some cases he sent his servant, Susan Tillotson, or his wife,
Abigail, in his place. In December 1700, Heywood noted, should have gone
to the funerall of Sara Northen sent Susan. In February 1702, Tillotson
attended the funerals of Daniel Bates, John Hartley, and Isabel Crowther.39
Heywood later preached a memorial sermon for Hartley in his chapel.40 In
1701, Abigail Heywood attended the funerals of Jeremiah Baxters son and
the wife of John Crowther, who had previously hosted prayer meetings
and welcomed Heywood into his home.41 The presence of Susan Tillotson
or Abigail Heywood would have been appreciated, but their role at a
funeral would have been substantially different than Heywoods. They
could deliver Heywoods greetings or a message of sympathy, but because
they were women they could not preach or even pray aloud. For his part,
Heywood tried to play a role in prayer meetings that he was unable to

38Heywood, Diaries, iv:253.

39Crowther was a member of Heywoods congregation from Warley, joining in 1677.
Tillotson also attended the funeral of Phoebe Threapland. Heywood, Diaries, ii:29; iv:238
39, 248, 294, 297.
40In November 1701, Hartley was eighty-seven years old. For his ties to Heywood, see
Heywood, Diaries, ii:214; iii:54, 57; iv:190, 222, 240, 25657, 26061, 266, 284, 298.
41Heywood, Diaries, iv:242.
180 chapter seven

attend in person. In 1701, Heywood was invited to a meeting hosted by

John Brooksbank, who also suggested that if I could not come to spend
time at home [in prayer]. In 1654, Nehemiah Wallington adopted a similar
approach, writing of a missed opportunity to worship with the saints:
Wherefore though I cannot goe to church to be there with thy saints be
pleased Lord to send me some of their Foode hither and feed my soule with
holy thoughts. Behold in Exchange my body here and heart there. Though
I cannot pray with them, I pray for them[.] Yea, this comforts me, I am with
thy congregation because I would be with it.42
Heywoods efforts to participate from a distance were less successful, as he
noted, I set myself to spend that forenoon [in prayer] but was wofully
born down a while by sleepines.43 In these cases we see Heywood trying
to remain active in his societys religious life by sending women to funerals
or praying by himself. In doing this, he is mimicking traditional forms of
religious sociability, but it is unlikely they were entirely effective. No rep-
resentative could match Heywoods presence, and while the knowledge
that Heywood praying at home might have helped on some level, it was
clearly not the same as having him attend a fast in person; Heywood
needed to find other ways of reaching out to his followers.
Heywoods count of letters and treatises he wrote indicates that the
written word was one means by which Heywood hoped to overcome the
challenges of advanced old age.44 As Heywood spent less time preaching
and traveling, he spent more time writing. The most striking element of
Heywoods table is that prior to 1697, he did not bother to count the bap-
tisms he had conducted, or the letters and treatises he had written, but as
they became more important to his ministry he added them to his list of
relevant activities. While the correlation is not precise, the relationship
could not be clearer. In the course of four years from 1697 to 1700, the
number of weekday sermons Heywood preached fell from eighty-two to
forty-five, and the fasts he attended dropped from forty to twenty-two. In
the same period, the number of letters he wrote grew from 100 to 147.
Unfortunately, Heywood did not keep a list of recipients, but we do know
that from 1700 to 1702 he exchanged letters with Elkanah Bury, who appears

42Folger Shakespeare Library Manuscript V.a.436, 310.

43Heywood, Diaries, iv:284. See also an entry from 1698, when Heywood Spent some
time in prayer for the solemnity at Rathmel where I should have been. BL, Add. Ms. 24486,
fo. 80r.
44Hall and Walsham, Justification by print alone?, pp. 33485. For the role of letters
and manuscripts in sustaining nonconformity under the Clarendon Code, see Keeble,
Literary Culture of Nonconformity, pp. 7882.
 old age and evangelism181

to have been one of Heywoods younger adherents.45 We also know that

when he could no longer travel to Warley, Heywood wrote regularly to his
followers there, though it is not clear whether those letters are included in
his count.
Early in his career, Heywood explicitly noted prints ability to bridge
time and space when, in the epistle dedicatory of Heart-Treasure, he wrote,
when Preacherscannot speak, books may remain and instruct their
surviving people. When he wrote this, Heywoods mind was on the (hope-
fully) temporary silence wrought by his removal from Coley. But in 1695,
his sixty-fifth year, he had a more permanent silence on his mind when he
wrote of his desire to leave one Legacy more behind me, as a standing
Testimony to surviving Posterity, of my ancient indeared Love to your pre-
cious Souls, and a means of your spiritual good, when my Mouth is stopd
with dust.46 In both cases, Heywood demonstrated his knowledge that
the spoken word was fleeting, but a printed tract could continue a ser-
mons work for far longer. Along with these books, Heywood produced
manuscript treatises both for individuals and for his society as a whole.47
Heywoods first attempt to continue his ministry by mail came, not sur-
prisingly, during his imprisonment in 1685. While he was in York Castle,
Heywood wrote in a paper my sermon on Zech. 9. 11. Sent it home to my
people.48 By 1700, the problem was old age rather than imprisonment, of
course, and in that year Mrs Maud of Wakefield requested a copy of a ser-
mon he had preached the previous day.49 Mary Drake, in contrast, appears
to have commissioned an entirely new work, for on 31 January 1701, Abigail
Heywood visited Drake in her home, and the next day Oliver wrote, I set
my self to write for Mary Drake Characters of a soul poor in spirit.50 In a
similar vein, on 24 February 1702, Heywood began to work on another
piece requested by two members of his society, Joshua Stansfield and his
wife.51 In this case Heywood gave new meaning to the term deadline, for

45Many of the named correspondents were also nonconformist clergy, and Bury may
have intended a career in the ministry, for he lived for a time with Thomas Jollie. Heywood,
Diaries, iv:19596, 213, 229, 243, 298.
46Heywood, Heart-Treasure, Epistle Dedicatory; Heywood, A New Creature, sig. A2v.
47For the enduring importance of scribal publication to godly culture, see Hall and
Walsham, Justification by print alone?
48BL Add. MS 24486, fo. 71v.
49On the same day Heywood noted Mauds request he wrote, upon the request of
Mary Morly writ some. Heywood, Diaries, iv:240.
50Heywood, Diaries, iv:245.
51Stansfield and his wife joined Heywoods congregation in 1692. Heywood, Diaries,
ii:34; iv:29597, 305.
182 chapter seven

Joshua returned to pick up the finished work less than two weeks before
Heywoods death.52 These works appear to have been intended to bridge
the gap that had been opened by advancing age, most obviously for
Heywood, but also for Drake.53 Drake joined the congregation in 1696 and
died at age sixty-five, a few months before Heywood in 1702. There is no
record that she ever visited Heywood, but he or Abigail visited her six
times in less than a year.54 If Drake were unable to visit Heywood, or even
attend his sermons, the written word was an ideal means by which
Heywood could sustain his relationship with her.
In addition to writing what must have been relatively short works for
individual hearers, Heywood wrote a number of additional religious tracts
and oversaw their distribution in manuscript form within his society.55 As
with the works Heywood forwarded to Mrs Maud, some of these were
sermons, but he also wrote longer works for his hearers.56 Looking back at
the year 1700, Heywood noted, Though I have been confined for severall
weeks and months to mine own house, and durst not ride, yet god found
me out suitable work for I writ 7 severall Treatises, had a call to write them,
some pretty large which some young men transcribed and possibly may be
printed. In addition to having young men copy some tracts, Heywood
hired a professional scrivener to make copies of other works.57 Heywoods
decision to produce manuscript copies of these treatises is particularly
interesting because it did not replace print; he simultaneously published
his works in print and manuscript form.58 The addition of manuscript

52It is striking that only women requested that Heywood write tracts for them.
Unfortunately, it is not clear whether this is simply a function of the comparatively large
number of women in the congregation or another, more complicated, dynamic within the
community. For the ties between women and their pastors, see Willen, Godly women in
early modern England, pp. 56180.
53Maud was the daughter of William Walker, one of Heywoods followers, and married
Francis Maud in 1680. It is difficult to tell why Maud was unable to come to Halifax to hear
the sermon herself.
54Heywood, Dickenson, and Turner, Nonconformist Register, p. 108; Heywood, Diaries,
ii:35; iv:221, 233, 2456, 257, 265.
55For manuscript networks, see Harold Love, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century
England (Oxford, 1993).
56In May 1701, Heywood preached a funeral sermon for John Foster of Bradford parish,
and in June he noted, Willm Clay brought me my MS of J Fosters sermon I writ part of
Epistle to it. Heywood, Diaries, iv:256, 266.
57Heywood, Diaries, iii:284; iv:229, 231.
58In January 1700, just a few months before he met with the scrivener, he took delivery
of The General Assembly. Heywood, Diaries, iv:259. For the long-standing relationship
between Heywood and eminent Presbyterian printer Thomas Parkhurst, see Love,
Preacher and publisher, pp. 22735.
 old age and evangelism183

publishing to Heywoods evangelical arsenal signals something of a depar-

ture from his past practice and was a product of his advancing years.
For years, Heywood distributed copies of printed works to family,
friends, and strangers, and he made long lists of recipients.59 Such liberal-
ity stands in contrast to the distribution of manuscripts which, because
of their smaller production run, must have found a more exclusive read
ership. Indeed, by virtue of their limited availability, membership in
Heywoods manuscript network might have served as a marker of promi-
nence within the congregation. Heywoods manuscripts are also impor-
tant because they circulated within the congregation in a way that books
did not. While Heywood gave copies of thirteen books to Jonathan
Preistley, he loaned him a copy of his manuscript Discourse of Angels, and
upon its return Heywood presumably loaned it to another follower.60
Manuscripts not only bound Heywood to those lucky enough to receive a
copy, but their circulation would have connected members of the society
to one another even after Heywoods death.
Because they were the most distant members of his society, Heywoods
followers in Warley presented a special challenge and required a more
innovative response.61 Heywoods evolving ties to his Warley-people make
clear that as he aged, his definition of local changed. So long as Heywood
could ride a horse, Warley was closehe could go there, preach or visit
friends, and return home in the same day. By the time he turned seventy in
1700, however, Heywood could no longer ride that far; Warley became as
unreachable as Lancashire or London, and Heywoods followers at Warley
hired a minister of their own, Matthew Smith. Even after they hired Smith,
however, Heywood remained in contact with his Warley-people through
the written word, and he arbitrated a dispute between Smith and his con-
gregation; they, in turn, continued to pay Heywood for his services.62
Heywoods correspondence with his Warley-people was at its most intense

59For these lists, see Heywood, Diaries, ii:21116; iii: 5157; 6673, 7576; iv:25962.
60Heywood, Diaries, iv:281.
61See chapter six.
62For payment from Warley, see Heywood, Diaries, iv:207, 304. The details of the dis-
pute are not entirely clear, but it appears to have centered on Smiths proposed move to
Bingley, in Craven Deanery. Heywood, Diaries, iv:29597; Hunter, Rise of Old Dissent,
pp. 399403. For the role of community in supporting the elderly, see Pat Thane, Old age
in English history, in Zur Kulturgeschichte des Alterns/Toward a Cultural History of Aging,
eds. Christoph Conrad and Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz (Berlin, 1993), pp. 1733;
Richard M. Smith, Ageing and well-being in early modern England: Pension trends and
gender preferences under the English old poor law c. 16501800, in Johnson and Thane,
Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity, pp. 6495.
184 chapter seven

during the final eighteen months of his life, when he wrote to them on a
regular basis, often in preparation for the Lords Supper. In December 1700,
Heywood wrote, a sacramental discourse for Warly-peopleafter devo-
tion I finisht my writing for Warly- people writ to them sent it by Susan.
Compared to Heywoods published texts, these writings were fairly short
my half-sheet, as he termed it. These works appear to have focused on
religious matters, though in 1701, Heywood wrote, I set upon writing my
half-sheet to Warly- people about the Lords supperwrit a letter with my
notes to my friends in Warley.63 While correspondence served to sustain
Heywoods ties to Warley, his inability to travel transformed the relation-
ship. Heywood no longer attended fasts or prayers in the homes of his
Warley followers, and he no longer preached there; rather, they had to
travel to Northowram. However effective these religious tracts might
have been in spiritual edification, they were not as personal as a visit by
Heywood himself. In addition, this change would have attenuated
Heywoods ties to two different groups on the margins of his society. First,
there were those who happily attended sermons in Warley but were
not inclined to make the trip to Heywoods chapel. More poignantly, it
deprived Warleys elderly and ill of Heywoods pastoral care, simply
because neither party could make the trip to visit the other.64
It is possible that Heywood viewed this transition from a personal to an
epistolary ministry with a sense of loss, but such is not necessarily the
case. In her later years, Lady Sarah Cowper contrasted reading and writing
with needlework, and argued that these were the most appropriate activi-
ties for her:
Some may think my writing so much, a very dull Drudgery. But it Sufficith to
Sattisfy me in the practise, that I find it otherwise. At worst, it may be allowd
an Employment as significant as any Sort of work I can do, and if for every
stitch that others prick in a Clout[h], I with pen set a letter upon paper that,
as long as may remain a witness to purg me from the scandal of idleness.65
Heywood sounded a similar note in early 1702, writing, I have capacity for
studying sermons[,] writing much sleep well and eat my meet well
have a good digestion have much ease only fits of caughing but are quickly

63Heywood, Diaries, iv:24099 passim, 240, 258, 278.

64David Hall and Alexandra Walsham have pointed out that the elderly and ill who
could no longer attend sermons could enjoy their repetition by those who were present or
had written copies. Hall and Walsham, Justification by print alone?, p. 348.
65Quoted in Anne Kugler, Errant Plagiary: The Life and Writing of Lady Sarah Cowper,
16441720 (Stanford, 2002), p. 8.
 old age and evangelism185

over blessed be god.66 It is also important to note that Heywoods letters

and manuscripts might actually have enlarged the reach of his ministry, as
they were recopied and passed from hand to hand. Moreover, letters and
treatises lived on after his death, giving him a more permanent presence
among his followers than a sermon would have. Heywoods diaries also
offer evidence of the complicated and at times contradictory effects of old
age on the laitys sense of community. When Congregationalist minister
Henry Root died in 1669, many of his followers from the township of
Sowerby joined Heywoods society. One exception, however, was Sarah
Bentley, who did not join because she was ancient and not able to travel
about.67 Although Heywood, in the flower of his youth, failed to grasp the
implications of Bentleys physical state, in this entry we see her religious
world in full collapse: Bentley has lost her minister and the pastoral care
he provided and then watched the rest of her society migrate to Heywood,
leaving her behind. Old age also shaped the religious life of Susannah
Butler, one of Heywoods elderly near neighbors, though in a very different
way. There is no evidence that she ever joined his society, but Heywood
nevertheless gave her copies of four different books and visited her at least
eighteen times between October 1699 and April 1701. He also sent her at
least one letter and preached her funeral sermon when she died at the age
of eighty-six.68 While old age likely entailed a gradual shrinking of Butlers
social and religious circles, it also bound her to Heywood; indeed, he may
have seen a bit of himself in her. But Butler was one of the lucky ones, for
it is only because she lived close to him that Heywood could offer her this
kind of pastoral care. Elderly members who lived further away were
beyond Heywoods reach. Together, Bentleys and Butlers experiences
shed light on the various effects of advanced old age on an individuals
place in a religious community. While sermon-gadding and attendance at
prayer meetings were vital to the creation of a sense of community among
Heywoods followers, elderly members of the godly community could no
longer do these things. Only those healthy enough to walk or ride across
Halifaxs hills and valleys could take part in these activities. However, at
the same time age attenuated a persons ties to the wider community, it
strengthened some individuals relationship with Heywood. Heywood
made a point of visiting the elderly and ill, not the hale and hearty, so the

66Heywood, Diaries, iii:285.

67Bentley died in 1670. Heywood, Diaries, ii:32.
68Heywoods final diary opens in October 1699, so it seems likely that the visits pre-
dated our record of them. He gave her a copy of Baptismal Bonds Renewed in 1687. Heywood,
Diaries, iii:54; iv:185253; Heywood, Dickenson, and Turner, Nonconformist Register, p. 105.
186 chapter seven

very physical disability that undercut an individuals ties to the wider

community secured his or her place in Heywoods immediate circle.
Advanced old age transformed every individuals relationship to his or
her religious communities. Within Heywoods society, the key to religious
sociability was presence at prayer meetings, fasts, or the sacrament, but if
an individual could not travel, participation in these activities became far
more difficult. Obviously, this kind of challenge was not peculiar to any
particular region in England, but it would have been more acute in areas
with non-nuclear settlements and in upland parishes, such as Halifax,
where people lived further apart and the terrain was more difficult.69 But,
at the same time we have examined the difficulties posed by advanced old
age, we also have seen the flexibility of these religious communities, as
Heywood and his followers worked to overcome the problems posed by
old age. For many years, Heywood himself served as a connection between
older members of his society and the wider community, for while decay-
ing members may not have been able to attend the sacrament themselves,
they were central to Heywoods pastoral ministry. And as Heywood him-
self grew older, he worked to sustain his society through whatever means
were available and found creative ways to do so during the final years of
his life.

Planting a Godly Seed

In 1691, at age sixty-one, Heywood suffered a near-fatal ague attack that

brought home to him, in a way that simply turning sixty had not, that his
days were numbered. Moreover, the miracle of his survival inspired him to
reexamine his ministry with an eye to its renovation. God had laid Heywood
low and then brought him back from the brink of death, but why? What
change did He want Heywood to make? Under this divine pressure and the
knowledge that death would come sooner or later, Heywood concluded that
he had not done enough to bring the young people of Coley to a lively faith.
Faced with this, he reoriented his ministry on the spiritual development of
Coleys youth: He worked with students at the local grammar school, cate-
chized boys and girls, and revived his young mens meetings. By focusing on
the youth, Heywood stayed engaged with his followers even after his body had
begun to betray him, and through this work he hoped both to satisfy God and
to plant a godly seed that would continue bearing fruit long after his death.

69For the physical demands of a pastoral ministry on Dutch priests, particularly in rural
areas, see Parker, Faith on the Margins, pp. 12021.
 old age and evangelism187

Gaps in Heywoods diaries make it difficult to date his new interest in

youth with much precision, but, whatever the timing, it stemmed from his
sense of mortality. One key moment was his 1691 ague attack, which nearly
killed him. For many years, Heywood had tracked the number of sermons
he preached, miles he traveled, and fasts he attended, but in 1692 he
also began to tally the number of children he baptized (Table 2). Heywoods
interest went beyond the baptismal font and, apparently for the first
time, he wrote and delivered sermons specifically for young people. On
31 October 1700, Heywood preached to a group of young people on
1 Corinthians 14:20, Brethren be not children in understanding, but as
concerning maliciousness be children, but in understanding be of a ripe
age.70 The content of the sermon is lost, but in a 1693 book, The Best Entail,
or, Dying Parents Living Hopes for their Surviving Children, Heywood also
addresses young people and uses his advanced years to enhance his
authority:
Oh Children, suffer a word of Exhortation from one that hath had Experience
of childhood, Youth, riper age, and is arrived at old age, and hath been a
teacher of other above forty years, and may say to you as Augustus did to his
mutinous ArmyHear me Young men, whom sometimes Old men have
heard and obeyed.71
At the same time as he preached to local youths, Heywood also worked
with schoolboys on their Latin. He visited the school in 1699, and in 1702
he evaluated the work of three students.72 Some of these boys probably
hoped to go on to one of the dissenting academies, but Heywood did not
limit his attention to Halifaxs most precocious scholars.
In addition to these activities, in his final years Heywood took a more
active role in evangelizing local youth by catechizing children who came
to his home. He may have modeled his work on that of John Angier, who,
according to Heywood, constantly preached, so he carefully Catechized
the youth of his Congregation, according to the Assemblies Shorter
Catechism, and explained it, opening the principles of Religion in a plain
and familiar way.73 As discussed in chapter three, Heywoods first foray

70These sermons should not be confused with the young mens meetings discussed in
chapter six. Heywood, Diaries, iv:235.
71Oliver Heywood, The Best Entail, or, Dying Parents Living Hopes for their Surviving
Children (London, 1693), sig. A5v.
72Heywood, Diaries, iv:188, 217, 292.
73Oliver Heywood, A Narrative of the Holy life, and Happy Death of Mr. John Angier
(London, 1683), pp. 4849.
188 chapter seven

into catechizing came in the 1660s prior to (and perhaps to forestall) his
ejection, but there is no indication that he did any catechizing in the
decades that followed. It is unclear exactly when Heywood revived cate-
chizing as an evangelical tool, for while the first mention he makes of the
practice comes in 1700, it is near the start of his final diary and does not
appear to be a new project at this time.74 Heywood catechized a broad
cross-section of Coleys population, working with boys and girls as young
as six years and also with older people who had expressed an interest in
baptism. Sessions often took place after his Sabbath sermons, but he also
taught during the week as the opportunity presented itself. As might be
expected, many catechumens lived in the households of Heywoods
followers and were probably sent to him by their parents or masters.
In 1691 Heywood baptized Samuel Hall, whose father was a member of
Heywoods society, and he began catechizing the boy ten years later.75
Timothy Holts servant came to Heywood for catechizing, as did Benjamin
Butterworths lads.76
Heywood also notes catechizing Joshua Stockss son, Jeremiah, two of
his lads, and a female servant, Hannah Crowther.77 Children came to
Heywood individually, in pairs, or in groups of up to eleven, and many of
them were brought to Heywoods home by another member of his society,

74Heywood also distributed books to his catechumens, including Allens book. This
book, probably William Allens Certain Select Discourses (1673), seems an unlikely candi-
date for distribution to children, so he is probably referring to Thomas Brays 1699 edition
of that work. Bray wrote or published a number of works to be used by catechists. Ian
Green sees Heywoods new interest in catechizing as stemming from Toleration rather than
age, but offers no evidence. Heywood, Diaries, iv:201, 240, 24849, 286, 302; Green, The
Christians ABC. See also William Allen, A Friendly Call, or a Seasonable Perswasive to Unity
(London, 1679). For an increase in Anglican interest in catechizing, see Jeremy Gregory,
The eighteenth-century Reformation: The pastoral task of Anglican clergy after 1689, in
Walsh, Haydon, and Taylor, The Church of England, c.1689 c.1833, pp. 7175.
75Samuels father, Stephen, joined the congregation in 1697, and hosted at least one
sermon and fast. Heywood occasionally dined with Hall after preaching in Halifax or
Warley, and Hall accompanied him to a fast in Warley. Heywood, Diaries, ii:35; iv:190, 198,
220, 225, 227, 234.
76Holt was one of Heywoods closest adherents, and Butterworth was one of Heywoods
followers in Warley.
77Jeremiah was baptized in May 1693, while Crowther, described as a young woman at
Joshua Stocks, was baptized in April 1701. While Stocks does not appear on any of
Heywoods membership lists, he married Mercy Tetlaw, who was a member of Heywoods
society, and in 1698 he hosted a fast on Mercys behalf when she was ill. He was also among
those who carried Heywood to sermons and prayer meetings when he could no longer
walk, and he made repairs to Heywoods home and chapel. Heywood, Diaries, iv:161, 188,
190, 192, 212, 231, 24041, 279, 284, 287, 301; Heywood, Dickenson, and Turner, Nonconformist
Register, pp. 37, 40, 47.
 old age and evangelism189

Martha Binns.78 While the sudden revival of catechizing comes as some-

thing of a surprise, Heywood was not alone in refocusing his ministry in
this way. Richard Kilby of Denby took up catechizing when illness pre-
vented him from preaching.79 In Heywoods case, declining mobility nar-
rowed the geographic scope of his ministry. When he could no longer
preach outside his own chapel, he opened a new mission field closer to
home, moving across generational rather than parochial boundaries.80
Significantly, Heywood also encouraged his wealthy followers and readers
to take a similar interest in the spiritual development of young people. At
a practical level, he encouraged them to buy religious books for poor chil-
dren and even to send them to school. He also made a more unusual sug-
gestion, asking his readers to essentially adopt a local child:
have you no near kinsmen, or poor neighbours, to whom god hath granted a
lovely off- spring? surely it would be acceptable both to God, them, and your
selves, to pick out an ingenuous child, help him to learning, train him up for
God, bequeath your Estates to make an Experiment of him while you live.81
By encouraging his followers to plant the seed of godly religion in the lives
of local children and by doing it himself, Heywood simultaneously rein-
forced the foundations of his society and ensured that his religious legacy
would endure for decades.
In the same year that he began to record the number of baptisms that
he performed, Heywood revived his young mens meetings. The origins of
the revival are unclear, but in November 1692, Heywood:
heard that god had set the faces of some young men of my hearers and
neighbours heavenwards, and that they met together frequently in the night
to pray, I was greatly rejoiced in that good news and sent on Lords day
Nov 13 to speak to one of them, JW, desired him to ask his companions to
come to my house on wednesday following and spend some time in prayer
with me.

78Binns visited Heywood in his home on occasion, and brought local (and usually
unnamed) children to say their catechism or learn psalms at least fourteen times. She
joined the congregation in 1693, and was unusual among his female members in that she
hosted at least two private fasts. Heywood, Diaries, ii:28, 34; iv:201, 204, 206, 214,216, 219, 223,
229, 233, 235, 240, 242,249, 277, 288 and passim.
79Collinson, Shepherds, sheepdogs and hirelings, p. 202. Thomas Gataker also wrote
more when he was ill, though his work was more theological and controversial than
Heywoods. Diane Willen, Thomas Gataker and the use of print in the English godly com-
munity, Huntington Library Quarterly 70:3 (2007), 34364.
80For Sarah Savages concerns about remaining useful in her old age, see Kugler,
Women and Aging, p. 71.
81Heywood, The Best Entail, pp. 6567.
190 chapter seven

That Wednesday, the group came to Heywoods home, and six young men
prayed aloud, Oh wt a presence of god was there with those hopefull
youths with whom I never joyned before (except one)they prayd very
understandingly, experimetally, affectionatly, I stood amazed to hear their
gifts, many of them were the children of carnall parents.82 The revived
meetings appear to have followed the form of the originals: The meetings
lasted four or five hours and were attended by six to ten young men, most
of whom prayed aloud. The importance of these meetings to Heywood can
be seen in his review of 1693, when he wrote, Lords days are the sweetest
days in the week, fast-days are my feast-days, studying and preaching my
recreation, young-mens conferences my delight.83 These meetings are
important to our understanding of religious life in Coley because they
once again highlight the role of the laity, even unmarried young men, in
creating their own communities. Heywoods comment that many of his
new young men had carnall parents highlights the voluntary nature of
religious community in Restoration Halifaxthey came to the meetings
on their own initiative.84 Moreover, the young men created this commu-
nity on their own: Heywood neither knew about nor supported their
endeavor. In this case, Heywood was joining the godly parade, not leading
it. But the parade marched right through Heywoods house, kept up his
spirits, and helped him continue his ministry despite his failing health.
And while Heywood likely became the spiritual leader of the meetings,
the fact remains that the young men established them without his help
and probably continued to meet after his death. Heywood succeeded in
planting a godly seed in Halifax, but he had more than a little help.
Throughout this book we have seen Heywoods overlapping religious
communities as he moved between his congregation, his society, and
the various communities within his society. These groups existed simulta-
neously and with considerable overlap, yet each retained its distinct iden-
tity. His early ministry was a resounding success because of his constant

82Heywood, Diaries, iv:14647.

83Heywood, Diaries, iii:26263.
84Notwithstanding this characterization, several of the young men came from godly
households. Heywood baptized one of his new young men, Isaac Sonier, the son of Joshua,
who hosted sermons and fasts in the 1660s and 1670s and is described by Heywood as my
dear friend. The parents of another young man, Eli Tetlaw, were James and Martha Tetlaw,
both of whom were members of Heywoods congregation, and Martha was Heywoods for-
mer maid. Heywood also visited the elder Sonier the day before he died. That said, it is not
clear whether these young men were among the founders of the group or joined only after
Heywood took the helm. Heywood, Diaries, i:262, 269, 271, 274, 280, 289; ii:84; iv:75, 225, 239,
24849.
 old age and evangelism191

travels and his enthusiastic ministry both in Coley and in Halifax as a

whole, and while Heywood fought to remain an important figure on the
religious landscape, his slow physical decline made such efforts more
difficult. Heywoods ties to these communities were contingent upon his
ability to travel, and when he could no longer do so, his relationship to his
followers changed forever. Some aspects of his pastoral work, such as visits
to the bedridden and dying, withered away, but he continued to commu-
nicate with his society in Warley by letter, and they came to see him.
However, we should not reduce Heywoods experience to his physical
health, for the prospect of growing old affected how he related to his
communities even while he was in good health. Heywoods apprehension
about the survival of godly religion after his death inspired him to evange-
lize young people by catechizing them and by reviving his young mens
meetings. These concerns also found expression in print, as in 1693
Heywood cast an eye to the future (though not his own), and for the first
time published a book that he did not write.85 Not surprisingly, given his
interest in youth, the work was addressed to young readers, and his pref-
ace to Advice to an Only Child, or, Excellent Council to All Young Persons
encapsulates his hopes for the future. At this point it is best to let Heywood
have the last word: The Design (I am sure) is high and noble, to plant
Grace in young Persons, and to breed and feed a nursery of Plants of
Renown, to stock the Church and World with a springing up generation,
in the room of old trees transplanted into better soil.86

Coda

With Heywood safely in the ground, we should pause for a moment to

consider his legacy in Coley and in Halifax more broadly. The case for
Heywoods enduring importance for religious life in Halifax is clear. Of the
forty dissenting congregations in the West Riding at the end of the Stuart
era, a remarkable cluster grew up in and around Halifax: seven in the
parish itself, and others in nearby parishes such as Bradford and Calverley
where Heywood frequently preached.87 Given the parishs long-standing

85This work was written by another nonconformist minister, James Creswick of

Hampshire. For Creswicks identity, see Oliver Heywood, The Whole Works OfOliver
Heywood Now First Collected, Revised & Arranged (London, 1827), p. 420.
86Oliver Heywood and James Creswick, Advice to an Only Child, or, Excellent Council to
All Young Persons (London, 1693), sig. A3r.
87Joseph Hunter, Rise of the Old Dissent, pp. 41314.
192 chapter seven

ties to godly religion and the activities of other nonconformists in the par-
ish, it would be going too far to say that Heywood saved dissent in Halifax
and the West Riding, but there can be no doubt that he played a major role
in its strength in the early 18th century.
The fate of Heywoods society in the years after his death is rather more
difficult to answer. His death after many decades as the leader of his soci-
ety quite naturally constituted a turning point. Some nonconformist
societies, such as that led by Halifaxs own Henry Root, simply dissolved
when their minister died, and their members joined other societies. But
this did not happen to Heywoods society; rather, it survived and thrived.
Before the end of 1702 the society retained the services of a new minister,
one Thomas Dickinson, from Gorton, near Manchester, where he had
served as minister to a Presbyterian society since 1694. While Heywood
never mentions him in his notebooks, it is likely that Heywood knew of
him, or had even met him. The most likely moment for a meeting came
during Heywoods 1696 visit to Bolton, just fifteen miles from Gorton, but
since no diaries survive for those dates, we cannot know for sure. We do
know that Dickinson attended Richard Franklands nonconformist acad-
emy, and after coming to Northowram he remained there for over forty
years; from Heywoods ejection in 1662 and Dickinsons death in 1743,
Coleys dissenters had just two pastors.88 Under Dickinsons stewardship,
the Northowram society grew to 500 members in 1715, which made it the
largest society in the parish. Significantly, of these 500, only ten men were
wealthy enough to vote in county elections.89
Unfortunately, we know virtually nothing about Dickinsons ministry,
except that the society kept him on for forty years. But did he continue to
catechize Coleys children? Did he carry on Heywoods practice of meeting
with godly young men? He preached, of course, but did he ever offer 135
weekday sermons in a single year? We dont know. Nor do we know the
role of rank-and-file members in the society after Heywoods death. Given
that the young mens meetings described in this chapter came into exis-
tence without Heywoods help, it seems likely that they continued after
his death. But we cannot know whether the local meetings for prayer
described in the previous chapter continued into the 18th century. Nor can
we know whether the relatively egalitarian nature of religious life among

88Mark Pearson, Northowram (W.R. Yorks): Its History and Antiquities (Halifax, 1898),
pp. 13539; James Goodeve Miall, Congregationalism in Yorkshire: A Chapter of Modern
Church History (London, 1868), p. 326; Hunter, Rise of the Old Dissent, pp. 41416.
89Pearson, Northowram, p. 137.
 old age and evangelism193

Northowrams dissenters endured. It is clear that, whether through

Dickinsons efforts or those of his followers, the Northowram society
endured for decades after Heywoods death. At least, that is one explana-
tion. Another, more prosaic possibility is that the key to the societys sur-
vival had less to do with people than with stone.
In July 1688, Heywood preached the inaugural sermon in his new meet-
ing house: [we] had a vast multitude of people, more than could croud
into it, tho it be very capacious, being 3 large bays with Bolings, 2 bays
lofted, yet our room seems too little.90 We have no evidence that the
building of the meeting house dictated the survival of the society, but with
its completion, for the first time the society had its own space. While
Quakers often worshiped in Friends homes, the societys leaders realized
that having a dedicated place for worship was extremely important if a
pocket of believers were to survive, and actively encouraged the building
of meeting houses.91 In contrast, Henry Roots death signaled the end of
his society because without him, it had no focus. With no leader, and no
space to call its own, it reverted to the small groups and devout individuals
that it had been when Root lived. Counterfactual history is a fools game,
but it seems likely that if Heywood had died before building his meeting
house, members of his society would have scattered and joined one of the
many other dissenting societies in and around Northowram. However,
once they had a building, they had to find a new minister. Heywood built
it, so Dickinson had to come.
After such a long discussion of the role of individuals in creating
Heywoods society, it seems anticlimactic to conclude that the key factor
was a building. But the construction of such a large building, which stood
until its replacement with an even larger structure in 1836, would have
been impossible without Heywoods tireless ministry and the equally
heroic efforts of his followers. While the meeting house became known as
Heywood Chapel, all of the members of his society played a role in its con-
struction. If the society survived Heywoods death because of the meeting
house, the fact remains that the building existed only because Heywood
and his followers spent nearly four decades together creating a religious
community strong and vibrant enough to require such an impressive
structure; deliberately or not, Heywood and his followers created the con-
ditions necessary for the communitys survival.

90Heywood, Diaries, iv:131.

91Davies, The Quakers in English Society, p. 78.
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 INDEX

Individuals marked with an asterisk (*) were members of Heywoods society.

Alverthorpe, parish of86n, 14244 Brooksbank, Samuel60

Ambler, Abraham112 Brown, Edward5152
Angier, John17, 20, 131, 134, 135n, 187 Burnet, Gilbert101
Anne I99 Bury, Elkanah18081
Archer, Isaac17, 20, 423, 66 Butler, Susannah185
Arminianism104 Butler, William*107n, 148, 158n
Armitage, John*30, 65n Butterworth, Benjamin188
Ashworth, Abraham*127 Butterworth, Edmund112
Butterworth, John*148, 16264
Bairstow, Martha15354
Balme, Isaac*125 Calverley, parish of124, 191
Bancroft, John*164 Calvinism18, 39, 50
Bancroft, Timothy*107n, 127 Charles II22, 58, 712, 74, 95
Bancroft, Widow8081 Childbirth131, 136
Barker, Elizabeth*126, 156 Church of England37, 4950, 5354, 56,
Bates, Daniel178 7071, 93, 99, 10406, 14243
Bates, James115 Clarendon Code36, 46, 47, 60, 80, 88, 95,
Bates, Nathan*107, 148, 16264 155, 180n
Baxer, Nathaniel105 Clay, William*135n, 155, 156, 159, 177n, 182n
Baxter, Jeremiah*105, 177, 179 Clayton, Susannah124, 126
Baxter, Richard3840, 41n, 44, 59, 72, 136n Colesby, John85
Beely, Sam30 Coley Chapelry
Bellers, Fulk172 Curates1923, 3637, 5055, 56
Bentley, Eli11n, 18 103 Topography1112
Bentley, Sarah184 Common Prayer, Book of22, 54, 85
Bentley, Thomas*107, 163 Community110, 15, 21, 23, 2527, 40,
Binns, Martha*153, 18889 4345, 5051, 14546, and passim
Birch, John5556 Conventicles/Conventicle Act55, 58, 72,
Birstall124 80, 8384, 8688, 9093, 106, 118,
Bolton (Lancs.)17, 24, 192 134n, 159
Bolton, William142 Conversion5963, 12526, 150, 152, 178
Boocock, Richard64 Copley, Mr. (JP)8687
Booth, Elizabeth60 Corlas, Williamchap 4 passim, esp. 9799
Bossy, John79 Cowper, Sarah169, 172n, 184
Boyle, George (daughter of)60 Craven Deanery24, 70, 72, 151, 164, 166,
Bradford, parish of16, 84, 124, 179, 182n, 191 177, 183n
Brearcliffe, John*106, 107, 11314 Craven, Sarah113
Brian Crowther Charity112, 113, 114 Critchlaw family17, 19
Brigge, Esther109n, 11011 Crook, Jeremiah60
Briggs, William91 Crowther, Hannah188
Broadley, Mirchael*126 Crowther, Isabel178
Brooksbank, James*107n, 140n, 142, Crowther, Samuel11718
14344, 159
Brooksbank, John180 DEwes, Simonds11112
Brooksbank, Mary*157 Dawson, Abraham31
210 index

Dawson, Joseph*11n, 81 Heywood, Alice (mother)17

Defoe, Daniel1011 Heywood, Eli (son)*20, 149, 15051, 168n
Dickinson, Thomas19293 Heywood, Elizabeth (first wife)20
Drake, Daniel612, 63, 178 Heywood, John (son)*20, 62, 149,
Drake, Mary*11011, 18182 15051, 168n
Driver, Henry111 Heywood, Nathaniel (brother)18, 53
du Tihl, Arnauld16 Heywood, Oliver*
Books by4748, 71, 77, 105, 108, 126, 127,
Elizabeth I13, 14, 94 159n, 170, 181, 187, 191
Ellis, Stephen8485 Catechizing445, 18792
Ellis, William111 Curacy36, 3745, chap. 2 passim
Ellison, Timothy5355 Diaries2732, 35
Exclusion Crisis76, 101 Education18
Ejection2223, 357, 4549, 50
Fane, Francis82 His horses18, 168, 1745, 183
Fastssee Prayer meetings Illnesses44, 17273
Favour, John1516, 130 Manuscript publication18183
Fielden, Abrham113 Old age19, 27, chap. 7
Firth, Thomas113 Parents178
Fisden, Mr. (preacher at Coley)51 Religious Society2127, chaps 56
Five Mile Act24, 467, 48, 50, 54, 67 Sermons41, 579, 82, 846, 912,
Forgery5354 12527, 13132, 13334, 171, 175, 17982,
Foster, John137, 179, 182n 185, 18788
Frankland, Richard151, 192 Heywood, Richard (father)17
Frewen, Accepted71 Higgins, Joseph111
Higson, Ralph*107
Gee, Edward140 Hill, Robert645
Gill, Daniel*10607, 115, 116 Hodgson, Hannah*157
Gill, Thomas*107n, 148 Hodgson, John*11314, 135, 137, 150, 155, 157
Goodwin, John124, 15758 Holden, Nathaniel110
Greenhalgh, Thomas9294 Holdsworth, Alice (Mellen)*160
Grindal, Edmund15, 94 Holdsworth, Samuel*142, 14344, 145, 146,
160, 177n
Halifax, parish of Holstead, Anne (Bolton)*130n, 157,
Administration11 158n, 159
Map of12 Holstead, Enoch159
Puritanism in1516 Holstead, James*130n, 136, 157, 158n,
Religion in1416 159, 164
Social Structure1214 Holt, Tim151, 187
Topography1011 Hooke, Richard2, 23, 35, chap. 3 passim,
Voluntary support for clergy14 978, 10203, 105
Hall, Samuel188 Hoole, John523, 55, 578, 105
Hall, Stephen*127, 188n Hopkinson, Samuel124, 128, 148
Hammond, Samuel18 Horton, Joshua (Jr.)125
Hanson, John*125 Horton, Joshua (Sr.)*756, 125
Hanson, Thomas (junior)97, 102 Horton, Justice82
Hanson, Thomas (senior)10102, 111, 117 Hough, Edmund96, chap. 4 passim
Hargreaves, Mr.19 Hough, Lydia (wife of Eli Bentley)103
Hartley, David110 Hoyle, Richard97n, 106, 113, 114
Hartley, John178 Hurd, Susan*12627, 173n
Haworth, James111 Hurd, William*135n, 148
Henry, Matthew41
Hey, John102, 103n, 177 Indulgence, Declaration of58, 745, 81,
Heywood, Abigail Crompton (second 125, 163
wife)*201, 106n, 15354, 17879, 18182 Ingham, Mary*11011
 index211

Jackson, Joseph142 Parkhurst, Thomas77n

James I14 Parratt, Francis10405, 110
James II/Duke of York90, 93, 95 Pattison, Mr. (curate at Coley)56
Jessop, Francis87 Pepys, Samuel28
Jollie/Jolly, Thomas18, 64n, 67n, 80, 84, Persecution79, 2325, 50, chap. 3 passim,
1423, 154, 164, 17071, 173, 181n 1589, 16062
Josselin, Ralph43n, 46n, 66, 124, 135n Pickles, Daniel60
Pollard, Edmund*127, 173n
Kershaw, Esther*127 Pollard, William11718
Kershaw, John*30, 134 Pool, Jacob112
Kershaw, Timothy*127 Popery73, 93, 95, 105
Kilby, Richard188 Prayer meetings21, 2426, 86, 12527,
Kitchingman, William11516 13438, 158, 16265, 17980, 18586
Young men26, 14953, 15455, 18990
Langley, Richard31, 6163 Young women15255
Lea, Anthony*142, 1434, 156, 160, 177n Pregnancy127, 136
Leeds, parish of11n, 16, 51, 77, 91, 118, 177 Preston, Edward (wife of)60
Longbottom, Mary60 Priestley, Jonathan*135, 14445, 160, 161,
Lord, Simon60 177, 183
Lowe, Roger1289, 136, 137, 13840, Priestley, Nathaniel*11n, 107, 151n
15152 Prime, Edward512
Lund, Henry118 Prince, Mary63
Providence, divine1819, 28, 32, 44, 8485,
Machin, John63 152, 17273
Marriage17, 20, 94, 125, 12830, 146, 160
Martindale, Adam1920, 40, 44, 171 Quakers8, 36, 40, 74n, 78, 81, 85, 88, 901,
Maud, Mrs.18081 95, 10405, 1089, 135, 161n, 193
Menoccio16 Quarter Sessions87, 901, 159
Midgley, Martha*128
Milner, Abraham106 Ramsden, John*136n, 142, 14344
Mitchell, James102 Ramsden, Robert*107n, 131, 136
Mitchell, Martha177 Ratliff, a young scholar82
Moore, Mr. (preacher at Coley)5051 Rearsby, John87
Morehouse, John30 Religious rituals79, 267, 389, 145
Morrice, Matthew86 Baptism389, 179, 18789
Mountney, Francis82 Lords Supper21, 24, 26, 3843, 12627,
131, 1423, 14346, 148, 164, 184
Nathaniel Waterhouse Charity112, 11314 Roachdale24
Naylor, Anthony*159, 161 Robinson, John53
Naylor, William*128n, 156, 1589 Rooks, Mr.11718
Neighborliness79, 645, 912 Root, Henry11n, 162n, 185, 19293
Newcome, Henry17, 28, 32n, 40, 51, 62n,
63, 656, 104n Scarborough, Richard107
Nickol, John*148 Shaw, John40, 82
Nolson, John106 Sheils, W.J.14, 16, 22, 23, 25, 130, 161
Sheldton, Gilbert701
Oates, James914 Sinners18, 21, 38, 40, 42, 6166, 178
Oates, James*128 Slaithwaite24
Oates, Josiah177 Smith, James*140
Old Age Smith, John124, 128
Defined16969 Smith, John*128
Green old age1689 Smith, Matthew16465, 166n, 183
Physical decay169, 17677 Sonier, Isaac*123, 125, 128n, 149, 151, 190n
Providence and17173 Sonier, Joshua125, 177n, 190n
Owen, John16 Sowerby75, 76, 111, 132, 162, 185
212 index

Spencer, Henry60 Tillotson, Susan*179, 184

Stansfield, Joseph154 Toleration, Act of48
Stansfield, Joshua*18182 Toleration, religious9, 23, 68, 74,
Stansfield, Timothy148, 162 8689, 95
Starkey, Samuel60 Tnnies, Ferdinand34
Starkey, Timothy6162, 63 Tory Reaction43, 71, 76, 81, 867, 8996
Stead, Samuel111n, 116
Sterne, Richard10001 Uniformity, Act of45, 47
Sterne, Simon13, 96, 97101, 10809, 11112,
11419 Wade, Mr. (JP)86
Stevenson, John65 Wadington, James*1634
Stocks, Jeremiah188 Walker, Abraham9798, 101
Stocks, Joshua188 Walker, William114
Swift, Henry45 Wallington, Nehemiah129, 137, 13840, 180
Walton, John111n, 115
Taylor, John (poet)10 Ward, George137
Tenant, Giles61, 177 Ward, Samuel31
Tetlaw, Dinah*158 Warley124, 128, 133, 16365, 18081,
Tetlaw, Eliezer125, 189n 18384
Tetlaw, Hannah*130n Watson, Jeremiah148
Tetlaw, James*126, 149, 151, 15556, Whitley, Joshua88
157, 190n Whitley, Nathaniel8081
Tetlaw, Martha*157, 190n Whitley, Thomas106
Tetlaw, Mercy*188n Wilkinson, John163
Thomas, Grace109 Wilkinson, Susanna*173
Thomas, Mary109 William III & Mary II8, 48, 97, 102, 177
Thomas, William109 Wilson, William101
Thoresby, Anna9394 Wittar, Mr.162
Thoresby, Ralph5, 51, 77, 934, 1034 Women98, 10812, 139, 15255, 15758,
Thornhill, Thomas82 17980, 182n
Thornton-in-Craven70, 72, 97, 102, Wood, Joseph*107n, 124, 126, 137
103, 165 Woods, James128, 138, 140
Thorpe, Richard82 Worrell, Theohilous111