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‘The Surey Demoniack’: Defining Protestantism in 1690s Lancashire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Jonathan Westaway  and
Richard D. Harrison
Jonathan Westaway
Affiliation:
University of Lancaster
Richard D. Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Lancaster
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Extract

Between 29 April 1689 and 24 March 1690 a number of Dissenting ministers in northern Lancashire conducted a series of meetings at which they examined the eighteen-year-old Richard Dugdale. A gardener by trade, Dugdale had been exhibiting what he and his family claimed were evidences of demonic possession. The Dissenting ministers involved were all convinced of the supernatural origins of Dugdale’s strange behaviour, and over the course of the year regularly prayed and fasted in an attempt to exorcise the young man. These meetings ended as abruptly as they began in March 1690, when the ministers claimed to have successfully exorcised him. Seven years after the final meeting a narative of these events was published by two of the Dissenting minsters involved, a step that provoked a hostile exchange of pamphlets. These pamphlets, commonly referred to as the Surey Demoniack pamphlets, form the basis of this article.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 32: Unity and Diversity in the Church , 1996 , pp. 263 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1996

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References

1 Anon. [Thomas Jolly enlarged by John Carrington], The Surey Demoniack or An Account of Satans Strange and Dreadful Actings In and about the Body of Richard Dugdale of Surey, near of Whalley in Lancashire; And how he was Dispossessed by God’s Blessing on the Fastings and Prayers of divers Minister and People. The Matter of Fact attested by the Oaths of Several Credible Persons before some of His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace in the said County (London, 1697) [hereafter The Surey Demoniack]; Taylor, Z., The Surey Imposture: Being an Answer to a late Fanatical Pamphlet Entituted The Surey Demoniack> (London, 1697)Google Scholar [hereafter The Surey Imposture]; [Thomas Jolly], T. J., A Vindication of the Surey Demoniack as no Imposture: or, A Reply to a certain Pamphlet Publish ‘d by Mr. Zach. Taylor, called The Surey Impostor With a further clearing and Confirming of the Truth as to Richard Dugdale’s Case and Cure by T.J. One of the Ministers who attended on that Affair from first to last: but replies only to Matters of Fact, and as he therewithal is more especially concerned. To which is annexed a brief Narrative of the Surey Demoniack, drawn up by the same Author, or the satisfaction of such who have not seen the former Narrative (London, 1698)Google Scholar [hereafter Jolly’s Vindication]; N. N., The Lancashire Levite Rebuk’d: Or, A Vindication of the Dissenters From Popery, Superstition, Ignorance, and Knavery, unjustly Charged on them by Mr. Zachary Taylor, in his Book Entituled, The Surey Imposture. In a Letter to Himself By an Impartial Hand With an Abstract of the Surey Demoniack (London, 1698) [hereafter The Lancashire Levite]; Taylor, Z., Popery, Superstition, Ignorance, and Knavery, Very Unjustly by a Letter In the General pretended: But as far as was Charg’d very fully proved upon the Dissenters that they were concerned in The Surey Imposture (London, 1698)Google Scholar [hereafter Popery, Superstition … Knavery]; N. N., The Lancashire Levite Rebuk’d: Or, A Farther Vindication Of The Dissenters From Popery, Superstition, Ignorance, and Knavery; Unjustly Charged on Them, By Mr. Zachary Taylor, In his Two Books about the Surey Demoniack. In a Second Letter to Himself (London, 1698) [hereafter The Lancashire Levite Farther Rebuk’d]; Taylor, Z., Popery, Superstition, Ignorance, and Knavery Confess’d, and fully Proved on the Surey Dissenters from the Second Letter of an Apostate Friend, to Zach. Taylor. To which is added, A Refutation of Mr. T. Jollie’s Vindication of the Devil in Dugdale; Or, the Surey Demoniack (London, 1699)Google Scholar [hereafter cited as distinct works, Knavery Confess‘d and A Refutation of the Vindication].

2 Notestein, W., A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 (New York, 1965), pp. 315–20 Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., p. 318.

4 Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Belief in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England (London, 1971), p. 585 Google Scholar.

5 See Nightingale, B., Lancashire Nonconformity: Sketches, Historical and Descriptive, of the Congregational and old Presbyterian Churches in the County, 6 vols (Manchester, 1890-3)Google Scholar; idem, History of the Old Independent Chapel, Tockholes, near Blackburn (Manchester, 1886); Axon, E., ‘Ellenbrook chapel and its seventeenth century ministers’, Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society [hereafter TLCAS], 38 (1920), pp. 1–34 Google Scholar; Nicholson, F. and Axon, E., The Older Nonconformity in Kendal (Kendal, 1915)Google Scholar.

6 Higson, P. J. W., ‘Some leading promoters of Nonconformity and their association with Lancashire chapelries following the Revolution of 1688’, TLCAS, 75 (1965-6), pp. 123–63 Google Scholar.

7 Higson, ‘Promoters of Nonconformity’, p. 163, n. 193.

8 Watts, M. R., The Dissenters: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford, 1978), p. 509 Google Scholar.

9 Albers, J. M., ‘“Seeds of Contention”: Society, Politics and the Church of England in Lancashire 1689-1790’ (Yale Ph.D. thesis, 1988)Google Scholar.

10 Richardson, R. C., Puritanism in North West England: A Regional Study of the Diocese of Chester to 1642 (Manchester, 1972), p. 15 Google Scholar.

11 Gastrell, F., Notitia Cestrensis, or Historic Notice of the Diocese of Chester, ed. Raines, F.R., 2 vols in 4, Chetham Society, 1st ser., 8, 19, 21-2 (Manchester, 1845-50), 2/i, pp. 297–347 Google Scholar.

12 Glassey, L. K. J., Politics and the Appointment offustices of the Peace, 1675-1720 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 274–7 Google Scholar.

13 Fishwick, Henry, The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas folly, AD 1671-1693; Extracts from the Church Book of Altham and Wymondhouses, AD 1649-1725; and An Account of the Jolly Family of Standish, Gorton, and Altham, Chetham Society, ns 33 (Manchester, 1894)Google Scholar; Nightingale, Lancashire Noncon formity, 1, passim; Matthews, A.G., Calamy Revised, being a Revision of Edmund Calamy’s Account of the Ministers and Others Ejected and Silenced, 1660-2 (Oxford, 1934), p. 301 Google Scholar; Gordon, A., Freedom after Ejection: A Review (1690-92) of Presybterian and Congregational Nonconformity in England and Wales (Manchester, 1917), p. 293 Google Scholar.

14 The Surey Demoniack, p. 1.

15 Watts, The Dissenters, pp. 289-97.

16 Nuttall, G. F., ‘Assemblies and Association in Dissent, 1689-1831’, SCH, 7 (1971), pp. 298–9 and 302Google Scholar. Minutes for fifteen general meetings of the Lancashire Association, April 1693-August 1700, were published in an appendix to Shaw, William A., ed., Minutes of the Manchester Presbyterian Classis, 1646-1660, part 3, Chetham Society, ns 24 (Manchester, 1891), pp. 349—64 Google Scholar. They provide evidence that delegates from the Northern District of the Association, especially Jolly, were a fractious element.

17 Jolly’s Vindication, p. iv: ‘Another great end was, that we might take the opportunity to serve the saving good of those multitudes that resorted to the meetings upon this occassion: However that it might be a Testimony for God and against the impenitent.’

18 The Surey Demoniack, p. 21: ‘Seven Romanists, whereof Two at least seem’d Priests, did one Mid-night undertake Richard in his fit, where Satan, and some of the seven did long talk to one another in a Language unknown.’ More generally see Blackwood, B. G., ‘Plebeian catholics in later Stuart Lancashire’, NH, 25 (1989), pp. 153–73 Google Scholar.

19 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 571.

20 Watts, The Dissenters, p. 281, for an explanation of the weakness of Independency in Lancashire.

21 Ibid., pp. 267-89 and 491-510. Watts’s analysis of the Evans List c.1715-19 enumerated 42 Presbyterian congregations in Lancashire with 16,630 hearers, representing 8.48% of an estimated county population of 196,120. This was the highest percentage of Presbyterians in any county in England. The Evans List records only 3 Independent congregations in Lancashire, with 1,370 hearers, 0.70% of the population. These 3 were all in sparsely populated upland parishes.

22 Ibid., pp. 167-8.

23 Notably Sir Henry Ashurst, Bart (1642-1711): ibid., pp. 220-1; Fishwick, Note Book, pp. 27-8. Krey, Gary Stuart, A Fractured Society: the Politics of London in the First Age of Party, 1688-1715 (Oxford, 1985), p. 89 Google Scholar.

24 The Mather Papers, Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th ser., 8 (Boston, 1868), pp. 317-19.

25 Ibid., pp. 319–22. Two further letters are extant, discussing covenant renewal and the synod, pp. 322-7. From Jolly’s Note Book we know that Jolly also received a letter from Increase in December 1677, discussing the Half-Way Covenant, Fishwick, Note Book, pp. 32–3.

26 Hall, Michael, The Last American Puritan the Life of Increase Mather, 1639-1723 (Wesleyan, Conn., 1988), pp. 148–54 Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., pp. 170-4. Mather, Increase, Kometographia, Or a Discourse Concerning Comets (Boston, 1683)Google Scholar; The Doctrine of Divine Providence (Boston, 1684); and An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (Boston, 1684).

28 In Jolly’s Vindication, p. 47, Jolly cites learned sources on the signs of possession; James 1, Cudworth and ‘Mr. Mather’s Essay as to remarkable providences’.

29 Mather, Cotton, Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions (Boston, 1689)Google Scholar, Late Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possession. The Second Impression. Recommended by the Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter in London, and by the Ministers of Boston and Charlestown in New England (London, 1691). Keeble, N. H. and Nuttall, G. F., eds, The Calendar and Correspondence of Richard Baxter, Vol. 2, 1660-1696 (Oxford, 1991), p. 307 Google Scholar.

30 The Surey Demoniack, Preface, first page.

31 The Surey Demoniack, Preface, refering to Mather, Increase, A Further Account of the Tryals of the New England Witches (London, 1693)Google Scholar, published with Cases of Conscience. It is perhaps ironic that had The Surey Demoniack been bound with this edition it would have appeared alongside Increase Mather’s Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits. First published in Boston in 1682, it contained Increase’s critique of the use of spectral evidence in the Salem witchcraft trials, demanding a stronger basis of evidence in capital cases concerning witchcraft. Therefore by the 1690s even Mather was moving away from simplistic providentialism and was applying a more empiricist approach.

32 Nathaniel was a keen promoter and contributor to his brother’s works. He provided Increase with stories for Illustrious Providences; see Hall, David D., Worlds of Wonder, Days of judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (New York, 1989), p. 85 Google Scholar. He contributed a sermon to Increase’s The Doctrine of Divine Providence and saw into print Samuel’s sermons hen (London, 1680), and Samuel’s magnum opus, Figures and Types in the Old Testament, which went into print in London in 1683 and 1685, reprinting in 1695.

33 London, Dr Williams’s Library, MS 12.78.7, Nathaniel Mather to Thomas Jolly, 3 April 1691: ‘Not that I am against communion with Presbyterian churches but this way of proceeding I look on as sinful.’

34 Bolam, C. G.,Goring, J.,Short, H. L. and Thomas, R., The English Presbyterians: From Elizabethan Puritanism to Modem Unitarianism (London, 1968), pp. 102–25 Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., p. 122.

36 The Surey Demoniack, pp. 51-64.

37 Ibid., Preface.

38 Taylor, Popery, Superstition, … Knavery, p. 10.

39 Matthews, Calamy Revised, p. 386. Halley, R., Lancashire, Its Puritanism and Nonconformmity (Manchester, 1869), pp. 175 and 177–8 Google Scholar; Taylor, Popery, Superstition, … Knavery, p. 17; T confes, an ingenious friend of mine, a Dissenting Minister, intimated to me his Endeavours to supress that pamphlet.’

40 London. Dr Williams’s Library, MS 12.78.7, Papers of Thomas Jolly.

41 Mather, Increase, An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (New York, 1977), pp. 168–9 Google Scholar.

42 D. P. Walker, Unclean Spirits: Possession and Exorcism in France and England in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries (1981), pp. 52-73. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, pp. 576-80.

43 Hall, Worlds of Wonders, p. 85.

44 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 95.

45 Increase Mather, Illustrious Providences, p. 168.

46 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 128. Miller, Perry, The New England Mind (New York, 1939), p. 229.Google Scholar

47 Bolam et al.. The English Presbyterians, p. 123.

48 The relevant pamphlets are Z., [Taylor], Obedience and Submission to the Present Government Demon strated from Bishop Overall’s Convocation-book (London, 1690)Google Scholar and [Taylor], Z., The Vindication of a Late Pamphlet, (Entituled, Obedience and Submission to the Present Government. Demonstrated from Bp. Overal’s Convocation-book) from the False Glosses, and Illusive Interpretations of a Pretended Answer (London, 1691)Google Scholar. For the Allegiance Controversy in general see Goldie, M. A., ‘The Revolution of 1689 and the structure of political argument: an essay and an annotated bibliography of pamphlets on the Allegiance Controversy’, Bulletin of Research in the Humanities, 83 (1980), pp. 473–564 Google Scholar.

49 The links between political and religious division in the 1690s have been explored in works by Bennet, G. V., The Tory Crisis in Church and State 1688-1730: The Career of Francis Atterbury Bishop of Rochester (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar; ‘Conflict in the Church’, in Holmes, G. S., ed., Britain after the Glorious Revolution 1689-1714 (London, 1969), pp. 155–75 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘King William III and the Episcopate’, in Bennet, G. V. and Walsh, J. D. eds, Essays in Modern Church History in Memory of Norman Sykes (London, 1966), pp. 104–31 Google Scholar. See also Holmes, G. S., Religion and Politics in Late Stuart England (London, 1975)Google Scholar; idem, The Making of a Great Power: Late Stuart and Early Hanoverian Britain 1660–1722 (London, 1993); idem, ‘Post-Revolution Britain and the Historian’, in Holmes, Britain after the Glorious Revolution, pp. 1-38.

50 See Weiner, C. Z. ‘The beleaguered isle: a study of Elizabethan and early Jacobean anti-Catholi cism’, PaP, 51 (1971), pp. 27—62 Google Scholar; Lake, P., ‘Anti-Popery: the structure of a prejudice ’, in Cust, R. and Hughes, A., eds, Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Politics and Religion 1603-1642 (London, 1989), pp. 72–106 Google Scholar; Clifton, R., ‘The Popular Fear of Catholics during the English Revolution’, PaP, 52 (1971), pp. 23–55 Google Scholar; Miller, J., Popery and Politics in England 1660-1688 (Cambridge, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kenyon, J. P., The Popish Plot (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Scott, J., ‘England’s troubles: exhuming the Popish Plot’, in Harris, T.,Seaward, P. and Goldie, M. A., eds, The Politics of Religion in Restoration England (Oxford, 1990), pp. 107–31 Google Scholar; Haydon, C., Anti-Catholicism in Eighteenth Century England c. 1714-1780: A Political and Social Study (Manchester, 1990)Google Scholar.

51 The Surey Imposture, p. 58.

52 Ibid., p. 1.

53 Ibid., p. 58.

54 Ibid., p. 59.

55 Ibid., pp. 67-9.

56 Taylor sets this relationship up in the preface to The Surey Imposture, and continues to explore it throughout the pamphlet.

57 Jolly’s Vindication, p. 43.

58 Popery, Superstition, … Knavery, p. 4.

59 Ibid., p. 5.

60 See The Diary of Dr Thomas Cartwrighl, Bishop of Chester, Camden Society, 1st sen, 22 (1843), pp. 74-6.

61 Popery, Supersition, … Knavery, p. 5.

62 Knavery Confess’d p. 9.

63 Ibid., p. 10.

64 The Surey Imposture, p. 69.

65 Ibid., p. 75.

66 The Lancashire Levite, pp. 12-13.

67 Bennet, ‘King William III and the Episcopate’, p. 129 shows that in 1696 and 1697, as the demoniack debate was in progress, Archbishop Tennison floated the idea of reviving comprehension in London circles.

68 The Lancashire Levite, p. 30.

69 The Lancashire Levite Farther Rehuk’d, p. 11.

70 Knavery Confess’d, p. 15.

71 Popery, Supersition, … Knavery, p. 8.

72 Knavery Confess’d, pp. 15-17.

73 Num. 16. 28-35.

74 Knavery Confess’d, p. 17.

75 The Lancashire Levite Farther Rebuk’d, p. 10.

76 Knavery Confess’d, pp. 18-19.

77 The Lancashire Levite, pp. 12-13; The Lancashire Levite Farther Rebuk’d, pp. 12-17.

78 Knavery Confess’d, p. 27.

79 Ibid., p. 29.

80 Ibid., pp. 27-9.

81 Ibid., p. 27.

82 Much of the ground regarding the composition of Lancashire’s Commission of the Peace is covered in Glassey, Politics and Justices of the Peace, pp. 277-85. and it is only intended to give a brief outline of this admirable analysis here.

83 Ibid., pp. 277-85.

84 Ibid., pp. 280-1.

85 Ibid., p. 282.

86 Historical Manuscripts Commission [HMC]: 14th Report, Appendix, Part IV: The Manuscripts of Lord Kenyon (London, 1894), no. 870, pp. 291–2: Thomas Marsden to Roger Kenyon, 2 April 1694.

87 Ibid., no. 1034, pp. 411-12: Roger Kenyon to Guicciardini Wcntworth, 13 September 1696.

88 Glassey, Politics and justices of the Peace, pp. 275-7.

89 Mullett, M. A., ‘The politics of Liverpool, 1660-1688’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 124 (1972), pp. 31–56 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Conflict, politics, and elections in Lancaster, 1660-1688’, NH, 19 (1983), pp. 61-86; idem, ‘“A Receptacle for Papists and an Assilum”: Catholicism and disorder in late seventeenth-century Wigan’, CalhHR, 73 (1987), pp. 391-407; idem, ‘“To Dwell Together in Unity”: the search for agreement in Preston politics, 1660-1690’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 125 (1974), pp. 61-81.

90 Preston, Lancashire Record Office [LRO], DDKe/4/9, Remarques upon the change in the Lieftenancy of Lancashire, nd, c.1689; Mullett, ‘“A Receptacle for Papists”’, pp. 404-7.

91 Glassey, Politics and Justices of the Peace, p. 275.

92 LRO, DDKe/9/66/11, and HMC, Kenyon, no. 813, pp. 273-4: Roger Kenyon to Guicciardini Wentworth, 22 July 1693.

93 For this phenomenon, which predated the Reformation, see Haigh, C., Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge, 1975)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 3, and Richardson, Puritanism in North West England, pp. 31-45.

94 See Evans, E.J., ‘The Anglican clergy of northern England’, in Jones, C., ed., Britain in the First Age of Parly, 1679-1750: Essays Presented to Geoffrey Holmes (London, 1986), pp. 221–40 Google Scholar.

95 These figures are extracted from the visitation of the diocese of Chester conducted by the Tory High Anglican Bishop, Francis Gastrcll. The Lancashire portion of this visitation is published as Gastrell, Notitia Cestrensis, 2 (in three parts, Chetham Society, 1st ser., 19, 21-2). Additional information has been extracted from Nightingale, Lancashire Nonconformity.

96 This is roughly comparable with the 10% of the Lancashire population which the Evans List discovered to be Dissenting hearers in 1718. See Watts, The Dissenters, p. 509.

97 See Higson, ‘Promoters of Nonconformity’, pp. 123-63 for a consideration of some of the chapels disputed in the 1690s.

98 Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Crawford MSS 47/3/78, List of Wigan In and Out Burgesses 1684.

99 Lowe, J., ‘The case of Hindley Chapel, 1641-1698’, TLCAS, 57 (1957), pp. 45–74 Google Scholar; Higson, ‘Promoters of Nonconformity’, p. 180; Jones, J. I., ‘The struggle between Conformists and Nonconformists in Hindley Chapel, 1641-1698’, Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, 7 (1939-42), pp. 31—49 Google Scholar; Gastrell, Notitia Cestrensis, 2/ii, pp. 254-7.