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 POLITICAL HISTORY with Wilmot that he should meet the king that night at Moseley, whither he set out accompanied by the five Penderels and their brother-in-law, all well armed, Charles riding on Humphrey Penderel's mill horse, of whose roughness he complained. ' Can you blame the horse, my liege,' said the miller, ' to go heavily when he has the weight of three kingdoms on his back ? ' At Moseley he arrived safely, meeting Wilmot, and while there a party of Round- heads came in pursuit, but Mr. Whitgreave's self-possession foiled them. In the evening of 9 September the king went on to Bentley Hall, where, next morning, Colonel Lane converted his royal master into a serving-man with the intention of taking him to Bristol, and mounting his sister behind him the party rode off for Stratford, where they arrived safely, although the king rode right through some Roundhead horse on the way, and that night he slept safely at Long Marston, about four miles beyond Stratford. At the Restoration the Parliament granted Mistress Lane 1,000 to buy a jewel for this service, 320 and the king granted an addition to the arms of the family. In the first Protectorate Parliament, summoned in September, 1654, in which the Conservative Puritans were in the majority, 321 several knights were ordered to be returned for each county, but few burgesses were summoned, and accordingly the county of Stafford sent three members, the Right Hon. Sir Charles Wolseley, bart., Col. Thomas Crompton, and Thomas Whitgreave ; Newcastle sent Edward Keeling of Wolstanton ; Stafford borough John Bradshawe, serjeant-at-law, who had presided at the king's trial ; Lichfield sent Thos. Miners, and Tamworth was unrepresented. In the Parliament of 1656 the representation of the county was similar, Stafford borough sent Martin Noele of London, Newcastle Col. John Bowyer, Lichfield Thos. Miners. 323 In the Cavalier Parliament the county and the four towns each again sent two members, who, as it lasted until January, 16789, were subject to many changes. The reign of terror which the infamous fabrications of Titus Gates brought upon the Roman Catholics found its victims in Staffordshire. At the assizes held in August, 1 679, nine persons were accused of being Popish priests, two of whom were ordered to be removed to London, and five being ' violently suspected to be Jesuits ' were to remain in custody till the next assizes that evidence might be accumulated against them. The remaining two, Andrew Bromwich and William Atkins, were indicted for high treason in- taking orders beyond the sea, and afterwards coming into England and seducing His Majesty's subjects to their popish religion, it being fully proved against them both that they had said mass and administered the sacrament in the popish manner to the witnesses that gave evidence against them, whereupon, after a full hearing they were both found guilty. 323 In the year 1715 Jacobitism seems to have been rampant in Stafford fanned by the zeal of the rector, who had ' by his uncharitable tenets and unchristian raillery so inflamed the minds of the unthinking that their insolence towards the Dissenters since his coming is almost unaccountable.' 32 * He was also very industrious in promoting the interest of Mr. Sneyd, who 10 Harwood, Erdeswick, 410. " Trevelyan, Engl. under the Stuarts, 307. >n Purl. Accts. and Paps. Ixii (i), 516. sn Domestic Intelligence, 26 Aug. 1679. 114 flying Post, 8 Sept. 1715. i 265 34 f