Being turned out by the Act of Uniformity, he preached in his own house, till a lecturer was provided, and then he went to church, preaching at home only in the evening, for which, Nov. 21, 1662, he was sent to York Castle, as he was also again upon the Conventicle Act. It has here to be stated that the Rotherham ex-vicar could well sympathise with Mr. Kirby, as he, Luke Clayton, had also been confined three months in York Castle, because, out of concern for the religious welfare of his Rotherham parishioners, he had dared to preach in the Church beyond the date of the Act of Uniformity to the January following 1663. He was the first of the Yorkshire ejected ministers to be so imprisoned. After his release from prison and ejection from his pulpit, he did not, however, allow himself to be unemployed in the Lord's service. Of his own devotion and free service he used to go up to Greasbro', then a neighbouring village, and minister at the old Chapel there to the farmers and villagers, and, though Greasbro' appertained to the Wentworth estates, Rotherham's ejected vicar appears to have had no prohibition from the family of the great Earl, who had been beheaded. There is, indeed, an interesting connection with Greasborough and the old Chapel Trust, inasmuch as for over a hundred years-perhaps going as far back as the time of Luke Clayton-10s. a year is payable on some Greasbro' cottages or land by Earl Fitzwilliam to the minister of Rotherham Chapel, the same probably having been bequeathed by some Puritan supporter of the ejected Puritan vicar. Of the year previous to the commitment of Mr. Clayton to York Castle, the following is a very interesting account :-Master Shawe relates, upon 20th June, 1662, “I with my family left the Charterhouse (Hull) and came and hired an house at Rotherham, where I now live, and in which towne I once was vicar. When I was come to Rotherham I preached there one part of the Lord's day (as Mr. Clayton did the other), and sometimes on the week day till that sad Bartholomew day, 1662. I still preached to my family, and often to others, yet without any considerable trouble." But something of the kind threatened in the following year, as he relates :-" On 7th Nov., 1663, myself, your mother, sisters, and divers others were at my son Staniforth's house [probably a large house in Westgate], in Rotherham, but being watched (and many observed to go in there) by a wicked, loose young fellow, Franc. Mountney [descendant of a former country family at Cowley], and his complices, this Mountney sent immediately to Sir Francis Fane, to Aston, for a warrant to apprehend us (supposing that there we prayed, or received the Lord's Supper,) or (as they called it) kept a conventicle there, but ere the warrant came we were departed, and gone to our several houses, and so nothing was proved against us, yet the next day we were carryed before Sir Francis, but nothing being proved we came off clear, and with honour; and the adversary with shame, who, I am sure, would never have accused us for drinking, or- -(whereof he was abominably guilty), or any wickednesse; but for (as he imagined) praying, preaching, or receiving the Lord's Supper." From this co-temporary recital we cannot but see that the Presbyterian and Puritan parties had never thoroughly vanquished the High Church Episcopalian party. It was something like our modern Elections-turn-and-turn-about-between our Conservative and Liberal representatives. Must it not have been sorely humiliating for the Presbyterians, who had maintained years of dominant ascendency, to knuckle under to their great opponents? PLACES OF THE FIRST NONCONFORMIST MEETINGS. We can well appreciate how those who had taken up arms and risked their lives on behalf of the thorough reform of the church would not desert the ministers who had been ejected by the Act of Uniformity. Nobly the laity rallied round the persecuted clergy. The families of Ravenfield, Firbeck, Car House, Meadow Hall, namely, the Westbys, Staniforths, Spencers, Brights gathered round the ejected vicars Shawe and Clayton. The ejected clergy of Sheffield, Attercliffe, Whiston, Treeton, and other surrounding parishes, also often assembled at Rotherham, which became a prominent Nonconformist centre. These ejected ministers, along with the many important families before mentioned, determined to hold worship together according to the Christian |