Seditious Sectaries or “Sober and Useful Inhabitants”? Changing Conceptions of the Quakers in Early Modern Britain

On 1 June 1683, ten proprietors of East Jersey gathered in London for one of their periodic meetings to discuss colonial business. Of the ten, nine were Quakers, including Robert Barclay, Gawen Lawrie, and Edward Byllynge. The tenth, who served as the group’s treasurer, was the London attorney Robert West.’ Unknown to the Friends with whom he met was West’s involvement in the Rye House plotting, the first details of which Sir Leoline Jenkins, secretary of state, learned about eleven days later. On the 19th, the government began its crackdown on the conspirators, in part by issuing an order to search West’s chamber in the Temple. Three days later, West, now in custody, began providing the authorities a detailed account of the conspiracy to murder the king and James duke of York. Among those he implicated were other non-Quaker proprietors of East Jersey, including the barrister Nathaniel Wade and the attorney John Ayloffe, both of whom were involved in the assassination plot. As the authorities pursued the investigation, they learned of plans for a general uprising, at the heart of which were James duke of Monmouth and Lord William Russell.