laim the credit. More than a dozen of the dissenting
preachers, among them Richard Frankland, Oliver Heywood,[6] and other
well known Puritan leaders in northern England, had lent their support
to Thomas Jollie, who had taken the leading part in the praying and
fasting. From London, Richard Baxter, perhaps the best known Puritan of
his time, had sent a request for some account of the wonder, in order to
insert it in his forthcoming book on the spirit world. This led to a
plan for printing a complete narrative of what had happened; but the
plan was allowed to lapse with the death of Baxter.[7] Meantime,
however, the publication in London of the Mathers' accounts of the New
England trials of 1692[8] caused a new call for the story of Richard
Dugdale. It was prepared and sent to London; and there in some
mysterious way the manuscript was lost.[9] It was, however, rewritten
and appeared in 1697 as _The Surey Demoniack, or an Account of Strange
and Dreadful Actings in and about the Body of Richard Dugdale_. The
preface was signed by six ministers, including those already named; but
the book was probably written by Thomas Jollie and John Carrington.[10]
The reality of the possession was attested by depositions taken before
two Lancashire justices of the peace. The aim of the work was, of
course, to add one more contemporary link to the chain of evidence for
the supernatural. It was clear to the divines who strove with the
possessed boy that his case was of exactly the same sort as those in the
New Testament. Moreover, his recovery was a proof of the power of
prayer.

Now Non-Conformity was strong in Lancashire, and the Anglican church as
well as the government had for many years been at no little pains to put
it down. Here was a chance to strike the Puritans at one of their
weakest spots, and the Church of England was not slow to use its
opportunity. Zachary Taylor, rector of Wigan and chaplain to the Bishop
of Chester, had already familiarized himself with the methods of the
exorcists. In the previous year he had attacked the Catholics of
Lancashire for an exorcism which they claimed to have accomplished
within his parish.[11] Pleased with his new role, he found in Thomas
Jollie a sheep ready for the shearing.[12] He hastened to publish _The
Surey Impostor_,[13] in which, with a very good will, he made an assault
upon the reality of Dugdale's fits, charged that he had been
pre-instructed by the Catholics, and that the Non-Co