In which discover a rabbit hole leading to the Orange

 Sometimes when I walk I listen to podcasts and books.  Sometimes I think. Sometimes the thinking has a musical accompaniment.  Sometimes I watch the rabbits.  The rabbits like Luddington churchyard. It is the driest bit of land for miles.  They have spread into the field to the east.  Mostly I see them around the mound the church stands on and on the path into the village.  Some are venturing into the Playing Field and nearby gardens.


This ‘journey’ is one great rabbit hole. I need an excuse to look at things and this gives me an excuse to look at about 4km of stuff a day.  I am becoming an connoisseur of Google Reviews - the one of the motorway bridge is still a favourite - and wiki pages.  The region to the north of us had more committed wikimites than here.  Some villages only have a brief mention in a single language.  This is surely a call to arms.  So, let's talk about William Lloyd, sometime Bishop of Worcester.



The fictional exploits of Henry Every, the archpirate, are currently being explored and fitted to the historical record by Tim Eagling.  He created a throwaway character on his way to Lichfield Cathedral in 1696 and I fell into the rabbit hole.  



What I like about William Lloyd’s wiki page is that it had all the standard stuff then new stuff was discovered and rather than a major rewrite and reedit it got a ‘Newer Perspectives’ section.


Lloyd was the son of a Vicar, with his roots in Anglesey, he was born in Berkshire in 1627. He went to Oxford and graduated with an MA in 1646.  The author of the wiki page does not seem it worth noting he was there during the Civil War. After the Restoration he became Prebended all over the place - Ripon, Salisbury, Bangor and St Paul’s. |He was also Archdeacon of Merioneth and in 1680 became Bishop of St Asaph.



In 1692 Lloyd became Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. He rebuilt Eccleshall Castle, a diocesan residence. Funnily enough I did some 1680s reenactment at the said Castle in the 1980s.  



In the early wiki entry he is noted as being dead against Catholicism - refusing to have the Declaration of Indulgence read in his diocese  It appears he was a bit more active than that.



Apparently Lloyd had been in secret communication with the Prince of Orange before 1685. He was one of the ones spreading rumours about the legitimacy of James the Old Pretender and had mobilised nonconformist opinion in North Wales against James II.  Professor William Gibson suggests Lloyd went out of his way to provoke conflict with James II to create the crisis. Lloyd went on to become Bishop of Worcester in 1699.  He died in 1717.



Are you enjoying the countryside.  It is very rocky, bleak and magnificent isn’t it.








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