Many other agents were busy up and down the country, during the winter and the early part of the spring.

It does not appear that they had much success in the counties south of Trent.

But in the north, particularly in Lancashire, where the Roman Catholics were more numerous and more powerful than in any other part of the kingdom, and where there seems to have been, even among the Protestant gentry, more than the ordinary proportion of bigoted Jacobites, some preparations for an insurrection were made.

Arms were privately bought; officers were appointed; yeomen, small farmers, grooms, huntsmen, were induced to enlist.

Those who gave in their names were distributed into eight regiments of cavalry and dragoons, and were directed to hold themselves in readiness to mount at the first signal.