Henry Danvers (Baptist)

Career

Danvers is thought to have attended Trinity College, Cambridge and like his father supported Parliament when the First English Civil War began in August 1642. While the details of his military service are unclear, in 1647 he was appointed to the Committee for Staffordshire, one of the Parliamentary bodies set up to administer local government during the civil war. Following the 1647 Putney Debates, he was associated with Thomas Harrison and other radicals in drafting the constitutional manifesto known as An Agreement of the People. In 1650, he was appointed Colonel of the Staffordshire Militia and governor of Stafford, a position he retained until 1652. During the 1650 to 1651 Anglo-Scottish War, he was commended by the English Council of State for raising troops to oppose the Scottish invasion which ended at the Battle of Worcester in September 1651.

Originally a religious Independent, during his time in Stafford Danvers became a General Baptist, a sect whose members included many radicals within the New Model Army and the Levellers. In early 1653, he was nominated to Barebone's Parliament as MP for Leicestershire and moved to London where he joined the church of Edmund Chillenden. In 1657, when he held the rank of major, Danvers, with Harrison, Vice-admiral Lawson, Colonel Rich, and other Baptists, was placed under arrest on suspicion of being concerned in a conspiracy against Oliver Cromwell's life.

A few months after Cromwell's death in September 1658, Danvers was appointed Commissioner of the Staffordshire Militia in June 1659 but lost all his offices following the 1660 Stuart Restoration. In June 1661, he was rumoured to be planning a rebellion in conjunction with Clement Ireton and in early 1662 was accused of involvement in an alleged plan to assassinate Charles II known as the "Tong Plot". He managed to evade arrest although four other conspirators were executed.

Around 1663, reports had Danvers in disguise visiting the ejected minister Anthony Palmer, and linked to other radical plotters: the imprisoned John Breman, George Joyce in the Netherlands, and John Toomes. He returned to London in August 1665 and was arrested but rescued by a crowd whilst being taken to the Tower of London. Danvers vested his estate with trustees, to shelter it; and was joint-elder of a Baptist congregation near Aldgate, London. In the late 1670s he supported Algernon Sidney in efforts to be elected a Member of Parliament. In December 1684 he published a seditious libel alleging the supposed suicide of Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex was in fact state-sponsored murder and the government offered a reward for his apprehension.

When the Catholic James II succeeded his brother Charles in February 1685, Danvers attended private meetings where William Disney briefed him and John Wildman on the planning for Monmouth's Rebellion. Although cautious not to commit himself, he may have agreed to raise London in favour of the Duke of Monmouth. Also involved in the London plotting was Matthew Meade, who lingered in Essex. Then Nathaniel Hooke was sent to London and Danvers, as Monmouth moved into Somerset. At first he said he would not take up arms till the duke was proclaimed king; and when Monmouth had been proclaimed, that republicans were absolved from all engagements to a leader who had broken faith. On 27 July 1687 a royal proclamation was issued commanding Danvers and others to appear before his majesty or to surrender themselves in twenty days. Danvers succeeded in escaping to the Dutch Republic, and died at Utrecht at the end of 1687.