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Believed to be the plotters' HQ
© Leeds Library and Information Service
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The competing legends of Farnley Wood |
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Betrayal
Joshua Greathead was a local squire, worth the reasonable amount of £400 a year. He had fought during the Civil War for Cromwell’s armies, even leading his own squadron. His faith in the Farnley Wood Plot faltered after a difference in opinion over the plot’s timing went against him. On being overruled, he began to secretly inform Royalist forces about the planned revolt. His information led to the execution of 26 men, among them, Greathead’s cousin Oates.
The plotters were held at Clifford's Tower, York
© Courtesy of Ian Britton, freefoto.com |
The involvement of Greathead gave rise to the accusation that those executed were in fact the innocent dupes of Royalist entrapment. This view certainly found adherents in the time. In 1716, writer Jonathan Priestley described the plot as a “pure piece of malice and revenge to draw in some not very ill-meaning people that had a favour for Oliver’s government”. An un-attributed document, written some time in the late 17th Century, purports to give an “exact relation” of the Farnley Wood Plot, or rather “pretended plott” as the anonymous writer refers to it. The role of Greathead merits particular attention in this attack on the punishment meted out to the insurgents.
"being instigated by the Devill, did make use of one Joshua Greathead of Gildersome as their instrument to seduce and draw severall psons into a combination and did craftily subtilly malitiously seduce and draw ye the same persons into a plot"
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