William III., on his way to Ireland, before the battle of the Boyne, embarked from Liverpool on June 14, 1690, and he probably met with but a poor reception from the Lancashire people, as everywhere in the county the Roman Catholics were dissatisfied at the expulsion of the Stuarts by the House of Orange. The unpopularity of the King gave rise to many plots against him, the last of which was known as the "Lancashire Plot," which, according to one authority,[164] was not only the parent but the companion of all the other conspiracies, and its origin was owing to the politics of James II., who, hoping to regain the crown, concerted with his friends, before his departure for France, that they should raise a ferment in England, and that some trusty person should be commissioned to carry out this scheme. The person selected for this commission was Dr. Bromfield, who, to suit his purpose, passed himself off as a Quaker,[165] and passed rapidly through the North of England to Scotland, sowing the seeds of discontent as he went along. From Scotland he proceeded to Ireland, and then returned to Lancashire, intending to make that county the centre of action. Caryl, Lord Molyneux, had, in 1687, been appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Lancashire in the place of Lord Derby; and it was to his house at Croxteth that Dr. Bromfield first proceeded on his return from Ireland; and here he found at all events a sympathizer, if not an active partisan. From Croxteth he went to an inn at Rhuddlan, in Flintshire, where he stayed for some time, and soon had a considerable number of visitors. From this place he made frequent visits to Ireland, by this means keeping up a safer communication with the exiled King and his friends in Lancashire. Suspicion having fallen on him, the vessel in which he crossed to Ireland was seized, but with the assistance of the landlord of the inn at Rhuddlan he made his escape and repaired to Ireland, where King James made him a Commissioner of the Mint. The Lancashire Plot included the murder of the King, and Colonel Parker, according to De la Rue, was the person who first propounded this portion of the plot to Lord Melford. Dr. Bromfield now found it absolutely necessary to have an active agent, who was to be at once unscrupulous and trustworthy. Such a man he thought he had secured in John Lunt, an Irishman by birth, but who was successively a labourer at Highgate, a coachman, a licensed victualler at Westminster, and one of King James's Guards, with a promise of a captaincy. Moreover, he was not a man of good character, as he had been tried for bigamy.