Philip Henry refused to take the oath, and his case proved one of peculiar hardship, for Broad Oak, where he lived, was but four _reputed_ miles from Worthenbury, where he had preached, although upon measurement the distance turned out to be above five miles. Reputed miles were, by the authorities, counted instead of measured miles, and consequently the good man was compelled to leave his family for a time, "and to sojourn among his friends, to whom he endeavoured, wherever he came, to impart some spiritual gift."[497] Several ministers in the Northern Counties escaped the penalties of the Conventicle and Five Mile Acts. This anomaly may be accounted for, in part, by remembering the scanty population in those districts, and the impossibility, under any circumstances, of maintaining such a vigilant oversight of the inhabitants as to detect all instances of disobedience. But the comparative exemption of some neighbourhoods in the North from the vigorous oppression experienced elsewhere, is also in part to be attributed to the influence of three noblemen who were Lord-Lieutenants, respectively, of the Counties of York, of Lancaster, and of Derby. The Lord-Lieutenant of Yorkshire was no other than the notorious Duke of Buckingham, who had married Lord Fairfax's daughter. Vicious and worthless as the Duke was, he had strong opinions in favour of toleration, if for no higher reason, at least from dislike to Clarendon's policy, and perhaps, too, from the influence of family connections.[498] This erratic Peer had engaged a Nonconformist minister as his chaplain, and when his mother-in-law, Lady Fairfax, died, he endeavoured to arrange for the funeral sermon being publicly preached by this gentleman.[499] The Lord-Lieutenant of Lancashire was the Earl of Derby; and of him, Newcome, the Presbyterian minister of Manchester, tells several stories indicative of his liberality. The Rector of Walton, a Heywood of Heywood, on one occasion asked the Earl to put down a Conventicle at Toxteth Park. "What did the people do there?" he asked. "Preach and pray," was the answer. "If that be all," replied the Earl, "why should they be restrained; will you neither preach nor pray yourselves, nor suffer others to preach and pray?" The Lord-Lieutenant of the County of Derby was the Earl of Devonshire, and he also disliked the persecuting measures. [Sidenote: NONENFORCEMENT OF LAW.]