Thomas Jollie

He married Elizabeth Hall (d February 1689, aged 92), widow, of Droylsden, whose daughter by the former marriage was wife of Adam Martindale.

Thomas Jollie entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1645, two years earlier than Oliver Heywood, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship.

In 1655 Jennet, daughter of Robert Cunliffe, a member of parliament for Lancashire, was excommunicated for promising marriage to a papist (John Grimshaw) "against the advice of the church.

"[2] Jollie was one of twenty-one Lancashire ministers, presbyterian and independent, who met at Manchester on 13 July 1659 and subscribed ten articles of a proposed ‘accommodation’ between those two bodies.

His suspension was delayed by the death of his bishop, Henry Ferne, on 16 March 1662, but was carried into effect so as to prohibit him from preaching on 17 August.

He maintained that Dugdale's was ‘as real a possession as any in the gospels.’ With the aid of over twelve nonconforming divines, including Richard Frankland and Oliver Heywood, he tried exorcism by prayer and fasting.

Zachary Taylor (died 1703), vicar of Ormskirk, son of an ejected minister of the same name, wrote two tracts (1697–9) to expose the ‘popery’ and ‘knavery’ of this business.

John Carrington (died 1701), presbyterian minister at Lancaster, who had taken part in the exorcism, came forward in its defence; Frankland and Heywood were significantly silent.

[2] Though Jollie was a strong independent and a great stickler for his principles in the matter of ordination, he joined the ‘happy union’ of presbyterians and congregationalists, which was not introduced into Lancashire till 3 April 1693, when it had already been dissolved in London.