Note 28 — HISTORY

In Virginia recurrent English fears of Catholic domination were reflected at this time in hysterical rumors that the Roman Catholics of Maryland were plotting to stir up the Indians against Virginia. In Stafford County these suspicions were inflamed by the harangues of Parson John Waugh, minister of Stafford Parish church and Chotank church. Waugh, who seems to have been a rabble rouser, appealed to the same small landholders and malcontents as those who, a generation earlier, had followed Nathaniel Bacon’s leadership. So seriously did the authorities at Jamestown regard the disturbance at Stafford courthouse that they sent three councillors to investigate. See “Notes,” William & Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine (Richmond, 1907), 1st ser., vol. 15, pp. 189-190 (hereinafter designated WMQ) [1]; and Richard Beale Davis’ introduction to William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World, op. cit. (footnote 3), pp. 35-39, and p. 251.