Before he was executed for his part in the Jacobite rebellion, Siddal had lived near Manchester in a farmhouse now altered and the home of the author of this book. Curious about Siddal's silence at the trial, Joy Hancox came to believe he had gone to the gallows to protect someone else. Her investigations revealed a close connection between Siddal and his neighbour John Byrom, a respected member - along with Newton, Wren and Hans Sloane - of The Royal Society. Byrom, who was known to harbour Jacobite sympathies, invented a system of shorthand (later developed by Pitman) which might well have provided protection against any charge of heresy after he formed his Cabala Club. Already his loyalty to the Stuarts had denied him a career at Cambridge and in the Church.