been missing for six months, apparently took part in the Battle of Brentford on the royalist side and was rumoured to be serving as chaplain to Prince Rupert. A committee of sequestrators was empowered to seize the property and income of the church and to pay "Samuell Fisher, Master of Arts, a Godly, Learned, and Orthodox Divine, who is hereby appointed and required to preach every Lords-day, and to officiate as Parson, and to take Care for the Discharge of the Cure of the said Place in all the Duties thereof..." The new incumbent resigned in 1646, which fits well with the re-appearance of Samuel Fisher in Shropshire in August of that year. Shrewsbury Appointment Fisher was appointed by Shrewsbury's council to St Mary's, at the latest on 21 August 1646. The date is given in Owen and Blakeway's 1805 History of Shrewsbury, which gives it also as the date on which the corporation voted Thomas Blake £5 annually as incumbent of St Alkmund's, so it may represent the date of his official confirmation in office, rather than his actual starting date. Rigg thought that it was here Fisher was "curate to Thomas Blake." A petition of 1596 to the corporation referred to a vacancy that then existed in the "Curatship of St. Maris," showing that the incumbent of St Mary's was generally known as the curate, as was the case at other Shrewsbury churches. Fisher was a curate alongside Blake, not to him or under him. He replaced James Betton, who had returned to Shrewsbury after it fell to Parliamentarians in February 1645 but later moved to Worthen. The terms were generous: the public preacher's salary of £46 13s. 4d. and an additional £20 from lands bought with a bequest. The other important incumbent in the town centre was Thomas Paget, elected curate of St Chad's by the congregation. He was an older man who had made a considerable impression in 1641 by presenting Parliament with a book by his brother John that advocated a Presbyterian polity. The Presbyterian project A Presbyterian reorganisation of the English Church was now a leading priority, in line with Parliament's promises to its Scottish Covenanter allies in the Civil War. Only eight counties got as far as attempting to put such a scheme into practice and Shropshire was one of them. The Shropshire scheme is outlined in a document, dated 29 April 1647,