only year in which his academy received no accessions) he retired to Hart Barrow, near to Cartmell Fell, just inside the Lancashire border, and so convenient for escaping a writ for either county. Late in 1686 Frankland availed himself of James II's arbitrary exercise of the dispensing power, took out a fifty shilling dispensation, and removed to Attercliffe, a suburb of Sheffield, Yorkshire. He left Attercliffe at the end of July 1689, in consequence of the death of his favourite son, and returned to Rathmell. His pupil Timothy Jollie [q .v.], independent minister at Sheffield, began another academy at Attercliffe on a more restricted principle than Frankland's, excluding mathematics ‘as tending to scepticism.’
Frankland carried his academy with him back to Rathmell, and during the remaining nine years of his life he admitted nearly as many students as in the whole previous period of over nineteen years. His congregation also throve, and he maintained harmony among its members at a time when many were beginning to relax their hold of the Calvinism to which he himself adhered. But while the Toleration Act protected him as a preacher, hardly a year passed without some fresh attempt on the part of the authorities to put down his academy. For not answering a citation to the archbishop's (Lamplugh) court he was again excommunicated; at the instance of Lord Wharton and Sir Thomas Rokeby, William III ordered his absolution, which was read in Giggleswick Church. Soon after the consecration of Sharp as archbishop of York (5 July 1691) new alarm was excited by the assembling of twenty-four nonconformist ministers at Wakefield (2 Sept.) to consider the ‘heads of agreement’ sent down from London as an irenicon between the presbyterian and independent sections. Frankland was the senior minister present, and earnestly promoted the union. Next year the clergy of Craven petitioned Sharp to suppress the academy. Sharp wrote to Tillotson for advice. Tillotson evidently did not like the business, and suggested to Sharp (14 June 1692), as ‘the fairest and softest way of ridding’ his ‘hands of’ it, that he should see Frankland and explain that the objection to licensing his academy was not based upon his nonconformity. His school was not required in the district, and it was contrary to the bishop's oath to license public instruction in ‘university learning.’ Sharp saw Frankland after a confirmation at Skipton and invited the nonconformist to Bishopthorpe. Here, with the help of a pipe of tobacco and a glass of good wine, a very friendly interview took place in the library, Sharp courteously declining controversy and inviting confidential hints about the state of the diocese (Frankland to Thoresby, 6 Nov. 1694). The archbishop's goodwill did not stop further proceedings. From a letter of Richard Stretton, presbyterian minister at Haberdashers' Hall, London, to Ralph Thoresby, it appears that early in 1695 there was a prosecution against Frankland; on 10 Feb. the indictment was quashed. In 1697 he was brought before the spiritual court, but at Michaelmas the case was postponed, apparently by the archbishop's order. Calamy states that his troubles continued till the year of his death, but no further particulars are available. Oliver Heywood's diaries are full of references to the academy and its students, and to Frankland's labours at ordinations.
His health began to break in 1697, when he was troubled with gravel. But he persevered in his work to the last, and died in the midst of his scholars on 1 Oct. 1698. He was buried on 5 Oct. in Giggleswick Church, where his daughters placed an ornate mural tablet to his memory, being a facsimile of the monument to John Lambert, son of Major-general Lambert, in Kirkby Malham Church. His portrait, taken in early life, is in Dr. Williams's Library. His funeral sermon was preached some time after by John Chorlton [q. v.], who transferred the ‘northern academy’ to Manchester; the institution has continued with few interruptions to the present day. It is now the Manchester New College, removed in 1889 from London to Oxford. In the charge of the presbyterian congregation at Rathmell, Frankland was succeeded by James Towers.
He married Elizabeth Sanderson of Hedley Hope, in the parish of Brancepeth, Durham (buried 5 Jan. 1691), and had at least two sons (1. John, born 13 Aug. 1659, entered the academy 3 May 1678, and died in June 1679, ‘the strongest man of his age in and about Natland;’ 2. Richard, baptised 8 June 1668, entered the academy 13 April 1680, died of the small-pox, and was buried at Sheffield 4 May 1689) and three daughters (1. Barbary, born 16 April 1661, and buried 5 Aug. 1662; 2. Elizabeth, baptised 25 Aug. 1664 (this is the ‘Mrs. Frankland’ mentioned by Oliver Heywood as collecting materials for a memoir of her father); 3. Margaret, married 19 June 1701 to Samuel Smith (d. 1732) of York).
He published only ‘Reflections on a Letter writ by a nameless Author to the Reverend Clergy of both Universities,’ &c., London and Halifax, 1697, 4to (B.M. 4103, aaa. 9). The tract is excessively rare; from the state
