Nayler was elected F.S.A. on 27 March 1794, and in the following year sent a paper to the society on ‘An Inscription in the Tower of London,’ which is printed in the ‘Archæologia’ (xii. 193), accompanied by a plate representing the tablet erected in the Tower in 1608 by Sir William Waad, the then lieutenant, to commemorate the Gunpowder plot (cf. Archæologia, xviii. 29).
He also undertook a ‘History of the Coronation of King George IV,’ which he did not live to complete. For this work he engaged the services of Chalon, Stephanoff, Pugin, Wild, and other able artists. Parts i. and ii. were published in 1824, in atlas folio, price twelve guineas each. After Nayler's death the plates came into the hands of Henry George Bohn, and he made up parts iii. and iv., combining another contemporary work on the same subject by Whittaker, and republished the whole at twelve guineas in 1839.
In Lowndes's ‘Bibliographer's Manual’ (ed. Bohn, 1860, p. 1655) there is attributed to Nayler an anonymous publication entitled ‘A Collection of the Coats of Arms borne by the Nobility and Gentry of Gloucestershire,’ 4to, 1786 (2nd ed. 1792); it was in reality the work of one Ames, an engraver at Bristol, Nayler being merely one of the subscribers.
Nayler formed a collection of private acts of parliament, which is now in the library of the city of London at Guildhall. It is in thirty-nine volumes, and each act is illustrated in manuscript, with a pedigree denoting the persons named in it. The series commences about 1733 and extends to 1830. Each volume is indexed. Nayler likewise made a collection of impressions from coffin-plates, which fills fourteen volumes, and is now in the British Museum, Addit. MSS. 22292–22305. They extend from 1727 to 1831, inclusive, and each volume has an index and a few biographical notes made by him. This collection was for some time in the possession of W. B. D. D. Turnbull [q. v.], who added a few impressions down to 1842.
[Nichols's Herald and Genealogist, vii. 72–80; Gent. Mag. December 1831, p. 567; Barham's Life of R. H. Barham, 1870.]
NAYLER, JAMES (1617?–1660), quaker, was born at Ardsley, near Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire, about 1617. His father, a substantial yeoman, gave him a good English education. About the age of twenty-two he married and settled in Wakefield, where his children were born. In 1642, on the outbreak of the civil war, he left his wife in Wakefield (he never lived with her again) and joined the parliamentary army, serving first in a foot company under Fairfax, then for two years as quartermaster in Lambert's horse. Lambert afterwards spoke of him as ‘very useful;’ he ‘parted from him with great regret.’ While in the army he became an independent and a preacher. He was at the battle of Dunbar (3 Sept. 1650). An officer who heard him preach shortly afterwards declares, ‘I was struck with more terror by the preaching of James Nayler than I was at the battle of Dunbar’ (Jaffray, Diary, 1833, p. 543). In the same year he returned home on the sick list, and took to agriculture. He was a member of the congregational church under Christopher Marshal (d. February 1674, aged 59), meeting in the parish church of Woodchurch (otherwise West Ardsley), also at Horbury (where Marshal had property), both near Wakefield. He became a quaker during the visit of George Fox (1624–1691) [q. v.] to Wakefield in 1651. Some time after he had left the independents he was excommunicated by Marshal's church. Early in 1652 Fox attempted to preach to the independents in the ‘steeple-house’ at Woodchurch, but was forcibly ejected. Hence Nayler's letter (1654?) ‘To the Independent Society’ (Collection, pp. 697 seq.), in which he denies their church standing. This church afterwards met at Topcliffe, near Wakefield. Miall represents Nayler as expelled from the Topcliffe church on a charge of adultery, and says that, removing to London, he became a member of the baptist church under Hanserd Knollys [q. v.], from which also he was expelled. The Topcliffe records, to which Miall refers, do not begin till 15 Feb. 1653–4. His real source is Scatcherd; and Scatcherd relies upon Deacon, who, on Marshal's authority and that of his church, tells a gossiping story of Nayler's familiarity with one Mrs. Roper, whose husband was at sea, whence arose suspicions of incontinence.
Nayler was ploughing when he became convinced of a call to the travelling ministry. Not immediately obeying it he fell ill; recovering, he left home suddenly (1652) without leave-taking, and took his journey towards Westmoreland. At Swarthmoor Hall, Lancashire, he found Fox, who introduced him to Margaret Fell [q. v.] He accompanied Fox on a mission to Walney, Lancashire, and was present at Fox's trial at Lancaster, of which he wrote an account on 30 Oct. 1652. At Orton, Westmoreland, he was arrested for preaching unsound doctrine. He had maintained against Francis Higginson (1587–1630) [q. v.], vicar of Kirkby Stephen, Westmoreland, that the body of the risen Christ is not fleshly, but spiritual. He was carried to Kirkby Ste-
