1648 saw, signs of division appear in Shropshire. With the king implicated in the outbreak of a Second English Civil War and Presbyterianism tainted by the invasion of the Scottish Engagers, the Independents in the New Model Army began to put pressure on Parliament for a more radical turn. Seeing the threat, fifty-seven Shropshire ministers signed a denunciation of Independency, entitled "A Testimony of the Ministers in the Province of Salop to the Truth of Jesus Christ and to the Solemn League and Covenant: as also against the Errors, Heresies and Blasphemies of these times and the Toleration of them". This was sent to the London province for the attention of Parliament. All of the other ministers of the Shrewsbury Classis signed it, except Paget. Presbyterianism had been Paget's fixed position for so long and so publicly that this must have come as a surprise. However, it was only the beginning.