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Seabexs of iteligton
Edited by H. C. Bbbching, M.A.

GEORGE FOX

GEORGE FOX
From the Portrait by Sir Peter Lcly, in the possession of the Trustees of
Siva rth more ' Co lies e

GEOBGE POX

THOMAS HODGKIN, D.C.L.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
She Uibwsibt f rcss, Cumbrian
189Q

PREFACE
Having been asked by my friend, the Editor of this
series, to write the life of George Fox, I have completed
the work to the best of my ability, though- I am aware
of the disadvantage under which I labour in not having
for some years made that period a subject of special
study. The reader will no doubt perceive that I am myself
a member of the Society of Friends, to which my
ancestors have belonged since its first foundation by
George Fox ; but I trust that this fact has not caused
me to swerve from that absolute fidelity of portraiture
which ought to be the aim of every biographer. There
are some lines in the portrait which, out of love to
Fox's memory, I would gladly have omitted; but
loyalty to " the Truth," which has ever been the watch
word of the Society of Friends, forbade me to do so.
Only I may repeat a remark which has been often
made, that his faults (especially his polemic bitterness)
were, for the most part, faults characteristic of his age,
while his nobler qualities, his courage, his conscientious
ness, and his intense love of truth, were emphatically his
own. There is an interesting question, into which I have

vi PREFACE
not had space to enter, how far Fox's system was
peculiar to himself, and how far it was borrowed from
other sects, especially the Baptists and Mennonites.
My own impression is that Fox was essentially an
original religious thinker, and that few men have ever
had less of the Eclectic character than he: but for a
careful statement of the other side of the question I
may refer my readers to a book frequently quoted in
the following pages, Barclay's Inner Life of the Religious
Societies of the Commonwealth.
It only remains to express my thanks to the following
gentlemen, who have helped me in various ways in the
composition of this little book — Prof. Gardiner, Mr. 0.
J. Spence (the possessor of the original MS. of George
Fox's Journal), Messrs Jno. Fell, J. S. Rowntree, and
Alexr. Gordon. It will be seen that I am under many
obligations to Mrs. Webb's Fells of Sioarthmoor Hall,
which contains several letters of the Fell family and of
George Fox not elsewhere published. But, beyond
all other books, I have been helped by Prof. Masson's
Life of Milton, the most valuable work, as it seems to
me, which has been written, not only on the literary
but also on the religious history of England during the
central years of the seventeenth century.
Thos. Hodgkin.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION ... ... ...  1
II. BIRTHPLACE ... ... ... ... ... 8
III. EARLY LIFE ... ... ... ... ... 15
IV. FOX'S MESSAGE ... ... ... ... ... S3
V. MISSIONARY JOURNEYS : MIDLAND COUNTIES AND
YORKSHIRE ... ... .. ... ... 45
VI. SWARTHMOOR HALL ... ... ... ... 63
VII. AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE  79
VIII. AT FENNY DRAYTON AND WHITEHALL ... ... 102
IX. LAUNCESTON GAOL  115
X. IN WALES AND SCOTLAND ... ... ... 141
XI. THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE ... ... 157
XII. THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS : IMPRISONMENTS
AT LANCASTER AND SCARBRO'  170
XIII. MARRIAGE  204
XIV. VISIT TO AMERICA ... ... ... ... 222
XV. THE LAST IMPRISONMENT ..  238
XVI. CLOSING YEARS ... ... ...  245
XVII. CONCLUSION   273
INDEX  281

GEOBGE FOX

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
" George Fox, the founder of Quakerism." That is
the formula which expresses, and will probably always
express, Fox's place in religious history. Yet of him,
even more emphatically than of the men who have
given their names to great sections of the Christian
Church, Luther, Calvin, or Wesley, it may be con
fidently affirmed that to found a new sect was the
furthest thing from his hopes and aspirations. A
religious reformer, at any rate one who desires to
work in harmony with the spirit of Christianity,
cannot have sectarian aims. He cannot be satisfied
with conquering one little province of the Christian
world, and labelling it with his own name. He must
believe that he is the bearer of a world-wide message,
adapted to all sorts and conditions of men, and that for
the whole Christian Church the only hope of health
and cleansing lies in the acceptance of that message.
Such was most emphatically the belief of George Fox,

2 GEORGE FOX
and accordingly in studying his life it is necessary as
much as possible to dissever him in thought from the
quiet, respectable, unaggressive sect of which he was in
fact, though not in intention, the founder.
But a man who believes, as Fox believed, that he
has a Divine commission to testify against the errors
and corruptions of the religion which is professed by
those around him, will be the last man to do justice to
the germs of a holier and better life underlying every
corruption. He will have little or nothing of that
sympathetic, eclectic spirit which is perhaps the best
quality in the religious life of our generation, and
which enables us to deal fairly with schools of thought
to which intellectually we are utterly opposed. A man
of such intense convictions as dominated the soul of
the first Quaker is almost of necessity narrow, and very
narrow the reader will probably consider some of George
Fox's judgments.
Yet if we would understand this man's life in even
the least degree, if we are to look upon him as anything
more than a wrong-headed and troublesome disturber
of the public peace, — that is to say, if we would learn
anything of the results produced by his preaching, and
the secret of his power, — we must be willing, at least for
a time, to place ourselves at his point of view, and look
forth upon the Christian world as he, knowing scarce
any other book than the English Bible, and imbued
with the spirit of a Hosea or a Jeremiah, looked forth
upon it.
It is difficult for us Englishmen of the nineteenth
century to throw ourselves back into the state of feeling
as to all religious matters which prevailed among our
forefathers at the time of the Civil War. We have

INTRODUCTION 3
been always accustomed to the sight of many religious
denominations existing side by side, if not in love, at
any rate in peace. Round the great Established Church
of England revolve in their own orbits the Noncon
formist Churches of Protestantism, while the old his
toric Church of Rome has perfect freedom to worship
as she pleases, and to make proselytes as she can.
How utterly different was the state of things under
Elizabeth and James I. ; yes, and even when Charles I.
had been vanquished, and Puritanism had gained the
upper hand ! The popish " Recusants " were persecuted
with a ferocity which is the disgrace of Protestantism,
and which is only explained, not justified, by the
cruelties which had marked the victorious march of the
Counter-Reformation in the Netherlands and Germany,
and by the disloyal and even murderous projects of
which some of the English Papists were guilty.
Within the Protestant camp, from the beginning of
Charles's reign, Episcopalian and Presbyterian were
contending, not for bare existence, not even for priority
of place and possession of old revenues, but for the
right absolutely to suppress the defeated party. Not
Laud himself was more intolerant of the " Calvinian "
lecturers than the adherents of the Solemn League and
Covenant were intolerant of every other form even of
Puritan discipline which squared not with their precise
notions of Presbyterian orthodoxy. In the minds of
some of the Independents, it is true, the great principle
of religious toleration had taken root, and had begun to
show itself above ground. Great leaders of the sect,
such as Roger Williams in America and Cromwell in
England, were sacrificing much of their popularity in
the. attempt to persuade the bigots around them to

4 GEORGE FOX
bear with other usages than their own ; but entire and
absolute religious toleration was still, in the middle of
the seventeenth century, a theory and a dream, as
much as is the reunion of all Christians in one Church
at the close of the nineteenth century.
In the years of Fox's childhood and boyhood the
Episcopal Church of England was ruling England with
absolute sway, and Archbishop Laud was everywhere
removing the altars to the eastern end of the churches,
insisting on the kneeling posture of communicants, and
on the worshippers bowing at the name of Jesus. Ere
Fox had completed his seventeenth year, the system of
"Thorough" in Church and State had broken down.
Strafford's head had fallen on Tower Hill, Laud was in
prison, and the immense latent strength of Puritanism
was about to manifest itself both on the battle-field and
in the Houses of Parliament. It is important to re
member this fact. In the really formative years of Fox's
religious development, not Episcopacy, but Presby-
terianism was the dominant form of Church govern
ment. Calvin's Institutes, not Hooker's Ecclesiastical
Polity, was the text-book of the clergy with whom he
was brought in contact. It was not high sacramental
teaching, nor discourses on Apostolical Succession, from
¦which this young man's soul revolted, but it was the
long sermons (reaching to eighteenthly and nineteenthly)
on abstruse points of doctrine, the almost equally long
and sermon-like prayers, the Calvinistic teaching of the
predestined and eternal misery of a large portion of the
human race, the superstitious reverence for every letter
in that collection of writings by holy men of old made
by the Jewish and Christian Churches, to which was
given the name of " the Word of God " ; the determina-

INTRODUCTION 5
tion to keep the Lord's Day as if it had been a Jewish
Sabbath, fencing it round with the same awful sanctions
with which that day was encompassed in the legislation
of the Pentateuch : these and similar exaggerations of
what was then called the Puritan, and has since been
called the Evangelical, school, were what first called
forth the impassioned protest of the young shepherd of
Leicestershire. In 1660, when Fox had fully reached middle life,
and had been for twelve years a zealous missionary
preacher, came the restoration of kingship in England,
and the downfall of Puritan ascendency. Too soon
after this great event, which it was hoped would intro
duce an era of religious peace and mutual toleration,
came that cruel and vindictive persecution of Noncon
formity in the name of a perjured and profligate king,
which forms the darkest page in the history of the
Church of England, one which all who are zealous for
her good name would gladly obliterate from her annals.
This persecution fell heavily on the followers of Fox,
as on all the other Nonconformists : even more heavily
on the former by reason of their stern and unbending
disposition, than on the latter. The utter failure of the
Episcopalians, though armed with the whole power of
the State, to suppress or even to diminish the numbers
of these dauntless dissenters from the Established
Church, was undoubtedly a powerful factor in convincing
the nation of the necessity of that general toleration
which was the best result of the Revolution of 1688,
But though during this quarter of a century Episcopalian
parsons and squires were the chief agents in the perse
cution of Fox and his friends, it can hardly be said that
even then they were the chief objects of his religious

6 GEORGE FOX
polemics. Still the Calvinistic teaching was that
against which he bore his most persistent protest, and
when his young disciple Barclay gave literary and
logical form to the new sect's teaching, his Apology
was a veiled attack upon the Westminster Confession,
the great manifesto of seventeenth-century Calvinism.1
From this statement it must not be inferred that there
was any leaning in the mind of Fox and his friends
towards what is called Catholic teaching, whether
Anglican or Roman. All that was distinctively char
acteristic of mediaeval Christianity was condemned by
them as belonging to " the dark night of apostacy," and
the attempts of the disciples of Laud to re-establish the
Anglican Church on a basis which should be Catholic,
but not Roman, were not indeed actively opposed.
because they were never understood by the early
Quakers, bred up as these men had been in a universally
diffused atmosphere of Puritanism.
Lastly, there is one characteristic of early Quakerism
which must in fairness be noted, and which it shared
with every other religious party of the time. This is
the extreme bitterness with which they spoke of their
opponents, the absolute certainty which they felt that
they alone were in the right, and that all who differed
from them went wilfully astray. To most of the first
generation of Quakers, as to his Presbyterian opponents,
might Cromwell have addressed his well-known appeal,
" I beseech you, by the mercies of Jesus Christ, think it
1 This relation of Barclay's Apology to the Westminster Con
fession and the Shorter CatecMsm has not hitherto attracted
sufficient attention. Whoever compares the order of Barclay's
Propositions with that of the questions in the Shorter Catechism,
will, I think, have no doubt that the former document intention
ally follows the latter.

INTRODUCTION 7
possible that you may be mistaken." In this, as I have
said, they shared that " form and pressure of the times "
from which the most original thinkers cannot expect
wholly to escape. With us, it may be, the danger is of an
opposite kind. New horizons of thought have been
opened out to us. The universe presents itself to our
minds as an infinitely greater and more wonderful thing
than it was supposed to be by those eager combatants
of the seventeenth century. We are no longer so abso
lutely sure that our little plummets have sounded its
awful depths, that we have mapped out all its vastness.
Hence comes doubt ; henCe, it may be, sometimes too
languid a grasp of the truths which have been revealed
to us. But hence also comes mutual tolerance, and a
willingness to acknowledge that others who walk not
exactly in our paths may have their faces set towards
the Heavenly City ; and that is in itself a gain, perhaps
a gain which even outweighs the loss that has made it
possible.

CHAPTER 11
BIRTHPLACE
The little hamlet of Drayton-in-the-Clay (as George
Fox styles it in his Journal), or Fenny Drayton, as it
is now called by the inhabitants, might in the seven
teenth century have been fitly described by either
name. It is situated on the western verge of Leicester
shire, on a clay level, with the rising ground of Market
Bosworth on the east, and the pleasant hills of Ather-
stone on the west. The road which leads to it from
Bosworth is still called Fen Lane, and though the
country is now well drained, it is easy to see how two
hundred years ago the desolate waters of the Fens must
have lain, all the winter through, round about the little
hamlet. Fenny Drayton lies about two miles to the east of
the main line of the London and North- Western
Railway between London and Liverpool. The Wat-
ling Street, of which the modern railway here, as so
often elsewhere, is the faithful companion, and which
forms the modern boundary between the counties of
Leicester and Warwick, comes yet nearer, within a
mile of Fenny Drayton, and the little village of Man-
cetter hard by represents a station which is named

BIRTHPLACE 9
in the road-book of the Roman Empire.1 This is not
a mere matter of antiquarian interest, for in the seven
teenth century the Roman roads were still the chief
available highways of the country. Along the Watling
Street doubtless passed in Fox's day the waggons which
carried the wool of the north of England up to the
markets of London. By the same route may have
ridden both Cavaliers and Roundheads towards the
battle-field of Marston Moor, and it was along the
same road undoubtedly that Henry of Richmond, a
century and a half before the time of Fox's boyhood,
came to pluck the crown of England from the head
of Richard III. The rising ground of Market Bos
worth, as has been already said, is all but within sight
of Drayton, and George Fox, in his lonely wanderings
over the fields which surrounded his birthplace, must
have often passed the site of Henry's camp, perhaps
may have drunk sometimes at the well at which
Richard is said to have quenched his thirst ere he
rushed into the battle.2
At the present day but little is left to show what
Drayton-in-the-Clay looked like two hundred years
ago. Uninteresting modern buildings, with shallow
windows and slated roofs, have replaced the picturesque,
deep-mullioned Jacobean houses, with their thatches of
straw, which George Fox must have looked on as a boy.

1 Manduesedum, mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary.
2 A more modern set of associations, but one which will interest
some readers, is connected with a recent novelist. The visitor to
Fenny Drayton finds himself in the heart of "George Eliot's
country." Marian Evans was born at Nuneaton, the capital of
this district ; and the scenes of Adam Bede, Janets Repentance,
Mr. Oilfil, and Amos Barton, are all to be found within a few
miles of George Fox's birthplace.

10 GEORGE FOX
The house which tradition pointed out as his birthplace
has long since disappeared. One antique cottage which
stood near to it remained till a few years ago, and was
rapidly becoming a little local sanctuary; nay, it was
on the point of being transported to the other side of
the Atlantic by an enterprising American speculator,
and being re-erected as the home of the friend of the
founder of Pennsylvania. Apparently, however, in
the course of the negotiations the fictitious nature of
its claims was made manifest, the proposal was with
drawn, the house tumbled down, and the last vestiges of
its fabric have recently disappeared. A little obelisk of
Quaker-like simplicity has been erected within a hundred
yards or so of the site of the original cottage, to keep
alive the memory of George Fox's birthplace.
In this utter modernization of the little hamlet,
we are driven by the irony of Fate to look for our
only links of connection with the past, in that build
ing to which George Fox would only allow the
name of "steeple-house," and on which he would
never have expected his remotest disciples to gaze
with interest.
The church of Fenny Drayton is a building chiefly
in the late Decorated style, but possesses a rather
peculiar Norman doorway somewhat concealed by a
modern porch. It has two aisles and a chancel; and
the chief objects of interest which it contains are the
monuments of the Purefoy family, who were for more
than three centuries the territorial aristocracy of Dray
ton. One of these monuments is in the northern aisle,
which was apparently a kind of chapel of the Purefoys,
with a private door leading out to their closely adjoin
ing manor-house. The other, which lines the northern

BIRTHPLACE 11
wall of the chancel, and of which probably only a part
is still remaining, was erected towards the end of the
sixteenth century by " Jocosa " (Joyce) Purefoy, who had
married her cousin Edward Purefoy of Shawleson, and
conveyed to him the lordship of her father's lands. In
two long and pompous inscriptions, written in Latin
hexameters, the stately lady, or rather the scholar who
did her bidding, celebrates the virtues of her deceased
husband, and describes how he kept inviolate the " pure
faith" from which his family derived their name, and
the courage with which some remote ancestor had de
fended his lord on the field of battle with the broken
spear which was ever after the family's crest. Hundreds
of times during the long prelections of the minister of
Drayton must the boyish eyes of Fox have wandered
over these mysterious monuments. His education was
too imperfect to enable him to comprehend their mean
ing; otherwise we might please ourselves with the
thought that he had determined to take for his own
the motto of the Squire's family, PURE EOY MA IOYE ;
and we might recall the fact that the great militant
Quietist gazed so often in his boyhood on a line
fancifully adapted from Horace —
" Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit arma quieti." 1
But this, we must admit, is but a caprice of the fancy.
The Purefoys of Drayton fell into difficulties in the
hard-drinking Hanoverian times, and the representa
tive of the family towards the middle of the eighteenth
century obtained a private Act of Parliament enabling
liim to alienate his estate. Only the funereal monu
ments now remain to attest the family's former great-
1 " He gains all hearts who blendeth war with rest."

12 GEORGE FOX
ness. The stately manor-house has vanished from the
earth, its site only marked by a slight inequality which
shows where the moat once guarded the house.
Altogether Fenny Drayton somewhat depresses the
visitor by the conviction which it forces upon him of
the obliterating power of only two centuries of time.
One great natural landmark remains in the quadran
gular belt of solemn yew-trees which still surrounds
the parish church, and which probably look very
much as they did when Jocosa Purefoy reared her
monument. " 0 not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale,
Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom."
Even more than the squire, the parson of the parish
must have exercised a powerful influence on the boy
hood of the future reformer. The living was in the
squire's gift, and George Purefoy, " Jocosa's " son, pre
sented to it1 (probably somewhere about 1640) the
Reverend Nathaniel Stephens, M.A., who held it till the
year 1662. From the fact that Stephens belonged to the
Puritan party in the Church, we may probably infer
that his patron was of the same way of thinking, and
this conjecture is confirmed by our finding that his
cousin, William Purefoy of Caldecote, was a General in
the Parliamentary army, and a diligent member of the
Court by which Charles I. was sentenced to death.
Nathaniel Stephens was the son of a Wiltshire clergy
man, was born in 1606, and received his education as
1 Wood's statement that Stephens was intruded into the living
in 1643 in place of an ejected Episcopalian, is shown by Calamy
to be erroneous.

BIRTHPLACE 13
a "batler" at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. He seems to
have been a fair specimen of the Presbyterian divines
who came to the front during the ascendency of the
Long Parliament. A staunch defender of the right of
the clergy to tithes, and of the practice of infant
baptism, he fought long paper battles with the Inde
pendents and Baptists on these questions. On the
other hand, he was great in Apocalyptic literature,
composing a Plain and Easy Calculation of the Name,
Mark, and Number of the Beast, and was a thorough
Calvinist in his teaching as to the utter depravity of
man, and in his defence of the doctrine of Election and
Reprobation by God's absolute decree. Any one who
takes the trouble to glance through his Vindicice
Fundamenti, or Threefold Defence of the Doctrine of
Original Bin, with its wearisome speculations as to
Adam's state before and after the fall, will easily under
stand how little help a tired soul seeking for rest, and
longing to hear the voice of the Living God, would
derive from this self-satisfied scholastic divine. Thus
we shall find that " Priest Stephens " is spoken of with
little gratitude in George Fox's Journal, and as this is
practically the only rock which raises him ever so little
out of the waters of oblivion, he has received from
posterity somewhat harder measure than he deserves.
It is clear, indeed, that he failed to understand the nature
of " the questings and the guessings " of his strange
young parishioner; but there is small blame to him,
trained as he had been, for such a failure ; and after all,
the fact that he went forth from his pleasant rectory
on St. Bartholomew's Day in 1662, to spend the
remaining fifteen years of his life in obscurity as a
Nonconformist preacher at Stoke Golding, shows that

14 GEORGE FOX
he was a true man, and willing to suffer for conscience'
sake. After this brief sketch of George Fox's birthplace
we may proceed to the story of his early years. Our
chief authority here and everywhere must be his own
Journal, but as that book reaches to a thousand octavo
pages, it is obvious that only a few of its more striking
passages can be laid under contribution.

CHAPTER III
EARLY LIFE
George Fox was born in July 1624.1 His parents
were persons in a humble station, but apparently not
in actual poverty, and they probably belonged to the
numerous class which conformed to the worship of the
national Church, while sympathizing with what was
beginning to be known as Puritanism. His own ac
count of them is as follows : —
" My father's name was Christopher Fox : he was
by profession a weaver, an honest man ; and there was
a seed of God in him. The neighbours called him
Righteous Christer. My mother was an upright woman ;
her maiden name was Mary Lago, of the family of the
Lagos, and of the stock of the martyrs."
William Penn's statement is that "he was born of
honest and sufficient parents, who endeavoured to
bring him up, as they did the rest of their children,
in the way and worship of the nation : especially his
1 Fox does not seem to have known the exact day of his birth,
and unfortunately the blank cannot be filled up from the parish
registers, which have suffered denudation at the hands of a
sexton's wife in the last century, requiring paper for her jam
pots. The present Rector of Fenny Drayton tells me, however,
that he has found the register of the baptism of George Fox's
sister Mary. 15

16 GEORGE FOX
mother, who was a woman accomplished above most of
her degree in the place where she lived."
As to the time of Fox's birth, we note in passing
that it was in the year before the death of King James
I. The old king, who was in failing health, had
practically abandoned the direction of affairs to the
Prince of Wales and his brilliant, unstable friend the
Duke of Buckingham, who had just returned from that
foolish piece of knight-errantry, the journey to Spain.
When Fox was born, negotiations were proceeding for
Prince Charles's marriage to the daughter of Henry
IV. of France, that marriage which was one of the
links in the chain of events which drew on the Civil
War and the bloody tragedy of Whitehall.
However little a man may be affected by the acts
and thoughts of his contemporaries, it is always interest
ing to observe who those contemporaries were. In the
year before Fox's birth, Blaise Pascal began his frail
but wonderful life. John Dryden (born 1631) and
John Locke (1632) were his juniors by seven and eight
years respectively ; and his birth-year placed him nearly
at the middle point between John Milton (1608) and
Sir Isaac Newton (1642).
Yet, as has been already hinted, the future Quaker
apostle dwelt mostly in a sphere apart, very little
influenced by the thoughts, philosophical, poetical, or
political, of the men of his stirring generation. The
Bible seems to have been his only literature, and it may
safely be said that Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, who
was separated from him by an interval of twenty-four
centuries, had infinitely more influence on his mind
than William Shakespeare, who died but eight years
before he came into the world.

EARLY LIFE 17
So, too, for the political events of his time. While
he was passing through his childhood and boyhood,
the terrible Thirty Years' War was draining the life-
blood of Germany; and Laud and Strafford by their
policy of Thorough were gradually alienating the
hearts of Englishmen from their king, and preparing
them to open "the purple testament of bleeding war."
The Civil War began when Fox was in the eighteenth
year of his age, and lasted till about the time when he
began his missionary journeys. Yet to all these events
he makes no allusion, and it may be doubted whether
even at the time they greatly moved him. The history
of his own soul, his struggles with the power of dark
ness, his Teachings forth after the light and peace of
God, seem to have absorbed all his thoughts, and the
thunderstorms of war and revolution crashed round
him unheeded.
The childhood and youth of George Fox are thus
described by William Penn : —
" But from a child he appeared of another frame of
mind than the rest of his brethren : being more religious,
inward, still, solid and observing beyond his years, as
the answers he would give, and the questions he would
put upon occasion, manifested to the astonishment of
those that heard him, especially in divine things.
"His mother taking notice of his singular temper,
and the gravity, wisdom, and piety that very early
shined through him, refusing childish and vain sports
and company when very young, she was tender and
indulgent over him, so that from her he met with little
difficulty. As to his employment, he was brought up
in country business ; and as he took most delight in
sheep, so he was very skilful in them ; an employment

18 GEORGE FOX
that very well suited his mind in several respects, both
from its innocency and solitude ; and was a just figure
of his after ministry and service."
His own account of this period of his life is given in
these words : —
" In my very young years I had a gravity and stayed-
ness of mind and spirit not usual in children ; insomuch
that when I saw old men carry themselves lightly and
wantonly towards each other, I had a dislike thereof
raised in my heart, and said within myself, ' If ever I
come to be a man, surely I shall not do so, nor be so
wanton.' " When I came to eleven years of age, I knew pure-
ness and righteousness ; for while I was a child I was
taught how to walk to be kept pure. The Lord taught
me to be faithful in all things, and to act faithfully two
ways, viz. inwardly to God, and outwardly to man ; and
to keep to Yea and Nay in all things. For the Lord
showed me, that though the people of the world have
mouths full of deceit, and changeable words, yet I was
to keep to Yea and Nay in all things; and that my
words should be few and savoury, seasoned with grace ;
and that I might not eat and drink to make myself
wanton, but for health, using the creatures in their
service, as servants in their places, to the glory of Him
that hath created them ; they being in their covenant,
and I being brought into the covenant, and sanctified
by the Word which was in the beginning by which all
things are upheld ; wherein is unity with the creation.
" But people being strangers to the covenant of life
with God, they eat and drink to make themselves
wanton with the creatures, wasting them upon their
own lusts, and living in all filthiness, loving foul ways,

EARLY LIFE 19
and devouring the creation ; and all this in the world,
in the pollutions thereof, without God ; therefore I was
to shun all such.
" Afterwards, as I grew up, my relations thought to
make me a priest, but others persuaded to the contrary :
whereupon I was put to a man that was a shoemaker
by trade, and that dealt in wool, and used grazing, and
sold cattle ; and a great deal went through my hands.
While I was with him, he was blessed ; but after I left
him he broke, and came to nothing. I never wronged
man or woman in all that time ; for the Lord's power
was with me, and over me to preserve me. While I
was in that service, I used in my dealings the word
Verily, and it was a common saying among the people
that knew me, 'If George says Verily, there is no
altering him.' When boys and rude people would laugh
at me, I let them alone, and went my way ; but people
had generally a love to me for my innocency and
honesty." Fox's autobiography constantly reminds us of the
experiences of his contemporary John Bunyan, whether
as described in Grace Abounding, or as allegorized in
Pilgrim's Progress ; and yet the relation between them
is more often one of contrast than of similarity. Thus
here his spiritual life does not begin with that intense
self-loathing, that agony in the thought of unforgiven
sin, which is the keynote of Bunyan's early experience.
Fox does not feel that he is born in the City of
Destruction, nor does he begin his journey with a
heavy burden on his back which will roll off at the
sight of the Cross; yet all the same he is a pilgrim,
and a very ardent one, and he will have as little
sympathy with Vanity Fair, and will suffer as much

20 GEORGE FOX
for his testimony against its wickedness as Bunyan's
Christian himself. " When I came towards nineteen
years of age," he continues, " being upon business at a
fair, one of my cousins, whose name was Bradford, a
professor,1 and having another professor with him,
came to me, and asked me to drink part of a jug of
beer with them; and I being thirsty, went in with
them, for I loved any that had a sense of good, or that
did seek after the Lord. When we had drunk a glass
apiece, they began to drink healths, and called for more
drink, agreeing together that he that would not drink
should pay all. I was grieved that any that made
profession of religion should do so. They grieved me
very much, having never had such a thing put to me
before by any sort of people, wherefore I rose up to go,
and putting my hand into my pocket I took out a
groat, and laid it upon the table before them, and said,
' If it be so, I will leave you.' So I went away, and
when I had done what business I had to do, I returned
home, but did not go to bed that night, nor could I
sleep, but sometimes walked up and down, and some
times prayed and cried to the Lord, who said unto me,
' Thou seest how young people go together into vanity,
and old people into the earth ; thou must forsake all,
both young and old, and keep out of all, "and be a
stranger unto all.' "
Though not struggling under the burden of unforgiven
sin, Fox, in these years of dawning manhood, was made
miserable by the thought of the evil of the world around
him. Perhaps, notwithstanding the absence of all
allusion to political events, the miseries and distractions
1 This word " professor," which is of frequent occurrence in Fox's
Journal, may be taken as practically equivalent to Puritan.

EARLY LIFE 21
of the great Civil War struck their own harshly jarring
note on the Divine harmony for which he longed. At
this, as well as some later periods of his career, his
words remind us of the utterances of a man of whom
he probably never heard — Girolamo Savonarola. At
the age of nineteen Savonarola was seeking solitude,
was composing his poem on the Ruin of the World, had
ever on his lips the Virgilian line —
" Heu ! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum ; "
and three years later his depression and despair drove
him into the cloister, his treatise De Contemptu Mundi
being the only legacy left to comfort his sorrowing
father for the wreck of the ambitious hopes which had
gathered round this favourite son.
To Fox the shelter of the convent was of course not
accessible, but he broke off his intercourse with his
family as completely as if he had turned monk. His
narrative proceeds — " Then at the command of God, on
the ninth day of the seventh month 1643, I left my
relations, and broke off all familiarity or fellowship with
old or young." For the next three or four years he seems
to have led a wandering life, moving about through the
home counties, but spending several months at Barnet,
and afterwards in London. At Barnet, when he was walk
ing solitary in Enfield Chace, the temptation to despair
came over him. He thought that his fear of desertion
by God might be a judgment upon him for leaving his
relations, but he was comforted in the thought that
even Christ was also tempted. The "great professors"
of London could not help him, nor yet could an uncle
of his who belonged to the Baptist community, though,
as he says, " they were tender then." He returned into

22 GEORGE FOX
Leicestershire, and his relations, fearing probably for
his reason, urged him to marry, " but I told them I was
but a lad and must get wisdom. Others would have
had me into the auxiliary band among the soldiery "
(we have now reached 1645, the year of the battle of
Naseby), " but I refused : and I was grieved that they
proffered such things to me being a tender youth. Then
I went to Coventry, where I took a chamber for a while
at a professor's house, till people began to be acquainted
¦with me; for there were many tender people in that
town." We are already making acquaintance with this
word " tender," which is a favourite expression of Fox's
throughout the Journal, denoting, not delicacy of the
physical frame, for he and his disciples endured hard
ships which might break down the strongest constitu
tion, but delicacy of spiritual perception, unwillingness
to be satisfied with the polemical theology of the
ordinary Puritan — a desire to get into communion with
the Spirit of the Eternal One, and to learn His will.
He returned to his native village, and now at length, if
not before, had some converse with the parson of his
parish, and with some of the neighbouring divines about
the state of his soul. To quote again from the Journal :
" The priest of Drayton, the town of my birth, whose
name was Nathaniel Stevens (sic), came often to me,
and I went often to him ; and another priest sometimes
came with him ; and they would give place to me to
hear me, and I would ask them questions, and reason
with them. And this priest Stevens asked me a
question, viz. Why Christ cried out upon the cross,
•My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
and why He said, ' If it be possible, let this cup pass
from Me; yet not My will, but Thine be done'? I

EARLY LIFE 23
told him that at that time the sins of all mankind
were upon Him, and their iniquities and transgressions
with which He was wounded, which He was to bear,
and to be an offering for, as He was man, but He died
not, as He was God : and so, in that He died for all
men, and tasted death for every man, He was an
offering for the sins of the whole world. This I spoke,
being at that time in a measure sensible of Christ's
sufferings and what He went through. And the priest
said, ' It was a very good, full answer, and such a one
as he had not heard.' At that time he would applaud
and speak highly of me to others ; and what I said in
discourse to him on the week-days, that he would preach
on the first-days, for which I did not like him. This
priest afterwards became my great persecutor.
"After this I went to another ancient priest at
Mancetter in Warwickshire, and reasoned with him
about the ground of despair and temptations ; but he
was ignorant of my condition : he bid me take
tobacco and sing psalms. Tobacco was a thing I did
not love, and psalms I was not in a state to sing; I
could not sing. Then he bid me come again, and he
would tell me many things ; but when I came he was
angry and pettish, for my former words had displeased
him. He told my troubles, sorrows, and griefs to his
servants, so that it was got among the milk-lasses ;
which grieved me that I should open my mind to such
a one. I saw they were all miserable comforters, and
this brought my troubles more upon me. Then I
heard of a priest living about Tamworth, who was
accounted an experienced man, and I went seven miles
to him ; but I found him only like an empty, hollow
cask. I heard also of one called Dr. Cradock, of

24 GEORGE FOX
Coventry, and went to him; I asked him the ground
of temptations and despair, and how troubles came to
be wrought in man ? He asked me, Who was Christ's
father and mother ? I told him, Mary was His mother,
and that He was supposed to be the son of Joseph, but
He was the son of God. Now as we were walking
together in his garden, the alley being narrow, I
chanced, in turning, to set my foot on the side of a bed,
at which the man was in a rage as if his house had
been on fire. Thus all our discourse was lost, and I
went away in sorrow, worse than I was when I came.
I thought them miserable comforters, and saw they
were all as nothing to me ; for they could not reach
my condition. After this I went to another, one
Macham, a priest in high account.1 He would needs
give me some physic, and I was to have been let
Wood ; but they could not get one drop of blood from
me, either in arms or head (though they endeavoured
1 " This Macham, a priest in high account," seems to have been
a man of George Fox's own age — John Machin (1624: — 1664), of
whom there is a long account in Calamy's Ejected Ministers. He
was born in 1624, educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, and
ordained in 1644. He came to Atherstone as lecturer in 1652. We
should be naturally disposed to connect the entry in the Journal
with this part of Machin' s career, as Atherstone is only a few miles
from Fenny Drayton ; but if so it must be mentioned by Fox
out of its chronological order. Machin went from Atherstone
into Cheshire in 1654. At the Restoration he held the living
of Whitley in that county, and was ejected from it on St.
Bartholomew's Day. " And hardly any one bore his ejectment
with less reflection upon superiors, or with more grief for so sad
a dispensation. The neighbouring gentry, convinced of his
integrity, and the peaceableness of his spirit, gave him no
molestation. Several of his old neighbours going to see him, he
dropped the words, ' Ah ! my friends ! I never lived since
I died.' His death happening soon after, viz. September 6, 1664,
made them conclude that being silenced broke his heart. He
was not above forty years of age."

EARLY LIFE 25
it), my body being, as it were, dried up with sorrows,
grief, and troubles, which were so great upon me that
I could have wished I had never been born, or that I
had been born blind, that I might never have seen
wickedness or vanity; and deaf, that I might never
have heard vain and wicked words, or the Lord's name
blasphemed. When the time called Christmas came,
while others were feasting and sporting themselves,
I looked out poor widows from house to house, and
gave them some money. When I was invited to
marriages (as I sometimes was), I went to none at all,
but the next day, or soon after, I would go and visit
them ; and if they were poor, I gave them some money ;
for I had wherewith both to keep myself from being
chargeable to others, and to administer something to
the necessities of others."
In the year 1646 the spiritual conflict grows lighter,
and he seems to have a clearer perception of a distinct
Divine call to his own soul, making him independent
of such helpers as "priest Stevens" or Dr. Cradock.
He has, as he terms it, " great openings."
" As I was walking in a field on a first day [Sunday]
morning, the Lord opened unto me, that being bred
at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough to fit or
qualify men to be ministers of Christ, and I wondered
at it, because it was the common belief of people. But
I saw it clearly as the Lord opened it to me, and was
satisfied, and admired the goodness of the Lord, who
had opened this thing unto me that morning." He
feels that this strikes at " priest Stevens's" ministry, and
to the great trouble of his relations he will no longer
go with them to hear the priest, but wanders through
the fields or the orchard alone with his Bible.

26 GEORGE FOX
At another time it is " opened " to him, " That God,
who made the world, did not dwell in temples made
with hands." This seems to him a strange word,
because both priests and people used to call their
temples or churches dreadful places, holy ground, and
the temple of God. It is in consequence of this
" opening,''" and from a feeling that the word Church
denotes a spiritual reality, and should not be applied
to any building, that he from this time forward, with
scrupulous persistency, calls the edifices set apart for
public worship, not churches, but " steeple-houses."
All this new development, of course, brings him into
collision with his former friend and counsellor " priest
Stevens," who, while he is walking in the fields, comes
to the house of his relations to inquire after him, and
tells them that he is afraid of George for going after
new lights. " At this," he says, " I smiled in myself,
knowing what the Lord had opened in me concerning
him and his brethren, but I told not my relations, who,
though they saw beyond the priests, yet they went to
hear them, and were grieved because I would not go
also. But I brought them Scriptures, and told them
there was an anointing within man to teach him, and
that the Lord would teach His people Himself."
After these " openings" about clergymen and churches
he tells us that he regarded the priests (the Presbyterian
clergy of the Church of England) less, and looked more
after " the Dissenting people."
" Among them I saw there was some tenderness ; and
many of them came afterwards to be convinced, for
they had some openings. But as I had forsaken the
priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those
called the most experienced people; for I saw there

EARLY LIFE 27
was none among them all that could speak to my
condition. When all my hopes in them and in all men
were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me,
nor could I tell what to do : then, O ! then I heard a
voice which said, ' There is one, even Christ Jesus, that
can speak to thy condition ; ' and when I heard it, my
heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord let me see why
there was none upon the earth that could speak to my
condition, namely, that I might give Him all the glory ;
for all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief,
as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre
eminence, who enlightens, and gives grace, faith, and
power. Thus when God doth work, who shall let it ?
and this I knew experimentally. My desires after the
Lord grew stronger, and zeal in the pure knowledge of
God, and of Christ alone, without the help of any man,
book, or writing. For though I read the Scriptures,
that spoke of Christ and of God, yet I knew Him not,
but by revelation, as He who hath the key did open,
and as the Father of Life drew me to His Son by His
Spirit. Then the Lord gently led me along, and let
me see His love, which was endless and eternal, sur
passing all the knowledge that men have in the natural
state, or can get by history or books ; and that love let
me see myself, as I was without Him. I was afraid of
all company, for I saw them perfectly where they were,
through the love of God, which let me see myself. I
had not fellowship with any people, priests, or pro
fessors, or any sort of separated people, but with Christ,
who hath the key, and opened the door of Light and
Life unto me."
Another of his "openings" seems to have been in
antagonism to the narrowness of the religious teaching

28 GEORGE FOX
of the day, Reformers and Catholics alike practically
denying to one another the possibility of salvation.
"About the beginning of the year 1646, as I was
going to Coventry, and approaching towards the gate, a
consideration arose in me, how it was said, that ' all
Christians are believers, both Protestants and Papists ' ;
and the Lord opened to me that, if all were believers,
then they were all born of God, and passed from death
unto life ; and that none were true believers but such ;
and though others said they were believers, yet they
were not."
It is important to bear this saying of Fox's in mind,
for it strikes the keynote of much of his later teaching.
Harsh and intolerant as many of his utterances seem,
they are directed against insincerity and hypocrisy (real
or supposed), rather than against doctrinal views differ
ing from his own. Toward the Roman Catholics
especially the attitude of Fox and his followers seems
always to have been more friendly than that of the
other Protestant sects, notwithstanding the hopeless
divergence of their religious teaching. It is thus not
altogether surprising that they were often accused of
being Papists in disguise : and even William Penn's
friendly response at a later day to the advances of
James IL, and his willingness to accept toleration at
his hands, though not approved of by the majority of
his brethren, were not altogether inconsistent with this
earliest attitude of Quakerism.
Another point which may be noticed in this narrative
of Fox's early years, is his extraordinary silence as to
those who were most nearly connected with him by blood.
After those few opening sentences in the Journal, we hear
nothing more about his parents; and the "relations"

EARLY LIFE 29
who have been slightly alluded to in the extracts
already quoted, are mere shadowy forms to us, even the
degree of their relationship to the writer not being
stated. Something like this appears to have been the
mood of mind in which most of the early Friends
looked back upon their old homes, and on those who
had once inhabited them. They have themselves
passed through the Red Sea, and care not to ask or to
tell of what may have happened in the land of Egypt.
Thus it comes to pass that, with very few exceptions,
the pedigrees of modern Quaker families go up to the
middle of the seventeenth century and there stop.
There is generally full and precise information up to
the first member of the family who was a Quaker, and
beyond that all is a blank.
These years between 1643 and 1647 are evidently
the formative period of his spiritual character — years
undoubtedly of great sadness and struggle. " I cannot
declare," he says, " the misery I was in, it was so great
and heavy upon me ; " but the trial seems to have been
bravely borne, and we have no hint of any of those
suggestions of suicide which are so frequent in cases of
religious melancholia. In the history of most of the men
who have exercised a powerful influence on the souls of
their fellow-men, there has generally been a time of
depression like that through which Fox was now
passing. As the Apostle Paul says, " Knowing there
fore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men ; " and it
is perhaps necessary that those spirits which will be
brought often into fierce collision with " the rulers
of the darkness of this world," should have passed
through a time of mental strife and agony, which
makes all the mere bodily sufferings and hardships

30 GEORGE FOX
that they will have afterwards to endure seem light
in comparison.
Nor was his sky all dark even in this time of trial.
As he could not declare the misery, so neither could he
set forth the mercies of God to him in all his misery.
He "sees the great love of God, and is filled with
admiration at the infiniteness of it " : when he returns
home after a solitary walk he is " wrapped up in the
love of God, so that I could not but admire the great
ness of His love."
" While I was in that condition, it was opened unto
me by the eternal light and power, and I therein
clearly saw ' that all was done, and to be done, in and
by Christ; and how He conquers and destroys this
tempter, the devil, and all his works, and is a-top of
him ; and that all these troubles were good for me, and
temptations for the trial of my faith, which Christ had
given me.' The Lord opened me, that I saw through
all these troubles and temptations; my living faith
was raised, that I saw all was done by Christ, the Life,
and my belief was in Him. When at any time my
condition was veiled, my secret belief was stayed firm,
and hope underneath held me, as an anchor in the
bottom of the sea, and anchored my immortal soul to
its Bishop, causing it to swim above the sea, the world,
where all the raging waves, foul weather, tempests and
temptations are. But oh ! then did I see my troubles,
trials, and temptations more clearly than ever I had
done. As the light appeared, all appeared that is out
of the light; darkness, death, temptations, the un
righteous, the ungodly, all was manifest and seen in
the light. After this, a pure fire appeared in me ; then
I saw how He sat as a refiner's fire, and as fullers' soap ;

EARLY LIFE 31
then the spiritual discerning came into me, by which I
did discern my own thoughts, groans, and sighs; and
what it was that veiled me, and what it was that
opened me. That which could not abide in the patience,
nor endure the fire, in the light I found it to be the
groans of the flesh, that could not give up to the will of
God, which had so veiled me, that I could not be
patient in all trials, troubles, and anguishes and per
plexities ; could not give up self to die by the cross, the
power of God, that the living and quickened might
follow Him ; and that that which would cloud and veil
from the presence of Christ, that which the sword of
the Spirit cuts down, and which must die, might not be
kept alive."
While he is in this seething condition of soul, he is
tremulously sensitive to the spiritual phenomena of those
years of national excitement and unrest. He hears of a
woman in Lancashire that had fasted two-and-twenty
days, and he travels to see her ; " but when I came to
her I saw that she was under temptation. When I
had spoken to her what I had from the Lord, I left
her, her father being one high in profession. Passing
on, I went among the professors at Duckingfield and
Manchester, where I stayed awhile, and declared truth
among them. There were some convinced, who received
the Lord's teaching, by which they were confirmed and
stood in the truth. But the professors were in a rage,
all pleading for sin and imperfection, and could not
endure to hear talk of perfection, and of a holy and
sinless life. But the Lord's power was over all ; though
they were chained under darkness and sin, which they
pleaded for, and quenched the tender thing in them."
On the whole, the spiritual history of these years

32 GEORGE FOX
of struggle seems to be best described by some words
which come near their close. He has had shown to
him by the Lord "the natures of those things which
were hurtful without; [but] were [really] within in the
hearts and minds of wicked men : the natures of dogs,
swine, vipers, of Sodom and Egypt, Pharaoh, Cain,
Ishmael, Esau, etc." Then he goes on —
" I cried to the Lord, saying, ' Why should I be thus,
seeing I was never addicted to commit those evils ? '
and the Lord answered, ' That it was needful I should
have a sense of all conditions, how else should I speak
to all conditions ! ' and in this I saw the infinite love of
God. I saw also, that there was an ocean of darkness
and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love,
which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In that
also I saw the infinite love of God, and I had great
openings."

CHAPTER IV
fox's message
The spiritual conflicts described in the last chapter
having come to an end, external conflicts took their place.
The militant preacher replaces the solitary searcher after
truth. About the year 1648 Fox seems to have begun
that series of missionary journeys which, except for his
long intervals of imprisonment, may be said to have lasted
for the rest of his life. He went sometimes on foot,
sometimes on horseback, and though he occasionally
speaks of himself as sleeping under a haystack, he
does not appear to have ever lacked money for his
simple travelling expenses. How far his parents and
family sympathized with him in his work it is not easy
to ascertain, but at any rate they seem always to have
supplied him with what was needful for his main
tenance. Of the personal appearance of the young
preacher at this time we do not hear much, but from
the words long afterwards applied to him by Ellwood
(" graceful he was in countenance, manly in personage "),
we may suppose that in his early manhood he was " a
personable man." His attire was simple, but what
seems most to have impressed the beholders was not
its shape but its material. "It is indeed true," says
the Quaker historian Sewel, "what a certain author,
33 d

34 George fox
viz. Gerard Croese, relates of him, that he Was clothed
with leather ; but not, as the said author adds, because
he could not or would not forget his former leather-
work : but it was partly for the simplicity of that dress,
and also because such a clothing was strong, and needed
but little mending or repairing, which was commodious
for him who had no steady dwelling-place, and every
where in his travelling about sought to live in a lonely
state." x Carlyle, in a well-known passage in Sartor
Resartus, indulges in a fine burst of rhapsodical de
clamation over these leathern garments, but it does not
appear that Fox himself, or his contemporaries, con
sidered that there was anything extraordinary in his
choosing skin rather than wool for the material of his
clothing. His only allusion to it I believe is contained
in one passage, in which he says, " The Lord's everlasting
power was over the world, and reached to the hearts of
people, and made both priests and professors tremble.
It shook the earthly and airy spirit in which they held
their profession of religion and worship, so that it was
a dreadful thing unto them when it was told them,
' The man in leather breeches is come.' "
Let us consider what were the cardinal truths which
George Fox, setting forth on his missionary journeys,
believed himself commissioned to proclaim.
1. First and foremost the doctrine of the "Inward
Light." — " I saw that Christ died for all men, and was
a propitiation for all, and enlightened all men and
Women with His divine and saving light, and that none
could be a true believer but who also believed in it. I
saw that the grace of God, which bringeth salvation,
has appeared to all men, and that the manifestation
1 Hist, of Society of Friends, i. 33 (Ed. 1833).

FOX'S MESSAGE 35
of the Spirit of God was given to every man to profit
withal. These things I did not see by the help of
man, nor by the letter, though they are written in the
letter, but I saw them in the light of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and by His immediate spirit and power, as did
the holy men of God by whom the Holy Scriptures
were written. . . . With and by this divine power and
Spirit of God, and the light of Jesus, I was to bring
people off from their own ways to Christ, the new and
living way : and from their churches which men had
made and gathered, to the Church in God, the general
assembly written in heaven, which Christ is the head
of. . . . And I was to bring people off from all the
world's religions, which are vain; that they might
know the pure religion, might visit the fatherless, the
widows, and the strangers, and keep themselves from
the spots of the world. Then there would not be so
many beggars, the sight of whom often grieved my
heart, as it denoted so much hard-heartedness amongst
them that professed the name of Christ. I was to
bring them off from all the world's fellowships, and
prayings, and singings, which stood in forms without
power; that their fellowship might be in the Holy
Ghost and in the Eternal Spirit of God; that they
might pray in the Holy Ghost, and sing in the Spirit
and with the grace that comes by Jesus. . . .
" I was to bring people off from Jewish ceremonies
and from heathenish fables, and from men's inventions
and windy doctrines, by which they blew the people
about this way and the other way, from sect to sect ;
and [from] all their beggarly rudiments, with their
schools and colleges for making ministers of Christ,
who are indeed ministers of their own making, but not

36 GEORGE FOX
of Christ's ; and from all their images and crosses, and
sprinkling of infants, with all their holy days (so
called), and all their vain traditions which they had
instituted since the apostles' days, which the Lord's
power was against; in the dread and authority of
which, I was moved to declare against them all, and
against all that preached not freely, as being such as
had not received freely from Christ." 1
It may be inferred from this and similar passages that
though the " Inward Light " is the main article of Fox's
preaching, many other things, the disuse of sacraments,
the abandonment of a liturgy, silent worship, unpaid
ministry, are all in his mind necessary consequences
of that doctrine.
2. Christian Perfection. — As has been said, the domi
nant teaching in Fox's earlier years was Calvinist ; and
Calvinism, especially in the mouths of the " professors "
who had taken it up from worldly motives, had ever a
tendency to slide down into Antinomianism. Much of
Fox's preaching was directed against these doctrines,
against what he called " pleading for sin," and towards
the possibility of attaining a state of Christian perfection.
"While I was in prison," he says (at Derby), "divers
professors came to discourse with me, and I had a sense
before they spoke that they came to plead for sin and
imperfection. I asked them, ' Whether they were be
lievers and had faith ? ' and they said, ' Yes.' I asked
them, ' In whom ? ' and they said, ' In Christ.' I
replied, ' If ye are true believers in Christ, you are
passed from death unto life, and if passed from death,
then from sin that bringeth death. And if your faith
be true, it will give you victory over sin and the devil,
1 I. 37.

FOX'S MESSAGE 37
purify your hearts and consciences (for the true faith
is held in a pure conscience), and bring you to please
God, and give you access to Him again.' But they could
not endure to hear of purity, and of victory over sin and
the devil ; for they said they could not believe that any
could be free from sin on this side the grave. I bid
them give over babbling about the Scriptures, which were
holy men's words, whilst they pleaded for unholiness." x
But these discussions on the higher points of the
Christian life, and even the disuse of sacraments, might
possibly, in that age of unsettlement and debate, have
failed to bring Fox and his friends into collision with
the ruling powers. The two points of practice which
perpetually brought them into conflict with the author
ities, and which more than anything else caused them
to spend years of their lives in the detestable prisons
of seventeenth-century England, were their scruples
about oaths and " hat- worship."
3. Judicial swearing as well as profane swearing, are
in Fox's view forbidden by Christ. — As he expressed it
in a short paper which was meant to be handed to the
magistrates, " The world saith, ' Kiss the book,' but the
book saith, ' Kiss the Son, lest He be angry.' And the
Son saith, ' Swear not at all, but keep to Yea and Nay
in all your communications, for whatsoever is more than
this cometh of evil.' " 2
Again in 1665, when Fox was in prison at Scarbro',
Dr. Cradock came with a great company, and asked
him, " What he was in prison for ? " "I told him, ' for
obeying the command of Christ and the apostle in not
swearing. But if he, being both a doctor and a justice
of the peace, could convince me that after Christ and
1 I, 56. 2 I. 521.

38 GEORGE FOX
the apostle had forbidden swearing, they commanded
Christians to swear, then I would swear. Here was
the Bible,' I told him, ' he might if he could show me
any such command.' The Doctor quoted the text,
'Ye shall swear in truth and righteousness.' 'Ay,
it was written so in Jeremiah's time, but that was
many ages before Christ commanded not to swear
at all ; but where is it written so, since Christ forbade
all swearing ? I could bring as many instances for
swearing out of the Old Testament as thou, and it may
be more ; but of what force are they to prove swearing
lawful in the New Testament, since Christ and the
apostle had forbade it ? ' "
The English State and the followers of George Fox
have long ago agreed to a compromise on this question
of the oath. While the Church of England and the
great majority of Englishmen hold in all good faith
that it was not oaths in a court of justice, but profane
swearing, which Jesus Christ meant to prohibit, they
recognize that the disciples of Fox in equal good faith
hold an opposite opinion, and that, like the " verily " of
the first Quaker, the simple affirmation of his followers
is a sufficient guarantee for truthful evidence. Thus
not only the Quakers, but all persons who profess to
have a conscientious objection to taking an oath, are
now relieved from that obligation. But in the seven
teenth century oath-taking was the very corner-stone
of the Commonwealth. Who were those " recusants "
whose partial toleration formed such a constant bone of
contention between Charles and his Parliaments ? who
but the Roman Catholics, who refused to take the oaths
of Supremacy and Abjuration? The Solemn League
and Covenant, sworn to by the Parliaments of England

FOX'S MESSAGE 39
and Scotland, was in the eyes of the devout Presbyterian
the pledge of all the future happiness of both countries.
And so on throughout the political life of England,
oaths were exacted and relied upon to a far greater
degree than at the present day. In such a state of
things George Fox and his friends, steadily and obstin
ately refusing to take any oath at all, were bound to
come into collision with the authorities. The fanatical
Protestant suspected them of being crypto-Catholics,
the Parliament-man believed that they were plotting to
bring in King Charles, the justices of Charles IL, when
he was at length seated on the throne, suspected them
of being old Cromwellians ; anything and everything
might be believed of men who would on no account
attest their loyalty by an oath.
4. Hat-worship, as the new teachers called it, was
an even more fatal rock of offence than judicial
swearing, especially as along with it went the use of
the singular number in addressing a single person.
" Moreover," says Fox, " when the Lord sent me forth
into the world, He forbade me to put off my hat to any,
high or low ; and I was required to say Thee and Thou
to all men and women, without any respect to rich or
poor, great or small. And as I travelled up and down,
I was not to bid people Good-morrow, or Good-evening,
neither might I bow or scrape with my leg to any one,
and this made the sects and professions to rage. . . .
Oh ! the rage that then was in the priests, magistrates,
professors, and people of all sorts; but especially in
priests and professors ! — for though Thou to a single
person was according to their own learning, their acci
dence and grammar rules, and according to the Bible,
yet they could not bear to hear it ; and as to the hat-

40 GEORGE FOX
honour, because I could not put off my hat to them, it
set them all in a rage.
" Oh ! the rage and scorn, the heat and fury that arose !
Oh ! the blows, punchings, beatings, and imprisonments
that we underwent for not putting off our hats to men !
For that soon tried all men's patience and sobriety what
it was. Some had their hats violently plucked off and
thrown away, so that they quite lost them. The bad
language and evil usage we received on this account
are hard to be expressed, besides the danger we were
sometimes in of losing our lives for this matter, and
that by the great professors of Christianity, who thereby
discovered that they were not true believers."
Fox's own reason for objecting to this "hat-honour"
is that " it was an honour below, which the Lord would
lay in the dust and stain — an honour which proud men
looked for who sought not the honour which came
from God only ; an honour invented by men in the fall,
and in the alienation from God, who were offended if
it were not given them, and yet they would be looked
upon as saints, Church members, and great Christians."
The reason generally alleged by the later Friends, that the
removal of the covering of the head is a sign of reverence
to God, which ought not to be rendered to any of His
creatures, seems to be an afterthought ; at least I do
not find it brought forward in Fox's Journal.
The whole matter certainly now seems to belong to
the category of the Infinitely Little ; but, as we well
know, it is even yet a point of honour with all judges
and magistrates that no one shall remain covered in
their presence. In pictures of the trial of King Charles
I., both the royal prisoner and his judges are seen
asserting their dignity by wearing their hats, and the

FOX'S MESSAGE 41
clerks of the court are the only persons who are happily
free from the ugly incumbrance. Thus, while Fox's
scruple was without doubt a genuine one, and was
partly caused by the ceremonious bowings and scrapings
which were the fashion of his day, there was in this
scruple also a fruitful source of dispute with the magis
trates before whom he was brought, some of whom
under the Commonwealth were probably men lately
raised to the bench, and on that account all the more
tenacious of their " brief authority."
5. Lastly, in this confessedly incomplete catalogue
of the characteristic points in George Fox's teaching
must come his great testimony against the lawfulness of
war for Christian men. In this position he was equally
at variance with the 37th Article of Religion agreed
upon in the Convocation of the Clergy of the Church of
England,1 and with the beliefs of that wonderful " New
Model " Puritan army, who, with the high praises of
God in their mouths, and with a two-edged sword in
their hands, had hewn down a monarchy that had
stood for eight centuries.
The Quaker " testimony against all war " has since
Fox's time been buttressed by all manner of arguments,
social, political, economical, to which he and most of
his immediate disciples were strangers. It will be well,
therefore, to quote a few sentences from his Journal, to
show how it shaped itself in the mind of its first apostle.
" Now the time of my commitment to the House of
Correction [in 1650] being very near out, and there
being many new soldiers raised, the commissioners would
have made me captain over them; and the soldiers
1 " It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the
magistrate, to wear weapons, and to serve in the wars."

42 GEORGE FOX
cried, they would have none but me. So the keeper of
the House of Correction was commanded to bring me
before the commissioners and soldiers in the market
place ; and there they offered that preferment, as they
called it, asking me if I would not take up arms for the
Commonwealth against Charles Stuart ? I told them, I
knew from whence all wars did arise, even from the
lust, according to James's doctrine ; and that I lived in
the virtue of that life and power that took away the
occasion of all wars. But they courted me to accept of
their offer, and thought I did but compliment them.
But I told them I was come into the covenant of peace,
which was before wars and strifes were. They said
they offered it in love and kindness to me because of
my virtue ; and such-like flattering words they used.
But I told them, if that was their love and kindness, I
trampled it under my feet. Then their rage got up,
and they said, 'Take him away, gaoler, and put him
into the dungeon amongst the rogues and felons.' So I
was had away, and put into a lousy, stinking place,
without any bed, amongst thirty felons, where I was
kept almost half a year, unless it were at times; for
they would sometimes let me walk in the garden,
having a belief that I would not go away 
" Now the time of Worcester fight coming on [3rd
September, 1651], Justice Bennet sent the constables to
press me for a soldier, seeing I would not voluntarily
accept of a command. I told them I was brought off
from outward wars. They came down again to give me
press-money, but I would accept none  After a
while the constables brought me before the commis
sioners, who said I should go for a soldier, but I told
them I was dead to it. They said I was alive. I told

FOX'S MESSAGE 43
them, where envy and hatred are there is confusion."
The end of the matter was that he was put in closer
confinement (he was already in prison at Derby while
these discussions were going on), and from his dungeon
wrote a letter to Colonel Barton (who was also a preacher),
and the rest that were concerned in his commitment,
reminding them of the words of Christ, "Love your
enemies, and do good to them that hate you, and pray
for them that despitefully use you and persecute you."
Again, three years later, when Fox had been arrested
and carried up to London by order of Colonel Hacker (the
regicide), he was offered his liberty on the condition (often
demanded from disturbers of the public peace) that he
would promise not to bear arms against the Government.
" After Captain Drury had lodged me at the Mer
maid x he left me there, and went to give the Protector
an account of me. When he came to me again, he told
me the Protector required that I should promise not to
take up a carnal sword or weapon against him or the
Government, as it then was, and I should write it in
what words I saw good, and set my hand to it. I said
little in reply to Captain Drury. But the next morning
I was moved of tbe Lord to write a paper to the
Protector, Oliver Cromwell, wherein I did in the pre
sence of the Lord God declare that I denied [i. e. con
demned] the wearing or drawing of a carnal sword or
any other outward weapon against him or any man;
and that I was set of God to stand a witness against all
violence, and against the works of darkness; and to
turn people from darkness to light, and to bring them
from the causes of war and of fighting to the peaceable
gospel, and from being evil-doers, which the magistrates'
1 Over against the Mews at Charing Cross.

44 GEORGE FOX
swords should be a terror to. When I had written
what the Lord had given me to write, I set my name to
it, and gave it to Captain Drury to hand to Oliver
Cromwell, which he did."
Six years later (1659), when the premature Royalist
insurrection of Sir George Booth had alarmed the nation
(now no longer ruled by the mighty Protector), " some
foolish and rash spirits," says Fox, " that came some
times among us, were ready to take up arms ; but I was
moved of the Lord to warn and forbid them, and they
were quiet. In the time of the Committee of Safety
(so called) we were invited by them to take up arms,
and great places and commands were offered some of
us, but we denied [refused] them all, and declared
against it both by word and writing, testifying that
our weapons and armour were not carnal but spiritual."
In order more effectually to warn his followers, Fox put
forth a paper, exhorting them to take heed to " keep out
of the powers of the earth, that run into wars and
fightings, which make not for peace, but destroy it;
such will not have the kingdom. . ., . Let Friends keep
out of other men's matters, and keep in that which
answers the witness in them all, out of the man's part,
where they must expect wars and dishonour."
Thus Fox's " testimony against war," though grounded
on Scripture, especially on the well-known passage in
Christ's Sermon on the Mount, was related, like all the
other articles of his teaching, to his one central doctrine
of the Inward Light. Wars and tumults, bloodshed,
and the hot spirit of the duellist and the swashbuckler,
belonged to "the unstaid state," "the carnal part," "the •
bustlings of the world," and prevented men from listen
ing to " that which answers the witness in them all,"

CHAPTER V
MISSIONARY JOURNEYS: MIDLAND COUNTIES AND
YORKSHIRE
The first four years of Fox's missionary life (1648 —
1651) were spent chiefly in the midland counties and
Yorkshire. For some time he seems to have especially
frequented the county of Nottingham, and he was
described as " late of Mansfield in the County of Not
tingham," in the mittimus under which he was com
mitted to prison on October 30, 1650. It was during
these early years of his preaching that some of his most
characteristic and best-remembered spiritual adventures
took place.
1. One of these showed a remarkable sympathy with
the doubts and perplexities of a much later age.
"After this I returned into Nottinghamshire again,
and went into the Vale of Beavor. As I went I
preached repentance to the people; and there were
many convinced in the Vale of Beavor, in many towns ;
for I stayed some weeks amongst them. One morning,
as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me,
and a temptation beset me ; but I sat still. And it was
said, 'All things come by nature;' and the elements
and the stars came over me, so that I was in a manner
quite clouded with it. But as I sat still and said
nothing, the people of the house perceived nothing.
45

16 GEORGE FOX
And as I sat still under it, and let it alone, a living
hope arose in me, and a true voice which said, ' There
is a living God, who made all things.' And immedi
ately the cloud and temptation vanished away, and life
rose over it all ; my heart was glad, and I praised the
living God. After some time, I met with some people
who had a notion that there was no God, but that all
things came by nature. I had a great dispute with
them, and overturned them, and made some of them
confess that there is a living God. Then I saw that it
was good that I had gone through that exercise."
It is interesting to note that in this passage Fox
unconsciously anticipates the phraseology of one of our
latest writers on the problems of a theistic faith. The
temptation with which the Leicestershire shepherd was
wrestling, was a temptation to what is generally spoken
of as Materialism. Mr. Balfour, in his Foundations of
Religious Belief, prefers to use the word " Naturalism,"
and that is just the phrase which expresses the proposi
tion that suggested itself to the mind of George Fox,
and over which his spirit triumphed — " All things come
by nature."
This incident has suggested to the great Quaker poet
of America one of his best and deepest utterances —
" Still, as of old in Beaver's vale,
0 man of God ! our hope and. faith
The elements and stars assail,
And the awed spirit holds its breath,
Blown over by a wind of death.
*****
Strange god of Force, with fear, not love
Its trembling worshippers ! can prayers
Reach the shut ear of Fate, or move
Unpitying Energy to spare ?
What doth the cosmic vastness care?

MISSIONARY JOURNEYS : MIDLAND COUNTIES 47
I pray for faith. I long to trust,
I listen with my heart, and hear
A voice without a sound. Be just,
Be true, be merciful ; revere
The Word within thee. God is near.
*****
O joy supreme ! I know the Voice,
Like none beside in earth or sea,
Yea, more. O soul of mine, rejoice
By all that He requires of me :
I know what God Himself must be."
Thus " the Word within thee " is to Whittier, as to the
founder of the society to which he belonged, the power
ful voice which drowns that other dread suggestion of
the Sadducean intellect, " All things come by nature."
It is immediately after his record of this battle with
a spiritual foe, that Fox describes some of his strivings
after a much humbler aim, the promotion of social peace
and justice between man and man.
" At a certain time when I was at Mansfield there
was a sitting of the justices about hiring of servants,
and it was upon me from the Lord to go and speak to
the justices, that they should not oppress the servants
in their wages. So I walked towards the inn where
they sat, but finding a company of fiddlers there I did
not go in, but thought to come in the morning, when I
might have a more serious opportunity to discourse
with them, not thinking that a seasonable time. But
when I came again in the morning they were gone,
and I was struck even blind that I could not see. I
inquired of the innkeeper where the justices were to
sit that day, and he told me at a town eight miles off.
My sight began to come to me again, and I went and
ran thitherward as fast as I could. When I was come
to the house where they were, and many servants with

48 GEORGE FOX
them, I exhorted the justices not to oppress the servants
in their wages, but to do that which was right and just
to them, and I exhorted the servants to do their duties,
and serve honestly, etc. They all received my exhorta
tion kindly, for I was moved of the Lord therein."
2. It was apparently in the year 1649 that Fox under
went his first imprisonment, the place of his confine
ment being Nottingham, and the cause a protest against
what seemed to him an undue exaltation of the Scrip
tures. His own account of the matter is as follows : —
" Now as I went towards Nottingham on a first-day
in the morning, with Friends to a meeting there, when
I came on the top of a hill in sight of the town I espied
the great steeple-house, and the Lord said unto me,
' Thou must go cry against yonder great idol, and
against the worshippers therein.' So I said nothing
of this to the Friends that were with me, but went on
with them to the meeting, where the [mighty power
of the Lord was amongst us ; in which I left Friends
sitting in the meeting, and I went away to the steeple-
house. When I came there all the people looked like
fallow ground, and the priest (like a great lump of
earth) stood in his pulpit above. He took for his text
these words of Peter, ' We have also a more sure word
of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed,
as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the
day dawn, and the daystar arise in your hearts.' And
he told the people that this was the Scriptures, by
which they were to try all doctrines, religions, and
opinions. Now the Lord's power was so mighty upon
me, and so strong in me, that I could not hold, but was
made to cry out and say, ' Oh no, it is not the Scrip
tures ; ' and I told them what it was, namely, the Holy

MISSIONARY JOURNEYS: MIDLAND COUNTIES 49
Spirit by which the holy men of God gave forth the
Scriptures, whereby opinions, religions, and judgments
were to be tried, for it led into all truth, and so gave
the knowledge of all truth. The Jews had the Scrip
tures, and yet resisted the Holy Ghost, and rejected
Christ, the bright morning-star. They persecuted
Christ and His apostles, and took upon them to try
their doctrines by the Scriptures, but erred in judgment,
and did not try them aright, because they tried without
the Holy Ghost. As I spake thus amongst them, the
officers came and took me away, and put me into a
nasty, stinking prison, the smell whereof got so into my
nose and throat that it very much annoyed me.
" But that day the Lord's power sounded so in their
ears, that they were amazed at the voice, and could not
get it out of their ears for some time after, they were so
reached by the Lord's power in the steeple-house. At
night they took me before the mayor, aldermen, and
sheriffs of the town, and when I was brought before
them, the mayor was in a peevish, fretful temper, but
the Lord's power allayed him. They examined me at
large, and I told them how the Lord had moved me to
come. After some discourse between them and me,
they sent me back to prison again, but some time after
the head sheriff, whose name was John Reckless, sent
for me to his house. When I came in his wife met me
in the hall and said, ' Salvation is come to our house.'
She took me by the hand, and was much wrought upon
by the power of the Lord God ; and her husband, and
children, and servants were much changed, for the
power of the Lord wrought upon them. I lodged at
the sheriff's, and great meetings we had in his house.
Some persons of considerable condition in the world

50 GEORGE FOX
came to them, and the Lord's power appeared eminently
amongst them. This sheriff sent for the other sheriff,
and for a woman they had had dealings with in the
way of trade ; and he told her before the other sheriff
that they had wronged her in their dealings with her
(for the other sheriff and he were partners), and that
they ought to make her restitution. This he spoke
cheerfully, but the other sheriff denied it, and the
woman said that she knew nothing of it. But the
friendly sheriff said it was so, and that the other knew
it well enough ; and having discovered the matter, and
acknowledged the wrong done by them, he made resti
tution to the woman, and exhorted the other sheriff to
do the like. The Lord's power was with this friendly
sheriff, and wrought a mighty change in him, and great
openings he had. The next market day, as he was
walking with me in the chamber in his slippers, he
said, ' I must go into the market, and preach repentance
to the people,' and accordingly he went into the market,
and into several streets, and preached repentance to the
people. Several others also in the town were moved to
speak to the mayor and magistrates, and to the people,
exhorting them to repent. Hereupon the magistrates
grew very angry, and sent for me from the sheriff's
house, and committed me to the common prison. When
the assize came on, there was one moved to come and
offer up himself for me, body for body ; yea, life also ;
but when I should have been brought before the judge,
the sheriff's man being somewhat long in fetching me
to the sessions-house, the judge was risen before I
came. At which I understood the judge was somewhat
offended, and said 'he would have admonished the
youth if he had been brought before him,' for I was

MISSIONARY JOURNEYS: MIDLAND COUNTIES 51
then imprisoned by the name of a youth. So I was
returned to prison again, and put into the common gaol.
The Lord's power was great among Friends, but the
people began to be very rude, wherefore the governor
of the castle sent down soldiers and dispersed them,
and after that they were quiet. But both priests and
people were astonished at the wonderful power that
broke forth, and several of the priests were made tender,
and some did confess to the power of the Lord."
It may be remarked, as to the incident which led to
this imprisonment, that Fox does not appear to have
repeated the offence of actually interrupting a preacher
in his sermon. It would probably be generally admitted
now, even by those who have most sympathy with Fox's
teachings, that the preacher was right in interpreting
the passage before him (2 Peter i. 19) of the Scriptures
of the Old Testament.
3. How long the imprisonment at Nottingham lasted
we are not informed. The next imprisonment, at Derby,
lasted for almost a year, from October 30, 1650, to the
beginning of winter 1651. Again it was his utterances
in the parish church which brought him into trouble.
He was walking in his chamber, and heard a bell ring,
which " struck at my life at the hearing of it ; so I asked
the woman of the house what the bell rang for ? She
said there was to be a great lecture there that day, and
many of the officers of the army, and priests, and
preachers were to be there, and a colonel that was a
preacher." This colonel, as we learn from a later
passage,1 was Colonel Barton, who sat three years later
as a member of the Second Council of the " Barebones "
Parliament.2 Altogether the assembly in the parish
1 I. 73. 2 See Masson's Life of MUton, iv. 525.

52 GEORGE FOX
church of Derby that day was as little like an ordinary
Church of England congregation of the times either of
Elizabeth or Victoria as can well be imagined, and could
Archbishop Laud have been called from his grave in
Allhallows, Barking, to witness that day's proceedings,
he would have had as little sympathy with the Puritan
lecturer or the preaching colonel as with the young man
in the leather breeches, whose strange, excited discourse
broke in upon their long-drawn expositions.
" Then was I moved of the Lord," he says, " to go up
to them ; and when they had done I spoke to them
what the Lord commanded me, and they were pretty
quiet. But there came an officer, and took me by the
hand, and said I must go before the magistrates, and
the other two that were with me. It was about the
first hour after noon that we came before them. They
asked me why we came thither ; I said, ' God moved us
to do so ; ' and I told them, ' God dwells not in temples
made with hands.' I told them also, all their preaching,
baptism, and sacrifices would never sanctify them ; and
bid them look unto Christ in them, and not unto men ;
for it is Christ that sanctifies. Then they ran into
many words ; but I told them they were not to dispute
of God and Christ, but to obey Him. The power of
God thundered amongst them, and they did fly like
chaff before it. They put me in and out of the room
often, hurrying me backward and forward; for they
were from the first hour till the ninth at night in
examining me. Sometimes they would tell me, in a
deriding manner, that I was taken up in raptures. At
last they asked me whether I was sanctified? I
answered : ' Yes ; for I was in the paradise of God.' Then
they asked me if I had no sin ? I answered, ' Christ,

MISSIONARY JOURNEYS: MIDLAND COUNTIES 53
my Saviour, has taken away my sin, and in Him there
is no sin.' They asked, how we knew that Christ did
abide in us ? I said, ' By His Spirit that He has given us.'
They temptingly asked if any of us were Christ ? I
answered, ' Nay, we were nothing : Christ was all.' They
said, ' If a man steal, is it no sin ? ' I answered, ' All un
righteousness is sin.' So when they had wearied
themselves in examining me, they committed me and
one other man to the House of Correction in Derby for
six months as blasphemers."
This committal took place no doubt under the Blas
phemy Law passed by the two Houses of Parliament
in May 1648. According to the provisions of that
extraordinary Statute, Fox might have been con
demned to suffer the pains of death, as in a case of
felony without benefit of clergy, for maintaining e.g.
that the Song of Solomon is not the Word of God. As
he was only committed to prison, not put to death, his
alleged blasphemy must have been one of the minor
transgressions against Presbyterian orthodoxy enumer
ated in the second part of the Statute, such as the
assertion "that the baptizing of infants is unlawful,"
" that the observation ofthe Lord' Day is not obligatory,"
or " that the Church government by Presbytery is anti-
Christian and unlawful." Fox himself gives us no hint
in what his alleged blasphemy consisted, but in a
discussion between a dogmatic preaching colonel, and
an eager, mystical, and imperfectly educated shepherd-
prophet, it is easy to understand that propositions
might be affirmed or denied by the latter which would
bring him within the range of that wide-reaching
Statute. At this point we must note that Gervase Bennet, J.P.,

54 GEORGE FOX
the magistrate who, along with Colonel Barton, signed
the mittimus for his committal to the House of Correc
tion, was also the inventor of a word, which in the
course of two centuries and a half has had no small
currency among .the English-speaking peoples. The
keeper of the prison, in a dream one night, saw the Day
of Judgment, "and I saw George there, and I was
afraid of him, because I had done him so much wrong,
and spoken so much against him to the ministers and
professors, and to the justices, and in taverns and ale
houses." In his distress of mind he came, like the
gaoler of Philippi, to implore his prisoner's pardon, and
next morning he went and told the justices (says the
Journal) " that he and his house had been plagued for
my sake, and one of the justices replied (as he reported
to me) that the plagues were on them too for keeping
me. This was justice Bennet of Derby, who was the
first that called us QUAKERS, because I bid them
tremble at the word of the Lord. This was in the
year 1650."
The name by which the little newly-formed Church
at first seems to have called itself was " Children of the
Light." Afterwards they chose the name which they
still use, "The Society of Friends," to which was
generally added, " in scorn called Quakers."
George Fox's imprisonment at Derby lasted, as I
have said, for about a year. It was strangely unlike
anything that takes place in the monotonous English
prisons of to-day. " Professors " came to discourse with
the prisoner, who, in words already quoted,1 upheld the
high standard of Christian perfection against what he
called their " pleading for sin."
1 See p. 36.

MISSIONARY JOURNEYS: MIDLAND COUNTIES 55
The magistrates gave leave that he should have
liberty to walk a mile. He asked to be shown the
extent of his one mile radius, and scrupulously adhered
to its limits, often taking opportunity in his perambula
tions to preach in the market and the streets, warning
the people to repent of their wickedness, but always
returning conscientiously to his prison, to the no small
disappointment of his unwilling persecutors, who, as
the gaoler afterwards confessed, had granted this per
mission in the hope that he would avail himself of it
to escape, and so ease them of their plague. " But I
told him I was not of that spirit."
Once while he was in this prison he was visited by a
trooper, who while sitting in church had heard God's
voice saying to him, "Dost thou not know that My
servant is in prison ? Go to him for direction." Fox's
discourse to this man relieved the burden on his soul.
'' He began to have a good understanding in the Lord's
truth, and to be sensible of God's mercies." Soon he
" began to speak boldly in his quarters amongst the
soldiers and to others concerning truth (for the Scriptures
were very much opened to him), insomuch that he
said ' his colonel was as blind as Nebuchadnezzar, to
cast the servant of the Lord into prison.' Upon this
his colonel had a spite against him, and at Worcester
fight, the year after, when the two armies were lying
near one another, two came out from the King's army
and challenged any two of the Parliament army to fight
with them ; his colonel made choice of him and another
to answer the challenge. And when in the encounter
his companion was slain, he drove both his enemies
within musket-shot of the town without firing a pistol
at them. This, when he returned, he told me with his

56 GEORGE FOX
own mouth. But when the fight was over, he saw the
deceit and hypocrisy of the officers ; and being sensible
how wonderfully the Lord had preserved him, and
seeing also to the end of fighting, he laid down his
arms." It was at " Worcester fight " (September 3, 1651)
that this young convert fought his duel, and the same
crisis in the fortunes of the Commonwealth suggested
to the Derby magistrates (as we have already seen) the
notable device of getting rid of their prisoner by
sending him to fight against Charles Stuart. This his
" testimony against all fighting," as being out of the
Divine life, forbade him to do either as officer or private,
and his refusal seems to have doubled the length ahd
increased the severity of his confinement.
At length this strange struggle between the criminal
and his judges came to an end. The man whom they
had at first called a deceiver, a seducer, and a blasphemer,
they confessed to be an honest, virtuous man, and " at
length they were made to turn me out of jail about
the beginning of winter in the year 1651, after I had
been a prisoner in Derby almost a year, six months in
the House of Correction, and the rest of the time in the
common jail and dungeon."
4. The long imprisonment at Derby had perhaps
injured the mental as well as the bodily health of the
Quaker apostle, for it was shortly after his liberation that
an event occurred which has cast more doubt on the
perfect soundness of his intellect than any other incident
in his career. This is his celebrated denunciation of
" the bloody city of Lichfield," which shall be told in
his own words.
"As I was walking along with several Friends, I

MISSIONARY JOURNEYS: MIDLAND COUNTIES 57
lifted up my head, and I saw three steeple-house spires,
and they struck at my life. I asked them what place
that was, and they said Lichfield. Immediately the
word of the Lord came to me that I must go thither.
Being come to the house we were going to, I wished
the Friends that were with me to walk into the house,
saying nothing to them whither I was to go. As soon
as they were gone I stepped away, and went by my
eye over hedge and ditch, till I came within a mile of
Lichfield, where, in a great field, there were shepherds
keeping their sheep. Then I was commanded by the
Lord to pull off my shoes. I stood still, for it was
winter, and the word of the Lord was like a fire in me.
So I put off my shoes, and left them with the shepherds,
and the poor shepherds trembled and were astonished.
Then I walked on about a mile, and as soon as I was
got within the city, the word of the Lord came to me
again, saying, 'Cry, Woe unto the bloody city of
Lichfield ! ' So I went up and down the streets crying
with a loud voice, ' Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield ! '
It being market day, I went into the market-place, and
to and fro in the several parts of it, and made stands,
crying as before, ' Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield ! '
And no one laid hands on me; but as I went thus
crying through the streets, there seemed to me to be
a channel of blood running down the streets, and the
market-place appeared like a pool of blood. When I
had declared what was upon me, and felt myself clear,
I went out of the town in peace ; and returning to the
shepherds, I gave them some money, and took my shoes
of them again. But the fire of the Lord was so in my
feet, and all over me, that I did not matter to put on
my shoes any more, and was at a stand whether I

58 GEORGE FOX
should or not, till I felt freedom from the Lord so to
do ; and then after I had washed my feet I put on my
shoes again. After this a deep consideration came
upon me, why or for what reason I should be sent to
cry against that city, and call it the bloody city. For
though the Parliament had the minster one while, and
the King another, and much blood had been shed in
the town during the wars between them, yet that was
no more than had befallen other places. But afterwards
I came to understand that in the Emperor Diocletian's
time, a thousand Christians were martyred in Lichfield.
So I was to go, without my shoes, through the channel
of their blood, and into the pool of their blood in the
market-place, that I might raise up the memorial of
the blood of those martyrs which had been shed above
a thousand years before, and lay cold in their streets.
So the sense of this blood was upon me, and I
obeyed the word of the Lord. Ancient records testify
how many of the Christian Britons suffered there.
Much I could write of the sense I had of the blood
of the martyrs that hath been shed in this nation for
the name of Christ, both under the ten persecutions
and since ; but I leave it to the Lord, and to His book,
out of which all shall be judged, for His book is a
most certain record, and His Spirit a true recorder."
We have in this passage a good illustration of the
way in which the utterances of the fervid prophet-
souled man, who knew no book but the Bible, were
worked over, and, so to speak, rationalized by the more
highly-instructed men, such as Penn and Ellwood, who
afterwards became his disciples. An age better versed
in the principles of historical criticism perceives that
the attempted explanation of this strange adventure,

MISSIONARY JOURNEYS: YORKSHIRE 59
drawn from the legendary story of a Diocletianic per
secution, is no explanation at all. It would be of more
purpose — as we have already indicated some points of
resemblance between the career of Fox and that of
Savonarola — to recall the wonderful prediction which
the great Dominican, in the early days of his preaching,
uttered with fervid eloquence against the city of Brescia.
Only in that case there was a real fulfilment of the
prophecy when Gaston de Foix took Brescia, and made
rivers of blood to flow down her streets. In the case of
" the bloody city of Lichfield," no such calamity attested
the truth of Fox's prophetic mission. A candid bio
grapher must confess, that in that wild and terrible
time, when the blood of Englishmen had been shed by
their brothers on many a battle-field, when cities like
Lichfield had been taken and retaken by Cavalier and
Roundhead, and when the final tragedy of Whitehall
had thrown a spell of horror not only over England, but
over all Europe, the brain of Fox, perhaps weakened by
the rigours of a long imprisonment, perceived wrongly
the spiritual intimations which were conveyed to it,
and transferred to the future that sense of horror at
scenes of violence which really reached it from the
past. In the year 1651 Fox's mission, hitherto confined to
the Midland counties, passed over into Yorkshire. It
was at this time, in the neighbourhood of Wakefield,
that he won over to his side a convert who was to be
first a powerful ally, then an uneasy rival, and finally a
damaging caricaturist of Quaker teaching, the fanatical
Cromwellian soldier James Naylor.
At Cranswick, in the East Riding, he was taken by
another Cromwellian soldier to call on a magistrate

60 GEORGE FOX
whom he calls Justice Hotham, and who was probably
a relation of the Sir John Hotham whose refusal to
admit the King's troops within the citadel of Hull was
the beginning of the Civil War. This Justice Hotham,
who was " a tender man, one that had some experience
of God's workings in his heart," took Fox with him
into his closet, " where, sitting together, he told me he
had known that principle [of the Inward Light] these
ten years, and was glad that the Lord did now publish
it abroad to the people. After a while there came a
priest " (no doubt a Puritan divine) " to visit him, with
whom also I had some discourse concerning Truth. But
his mouth was quickly stopped, for he was nothing but a
notionist, and not in possession of what he talked of."
So <Fox moved about on his missionary journey
through the great county of York. He preached in
Beverley Minster, apparently with something more than
mere endurance on the part of the listeners, for a great
lady of the neighbourhood informed Justice Hotham
that " there came an angel or spirit into the church at
Beverley, and spoke the wonderful things of God, to the
astonishment of all that were there ; and when it had
done it passed away, and they did not know whence it
came nor whither it went, but it astonished all, both
priests, professors, and magistrates of the town." x
1 We have here an interesting little detail in the history of
costume. A certain Captain Pursloe accompanies George Fox to
church (instead of Justice Hotham, who is afraid that if he goes
with him he shall be obliged as a magistrate to commit him to
prison). "But he was glad," he said, "when Captain Pursloe
came up to go with me, yet neither of them was dressed, nor had
his band about his neck. It was a strange thing then to see a
man come into & steeple-house [church] without a band, yet Captain
Pursloe went in with me without his band ; the Lord's power
and truth had so affected him that he minded it not."

MISSIONARY JOURNEYS: YORKSHIRE 61
At York Minster his reception was less favourable.
After the minister had ended his sermon, Fox told the
congregation that he had something from the Lord
God to speak to the priest and people. " Then say on
quickly," said a "professor" that was among them, for
it was frost and snow and very cold weather. When it
became plain to the audience that he had no new
doctrine to expound, but only to remind them that God
Almighty looked for fruits from among them, and that
mere words were no life-giving atmosphere for the soul,
either the cold of the great minster, or the unattractive
character of the message, made them impatient, and
they hurried him forth, and threw him down the steps,
but he arose unhurt, and went to his lodgings. " Several,"
says Fox, " were convinced there, for the very groans
that arose from the weight and oppression that was
upon the Spirit of God in me would open people and
strike them, and make them confess that the groans
which broke forth through me did reach them : for my
life was burdened with their profession without posses
sion, and words without fruit."
He passed on into Cleveland, and found there some
people who apparently had for a time professed doctrines
similar to his own, but who were then "all shattered
to pieces, and the heads of them turned Ranters." He
told them that this change had come over them because
they had not patiently waited upon God to feel His
power in their meetings. For want of this patient
waiting they had "spoken themselves dry: they had
spent their [spiritual] portions ; and not living in that
which they spoke of, they were now become dry. They
had some kind of meetings still, but they took tobacco
and drank ale in their meetings, and were grown light

62 GEORGE FOX
and loose." The Ranter chiefs of the congregation
seem to have resisted Fox's admonitions, but the rank
and file accepted his teaching with eagerness, and a
large meeting was set up in that place.
At another town in the same region, a leader of the
Ranters named Bushel came to a discussion with Fox,
which he opened in an unexpected manner. " He told
me he had had a vision of me, that I was sitting in a
great chair, and that he was to come and put off his
hat, and bow down to the ground before me : and he
did so, and many other flattering words he spoke. I
told him it was his own figure, and said unto him,
' Repent, thou beast.' He said it was jealousy in me to
say so. Then I asked him the ground of jealousy, and
how it came to be bred in man, and the nature of a beast,
what made it, and how it was bred in man. For I saw
him directly in the nature of a beast : and therefore I
wished to know of him how that nature came to be bred
in him. ... So I stopped his mouth, and all his fellow
Ranters were silenced, for he was the head of them."
A little later, when Fox returned into this district,
and was cordially welcomed by his friends Captain
Pursloe and Justice Hotham, the latter said to him, " If
God had not raised up this principle of light and life
which you preach, the nation had been overcome with
Ranterism, and all the justices in the nation could not
have stopped it with all their laws, because (said he)
they would have said as we said, and done as we
commanded, and yet have kept their own principle
still. But this principle of truth (said he) overthrows
their principle and the root and ground thereof, and
therefore he was glad the Lord had raised up this
principle of life and truth."

CHAPTER VI
SWARTHMOOR HALL
In the summer of 1652, when Fox was just entering
upon the twenty-ninth year of his age, he paid his
memorable visit to the Fells of Swarthmoor. Like
Mohammed's flight to Medina, or Calvin's journey to
Geneva, this visit marked a crisis in the history of a
new religious movement. Hitherto the preaching of
the Quaker missionaries, though earnest and powerful,
had been perhaps of a somewhat sporadic kind, and
had not built up an organized and coherent body of
believers. Now, under the fostering care of a devout
and energetic woman, mistress of a hospitable country-
house, and surrounded by a little clan of children and
dependents, who were partakers of her enthusiasm,
Quakerism in the north of England grew to such a size
as seriously to alarm the " professors " of the other
churches and sects, and to give a cruel edge to their
efforts for its suppression.
The district of Furness, in which Swarthmoor Hall is
situated, is one of the most picturesque in England.
The hematite iron ore which lay concealed beneath its
surface in George Fox's days has within the last half-
century been abundantly worked, and the district,
which was purely agricultural and pastoral, has now a
63

61 GEORGE FOX
large mining and manufacturing population. But
though the blast furnaces of Barrow now vomit forth
their clouds of smoke to the sky, they do not avail to
greatly mar the beauty of the landscapes of Furness.
Still on a summer day the hills round Lancaster lie in
dreamy beauty on the other side of the wide-reaching
Morecambe Bay ; and still the blue dome of Coniston
Old Man, and the ridge of Walney Scar, are seen from
the northern windows of Swarthmoor Hall rising into
a pure and smokeless sky.
Till the middle of the present century Furness was
still practically an island. The Coniston range shut it
out from Cumberland, the lake and ¦ mountains of
Windermere separated it from Westmoreland ; though
politically forming part of the county of Lancaster, it
had to be approached from that town by a long and
sometimes perilous journey, which could only be per
formed at low water across the broad sands which made
the estuaries of two rivers, the Kent and the Leven.1
In the Middle Ages, guides over these dangerous
sands were provided, and hospitality to strangers was
practised by the abbots of the two great monasteries
of Furness and Cartmel, who owned between them
nearly the whole of the peninsula. Now, of course,
1 See a valuable paper by Mr. John Fell (a collateral descend
ant of Judge Fell) in Transactions of Cumberland and Westmore
land Archceolqgical Society, xi. 368. As he says, "With the
estuary of the Dudden to the north, and the watershed boundaries
between Cumberland and Westmoreland, Lonsdale north of the
sands may be described as an island, and its inhabitants, until
the railway connected it with the main body of the country, as
an insular people. Up to a comparatively recent date it may be
said that the same families had been settled in the district from
time immemorial. A stranger was promptly detected, and with
out much ceremony made aware that he was regarded in the local
phraseology as an ' outcome.' "

SWARTHMOOR HALL 65
these great ecclesiastics had disappeared from the
scene, and the descendants of the men who had once
held land under them as their vassals were now
emerging into the position of landowners on their own
account. One of the largest of these landowners was
Thomas Fell, or as he is more often called Judge Fell,
who lived at Swarthmoor Hall, a comfortable country
house about three-quarters of a mile from Ulverston,
which was probably built by his father. Thomas Fell,
who was born about 1598, was descended from an old
Furness family of the kind just described, and he or
his immediate ancestors had invested largely in the
lands which had once belonged to the Abbey of Furness
and the Priory of Conishead. Having kept his terms
at Gray's Inn, and been called to the Bar, he espoused
the cause of the Parliament against the King at the
outbreak of the Civil War, and was successively ap
pointed Justice of the Peace for Lancashire (1641),
Parliamentary Sequestrator of Forfeited Estates (1642),
and chief layman in the " classical presbytery," which
was to discharge duties similar to a bishop's in the
district of Furness (1646). In 1645, as one of the so-
called " Recruiters," he was chosen member of Parlia
ment for his county, and (probably soon after) he was
appointed one of the Judges of Assize of the Chester
and North Wales Circuit. In 1652j he went the
Northern Circuit along with Bradshaw the regicide,
and three years later he succeeded that politician in the
high office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.1
Altogether it is obvious that "Judge Fell" was a
man of high position both in his county and in the
1 For these details I am indebted to Dr. Henry Barber's
Furness and Cartmel Notes, p. 232. p

66 GEORGE FOX
Parliamentary party. He refused to be reckoned
among the adherents of Oliver Cromwell, and probably
expressed openly his disapproval of the dissolution of
the Long Parliament, but he seems to have remained
on friendly terms with the great Protector, who pre
sented him on some occasion with a silver cup, which
was long preserved in the Judge's family.
It was not, however, the quiet, prosperous, moderate-
minded lawyer but his enthusiastic wife who made the
name of Swarthmoor famous in the religious history of
England. In 1632, twenty years before George Fox's
visit to Furness, the rising barrister Thomas Fell
married Margaret Askew, daughter of the owner of the
neighbouring estate of Marsh Grange, but also — a far
more significant fact — great-grand-daughter of Anne
Askew, whose fame yet survives as one of the noblest
and the most pathetically wronged of the Protestant
martyrs under Henry the Eighth. Something of the
spirit of her martyred ancestress survived in Margaret
Fell. Though she was not tried by the rack or the
fire of martyrdom, it was hers to suffer loss of worldly
goods, and to spend long years in loathsome dungeons.
During these years of imprisonment, the verses com
posed by her great progenitor, when she too was lan
guishing in Newgate prison, may often have recurred
to her memory ; —
" Like as the armfed knyghte
Appointed to the field,
With thys world will I fyghte,
And faythe shall be my shield,

Faythe in the fathers olde
Obtayned righteoysness,

SWARTHMOOR HALL 67
Which makes me verye bolde,
To feare no worlde's distress.

Thou sayst, Lord, whoso knocke
To them wilt Thou attende :
Undo therefor the locke,
And Thy strong power sende.
On Thee my care I cast,
For all their cruel spyght
I set not by their hast,
For Thou art my delyght."
Margaret Fell, who was sixteen years younger than
her husband, was only eighteen when he brought her
as a bride to Swarthmoor Hall. She was now a middle-
aged woman of eight-and-thirty, the mother of six
daughters1 and one son, ranging from infancy up to
nineteen years of age. The house in which they lived
is still preserved, and though now only a farm-house, it
is in a good state of preservation, and is well worthy of
a visit, even independently of its special connection
with Quaker history; for, perhaps owing to the
reverence with which Fox's memory was regarded, it
has almost entirely escaped the effacing hand of the
modern builder, and remains a complete picture of an
English country house of three centuries ago. We
still see the tolerably spacious dining-hall in which
Fox's disciples used to assemble, the little justice-room
adjoining it, in which the Judge used to transact his
business, and where he would often sit with half-
opened door to hear the preaching which he would not
too manifestly countenance. Overhead is the bed
room which tradition assigns to Fox as his guest-
1 A seventh daughter, Rachel, from whom most of Judge Fell's
living descendants sprang, was born in 1653.

68 GEORGE FOX
chamber, and near it the Judge's bedroom, wainscotted,
and with beautifully carved wood-work. Between these
two rooms is a closet which might have been a secret
hiding-place, and a window, formerly a door in the
outer wall of the house, where, as the legend says, Fox
used to stand and address the people from an elevation
of some twelve or thirteen feet, when the multitude was
too large to be assembled in the great hall.
We leave the house, and journeying for about half-
a-mile through fields and country lanes, we reach the
little meeting-house, which bears on its front the
inscription —
E DONO G. FOX
1688.
After the Quaker church had used Swarthmoor Hall
as its place of meeting for twenty-six years, its founder
bought a little piece of ground, and on it erected this
modest edifice, which he presented to "the Monthly
Meeting of Swarthmoor." The windows have been
unfortunately modernized, but in its high gallery (or
" loft ") the house still shows the primitive pattern of
the places of worship reared by the "Friends." The
most interesting relic in the place is the old black-letter
Bible presented to the meeting by George Fox, and
still bearing the links of the iron chain by which in
old time it was fastened to the reading-desk.1
Such was Swarthmoor Hall in the summer of 1652,
when George Fox came to it in the course of his
1 This Bible is a specimen of the edition of 1541, commonly
called the "Treacle" Bible, from the translation of Jeremiah
viii. 22 — " Is there no treacle [balm] in Gilead ? is there no
physician there ? "

SWARTHMOOR HALL 69
missionary journey. He had been spending some weeks
in the dales of Yorkshire and Lancashire, regions now
filled with busy industries, then guiltless of a factory
chimney. He had with difficulty climbed the steep
and high hill of Pendle in Lancashire, and looking over
the intervening lands to the Irish Channel, had seen a
Pisgah-vision of " the places in which a great people
should be gathered." Journeying onwards to Wensley-
dale and Sedbergh, he had there a vision of " a great
people in white raiment coming to the Lord"; and
from thence passing into Westmoreland, he made con
verts of two Puritan ministers, Francis Howgill and
John Audland, who became eminent preachers among
" the Children of Light." So through Kendal (which
was one day to be one of the great centres of Quakerism
in the north of England), Fox came into Furness, and
in process of time reached the hospitable shelter of
Swarthmoor Hall. The Hall was a well-known resting-
place for Puritan lecturers, who, as Margaret Fell says,
" often had prayers and religious exercises in our family.
This I hoped I did well in, but often feared I was short
of the right way ; and after this manner I was inquiring
and seeking about twenty years."
On the day of Fox's arrival, it happened that the
mistress of the Hall was absent, but ere long the clergy
man of Ulverston, a certain Mr. Lampitt, appeared upon
the scene. Of him, as of " Priest Stevens " of Fenny
Drayton, we have two opposite, and in fact irreconcil
able accounts. In Calamy's Ejected Ministers he appears
as "a warm and lively preacher in the region beyond
the sands, who lived obscurely (after his ejection on
St. Bartholomew's Day), and died in the year 1677."
In Fox's Journal he figures as " a high notionist with

70 GEORGE FOX
whom I had much reasoning, for he talked of high
notions and perfection, and thereby deceived the
people. He would have owned me, but I could not
own nor join with him, he was so full of filth."
A discussion followed, as to which one thing at least
is clear, that neither of the disputants understood what
the other was contending for. According to Fox, Lam
pitt said " he was above John, and made as if he knew
all things." He confessed " he had been under a cross
in things, but now he could sing psalms and do any
thing." Fox told him, " Now he could see a thief and
join hand in hand with him, but he could not preach
Moses nor the prophets, nor John nor Christ, except
he were in the same spirit that they were in." At
night Mrs. Fell returned, and was distressed to hear
from her children of the dispute between the guest
and Priest Lampitt, "because she was in profession
with him : but he hid his dirty actions from them. At
night," continues Fox, " we had much reasoning, and I
declared the truth to her and her family."
Next day Lampitt returned, and had another argu
ment in the presence of Margaret Fell, "who then
clearly discerned the priest. A convincement of the
Lord's truth came upon her and her family." There
was one of the great Parliamentary fasts due about
this time, and a " lecture " (i. e. a sermon of some hours'
duration) was to be given in the parish church of
Ulverston. Mrs. Fell asked Fox to accompany her to
the church. He at first refused, preferring to wander
about in the fields, but afterwards, in obedience, as he
conceived, to a Divine command, he went into the
church, where it may be supposed the lecture was
ended, for the people were singing a hymn. To quote

SWARTHMOOR HALL 71
his own words, "When I came Lampitt was singing
with his people: but his spirit was so foul, and the
matter which they sang so unsuitable to their states,
that after they had done singing, I was moved of the
Lord to speak to him and the people." Having asked
and obtained leave to do so from the clergyman, Fox
stood up on a form and repeated the text, " He is not
a Jew that is one outwardly : neither is that circum
cision which is outward in the flesh : but he is a Jew
which is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart."
He went on with his favourite theme — Christ the Light
of the world : the universality of this Light : an entreaty
to the congregation to come to it, that by its power they
might be gathered to God. As he spoke, the mistress
of Swarthmoor Hall stood up in the family pew wonder
ing at his doctrine, for she had never heard anything
like it before. "The Scriptures," said Fox, "what
are they but the words of prophets, of Christ and His
apostles, uttered by men who enjoyed and possessed
this Light which they received from the Lord ? What
have you to do with the words of the Scriptures, unless
you come to the same Spirit which gave them forth ?
You open the Bible, and say, ' Christ saith this,' and the
'apostles say that,' but what do you say yourselves?
Art thou a child of the Light ? Hast thou walked in
the Light ? What thou sayest concerning God, does it
come to thee inwardly from Him ? "
" These questions," says Margaret Fell, " cut me to
the heart ; and then I saw clearly we were all wrong.
So I sat down in my pew again, and cried bitterly;
and I cried in my spirit to the Lord, ' We are all
thieves : we are all thieves : we have taken the Scrip
tures in words, and know nothing of them in ourselves,'"

72 GEORGE, FOX
The preacher meanwhile went on, and with something
of an old prophet's fervour denounced the false prophets
and priests and deceivers of the people. "The Lord
God," he said, "is come to teach His people by His
own Spirit, and to bring them off from all their old
ways, religions, churches, and worships : for all these
things are but talking with other men's words, and
they are out of the Life and Spirit in which those men
dwelt by whom the Scriptures were given forth."
At this point of the discourse a Puritan magistrate
named Sawrey called out to the churchwarden, " Take
him away," but from the squire's pew was heard the
voice of Margaret Fell exclaiming, " Let him alone —
why may not he speak as well as any other ? " Either
in complaisance to his hospitable neighbour, or out of
a desire to give Fox a fair hearing, Lampitt gave his
voice on the same side, " Let him speak." Thus be
tween one master and another the churchwarden went
backwards and forwards, often seizing hold of Fox's
arm, and then letting him go again. At length the
strange sermon was ended, and the people of Ulverston
dispersed to their homes, much meditating, we may be
sure, on the unusual scenes of that fast day.1
In the evening Fox addressed the family in Swarth
moor Hall. Mother and daughters, mistress and ser
vants, seem to have been all convinced by his ministry,
and became lifelong adherents of the new principle of
the Inward Light. One at least of the servants2 be
came afterwards a celebrated Quaker preacher; but
1 1 have tried to combine here the two narratives of George Fox
in the Jmvrnal, and Margaret Fox in her " Testimony," giving
the preference to the latter where the details of the story differ.
2 Thomas Salthouse.

SWARTHMOOR HALL 73
the most interesting conversion was that of a young
lad named William Caton, then about seventeen years
old, who had been for three years in the Judge's family,
being entertained as bosom friend and companion of
George Fell, the heir of Swarthmoor. He had shared
the young squire's diversions, his hunting, fishing, and
shooting ; he had also shared with him the instructions
of a neighbouring clergyman, who was preparing the
lads for college, and afterwards had gone with him to
Hawkshead school. Now however that he had been
so powerfully moved by the words of the Quaker
apostle, his views of life changed. Not only fishing
and shooting, but the composition of Latin verses were
burdensome to his spirit, " because he could not any
longer give his thoughts that liberty for invention
which others did : neither could he any longer give
the master of the school the compliment of his hat as
he was used to do." x He renounced the hope of a Uni
versity education; remained for some little time at
Swarthmoor Hall as tutor and amanuensis to Margaret
Fell; then went forth into England, Holland, and France
as a missionary of the new doctrines; suffered the whip
pings, mob-beatings, and imprisonments which were
the portion of a Quaker preacher in those days, and
finally died at Amsterdam in 1665, in the thirtieth
year of his age. He was probably about the best
educated and most refined minister of the first gener
ation of the Society of Friends.
Meantime, while these singular events were happen
ing at Swarthmoor Hall, where was its master ? Judge
Fell was away upon the Welsh Circuit, and did not
return till about three weeks after Fox's visit. On his
1 Sewel, History qf Society of Friends, i. 279 (Edition 1833).

74 GEORGE FOX
return journey, he was met by several of the captains
of Cromwell's army, and the chief gentry of the county.
One can imagine them riding forth over the wide wet
sands to tell the Judge the news of his great disaster.
" Your wife and all your family are bewitched. They
are all seduced from the Christian religion : and unless
you can send away the men who have done this thing
the whole county will be undone." With clouded
brow, the usually good-tempered elderly man returned
to his home ; his poor wife feeling herself to be brought
into a grievous strait, "that she must either displease
her husband or offend God." Fox himself was not to
arrive in the house till evening. Two other ministers,
James Naylor and Richard Farnsworth, were brought in
to speak to the Judge, which they did " moderately and
nicely." He was at first greatly displeased with them,
but at last accepted their assurances that they came
only in love and good-will to his house. By this time
" he was pretty moderate and quiet," says his wife, " and
his dinner being ready he went to it, and I went in
and sat me down by him." " And while I was sitting
the power of the Lord seized upon me; and he was
struck with amazement, and knew not what to think,
but was quiet and still. And the children were all
quiet and still, and grown sober, and could not play
at their music that they were learning, and all these
things made him quiet and still."
In the evening Fox arrived, and the dreaded inter
view passed off better than Margaret Fell had feared.
A Yorkshire magistrate named Robinson had spoken
highly in praise of George Fox to many Parliament-
men. Fell was relieved on finding that this was the
man who now stood before him. The good word of

SWARTHMOOR HALL 75
"Justice Hotham" also went for something, and in
the end, after Fox had spoken at some length in de
fence of his new doctrine, Judge Fell quieted down
and ceased to demand the instant departure of him
self and his friends. He never actually joined the
new sect; perhaps his official position made that seem
almost impossible. But he seems to have been more
than half convinced, and often said that he wished his
colleague (who seems to have been also his patron)
Judge Bradshaw could hear Fox's discourses. He
willingly acquiesced in the meeting of the Friends
being held in the dining-room of Swarthmoor Hall,
and as we have seen, according to the tradition,
often sat in his study with door ajar to hear the
ministers' sermons; but as a rule he rode off alone,
or accompanied only by his clerk and a groom, to the
parish church at Ulverston. Much did "Priest
Lampitt" and his friend "Justice Sawrey" chafe
at seeing the once well filled pew of Swarthmoor
Hall tenanted only by those three melancholy male
figures. The effect, however, which was produced on at least
one unprejudiced observer by the sight of the family
at Swarthmoor Hall under the changed conditions of
their spiritual life, may be learned from the following
letter, written by a magistrate named Anthony Pearson,
who after joining in a prosecution of two of the Quaker
ministers for blasphemy, became himself a Friend, and
was one of the first to preach the new doctrines in the
city of London. The letter is believed to be addressed
to Colonel Benson, a brother magistrate, who had also
from an opponent become a staunch supporter of " the
Children of the Light ":—

76 GEORGE FOX
"Dear Friend,
"I have long professed to serve and worship
the true God, and as I thought, above many attained to
a high pitch in religion; but now alas ! I find my work
will not abide the fire. My notions were swelling
vanities without power or life. What it was to love
enemies, to bless them that curse, to render good for
evil, to use the world as using it not, to lay down life
for the brethren, I never understood : what purity and
perfection meant I never tasted. All my religion was
but from the hearing of the ear, the believing and
talking of a God and Christ in heaven ; or at a place
at a distance I knew not where. Oh ! how gracious
was the Lord to me in carrying me to Judge Fell's, to
see the wonders of His power and wisdom — a family
walking in the fear of the Lord, conversing daily with
Him, crucified to the world, and living only to God. I
was so confounded, that all my knowledge and wisdom
became as folly : my mouth was stopped, my conscience
convinced, the secrets of my heart were made manifest,
and the Lord was discovered to be near, whom I ignor-
antly worshipped. I could have talked of Christ, of
the saints and the hope of glory, but it was all a riddle
to me.
" Truly, dear friend, I must tell thee I have now lost
all my religion, and am in such distress, I have no hope
nor foundation left. My justification and assurance
have forsaken me, and I am even like a poor shattered
vessel tossed to and fro without a pilot or rudder — as
blind, dead, and helpless as thou canst imagine.
******
"What thou told me of George Fox I found true.
When thou seest him or James Naylor (they both

SWARTHMOOR HALL 77
know my condition better than myself), move them (if
neither of them be drawn this way) to help me with
their counsel by letter. They are full of pity and com
passion, and though I was their enemy, they are my
friends: and so is Francis Howgill, from whom I
received a letter full of tenderness and wholesome
advice.1 Oh ! how welcome would the faces of any of
them be to me. Truly I think I could scorn the world,
to have fellowship with them. But I find my heart is
full of deceit, and I exceedingly fear to be beguiled, as
I have been, and to be seduced into a form without
power, into a profession before I possess the truth :
which would but multiply my misery, and deprive me
both of God and the world.

"I am afraid lest the orders we made at Appleby
cause some to suffer, who speak from the mouth of
the Lord: I heartily wish they were suppressed or
recalled. "I have seen at Judge Fell's, and have been in
formed from that precious soul his consort, in some
measure what these things mean, which before I counted
the overflowings of giddy brains. Dear heart, pity and
pray for me : and let all obligations of former friendship
be discharged in well wishes to the soul of the old
family friend, that he may partake with them of
heavenly possessions." 2
1 Naylor and Howgill were the two ministers whom Pearson
had assisted in prosecuting for blasphemy.
2 I am indebted to Mrs. Webb's Fells of Swarthmoor Hall for
the reference to this letter, which is in the Swarthmoor collection
of MSS. at Devonshire House.

78 GEORGE FOX
Whatever may be thought of some of Geofge Fox's
utterances, it is clear from such letters as this that his
message was one which stirred the souls of men to their
very depths, calling forth in some enthusiastic and
eager acceptance, while it roused others to the bitterest
opposition.

CHAPTER VII
AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE
After the halcyon days which Fox and his compan
ions spent under the hospitable roof of Swarthmoor
Hall, came beatings and buffetings, and the strange
and somewhat obscure episode of his trial for blasphemy
at Lancaster Quarter Sessions.
In August 1650, Parliament had passed an Act
called the Blasphemy Act, for the punishment of
atheistical, blasphemous, and execrable opinions. This
Act, says the historian of the Commonwealth,1 had
none of the inquisitorial character which attached to
the monstrous blasphemy ordinance of 1648. It meted
out six months' imprisonment for the first offence, and
banishment, with prohibition of return on pain of
death, for the second, and that in two cases only — the
affirming that any human being was God, or a mani
festation of God, and the affirming that acts of gross
immorality "were indifferent or even positively re
ligious." The second clause was aimed at some of the
extreme party among the Ranters. It was apparently
under the first that George Fox was called to stand in
the dock at Lancaster Quarter Sessions.
1 Gardiner, i. 395.
79

80 GEORGE FOX
To us Europeans of the nineteenth century, it is
almost inconceivable that an Act of Parliament should
ever have seemed to be necessary in order to prevent
men from giving themselves out as manifestations of
the Godhead. The Creator seems so unimaginably
great, and man so miserably little, that to us the
serpent's voice, " Ye shall be as gods," whispers an un
intelligible temptation. Yet even in our own day, in
Eastern lands, multitudes of men have been willing to
suffer imprisonment, confiscation of their goods, even
death itself, in testimony of their faith in a man of
holy life, whom they regarded as " the Gate of the
Godhead." 1 In England, in the seventeenth century,
there was not perhaps the Oriental willingness to accept
on slight proof the theory of an Incarnation, but in the
fervid, highly exalted state of men's minds, steeped in
Bible language and Bible imagery, there seems to have
been at least a disposition in some quarters to anticipate
the coming of a new Messiah.
Did George Fox for himself set up any such claim of
Messiahship ? It seems to me clear, that never, even
in his most exalted and enthusiastic moments, did he
use language which could fairly subject him to such a
charge. A mystic, it is true, if ever there was one, he
realized with startling vividness the nearness of Christ
to the human soul. The words, " Christ in you, the
hope of glory," were the keynote of all his teaching.
He thought (sometimes no doubt unjustly) that the
clergy of the day were preaching a dead, or at any rate
a far-off and shadowy Christ, a Christ outside the world
1 See the very extraordinary Episode of the Bab, translated
from the Persian by my friend Edward G. Browne. (Cambridge,
1891.)

AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE 81
of men and the human soul, and therefore he repeated
with what seemed to unsympathizing ears a monotonous
energy, " Christ is in you : the Word is very nigh thee,
in thy heart and in thy mouth." But in all these
utterances of his he was only in line with one of the
earliest Christian martyrs, with Ignatius, whose favourite
name for himself was Theophoros, the God-bearer. He
fell short, we may venture to say, of St. Francis, with
his vision of the divinely imprinted stigmata; of St.
Theresa, with her amorous yearnings after the heavenly
spouse. He expressed in ruder and harsher language
some of the thoughts which have made the De Imitatione
Christi for more than four centuries the delight of
Christendom. But though Fox's own record seems to be clear from
anything amounting to a claim to Messiahship, it is not
so certain that his disciples, in the first fervour of their
conversion, were equally moderate in their language.
The two converted magistrates, Benson and Pearson,
even in protesting against his imprisonment for blas
phemy, use such words as these — "Christ is now
preached in and among the saints, the same that ever
He was : and because His heavenly image is borne up in
this His faithful servant, therefore doth fallen man,
rulers, priests, and people, persecute him. Because he
lives up out of the fall, and testifies against the works
of the world that the deeds thereof are evil, he suffers
by you magistrates, not as an evil-doer." The words
here used are susceptible of an orthodox interpreta
tion, but they would startle and alarm the ordinary
Presbyterian minister.
Moreover, it must in fairness be stated that there
exists among the Swarthmoor manuscripts a letter

82 GEORGE FOX
addressed by the little family church at Swarthmoor
to George Fox, in the first fervour of their conversion,
in which they use language so high-flown and rhapso
dical, that it could not properly be addressed to any
but a Divine Saviour. It is not fair to charge Fox
himself with the responsibility for this paper, which he
may have utterly condemned; but the fact that it was
ever written shows what excited brains there were in
a quiet English country house in the year 1652.
Whatever the cause might be, and whether the
report were maliciously spread abroad by Lampitt
and Sawrey1 or not, the belief was evidently widely
entertained in North Lancashire that George Fox was
a blasphemer. It is to this, doubtless, that we must
attribute the extraordinary violence of an attack which
was made upon him in Ulverston church. It was a
"lecture day," and there was a large congregation of
" professors, priests, and people." " I went up," says
he, " near to priest Lampitt, who was blustering on in
his preaching, and after the Lord had opened my mouth
to speak, John Sawrey the justice came to me and
said, ' If I would speak according to the Scriptures, I
should speak.' " There was a little altercation on this
point between the preacher and the magistrate, who in
the end commanded him to keep silence, and as Fox
still persisted, and was apparently heard by the audience
with favour, "Justice Sawrey (who was the first
stirrer up of cruel persecution in the North) incensed
them against me, and set them on to hale, beat, and
bruise me." Fox was knocked down, kicked, and
trampled upon; there was a scene of wild uproar in
the church, and some of the congregation fell over the
1 This is George Fox's account of the matter.

AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE 83
forms in their panic-stricken flight. At last Sawrey
succeeded in getting Fox out of the church, and given
in charge to the constables, who were ordered to whip
him and put him out of the town. Some of the
inhabitants who seemed disposed to take his part had
their heads broken, and the young squire of Swarth
moor, who came running after the constables to see
what they would do with his mother's guest, was thrown
into a ditch amid the cries of " Knock the teeth out of
his head."
As for Fox, having been beaten till he fainted, he
lay for some time in a swamp, with the mob standing
round him. When his senses returned, he " stood up
again in the strengthening power of the Eternal God " ;
and stretching out his arms, said with a loud voice,
" Strike again ; here are my arms, my head, and my
cheeks." Hereupon a devout mason struck a blow
with all his might with his "walking rule-staff" on
the outstretched hand of the heretic. The blow was
so severe that both Fox and the bystanders thought at
first he had lost the use of his hand for ever. " But I
looked at it in the love of God (for I was in the love of
God to them all that had persecuted me), and after a
while the Lord's power sprung through me again, and
through my hand and arm, so that in a moment I
recovered strength in my hand and arm in the sight of
them all."
Several more scenes of the same kind followed, both
in the neighbourhood of Ulverston, and in the little
island of Walney, which skirts the western coast of
Furness. They were all evidently part, a lawless part,
of the campaign which had been commenced by the
Puritan ministers and magistrates against Fox as a

84 GEORGE FOX
blasphemer. The legal side of the same campaign was
represented by proceedings taken to bring him to trial
at the Quarter Sessions at Lancaster, in October 1652.
A warrant was issued for his apprehension, but just at
this time Judge Fell, whose absence on circuit had
emboldened Fox's enemies to persecute him as they
had done, returned home. The warrant was not served,
and he, on the other hand, issued warrants for the
apprehension of some of the more atrocious rioters in
the Isle of Walney. He was willing to go further,
and asked Fox to give him an account of the whole
persecution, but he answered, " that those men could
do no otherwise in the spirit in which they were, and
that they manifested the fruits of their priest's ministry
and their profession and religion to be wrong. So he
told his wife that I made light of it, and that I spoke
of it as a man that had not been concerned : for indeed
the Lord's power healed me again."
When the time for the Quarter Sessions had arrived,
Fox, though the warrant had not been served upon
him, determined to attend at the court. The brave
and kindly Judge went with him, sorely perplexed in
his legal mind what line to take, for he had never
before had a charge of blasphemy brought before him.
Fox reminded him of the wise neutrality of Festus, when
Paul was brought before him on a similar charge, and
Judge Fell seems to have followed the precedent.
When they had reached the Lancaster Court House,
there were forty fervid ministers, who had '' chosen a
Lancaster clergyman, named Marshall, to be their orator,"
and had provided one young priest and two young
priest's sons to bear witness against Fox, and who had
previously made affidavit that he had spoken blasphemy.

AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE 85
The witnesses, however, entirely broke down, nor could
all the help rendered them by their orator Marshall,
sitting by and explaining their sayings for them, save
their credit. Each one relied in a helpless way on the
other, and at length the magistrates were obliged to
reprimand them for having solemnly made affidavit
that they heard certain blasphemous words which, as
it now appeared, they only reported on hearsay from
others. On the other side was a considerable body of men
" of integrity and reputation in the country," who had
been present at the meeting in question, and who gave
evidence that the blasphemous words complained of
were never used. The charge was evidently about to
fail, and one of the magistrates, Colonel West, who
vigorously espoused Fox's cause, turned to him and
said, "George, if thou hast anything to say to the
people thou mayest declare it." Orator Marshall left
the building, and Lancaster Court House was turned
for the time into a Quakers' Meeting-house. From the
tenor of the discourse which followed, it is evident
that the charge of blasphemy must have chiefly rested
on some alleged attack on the authority of the Bible.
What Fox believed himself moved of the Lord to
declare was that " the Holy Scriptures were given forth
by the Spirit of God, and that all people must come to
the same Spirit, and have Him dwelling in their hearts :
since without Him they could have neither God nor
Christ, nor the Scriptures, nor have right fellowship
with one another." At this six ministers who stood
behind him broke out into a passion, and one of them
named Jackus declared that the Spirit and the letter
[of the Scriptures] were inseparable. Fox replied,

86 GEORGE FOX
" Then every one that hath the letter hath the Spirit,
and every one who buys a copy of the Bible buys the
Spirit with it." The falseness of the position taken up
by the extreme Bibliolaters was perceived by some
of the magistrates, and Judge Fell and Colonel West
"reproved them openly, telling them that according
to that position they might carry the Spirit in their
pockets as they did the Scriptures." On this the clergy
all left the Court House much exasperated against the
magistrates, and George Fox was discharged.
On the whole case, though we must be cautious in
forming conclusions from an ex parte statement, it
would seem that the proceedings at Lancaster resulted
in a triumphant vindication of George Fox from the
charge of blasphemy. This seems proved, not only by
his formal discharge, but by the fact that Colonel West
and Gervase Benson, both magistrates, Major Ripan,
Mayor of Lancaster, and several other men of good
social position and high religious character, dated their
" convincement " of the principles of Quakerism from
this day. It is not necessary to accuse the forty
Puritan ministers of having deliberately suborned false
witnesses against their enemy. Many of them, like
Lampitt, were sore at seeing their congregations drawn
away from them by these new and illiterate preachers.
There was much in the new style of preaching which
would have seemed "hard sayings" to any age, but
which especially jarred on ears accustomed to the prim,
pedantic, text-splitting style of discourse dear to the
Puritan lecturer. In these circumstances, and with
their spirits all aflame with the clamour of the multi
tude round them, it was easy to misunderstand the
somewhat rhapsodical utterances of Fox, and uninten-

AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE 87
tionally to exaggerate their strangeness. At any rate,
the opponents of the new doctrine were not minded
quietly to accept their defeat, which they no doubt
attributed to the preponderating influence of Judge
Fell. It was probably towards the end of 1652, or in
the early part of 1653, that there was presented " to
the Right Honourable the Council of State " [sitting
at Whitehall] " the humble petition of several Gentle
men, Justices of Peace, Ministers of the Gospel, and
People within the County of Lancaster." This Petition
averred as follows : —
"That George Fox and James Naylor are persons
disaffected to Religion and the wholesome Laws of this
Nation : and that since their coming into this County
they have broached Opinions tending to the destruction
of the relation of Subjects to their Magistrates, Wives
to their Husbands, Children to their Parents, Servants
to their Masters, Congregations to their Ministers, and
of a People to their God. And have drawn much
people after them : many whereof (men, women, and
little children) at their meetings are strangely wrought
upon in their bodies, and brought to fall, foam at the
mouth, roar and swell in their bellies. And that some
of them affirmed themselves to be equal with God,
contrary to the late Act, as hath been attested at a late
Quarter Sessions holden at Lancaster in October last
past: and since that time acknowledged before many
witnesses ; besides many other dangerous Opinions and
damnable Heresies, as appears by a Schedule hereunto
annexed, with the names of the witnesses subscribed."
The Schedule is to this effect : —
" 1. George professed and averred that he was equal
with God.

88 GEORGE FOX
2. He professed himself to be the eternal Judge of
the world.
3. He said he was the Judge of the world.
4. He said he was the Christ, the Way, the Truth,
and the Life.
5. He said, Whosoever took a place of Scripture and
made a sermon of it and from it was a conjurer and
his preaching conjuration.
6. He said that the Scripture was carnal."
There were other charges of a similar kind brought
against James Milner, Leonard Fell, and Richard
Hubberthorn, which need not be quoted here, as our
business is with Fox alone.1
It does not appear that any action was taken by
the Council of State in reply to this petition, but the
presentation of it led to a curious reply, to which we
are indebted for our knowledge of the petition itself.
This reply is entitled (according to the fashion of the
voluminous title-pages of that age) —
1 It is curious, however, to note the charge against Milner.
" He professeth himself to be God and Christ, and gives out
prophecies. "1. That the day of Judgment shall be the 15th day of
November [? 1653].
2. That there shall never Judge sit at Lancaster again.
3. That he must ere long Bhake the foundations of the great
Synagogue, meaning the Parliament."
Milner, like Naylor, was evidently in a very excited state, and
broke away for a time from the fellowship of the Friends.
George Fox says (Journal, I. 158), "About this time [early in
1653] I was in a fast for about ten days, my spirit being greatly
exercised on truth's account : for James Milner and Richard
Myer went out into imaginations, and a company followed them.
This James Milner and some of his company had true openings
at first ; but getting into pride and exaltation of spirit, they ran
out from truth. I was moved of the Lord to go and show them
their outgoings, and they were brought to see their folly, and
condemned it, and came into the way of truth again."

AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE 89
" Saul's Errand to Damascus with his packet of
letters from the High priests against the disciples of
the Lord, or a faithful Transcript of a Petition contrived
by some persons in Lancashire who call themselves
Ministers of the Gospel, breathing out threatenings
and slaughters against a peaceable and godly people
there by them nicknamed Quakers, together with the
defence of the persons thereby traduced against the
slanderous and false suggestions of that Petition and
other untruths charged against them. Published to
no other end but to draw out the bowels of tender
compassion from all that love the poor, despised
servants of Jesus Christ, who have been the scorn of
carnal men in all ages." x
The pamphlet begins thus —
" Christian Reader :
" These are to let thee know that the only wise
God at this time hath so by His providence ordered it
in the north parts of Lancashire that many precious
Christians (and so for many years accounted before the
nickname Quakers was heard of) have for some time
past forborne to concorporate in Parochial Assemblies,
wherein they profess themselves to have gained little
of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. And it is and hath
been put upon their hearts to meet often (and on the
Lord's Day constantly) at convenient places to seek the
Lord their Redeemer, and to worship Him in spirit and
in truth, and to speak of such things (leading to
mutual edification) as the good spirit of the Lord shall
1 Then follow verses 10-13 of chapter V. of Matthew. " Lon
don : printed for Giles Calvert at the Black Spread Eagle at
the West End of Pauls 1653." (Press mark in British Museum,
E. Sjt-.)

90 GEORGE FOX
teach them, demeaning themselves without any offence
given to any that truely fear the Lord."
After reciting the charges brought against Friends
in the Lancashire petition, the authors of the pamphlet
proceed to clear themselves from the charges of dis
affection to the Government, and dissemination of
doctrines destructive of family peace. As for the
hysterical symptoms (as we should call them) said to
accompany their worship, the meetings of the People
of God are, say they, ever strange to the world. They
quote Acts x. 44, Daniel x. 9, Habakkuk iii. 16,
Isaiah Ixvi. 5, and Joel ii. 6, for the manifestation
of symptoms similar to those complained of in the
petition ; and say, " The Prophets and Ministers of God
who had all one spirit, according to measure, did all
encourage those that tremble." Of the specific charges
against Fox, the first four are all replied to by texts
from the New Testament, which speak of the mystical
union of Christ and His followers, the saints judging
the world, and so forth. As to the fifth charge, of
"conjuring from Scripture," the pamphlet replies —
"He that puts the Letter for the Light, when the
Letter says that Christ is the Light, he is blind ; and
they that say the Letter and the Spirit are inseparable,
when the Spirit saith the Letter is death and killeth,
and all that do study to raise a living thing out of a
dead, to raise the Spirit out of the Letter, are conjurers,
and draw points and reasons, and so speak a divination
of their own brain: they are conjurers and diviners,
and their teaching is from conjuration, which is not
spoken from the mouth of the Lord, and the Lord is
against all such ... for that doctrine doth not profit
at all, for it stands not in the counsel of God, but is a

AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE 91
doctrine of the devil, and draws people from God ; but
he that speaks from the mouth of the Lord turns people
from their wickedness."
The answer to the sixth charge, " The Scripture is
carnal," goes on similar lines. "The Letter killeth
but the Spirit giveth life. I witness that which is
Eternal and not Carnal. The Jews which had the
Letter persecuted Jesus Christ the Substance, and so
do you now which have the Letter and not the Substance.
There were ministers of the Letter then, and ministers
of the Spirit : so are there now."
"All the plotting of the Priests is and ever was
against Christ when He is made manifest, and the
Beast shall make war with the Saints and with the
Lamb, but the Lamb shall get the victory: praises,
praises be to our God for ever, for ever more."
The reader who has studied the history of sects or
churches will know how important it is to listen to
what is said by the opponents, as well as by the
advocates of the new doctrine. Would that we
possessed anything like as full a body of polemical
literature against the early Christians, as that which
the printing press has preserved for us, directed against
the early Quakers. It is with this view that I have
ventured to make such copious extracts from Saul's
Errand to Damascus.
For some months after Fox's trial at Lancaster, he
travelled about through the north-western counties,
Cumberland, Westmoreland, North Lancashire, making
Swarthmoor Hall his base of operations, to which he
returned, and from which he sent forth his written
denunciations against Lampitt, Sawrey, and others of
the " magistrates, priests, and professors," who had taken

92 GEORGE FOX
part in the persecution of the Friends. It must have
been somewhere about April 10 1 that he was sitting
at Swarthmoor, listening to Judge Fell and Gervase
Benson talking over politics. Their discourse naturally
turned on the Long Parliament, or the Rump as it was
irreverently styled — a body of which we must suppose
Judge Fell to have been still in theory a member,
though we always hear of him in Lancashire, not in
London. Then Fox, who believed he had an " opening
from the Lord," was moved to tell them that before
that day two weeks the Parliament should be dissolved,
and the Speaker plucked out of his chair. A fortnight
passed. Benson was again at Swarthmoor, and told
his friend that now he saw George was a true prophet,
for Oliver had broken up the Parliament.
A characteristic passage follows — "Now were great
threatenings given forth in Cumberland, that if ever I
came there again, they would take away my life. When
I heard it, I was drawn to go into Cumberland, and went
to the same parish from which those threatenings came,
but they had not power to touch me." He visited Bootle,
where he sustained his usual violent treatment from
the mob, his wrist being nearly broken from one rough
fellow's blow. In the afternoon he went to the church,
where the minister, a stranger from London, "gathered
up all the Scriptures he could think of that spoke of
false prophets and antichrists and deceivers, and threw
them upon us; but when he had done I re-collected
all those Scriptures, and brought them back upon him
self. Then the people fell upon me in a rude manner ;
1 Cromwell's dissolution of the Long Parliament took place on
April 20. News of that event could hardly reach Furness till
the 24th. Dating back a fortnight we get to April 10.

AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE 93
but the constable charged them to keep the peace, and
so made them quiet again. Then the priest began to
rage and said I must not speak there. I told him he
had his hour-glass by which he preached, and he having
done, the time was free for me as well as for him, for
he was but a stranger there himself. So I opened the
Scriptures to them, and let them see that those
Scriptures that spoke of the false prophets and anti
christs and deceivers described them and their genera
tion, and not us, who were not guilty of such things."
At Cockermouth he found a great company of people
gathered together in the churchyard to hear him. One
of his disciples, who had been sent forward to prepare
the way, was speaking under a yew-tree, which was so
full of people that Fox feared they would break it
down. He looked about for a place to stand upon to
speak to the people, " for they lay all up and down
like people at a leaguer," an expression which suggests
that Fox had looked upon some of the besieging armies
during the recent Civil War. As soon as Fox was
recognized, he was asked if he would go into the
church, an offer which he accepted, seeing no place in
the churchyard from which he could conveniently
address the people. Thereupon all the people rushed
in, filling the house and even the pulpit, so that he
had much ado to get in. As soon as the congregation
was settled, he stood upon a seat, and began a discourse
which lasted three hours. It will be worth while to
read his summary of this discourse, as from it we may
infer the purport of many similar ones.
" The Lord opened my mouth to declare His ever
lasting truth and His everlasting day : and to lay open
all their teachers, their rudiments, traditions, and

94 GEORGE FOX
inventions that they had been in, in the night of
apostacy since the apostles' days. I turned them to
Christ the true teacher, and to the true spiritual
worship : directing them where to find the Spirit and
truth, that they might worship God therein. I opened
Christ's parables unto them, and directed them to the
Spirit of God in themselves, that would open the
Scriptures unto them. And I showed them how all
might come to know their Saviour and sit under His
teaching, might come to be the heirs of the kingdom
of God, and know both the voice of God and of Christ,
by which they might discover all the false shepherds
and teachers they had been under, and be gathered to
the true shepherd, priest, bishop, and prophet, Christ
Jesus, whom God commanded all to hear. So when I
had largely declared the word of life unto them for
about three hours, I walked from amongst the people,
and they passed away very well satisfied."
It is evident that Fox's preaching was at this time a
great power in the north of England, and that the tide
of Quakerism was rising high, especially in Cumberland,
a county in which it has been calculated that something
like half the population became " Friends." I extract
one or two paragraphs from the Journal, in which he
describes the events of this time.
" Amongst the rest a professor followed me, praising
and commending me, but his words were like a thistle
to me. At last I turned about and bid him fear the
Lord, whereupon priest Larkham of Cockermouth (for
several priests were got together on the way who came
after the meeting was over) said to me, ' Sir, why do
you judge so ? You must not judge.' But I turned
to him and said, 'Friend, dost not thou discern an

AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE 95
exhortation from a judgment ? I admonished him to
fear God : and dost thou say I judge him ? ' So the
priest and I falling into discourse, I manifested him to
be among the false prophets and covetous hirelings.
And several people being moved to speak to him, he
and two others of the priests soon got away. . . . Many
hundreds were convinced that day, and received the
Lord Jesus Christ and His free teaching with gladness,
of whom some have died in the truth, and many stand
faithful witnesses thereof. The soldiers [twelve soldiers
and their wives who had come to Cockermouth from
Carlisle] were also convinced, and their wives, and
continued with me till First-day."
There was again a similar meeting at the neighbour
ing village of Brigham. " A fine opportunity the Lord
gave me to preach truth among the people, for about
three hours, and all was quiet. Many hundreds were
convinced : and some of them praised God, and said,
'Now we have the first step to peace.' The preacher
also said privately to some of his hearers that I had
broken them and overthrown them."
Fox then passed on into a neighbouring village,
where he astonished the people by speaking sharply to
a woman and telling her that she was a witch, where
upon she went out of the room. "Now I being a
stranger there, and knowing nothing of the woman out
wardly, the people wondered at it, and told me after
wards that I had discovered a great thing, for all the
country looked upon her to be a witch."
" From Caldbeck we came to Carlisle, and the pastor
of the Baptists, with most of his hearers, came to me to
the abbey, where I had a meeting, and many of the
Baptists and of the soldiers were convinced. After the

96 GEORGE FOX
meeting the pastor of the Baptists, a high notionist
and a flashy man, came to me and asked me, ' What
must be damned ? ' I was moved immediately to tell
him, 'That which spoke in him was to be damned.'
This stopped his mouth, and the witness of God was
raised up in him. I opened to him the states of
election and reprobation, so that he said he never heard
the like in his life. He also came to be convinced."
Fox then went up to the Castle, where the soldiers,
assembled by beat of drum, heard him give a discourse
such as that which John the Baptist gave to the
soldiers of Herod. Then to the market-cross, where in
spite of magistrates and magistrates' wives, the latter
of whom had threatened that if he came thither they
would pluck the hair off his head, he preached a sermon
to the people, telling them, " that the day of the Lord
was coming upon all their deceitful ways and doings,
and deceitful merchandize ; and that they should put
away all cozening and cheating, and keep to Yea and
Nay, and speak the truth one to another; so the truth
and the power of God was set over them."
On the next Sunday, Fox went to the church (prob
ably the cathedral), and after the minister had ended
his sermon, preached one of his own which stirred the
enthusiasm of some, and the rage of others. There
was evidently a tumult in the church. "The magis
trates' wives were in a rage and strove mightily to be
at me ; but the soldiers and friendly people stood thick
about me. At length the rude people of the city rose,
and came with staves and stones into the steeple-house,
crying, 'Down with these round-headed rogues,' and
they threw stones, whereupon the governor sent a file
or two of musketeers into the steeple-house to appease

AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE 97
the tumult, and commanded all the other soldiers out.
So these soldiers took me by the hand in a friendly
manner, and said they would have me along with them.
When we came forth into the street, the city was in an
uproar, and the governor came down, and some of those
soldiers were put in prison for standing by me and for
me against the townspeople. A lieutenant that had
been convinced came and brought me to his house,
where there was a Baptists' meeting, and thither came
Friends also, and we had a very quiet meeting : they
heard the word of life gladly, and many received it."
At Carlisle, and probably in some other places, the
Baptists appear to have been more disposed to tolerate
Fox's preaching than either of the other two great
Puritan sects. He tells us expressly that the magis
trates who took part in the following proceedings
against him, and probably also the magistrates' wives
who threatened to pluck the hair off his head, were
Independents and Presbyterians.
On the day after the uproar in the church, these
magistrates met together in the town-hall and granted
-a warrant for Fox's apprehension on a charge of blas
phemy. He tells us that many of the rude people
had sworn strange, false things against him, but gives
us no more precise information as to the nature of the
charge, and we must therefore fill up the outline for
ourselves by analogy from the similar proceedings at
Lancaster. Under the magistrates' warrant, Fox was committed
to prison at Carlisle " as a blasphemer, a heretic, and
a seducer, though they could not justly charge any such
thing against me. The gaol at Carlisle had two gaolers,
an upper and an under, who looked like two great bear-

98 GEORGE FOX
wards. Now when I was brought in, the upper gaoler
had me into a great chamber and told me I should
have what I would in that room. But I told him he
should not expect any money from me, for I would
neither lie in any of his beds nor eat any of his victuals.
Then he put me into another room, where after a
while I got something to lie upon. There I lay till
the assizes came, and then all the talk was that I was
to be hanged. The high sheriff, whose name was Wilfred
Lawson,1 stirred them much up to take away my life,
and said he would guard me to my execution himself.
They were in a great rage, and set three musketeers
for a guard upon me, one at my chamber-door, another
at the stair's-foot, and a third at the street-door, and
they would let none come at me except one sometimes
to bring me necessary things. At night they would bring
up priests to me, sometimes as late as the tenth hour,
who were exceedingly rude and devilish. There was a
company of bitter Scotch priests, Presbyterians, made
up of envy and malice, who were not fit to speak of the
things of God, they were so foul-mouthed; but the
Lord by His power gave me dominion over them all,
and I let them see both their feints and their spirits.
Great ladies also (as they were called) came to see the
man that they said was to die. Now, while both the
judge, justices, and sheriff were contriving together
how they might put me to death, the Lord disappointed
their design by an unexpected way, for the judge's
clerk (as I was informed) started a question among
them which confounded all their counsels; so that after
that they had not power to call me before the judge."
1 A name well known at Carlisle in the latter part of the nine
teenth century.

AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE 99
It is not very easy to understand the course of the
legal proceedings in Fox's case. It is plain that for
some reason the commitment on the grave charge of
blasphemy, a capital offence under the recent Act, was
bad, and that the judges of assize, on that ground,
refused to try the case. There must have been, how
ever, some lighter charge, probably that of brawling in
church, which the local magistrates were compelled to
deal with, and on which he was detained in prison
apparently for some weeks. His friend and convert,
Anthony Pearson, who was himself a justice of the
peace, wrote a letter to the Judges of Assize complaining
that neither he nor Fox could get a sight of the infor
mation preferred against him. " This is very hard ;
and that he should be so closely restrained that his
friends may not speak with him, I know no law nor
reason for. I do therefore claim for him a due and
lawful hearing, and that he may have a copy of his
charge, and freedom to answer for himself; and that
rather before you than to be left to the rulers of this
town, who are not competent judges of blasphemy, as
by their mittimus appears : who have committed him
upon an Act of Parliament, and mention words as
spoken by him at this examination which are not
within the Act, and which he utterly denies. The
words mentioned in the mittimus he denies to have
spoken, and hath neither professed nor avowed
them." Notwithstanding this letter, Fox says, the judges
were resolved not to suffer him to be brought before
them (that is, probably they decided that they had no
power to try the case), but, reviling and scoffing at him
behind his back, left him to the magistrates of the

100 GEORGE FOX
town, giving them what encouragement they could to
exercise their cruelty upon him.
Whatever the precise form may have been, which
was taken by the legal process against him, the result
is certain. Fox was kept for a considerable time in the
dungeon of Carlisle, which seems to have been a bad
specimen even of the foul English prisons of that age.
The sanitary arrangements were detestable, vermin
swarmed, and men and women were crowded together
with little regard for decency. After the many attempts
of poets and ballad- writers to glorify the " bold moss-
trooping Scot," it is startling to hear the moss-troopers
classed with thieves and murderers, among the worst
occupants of the dungeon. The sight of these men
so impressed Fox, that in a letter which he wrote from
the dungeon to two magistrates who were especially
busy in punishing Friends for the non-payment of
tithes, he says that the priests behaved "more like
moss-troopers than ministers of the gospel." The
gaoler was very cruel, and the under-gaoler used, with
a great cudgel, to beat the Friends who came to the
grating of the window to converse with their suffering
teacher, or Fox himself, when he carried his food to the
grating, and tried to take his meal in a less pestilential
air than he usually breathed. " One time," says Fox,
"he came in a great rage and beat me with a great
cudgel, though I was not at the grate at that time, and
as he beat me, he cried, ' Come out of the window,'
though I was then far enough from it. While he struck
me, I was made to sing in the Lord's power, and that
made him rage the more. Then he fetched a fiddler,
and brought him in where I was, and set him to play,
thinking to vex me thereby ; but while he played, I

AT LANCASTER AND CARLISLE 101
was moved in the everlasting power of the Lord to
sing, and my voice drowned the noise of the fiddle, and
struck and confounded them, and made them give over
fiddling and go their way."
While Fox was still in this dungeon, the rumour
that there was a young man in Carlisle gaol about to
die for religion reached Westminster, where the Little
Parliament, or to quote its more opprobrious name,
the "Barebones" Parliament, was then sitting. This
assembly, which was one of the most revolutionary in
matters ecclesiastical that the country has ever seen,
decided to interfere, and prevent so great a scandal ;
and sent a letter to the sheriff and magistrates of
Carlisle, probably recommending caution and clemency.
As we have seen, the prosecution on the capital charge
had already broken down, but the letter from the High
Court of Parliament probably assisted the earnest en
deavours of the Quaker magistrates Pearson and Benson
for the release of their wrongfully accused friend. Fox
was liberated, and Anthony Pearson, bringing the abuses
of the prison under the notice of the " governor," obtained
a vote of censure on the magistrates for allowing such
barbarities to be committed. The other gaolers were
required to find sureties for their good behaviour, and
the exceptionally cruel under-gaoler, who had beaten
Fox with the cudgel, was himself confined in the
dungeon " amongst the moss-troopers."

CHAPTER VIII
AT FENNY DRAYTON AND WHITEHALL
1654. After Fox was liberated from his imprison
ment at Carlisle, he travelled through Yorkshire and
Lincolnshire, meeting with his usual strangely varied
tissue of adventures. In one place a company of
butchers, who had sworn that they would have his blood,
came to an open-air meeting, and stood yelling as if it
had been a bear-garden. But their threats of bodily
injury came to nothing, and when asked by their
neighbours why they had not killed him according to
their oath, they could only answer that he had so
bewitched them that they could not do it. Un
doubtedly there was something in the very appearance
of this tall, grave, fearless man which laid a very power
ful spell on meaner spirits. When he was at Carlisle, a
Baptist deacon, " an envious man," says Fox, finding the
Lord's power was over them, cried out for very anger.
" Whereupon I set my eyes upon him, and spoke sharply
to him in the power of the Lord : and he cried, ' Do not
pierce me so with thy eyes : keep thy eyes off me.' "
In Lincolnshire he held a meeting at which the
sheriff of the county, Robert Craven, was present. He
came with a large party of his friends to argue and
denounce, but he was struck by the power of Fox's
102

AT FENNY DRAYTON AND WHITEHALL 103
preaching, became " convinced of the truth," and joined
the new Society. So did "she who was called the
Lady Montague," Sir Richard Wrey, and some other
members of the county aristocracy.
He passed on into his native county of Leicester, and
had a great meeting, to which came many " Baptists,
Ranters, and other professors, who were very rude and
stirred up the rude people against us." " We sent to the
Ranters to come forth and try their God. Abundance
of them came, who were very rude, and sang and
whistled and danced : but the Lord's power so con
founded them that many of them came to be convinced."
And now at length, after an absence of three years,
George Fox returned to his native place, in order to
visit his relations. Not much family intercourse, how
ever, seems to have been the result of this visit to
Fenny Drayton. At once his old antagonist, "Priest
Stephens," having obtained the help of another clergy
man, challenged Fox to a discussion, the report of
which brought the whole countryside together. Fox
was for carrying on the discussion in the churchyard ;
the two clergymen insisted on his coming into the
church, averring that "Mr. Stephens could not bear
the cold." In the end the dispute was settled by their
adjourning to " a great hall," doubtless the old manor-
house of the Purefoys. The discussion turned that
day on the right of the clergy to tithes, evidently a
favourite subject with Stephens, and one upon which,
four years later, he wrote a ponderous treatise. The
debate ran on the well-known lines. Stephens no
doubt pleaded the Mosaic ordinance; Fox appealed to
the Epistle to the Hebrews, in proof that the tithe-
receiving priesthood was ended by Christ. There was

104 GEORGE FOX
some disturbance among the audience, whom the two
clergymen, according to Fox, "stirred up to be vain
and rude." At last Stephens said, "Neighbours, this
is the business: George Fox is come to the light of
the sun, and now he thinks to put out my starlight."
Fox answered, " I would not quench the least measure
of God in any, much less put out his starlight, if it were
true starlight, light from the morning star. But I told
him if he had anything from Christ or God, he ought to
speak it freely, and not take tithes from the people for
preaching, seeing Christ commanded His ministers to
give freely as they had received freely. So I charged
him to preach no more for tithes or any hire." The
disturbance among the audience increased, and the con
ference broke up, George Fox informing them that he
intended to be in the town on that day week.
The week was spent in meetings in the surrounding
country, and when it was over, Stephens, who under
stood Fox's words as fixing an adjournment of the debate,
had given notice at a neighbouring market, that on such
a day there would be a debate between him and the
Quakers. Seven clergymen had come to help him,
and several hundreds of people were assembled to hear
the discussion. Fox, though he did not consider him
self pledged to a resumption of the debate, had with
him a former clergyman named Taylor, the young
Quaker preacher James Parnell, and several other
Friends. He again refused to go into the church, but
apparently went to the top of a little mound in the
churchyard, and from thence spoke to the people. The
crowd again became disorderly, and the conference was
broken up into a number of little knots of people, in the
centre of each of which were to be found a clergyman

AT FENNY DRAYTON AND WHITEHALL 105
and a Friend disputing. At last one of the clergymen
brought his son to debate with Fox, but the young man,
getting the worst of the argument, called on his father
for help, and called in vain. Tired and thirsty with the
long, vain wrangle, the eight clergymen at length
adjourned to the parsonage for a drink, while Fox
shouted after them that he had never beaten so many
priests in argument before. At that some of the clergy
and their wives came round him, patted him on the
back, and said " fawningly," " What might he not have
been, if it had not been for the Quakers."
While the clergy were in the parsonage, the yokels
began their horseplay. Several lusty fellows took Fox
up in their arms, and bore him into the church porch,
intending to carry him into the church by force, but as
the door was locked, they fell down in a heap, having
him below them. He crept out from under them, and
went back to his vantage ground of the mound; he
was carried thence, however, and placed on a footstool
under the wall of the church. By this time the clergy
had returned from the parsonage, and called out, " Come,
to argument, to argument." Fox began his argument
by declaring that they were not true shepherds, but
hirelings, such as Christ spoke of in the tenth chapter
of John. On this he was knocked off his perch, while
the eight clergymen stood each on his footstool under
the church wall. Now thoroughly aroused, Fox de
clared that he " denied " those eight priests or teachers
that stood before him, and all the hireling teachers of
the world whatsoever; and then out of his retentive
memory he thundered forth the long roll of passages
from the Prophets, in which woe is denounced on the
false prophets, and from the Gospels, in which Christ

106 GEORGE FOX
denounced a similar woe on the Scribes and Pharisees.
Then he went on to speak of his favourite theme, the
light of Jesus Christ in the heart, till at length one of
the audience cried out, " George, wilt thou never have
done ? " He answered that he would have done shortly,
and when he had soon made an end, clergy and people
all stood silent for a time, till at last one of the clergy
men said that they would read the Scriptures he had
quoted. They began to read aloud the twenty-third
of Jeremiah, but Fox broke out into fresh objurgations,
and the meeting at last seems to have broken up in
confusion. At the end of it Stephens came, and
desired Fox with his father and brother to come aside
and speak with him in private. For some unexplained
reason Fox was very reluctant to do so, but the people
cried, " Go, George ; do, George, go aside with him ; "
and as Fox's father added his entreaties he went, not
wishing to seem disobedient to his parents.
The object of the private interview was that Stephens
might say, " Pray for me if I am out of the way, and I
will pray for you if you are out of the way. I will
give you a form of words for the purpose." The good
man, earnest if somewhat narrow, seems to have been
really anxious to find some common spiritual standing
ground with the young enthusiast, his parishioner.
We read with regret Fox's utterly unsympathetic and
self-confident answer, "It seems thou dost not know
whether thou art in the right way or not; but I know
that I am in the everlasting way, Christ Jesus, which
thou art out of." And then he raised a laugh against
Stephens by pointing out that he who objected to the
Book of Common Prayer was himself proposing to give
him a form of prayer, and so they parted, Fox announc-

AT FENNY DRAYTON AND WHITEHALL 107
ing that he intended to be in the town again that
day week. "So the priests packed away, and many
people were convinced; for the Lord's power came over
all. Though they thought to have confounded truth
that day, many were convinced of it, and many that
were convinced before were by that day's work con
firmed in the truth, and abode in it ; and a great shake
it gave to the priests. My father, though he was a
hearer and follower of the priest, was so well satisfied,
that he struck his cane upon the ground and said,
' Truly I see he that will but stand to the truth, it will
carry him out.'" This is, I believe, the last mention
that we have of "Righteous Christer," who evidently
did not join the Society founded by his son, but who
remained staunch in his persuasion of the truth and
trustworthiness of his son's " Verily."
The third conference at Fenny Drayton, a meeting
" at my relations' house," seems to have been a failure.
Some soldiers were brought thither by the clergy, to
take down the names of the attenders, and to arrest
such as should not obey their command to disperse
and go home. When Fox's name was taken, his
relatives answered naturally enough, that as he was
at home already he could not go home; and thus the
clumsy device (if it were ever really entertained) for
compassing Fox's imprisonment came to nought.
Soon, however, Fox was arrested and temporarily
imprisoned on an entirely different charge from that
which Stephens and his brother ministers would have
preferred against him. In the course of his journeyings
he came to Whetstone in Leicestershire, and there he
was about to hold a meeting which seems to have been
a kind of conference for the Friends of all the surround-

108 GEORGE FOX
ing district.1 To this meeting came about seventeen
troopers of Colonel Hacker's regiment, some of the
very men probably who five years before had stood
round the scaffold at Whitehall, interposing between
the executioner of Charles I. and the crowd of London
citizens who thronged the street, murmuring at the
bloody deed.2 The troopers stopped the meeting, and
were about to arrest all the attenders, but George Fox
undertook to be answerable for the others, and while
arresting him they took his word for the appearance
of his friends. With one companion, Alexander Parker
of Bolton, Fox was taken into the presence of Colonel
Hacker, who sat surrounded by his major and captains.
The time was an unusually critical one — it was appar
ently the summer of 1654. Oliver Cromwell had been
for about half-a-year Lord Protector of the Common
wealth, and Gerard and Vowel's plot, the first of many
for his assassination, had either just been discovered,
or was known to be in agitation.3 Colonel Hacker and
his troopers had got it into their heads that this con
ference of Friends at Whetstone, apparently so harmless
and peaceable, covered a design either to assassinate
Cromwell, or to bring in Charles IL* The conversation
which the Colonel held with the accused failed alto-

1 " For there were several Friends come from various parts "
(I. 207).
2 The death-warrant of Charles I. proves that Colonel Hacker
and one of his associates in this work were only delegated to the
office of superintending the execution after at least two other
officers had refused it. (Gardiner, iv. 309.)
3 " At this time there was a rumour of a plot against Oliver
Cromwell " (I. 207).
i "I told them I had been formerly sent up a prisoner by
Colonel Hacker from Leicester to London, under pretence that I
held meetings to plot to bring in King Charles " (I. 534).

AT FENNY DRAYTON AND WHITEHALL 109
gether to remove this impression. "Much reasoning,"
says Fox, " I had with them about the light of Christ
which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the
world. Colonel Hacker asked whether it was not this
light of Christ that made Judas betray his Master, and
afterwards led him to hang himself. I told him, 'No;
that was the spirit of darkness, which hated Christ and
His Light.' Then Colonel Hacker said I might go
home and keep there, and not go abroad to meetings.
I told him, 'I was an innocent man free from plots,
and denied [disapproved of] all such work.' His son
Needham said, 'Father, this man hath reigned too
long; it is time to have him cut off.' I asked him,
'For what? What had I done? or whom had I
wronged from a child ? for I was bred and born in
that country, and who could accuse me of any evil
from a child ? ' " However, on his persistent refusal
to promise not to attend any more meetings, it was
decided that Fox should be sent up to London to the
Lord Protector, under the care of Captain Drury, one
of his life-guards.
In the early morning before he departed, Fox sought
an interview with Colonel Hacker, and was accordingly
admitted into his bedroom. The Colonel again tried
to persuade him to promise to hold no more meetings,
but he might as well have asked him to promise not
to eat or to breathe. " Then," said Hacker, " you must
go before the Protector." With that Fox kneeled down
by his bedside, and besought the Lord to forgive him,
for he was as Pilate, though he should wash his hands ;
and when the day of his misery and trial should come
upon him, he was then to remember what Fox had now
communicated to him. There came a day six years

110 GEORGE FOX
after, when Hacker bitterly remembered these words
of his prisoner.
Often as Fox was asked on the journey, if he would
not go quietly home and hold no more meetings, he
always returned the same sturdy negative. At length
he and his escort reached London, and he was lodged
in the "Mermaid Inn"1 "over against the Mews at
Charing Cross." Captain Drury then went to the
Protector to report the arrival of his prisoner, and
returned with the demand which has been already
described, that Fox should give a written promise
not to take up the sword against the then existing
Government. The Protector, when he received the paper contain
ing Fox's declaration against all war, desired to see
the writer, of whom doubtless he had often heard by
the reports of his major-generals. After some time
Captain Drury brought Fox to the palace at White
hall. He found the Protector in his bedroom, half-
dressed, being waited upon by a valet named Harvey,
who had himself for a short time joined the new Society
of Friends. On entering, Fox uttered in his deep and
thrilling voice his usual salutation, "Peace be to this
house," and then he proceeded to exhort the great
Protector to keep in the fear of God, that he might
be directed by the Divine wisdom, and order all things
under his hand to God's glory. Much conversation on
religious subjects followed, and in it Oliver evidently
showed a capacity for understanding the spiritual side
1 Not of course the Mermaid which was made famous by the
colloquies of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. That was in Bread
Street, Cheapside. It might be worth inquiry why the Mermaid
at this time was so popular as an inn sign.

AT FENNY DRAYTON AND WHITEHALL 111
of Christianity which surprised his visitor.1 "Only,"
said he, "you are too fond quarrelling with the
ministers." This charge, of course, Fox repelled, de
claring in his usual manner that he only followed the
example of prophets and apostles in denouncing " the
false prophets who preached for filthy lucre, and divined
for money, and who were covetous and greedy, and
could never have enough." While Fox spoke, Crom
well said several times, "It is very good: it is the
truth." The conversation then turned on the Scrip
tures, which Fox was accused of esteeming too lightly.
His answer was, " All Christendom (so called) possesses
the Scriptures, but lacks the power and spirit of the
men who gave forth the Scriptures; and this is the
reason why Christians are not in fellowship with the
Son, nor with the Father, nor with the Scriptures, nor
with one another."
Much more passed between these two men, each in
his different way such a notable product of seventeenth-
century England. Then the crowd of courtiers began
to flock into the great man's levie, and Fox turned to
go. As he turned, Cromwell caught him by the hand,
and with tears in his eyes said, "Come again to my
house, for if thou and I were but an hour a day to
gether, we should be nearer one to the other. I wish
no more ill to thee than to my own soul." Said Fox,
"If thou didst, thou wouldest wrong thy own soul.
Only hearken to God's voice, stand in His counsel and
obey it; and that will keep thy heart from the hard
ness which will otherwise overtake it." Cromwell
answered, " It is true." Fox left the presence-chamber,
i " Much discourse I had with him about religion, wherein he
carried himself very moderately."

112 GEORGE FOX
followed by Drury, who told him it was the Lord Pro
tector's decision that he should be set at liberty, and
might go whither he would. Then he was brought
into a great hall (was it the Banqueting Chamber of
Inigo Jones ?), where the gentlemen of the new court
were to dine together; but as soon as Fox learned that
he was brought there that he might join them in the
repast, he stiffly refused, sending a message to the
Protector that he would not eat of his bread nor drink
of his drink. " Now," said Cromwell, on receiving this
message, " I see there is a people risen up that I can
not win with gifts, honours, offices or places; but all
other sects and people I can." " It is not likely," said
Fox in reply, "that we who have forsaken all that we
had, should look for such favours from him."
This was not Fox's last visit to Whitehall, though it
was for the time his last interview with the Protector.
He returned to the "Mermaid Inn," now a free man,
and went thence into the city, where he had many
" great and powerful meetings," attended by such dense
throngs of people that he found it difficult to make his
way into and out of the place of assembly. It is
probably to this date that we must refer the practical
foundation of the Quaker church in the capital city.
But after a time he went to Whitehall again, and
was " moved to declare the day of the Lord among them,
and that the Lord was come to teach His people Him
self." The officers of the New Model army and the
gentlemen of the Protector's household seem to have
heard him for a time with patience, and some of them
with more than patience, for " there was a great con-
vincement in the Protector's house and family " ; but
no further opportunity of access to the Protector was

AT FENNY DRAYTON AND WHITEHALL 113
afforded him, owing, as he says, to the rudeness of the
officers. Probably the real reason was the press of
State business, which would not admit of Cromwell's
listening to the lengthy discourses of his visitor, how
ever in his heart he might be convinced of his earnest
ness and spiritual insight.
During these visits to Whitehall, George Fox had
a curious encounter with one of Cromwell's chaplains,
or, to use his own description, " one of several priests
whom Oliver had about him. This was his news
monger, an envious priest, and a light, scornful, chaffy
man." Would that Fox had given us some clearer
indication which of the well-known chaplains of the
Protector was labelled by him in this contemptuous
fashion. When Fox met this man, something in his
conversation seems to have aroused his suspicions, and
he bade him repent, an exhortation which so moved
the chaplain's wrath that he inserted in his newspaper
next week the following item of news — " George Fox
the Quaker has been to Whitehall, and bid a godly
minister there to repent." Certainly the minister,
whether godly or not, seems to have been a purveyor
of extremely trivial gossip, and one marvels that Fox
should have thought it worth while to bandy words
with him. The chaplain stated in his newspaper that
Fox wore silver buttons, "which was false, for they
were but alchemy." He also said that Fox "hung
ribands on people's arms, which made them follow him,"
— the suggestion probably being that there was some
kind of enchantment in these ribands. There was a
great deal of discussion backwards and forwards as to
the originator of this idle tale ; and the chaplain
promised to insert George Fox's contradiction in his

114 GEORGE FOX
newspaper, but failed to keep his promise. From the
following sentence it appears that now, in the day of
Cromwell's uncontrolled power, it was the Independents,
rather than the Friends' old adversaries, the Presby
terians, who were taking the lead in the repression of
Quakerism. "These priests, the newsmongers, were
of the Independent sect, like those of Leicester; but
the Lord's power came over all their lies, and swept
them away; and many came to see the naughtiness of
these priests."
It was probably on account of the attitude thus
assumed by the Independent clergy that Cromwell,
though himself earnest for toleration, permitted the
persecution of Quakers to be carried on so fiercely,
that about three thousand of their number were im
prisoned on one pretence or other between 1648 and
1660, and that thirty-two actually died in prison, "in
the time of the Commonwealth, and of Oliver and
Richard the Protectors."

CHAPTER IX

LAUNCESTON GAOL

After the account of Fox's visit to the Protector
at Whitehall, he inserts in his Journal copies of several
" papers " which he felt himself called upon to write to
various "sorts and conditions of men"; "to all pro
fessors of Christianity " ; "to such as follow the world's
fashions " ; " to the Pope and all kings and rulers in
Europe " ; " to the Triers " (a body of men appointed by
Cromwell to examine the holders of benefices) ; " to
those that made a scorn of trembling and quaking";
" to churches gathered into outward forms upon the
earth " ; to the Protector, as to the trouble brought
upon Friends by the new oath of abjuration, and to
Friends themselves, exhorting them to be patient under
the new persecution that was coming upon them.
This last letter begins with the question, " Who is
moved by the power of the Lord to offer himself to
justice for his brother or sister that lies in prison, and
to go lie there in their stead, that his brother or sister
may come out of prison, and so offer his life for his
brother or sister ? "  " As Christ hath laid down His
life for you, so lay down your lives for one another. Here
you may go over the heads of the persecutors and reach
the witness of God in all." 115

116 GEORGE FOX
The time was at hand when Fox himself was again
to endure imprisonment, one of the longest and most
terrible of all that he had to undergo.
I pass rapidly over his journeyings in the eastern
and midland counties in the year 1655 ; his discussion
at Reading with the Ranters, " who pleaded that God
made the Devil " ; his sufferings from " the scholars at
Cambridge," who pulled his companion off his horse,
and "were so rude in the courts and in the streets,
that miners, colliers, and carters could never be ruder,
raging as much against the man who denounced the
trade of preaching, which they were there as apprentices
to learn, as ever Diana's craftsmen did against Paul."
Then came one more visit to his native place, Fenny
Drayton, where not a priest or " professor " appeared of
all the great company that had been gathered together
against him. He asked the reason, and was told that
the priest of the neighbouring Nuneaton was dead,
and that eight or nine of them were seeking to get
his benefice, flocking to the spoil as carrion crows to a
sheep's carcase. At Evesham a pair of high stocks1
had been prepared expressly for him, but he would not
turn aside from his course, and seems to have passed
through the town without being confined in them.
At Tewkesbury, the " priest " came with a great rabble
of rude people to disturb his meeting, and when Fox
" turned the people to the Divine Light which Christ,
the heavenly and spiritual Man, enlightened them
withal, the priest began to rage against the Light and
denied it, for neither priest nor professor could endure
to hear the Light spoken of." At Warwick, he appealed
In the MS. Journal they are thus described, "a pair of
stocks, a yard and a half high, with a trap-door to come to it."

LAUNCESTON GAOL 117
in vain to the Protector's " Instrument of Government,
in which liberty of conscience was granted." Notwith
standing this, the rude multitude, encouraged, or at
least not hindered by " the bailiff of the town," stoned
him, and tried to unhorse him. He and his companions
had got clear of the town, when he told his friends
that " it was upon him from the Lord to go back into
it again ; if any of them felt anything upon him from
the Lord, he might follow him, and the rest that did
not might go on to " the next halting-place. One man,
John Crook, turned and followed the dauntless preacher,
who "passed up through the market in the dreadful
power of God, declaring the word of life unto the
people, and showing them their unworthiness of the
name of Christians." " Some struck at me," he says,
"but the Lord's power was over them, and gave me
dominion over all."
These journeys in the Midlands having been ended,
and London again visited, Fox prepared to break
entirely new ground by a visit to the western counties.
of England, in which apparently there had hitherto
been no Quaker-preaching of any importance.
Through Sussex and Hampshire he journeyed into
Dorsetshire, having for his companion Edward Pyot of
Bristol, and at Dorchester he went to an inn which
happened to be kept by a Baptist. He sent to ask
the Baptists of the town for leave to invite " the sober
people " to a meeting in their chapel, but they refused,
and accordingly an invitation was sent to them and all
who feared God to visit the Quaker missionaries at
the inn. " They were in a great rage, and their teacher
and many of them came up and slapped their Bibles
on the table. I asked them why they were so angry ;

118 GEORGE FOX
were they angry with the Bible ? But they fell into
a discourse about their water-baptism." Fox asked
them if they could claim the same power which the
apostles had to convey the gift of the Holy Spirit by
the administration of baptism, and on their modestly
disclaiming this power, proceeded by a series of Socratic
questions to draw the conclusion, that as they had not
the Divine power which was bestowed on the apostles,
they were baptizing in the power of the Evil One.
Naturally the Baptists were much exasperated, and
shook off the dust of their feet against the two Quakers,
but many of the substantial citizens seem to have joined
them. At Weymouth, the result of a large assembly
which lasted for several hours was the establishment
of a regular meeting of Quakers in that town, partly
formed out of converted Ranters, "who came to own
the truth and to live very soberly." At the same
place Fox made another convert, whose name is not
disclosed, but whose disposition is amusingly portrayed
in the following paragraph : —
" There was a captain of horse in the town, who sent
to me, and would fain have had me to stay longer;
but I was not to stay. He and his man rode out of
town with me about seven miles, Edward Pyot also
being with me. This captain was the fattest, merriest
man, the most cheerful and the most given to laughter
that ever I met with; insomuch that I was several
times moved to speak in the dreadful power of the
Lord to him ; and yet it was become so customary to
him that he would presently laugh at anything he
saw. But I still admonished him to come to sobriety,
sincerity, and the fear of the Lord. We staid at an
inn that night, and in the morning I was moved to

LAUNCESTON GAOL 119
speak to him again when he parted from us. Next
time I saw him he told me, that when I spoke to him
at parting, the power of the Lord so struck him, that
before he got home he was serious enough, and had
discontinued his laughing. He afterwards was con
vinced, and became a serious and good man, and died
in the truth."
At Kingsbridge, as there were many people drinking
in the inn where the travellers lodged, Fox went in
amongst them and preached them a sermon on the
inward Light. Some probably were impressed and
some amused by the unexpected utterance; but one
effect it had upon all — it stopped the consumption
of liquor. " The innkeeper stood uneasy, seeing it
hindered his guests from drinking; and as soon as
the last words were out of my mouth, he snatched
up the candle and said, ' Come, here is a light for you
to go into your chamber.' Next morning, when he
was cool, I represented to him what an uncivil thing
it was for him to do so : then warning him of the day
of the Lord, we got ready and passed away."
At Plymouth they held a meeting in the house of
one of the numerous Carys of Devonshire. A certain
Elizabeth Trelawney, daughter of the Trelawney baronet
of the day, was there, and, being somewhat deaf, sat
near to George Fox. The sermon thus intently listened
to produced its usual effect. She was " convinced," and
when some "jangling Baptists" came into the room
after the meeting was over, she bore witness to her new
conviction of the Truth. At Plymouth, as at many of
the other places which have been named, the meetings
of the Friends, which were established at the time of
Fox's visit, still exist after the lapse of 240 years,

120 GEORGE FOX
Fox now crossed over into Cornwall, but his visit
to that county, though it resulted in one of the longest
and most severe of his imprisonments, did not produce
anything like so large a crop of conversions to Quakerism
as rewarded his visits to Lancashire and Cumberland.
He himself accounts for this in some measure by saying
that he "could not obtain knowledge of any sober
people, through the badness of the innkeepers." This
remark helps us to understand his usual mode of
procedure on arriving at a strange place, which was
apparently to go to an inn kept by a Puritan landlord,
and use his host's local knowledge in order to gather
together an audience of "sober," that is spiritually-
minded people. Why this mode of procedure failed
him in Cornwall can be readily understood from the
history of the Civil War. The westernmost county of
England, in which there is now, under the influence
of John Wesley and his successors, so strong a Non
conformist element, was in the seventeenth century
enthusiastic for Church and King. Pendennis Castle
was one of the last strongholds on which the royal
banner was kept flying. Cornishmen, with their brother
Britons the Welshmen, still stood by Charles Stuart
when all Saxon England disowned him, and popular
legends still tell of a certain battle or skirmish which
was fought near Falmouth after the Civil War over all
the rest of England was ended, and before the news of
the pacification had reached that remote district.1 In
such an episcopally-minded and Royalist county the
1 This skirmish took place on a little grassy plain which yet
bears the name of "Fine and Brave," and according to local
tradition headless Cavaliers and Roundheads are believed still
to be seen galloping over it in the moonlight.

LAUNCESTON GAOL 121
new teaching, which required a Puritan nidus to work in,
even while opposing Puritan dogmas, had little chance
of success, and though a few meetings were established,
there was no general ingathering to Quakerism.
There was, however, a determination on the part of
the authorities of the county to keep it clear of the
new sect, and when Fox reached Marazion (which seems
at that time to have had a corporation of its own), the
Mayor and Aldermen of the little town, acting in
conjunction with the Sheriff of the county, sent the
constables to summon Fox and Pyot before them. No
warrant for their apprehension had been issued, and
when Fox asked the constables to produce their warrant,
one of them pulled out his mace from under his cloak,
and said that was his warrant. However, no arrest
was made. Pyot went unconstrained to the Mayor
and Aldermen of Marazion, and preached them a
sermon, to which they seem to have listened with
attention. Possibly the three Friends (one W. Salt of London
now accompanied Fox and Pyot) might have ridden back
again through the county without molestation, but for
the zeal of a county magistrate and major in the army,
named Peter Ceely of St. Ives. According to a frequent
practice of his, Fox had written a short address, to
be sent to the seven parishes at' the Land's End.
There was nothing in this address which any Christian
man could possibly object to. It merely set forth in
language unusually simple and clear Fox's great pro
position, " Every one of you hath a light from Christ,
which lets you see you should not lie, nor do wrong to
any, nor swear, nor curse, nor take God's name in vain,
nor steal." But a copy of the paper was handed to a

122 GEORGE FOX
mounted traveller whom the party met about three
miles from Marazion, who proved to be a servant of this
Major Ceely's. Riding forward, he delivered it to his
master at St. Ives, where the Friends were delayed for
a time, Pyot's horse having cast a shoe. While the
horse was being shod, Fox walked down to the shore,
and looked forth upon the Bristol Channel. When he
returned to his friends, he found all the little town in
an uproar, and a rude mob dragging off Pyot and Salt
before Major Ceely. "I followed them," says Fox,
" into the justice's house, though they did not lay hands
upon me. When we came in, the house was full of
rude people; whereupon I asked whether there were not
an officer among them to keep the people civil. Major
Ceely said he was a magistrate. I told him ' he should
show forth gravity and sobriety then, and use his
authority to keep people civil: for I never saw any
people ruder : the Indians were more like Christians
than they.' After a while, they brought forth the
paper aforesaid, and asked whether I would own it.
I said ' Yes.' Then he tendered the oath of abjuration
to us, whereupon I put my hand in my pocket and
drew forth the answer to it, which had been given to
the Protector. After I had given him that, he ex
amined us severally, one by one. He had with him
a silly young priest, who asked us many frivolous
questions, and amongst the rest he desired to cut my
hair, which then was pretty long : but I was not J to
cut it, though many times many were offended at it.
I told them, ' I had no pride in it, and it was not of
my own putting on.'2 At length the justice put us
1 i. e. " I did not think it my duty to cut it."
2 Sewel, the historian of Quakerism, remarks on this — "It

LAUNCESTON GAOL 123
under a guard of soldiers, who were hard and wild, like
the justice himself; nevertheless we warned the people
of the day of the Lord, and declared the truth to them.
The next day he sent us, guarded by a party of horse,
with swords and pistols, to Redruth."
From Redruth next day, notwithstanding the fact
that it was Sunday, the soldiers insisted on their
travelling forward a stage. They had preached to the
people in the morning amidst howls of rage; it was
already afternoon of the short January day, and the
party had ten miles to ride. But Fox had, as he
believed, a message from the Lord, and insisted on
delivering it. " When we were got to the town's end
I was moved of the Lord to go back again to speak to
the old man of the house ; the soldiers drew out their
pistols and swore I should not go back. I heeded them
not, but rode back, and they rode after me. I cleared
myself [delivered my message] to the old man and the
people, and then returned with them and reproved
them for being so rude and violent.
"At night we were brought to a town called Smethick
then, but since Falmouth. It being the evening of
the First-day [Sunday], there came to our inn the chief
constable of the place and many sober people, some
of whom began to inquire concerning us. We told
them we were prisoners for truth's sake, and much

happened also at other times that because of his long hair he
was spoken to, as I have seen myself; but of this I am fully
persuaded, that he had not the least pride in it ; but it seems to
me not improbable that he, seeing some would make it a kind of
holiness to wear short hair, did the contrary to show that in some
things there was a Christian liberty, for which we ought not
to judge one another." An interesting comment on the name
" Roundheads,"

124 GEORGE FOX
discourse we had with them concerning the things of
God. They were very sober and loving to us. Some
were convinced and stood faithful ever after."
The captain of the little party of soldiers who were
escorting the Friends was apparently a rough and
lawless man named Keat. They believed that it was
only the bolting of their door which prevented him
from making some attack upon them during the night.
In this they may have been mistaken, but it was
certain that next day a kinsman of Keat's, "a rude,
wicked man," was brought by him into their room,
while he himself stood outside. " This evil-minded
man walking huffing up and down the room, I bade
him fear the Lord ; whereupon he ran upon me, struck
me with both his hands, and placing his leg behind me,
would fain have thrown me down, but he could not,
for I stood stiff and still and let him strike. As I
looked towards the door, I saw Captain Keat look on
and see his kinsman thus beat and abuse me. Where
upon I said, ' Keat, dost thou allow this ? ' and he said
he did. 'Is this manly or civil,' said I, 'to have us
under a guard and put a man to abuse and beat us ?
Is this manly or civil or Christian ? ' "
The constables were sent for, the magistrate's warrant
was examined and proved to be an order to conduct the
prisoners safely to Captain Fox, governor of Pendennis
Castle, or, if he should not be at home, to convey them
to Launceston Gaol. The chief constable strongly
remonstrated against the rude and violent conduct of
the soldiers, and his remonstrances were backed by the
officers of the garrison of Pendennis. As the governor
was gone to Bodmin to meet Major Desborough, it was
decided that the Friends must be sent to Launceston,

LAUNCESTON GAOL 125
but the chief constable at first positively refused to give
them in charge to their rough bullying escort. " If it cost
twenty shillings in charges to carry us up, they should
not have the warrant again. I showed the soldiers the
baseness of their carriage towards us ; and they walked
up and down the house, being pitifully blank and down."
Eventually, on the soldiers' entreaty and promise to be
more civil to their prisoners, the warrant was given
back to them, and the party started for Launceston.
On the road they met General Desborough, Crom
well's brother-in-law, and one of the major-generals,
the satraps through whom, for a year and a half,1 the
Protector administered the government of England.
Desborough's satrapy included the six western counties
from Gloucestershire to Land's End, and the com
prehensive powers of himself and his fellows gave them
jurisdiction over religion and morals, as well as over
more purely political questions.2 The great man was
apparently journeying westward, when the little troop
of Fox's escort met him. The captain of the troop
that rode before him recognized Fox — he had perhaps
made his acquaintance during the preacher's visit to
Whitehall — and said, " Oh, Mr. Fox, what do you here ? "
Fox replied, "I am a prisoner." "Alack," said the
captain, "for what?" Fox told him he had been
arrested while he was travelling on his religious errand.
" Then," said he, " I will speak to my lord, and he will
i From June 1655 to February 1657. The proceedings which
we are now considering took place in January 1656.
2 In the interesting article on "Cromwell's Major-Generals" in
the English Historical Review (x. 492), it is stated that Major-
General Butler fined a certain Mr. Barton £6 for saying " God
damn me," and protested that it should have been £10, if the
culprit's horse would have fetched as much.

126 GEORGE FOX
set you at liberty." He rode up to "my lord's" coach
and explained the case to Desborough. Possibly if Fox
could have left the matter in the captain's hands he
might have had his liberty, but when he himself began
to tell the story of his wrongs, and touched upon his
doctrine, Desborough "began to speak against the
Light of Christ, for which," says Fox, "I reproved
him. Then he told the soldiers they might carry us to
Launceston ; for he could not stay to talk with us, lest
his horses should take cold."
At Bodmin, Captain Keat put Fox into a room where
stood a man with a naked rapier in his hand, and when
the captive remonstrated, answered, " 0 pray hold your
tongue, for if you speak to this man we cannot all rule
him, he is so devilish ; " in other words, the man with
the rapier was a dangerous lunatic. Naturally Fox
complained that such an apology did not mend matters,
and he at length succeeded in getting another room.
" In the evening we declared the truth to the people,
but they were hardened and dark people. The soldiers
also, notwithstanding their fair promises, were very rude
and wicked to us again, and sat up drinking and roar
ing all night." It occurs to one that these roysterers
can hardly have been the precise, sanctimonious soldiers
of Cromwell's New Model army; possibly both they
and their captain may have been some of the disbanded
Cavalier troops taken into the service of the Common
wealth. Next day the prisoners were brought to Launceston
and handed over to the care of the gaoler. Thus began
one of the longest and most terrible of Fox's many im
prisonments, which lasted nearly eight months, from
the 22nd of January to the 13th of September 1656.

LAUNCESTON GAOL 127
For nine weeks which intervened between the
commitment of the Friends to prison and their trial
at the Assizes they appear to have been fairly treated,
matters being smoothed by their each paying the
gaoler seven shillings a week for their board, and
seven shillings for the keep of their horses. Their
peculiar usage of addressing all persons with " Thou "
and "Thee," and their scruple about the removal
of the hat were, however, the subject of general remark,
and there were many speculations how this behaviour
would be tolerated by the great judge who would
come down from London to try them at the Assizes.
The general expectation seems to have been that he
would at once order them to be hung.
At length, somewhere about the 22nd of March,
the Assizes were held, and the long-expected judge
took his seat on the bench. He proved to be Chief
Justice Glyn, a man who, though not a Jefferies or
a Scroggs, has earned for himself a somewhat un
favourable reputation as a time-server, and a politician
too keenly intent on selfish ends; a patriot in 1640,
a noisy Presbyterian in 1646, a Cromwellian under
the Protectorate, and a Royalist as soon as General
Monk began to move for the Restoration of the Stuart
dynasty. In this trial, however, he does not appear
to have done anything unfitting to his high position.
The little town of Launceston was crowded with the
country folks, who had come from far and near to
gaze upon these strange beings who were going to defy
the great Chief Justice ; and the soldiers and javelin-
men who guarded them had some difficulty in making
a way for them through the crowd. At length, how
ever, they pushed their way in, and the judge, lifting

128 GEORGE FOX
up his eyes, saw a group of austere, plainly clad men
standing in the dock, with their broad hats overshadow
ing their faces, pale with nine weeks of prison air.
But the scene must be described in Fox's own words.
" When we were brought into the court, we stood
some time with our hats on, and all was quiet, and
I was moved to say, ' Peace be amongst you ! ' Judge
Glyn, a Welshman, then Chief Justice of England,
said to the gaoler, 'What be these you have brought
here into the court ? ' ' Prisoners, my Lord ! ' said he.
' Why do you not put off your hats ? ' said the judge
to us. We said nothing. ' Put off your hats,' said the
judge again. Still we said nothing. Then said the
judge, ' The court commands you to put off your hats.'
Then I spoke and said, ' When did ever any magistrate,
king, or judge, from Moses to Daniel, command any to
put off their hats when they came before them in their
courts, either amongst the Jews, the people of God, or
amongst the heathen ? x and if the law of England
doth command any such thing, show me that law,
either written or printed.' Then the judge grew very
angry and said, ' I do not carry my law books on my
back.' ' But,' said I, ' tell me where it is printed in any
statute book, that I may read it.' Then said the judge,
' Take him away, prevaricator ! I'll ferk him.' So
they took us away and put us among the thieves.
Presently after he calls to the gaoler, ' Bring them up
again.' ' Come,' said he, ' when had they hats from
1 A quaint little illustration of the way in which Fox, who
was accused of undervaluing the Scripture, had absorbed it into
the very tissue of his mind; so that for him the proceedings of
an English Court of Justice in the seventeenth century were
to be modelled on the customs of an Oriental people two
thousand years before that date.

LAUNCESTON GAOL 129
Moses to Daniel ? Come, answer me. I have you fast
now,' said he. I replied, 'Thou mayest read in the
third of Daniel that the three children were cast into
the fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar's command, with
their coats, their hose, and their hats on.'1 This
plain instance stopped him, so that, not having any
thing else to say to the point, he cried again, 'Take
them away, gaoler.' "
In the afternoon the prisoners were again brought
up, and after there had been some discussion about
a "paper against swearing," which Fox, shocked at
the proceedings of the court, had handed to the grand
and petty juries, and which the judge pronounced to
be of a seditious character, the old question of the
hats came up again. " Then they let fall that subject ;
and the judge fell upon us about our hats again,
bidding the gaoler take them off, which he did, and
gave them to us; and we put them on again. Then
we asked the judge and the justices what we had
lain in prison for these nine weeks, seeing they now
objected nothing to us but about our hats; and as
for putting off our hats, I told them that was the
honour which God would lay in the dust, though
they made so much to do about it : the honour which
is of men, and which men seek one of another, and
is the mark of unbelievers. . . Then the judge began
to make a great speech, how he represented the Lord
1 Curiously enough, the word here translated "hats" (Car-
balathon) is now believed to be more properly translated
" mantles." It is strange that Fox, with his intimate acquaint
ance with the Bible, should not have perceived the real point
at issue between oriental and occidental customs, that among
the Jews, as with so many other Eastern nations, it was not by
uncovering the head, but by "loosing the shoes from off the
feet," that reverence was shown to a superior power. K

130 GEORGE FOX
Protector's person, who had made him Lord Chief
Justice of England, and sent him to come that circuit,"
and so forth.
Some modus vimendi as to the hat question must have
been obtained between the court and the prisoners, for
we next find Fox pointing out the errors in his indict
ment, and insisting on the production of the mittimus
under which he had been committed to prison. This
had been given forth by Major Ceely of St. Ives, the
fussy magistrate to whose servant Fox's letter to the
seven Land's End parishes had been handed. This
Major Ceely must, one would think, have been either
insane, or an outrageous liar ; for he now, sitting beside
the Chief Justice, said to him — " May it please you,
my lord, this man [pointing to Fox] went aside with
me, and told me how serviceable I might be for his
design; that he could raise 40,000 men at an hour's
warning; and involve the nation in blood, and so bring
in King Charles." It was not difficult to prove the
falsity of such a preposterous accusation as this, and,
as Fox says, "the judge saw clearly that instead of
ensnaring me, he had ensnared himself." Not satisfied,
however, with this rebuff, Major Ceely rose again and
said — "If it please you, my lord, to hear me: this man
struck me, and gave me such a blow as I never had in
my life." Challenged by Fox to say where and when,
he answered that it was in the Castle green, and that
Captain Bradden was standing by and saw the blow.
Bradden, however, seems to have shown by a shrug of
his shoulders his opinion of the absurdity of the charge,
and the judge, who evidently saw that Ceely was a
witness on whose evidence no reliance could be placed,
went no further into the matter. According to Fox,

LAUNCESTON GAOL 131
" the judge, finding those snares would not hold, cried,
'Take him away, gaoler,' and then when we were
taken away, he fined us twenty marks apiece for not
putting off our hats, and to be kept in prison till we
paid it ; so he sent us back to the gaol."
In other words, the charge on which the Friends had
been originally arrested fell to the ground, but for
" contempt of court" they were each fined £13 6s. 8d.,
with imprisonment till the fine was paid. A severe
sentence certainly, but, considering the sensitiveness of
an English court of law on the subject of disrespect to
its presiding officer, and considering also the novelty
of the objection to remove the hat, and the small
experience which judges had yet had of the adamantine
nature of a Quaker scruple, not a sentence which
reflects any serious discredit on the character of the
Chief Justice.
The wildly absurd charge which Ceely had in the
second instance brought against Fox was explained by
Captain Bradden, who with seven or eight magistrates
called that evening at the prison, and told the Friends
that neither the judge, nor any one in court, believed
Major Ceely's accusation about a conspiracy, though
Bradden believed that if he could have found another
witness, Ceely would have pressed for a capital con
viction. Then Fox asked him why he had remained
silent when the Major vouched him as a witness for
the striking of a blow. " Why," said he, " when Major
Ceely and I came by you, as you were walking on the
Castle green [the courtyard of the prison], he put off his
hat to you, and said, ' How do you do, Mr. Fox — your
servant, sir ! ' Then you said to him, ' Major Ceely,
take heed of hypocrisy, and of a rotten heart; for

132 GEORGE FOX
when came I to be thy master, and thou my servant ?
Do servants use to cast their masters into prison?'
This was the great blow he meant you gave him."
The sentence passed on Fox and his friends, it will
be remembered, was not primarily one of imprisonment,
but fine, and imprisonment till the fine should be paid.
There is no reason to suppose that they could not have
paid £13 apiece ; in fact, the price of their horses
alone would probably have been nearly sufficient for
the purpose. But there was now to be a demonstration
of the fact, often proved in after years, that the Quaker
would rather undergo any amount of imprisonment
than satisfy what he conceived to be an unjust demand.
It was in many cases a living death that he thus
confronted, for the prisons of England in that century
were horrible beyond description; still, when the
Quaker had made up his mind that a certain claim was
unrighteous, he would rather suffer anything than pay
it; and this invincible resolution of his had no small
share in bringing about the victorious issue of the
battle which was to be waged for liberty of thought
during the following half-century.
Now that the Assizes were over, and the Friends
were evidently in for a long term of imprisonment,
they decided to send their horses away, and no longer
to pay the gaoler his fourteen shillings apiece for the
horses' bait and the riders' board. This exasperated
the gaoler, who as well as the under-gaoler, and the
wives of both men, were all notorious bad characters,
bearing the mark of the branding-iron for theft and
other crimes. The gaol itself and the lands round it
belonged to a Baptist preaching Colonel named Bennet,
and the appointment to the office of gaoler was in his

LAUNCESTON GAOL 133
gift. The gaoler, in his rage at being baulked of his
gains, thrust Fox and his friends into a horrible
dungeon called Doomsdale, the especial receptacle of
condemned murderers and witches, and said to bo
haunted by their unquiet spirits. Of the spirits Fox
had no fear. " I told them," he says, " that if all the
spirits and devils in hell were there I was over them in
the power of God, and feared no such thing ; for Christ,
our priest, would sanctify the walls and house to us ;
He who bruised the head of the devil." But the
material discomforts, or I should rather say, the horrors
of Doomsdale could not be so lightly passed over, and
the description which Fox gives of them in his
Journal* a description which would sicken my readers
if I dared to quote it, shows us that at that time, after
England had been for a thousand years a Christian
country, her unhappy prisoners were treated with a
barbarity which could hardly be surpassed at this day
even in the awful pest-houses of Morocco.2 In reading
this and similar narratives one feels a thrill of indig
nation at the divines and statesmen of all sects and
schools, who were wrangling over Episcopacy, Presby-
terianism, Independency, the eastward position of the
altar, and the jus divinum of synods and presbyteries,
while the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy,
and truth were so dismally neglected. The members
of the Society founded by Fox may reflect with some
1 I. 282.
2 Fox's Journals supply many vivid illustrations of Macaulay's
words, "the prisons were hells on earth, seminaries of every
crime and every disease. At the assizes the lean and yellow
culprits brought with them from their cells to the dock an
atmosphere of stench and pestilence, which sometimes avenged
them signally on bench, bar, and jury" [the well-known "gaol-
fever "]. (History of England, Cap. III. ad finem.)

134 GEORGE FOX
satisfaction, that it was a saintly woman, the daughter
of a Quaker family, who first carried the torch of
Christian civilization into the hellish darkness of
Newgate.1 At the present day the grim fortress of Launceston
Castle has none but pleasant associations for the in
habitants of the little Cornish town. Leased from
the Crown by a public-spirited nobleman who has
generously handed it over to the public, its round
shell-keep rises over a terraced garden planted with
noble evergreens, and below this garden is a fine level
playground for the school children, which was formerly
the courtyard of the Castle. At the north-eastern end
of this is a ruined gateway containing a little roofless
chamber about twelve feet square, which rightly or
wrongly is identified by local tradition with the horrible
Doomsdale of Fox's Journal.
In this place, foul with indescribable nastiness, the
prisoners, whom the gaoler called " hatchet-faced dogs,"
were kept for many days before he would allow them
to clean it, and fed like dogs through a grating. Once
a girl brought them a little meat, but he arrested her
for house-breaking, sued her in the town court, and
put her to so much trouble that none of the other
inhabitants, though kindly disposed, durst bring them
water or victuals. However, before long the quarter
sessions at Bodmin were held, and a statement of the
hardships inflicted on the prisoners, drawn up and
presented to the magistrates, brought down an order
" that Doomsdale door should be opened, and that the
prisoners should be allowed to cleanse it and to buy
1 John Howard's work, noble as it was, seems to have been
more efficacious on the Continent than in England itself.

LAUNCESTON GAOL 135
their meat in the town." A petition was also sent to
the Protector, setting forth the whole history of their
arrest and imprisonment, and this was replied to by an
order to Captain Fox, governor of Pendennis Castle, to
inquire into the grievances complained of. Captain
Fox, whom his namesake speaks of rather slightingly
as " a light, chaffy man," seems in this case to have
done his duty faithfully. The abusive soldiers, who
had formed the escort party, their commander Captain
Keat, and his evil-minded kinsman who had struck
Fox in the inn, and tried to throw him, were all
severely reprimanded. There were many of the county
magnates staying at that time at Pendennis, and they
told the bullying kinsman that if the Quaker chose to
change his principle, and take the extremity of the law
against him, he would probably recover sound damages
for the assault.
It would seem that after these petitions, and the
replies to them, the treatment of the prisoners was
somewhat improved, and they were taken out of Dooms-
dale. All sorts of people came to visit them — Friends,
officers in the army, private soldiers, "professors," and
other prisoners — and the encounters between Fox and
his visitors were sometimes amusing, sometimes alarm
ing. One Colonel Rouse, a justice of the peace, came
one day to see the Friends, bringing a great company
with him. "He was as full of words and talk," says
Fox, " as ever I heard any man in my life, so that there
was no speaking to him." At length, tired of the vain
attempt to get in a word edgeways, Fox asked him
whether he had ever been at school, and knew what
belonged to questions and answers. " At school," said
he ; " yes." " At school," said the soldiers who were

136 GEORGE FOX
among his followers; "doth he say so to our colonel
that is a scholar ? " Then said Fox, " If he be so [a
scholar] let him be still, and receive answers to what he
hath said." " Then I was moved to speak the word of
life to him in God's dreadful power, which came so
over him that he could not open his mouth ; his face
swelled and was red like a turkey; his lips moved,
and he mumbled something, but the people thought
he would have fallen down. I stepped to him, and
he said he was never so in his life before; for the
Lord's power stopped the evil power in him : so that he
was almost choked. This man was ever after very
loving to Friends, and not so full of airy words to us,
though he was full of pride, but the Lord's power came
over him and the rest that were with him."
A half-drunken soldier came in to see the prisoners,
and when one of the Friends was "exhorting him to
sobriety," he began to draw his sword. Quite un
daunted, Fox stepped up to him, and told him what a
cowardly thing it was to draw a sword on an unarmed
man, and a prisoner, that he was not fit to be trusted
with such a weapon, and that some men in their place
would have taken his sword from him and broken it to
pieces. The tipsy fellow had sense enough left to be
ashamed, and reeled out of the room.
Drunkenness seems to have been the order of the
day in Launceston Castle. One night, at eleven o'clock,
the gaoler came half drunk to Fox, and told him he
had now got a man to dispute with him. Something
about the gaoler's manner made Fox suspicious, and
that night he spent not in his own chamber, but sleep
ing on the grass courtyard of the Castle. Still next
day the gaoler maundered on about the dispute or debate

LAUNCESTON GAOL 137
that was to be held, and the man who was to conduct
it. At length it turned out that the debater was none
other than a man who had been committed to prison
as a rogue and a vagabond, for deceiving people by
conjuring tricks, and that his method of argument was
with a big clasp-knife. Being called out of his chamber
Fox stepped to the top of the stairs, and saw the
gaoler's wife standing on the stairs, and the conjurer
at the bottom of them, holding his hand behind his
back, and in a great rage. He asked him, " Man, what
hast thou in thy hand behind thy back? Pluck thy
hand before thee : let us see thy hand, and what thou
hast in it." Out came the naked knife, but ere he
could do any mischief with it, the gaoler's wife, to
whom Fox complained of the meditated outrage, seems
to have interfered and prevented further mischief.1
Certainly the English prisons of the seventeenth
century, with all their hideousness, must have been
more amusing places to be imprisoned in than the
monotonous penitentiaries of the nineteenth.
All this time the Friends were busily engaged in
writing letters and pamphlets setting forth their views,
and showing the injustice of their imprisonment. One
such document, drawn up by Edward Pyot, who was
probably the man of best education among them, was
addressed to Chief Justice Glyn.2 As it occupies
thirteen closely printed octavo pages, it is safe to say
that the busy judge never read it. More effectual was
the action of a certain Friend named Humphrey
Norton,8 who went to the Protector and offered himself
1 Fox's account of this adventure is rather obscure, and it is
not easy to understand the gaoler's or the conjurer's motives.
2 Dated fourteenth of fifth month [July] 1656.
3 His name is given in the MS. Journal.

138 GEORGE FOX
" body for body to lie in Doomsdale, if need were, in
Fox's stead." Cromwell was struck by the loyal
devotion which Fox had inspired, and turning to his
Privy Council said, " Which of you would do so much
for me if I were in the same condition?" It was
of course decided that the law would not allow of such
a substitution, but from this time Cromwell was
evidently determined to put an end to Fox's imprison
ment. Another impulse in the same direction was
given by the words of Hugh Peters, fervidest of Puritans,
staunchest and jolliest of army chaplains,1 who shrewdly
told his master Cromwell that they could do George
Fox no greater service for the spreading of his principles
in Cornwall than to keep him shut up in Launceston
Castle. The result of these varied agencies was that an order
came down to Major-General Desborough for the liber
ation of the Quaker prisoners in Launceston Gaol.
Desborough endeavoured to exact a promise that they
would go home and preach no more, but this, though
they told him that their mission in Cornwall was
accomplished, they steadfastly refused to give. Waiving
this point at last, he had then to meet the remonstrances
of Colonel Bennet, the Puritan lessee of the gaol, the
master of the drunken and felonious gaoler, who
required payment of the gaoler's fees. There was a
wrangle over this question between the Colonel and
the prisoners, but they declared " they would give no
fees, for they were innocent sufferers, and how could they
expect fees from men who had suffered so long wrong
fully ? " In the end the Quaker obstinacy triumphed,
1 See Gardiner, History of the Civil War, ii. 326, for a life-like
portrait of Hugh Peters.

LAUNCESTON GAOL 139
and Bennet (who had probably received a hint from
the Major-General that he would not be supported in
his claim) let the prisoners go on September 13, 1656.
To complete the story of Launceston Gaol it should
be mentioned, that in the year after Fox's imprisonment
the wicked gaoler lost his place, and was himself thrown
into prison. While there he begged for alms from the
Friends, who during Fox's imprisonment had been
gathered into a congregation at Launceston, and event
ually he was actually shut up himself in the horrible
Doomsdale, chained, beaten, and told by his successor to
"remember the good men whom he had wickedly
without any cause cast into that nasty dungeon." He
died in prison, and his wife and family came to want.
The fine castle-yard at Launceston, which is now, as
has been said, a playground for the school-boys, was
in Fox's time a bowling-green. Thither came the
great Major-General Desborough to play the game
which had been so dear to the imprisoned king, and
thither came the magnates of the county and the
citizens of Launceston to play likewise. We note
with some regret that Fox thought himself called upon
to protest against this innocent and healthful amuse
ment. He put forth one of his favourite "papers,"
beginning, " The word of the Lord to all you vain and
idle-minded people who are lovers of sports, pleasures,
foolish exercises and recreations, as you call them.
Consider your ways: what it is you are doing. Was
this the end of your creation ? Did God make all
things for you, and you to serve your lusts and
pleasures?" and so forth.
One cannot help feeling that here the Puritan
atmosphere in which Fox had grown to manhood

140 GEORGE FOX
clouded his spiritual perception. To have distinguished
between recreations healthful and harmful had been
well, but to condemn, as he virtually does in this paper,
all recreation as contrary to the will of God, shows
that he had need of further " openings " as to the
place of wisely chosen recreation in the Divine
economy.

CHAPTER X
IN WALES AND SCOTLAND
After Fox's liberation from Launceston Gaol, he
journeyed in a leisurely manner through Cornwall and
Devonshire to Bristol. At Exeter he went to see
James Naylor, once his loved and trusted companion,
now in prison on account of the extravagant proceedings
of himself and some of his female followers in the west
of England. Fox's own account of the interview is as
follows : —
"From thence we came to Exeter, where many
Friends were in prison, and amongst the rest James
Naylor. For a little before we were set at liberty
James had run out into imaginations, and a company
with him, which raised up a great darkness in the
nation. He came to Bristol, and made a disturbance
there, and from thence he was coming to Launceston to
see me, but was stopped by the way and imprisoned at
Exeter. . . . The night we came to Exeter I spoke
with James Naylor, for I saw he was out and wrong,
and so was his company. Next day being First-day,
we went to visit the prisoners, and had a meeting with
them in the prison; but James Naylor and some of
them could not stay the meeting. . . . The next day
I spoke to James Naylor again, and he slighted what I
141

142 GEORGE FOX
said, and was dark and much out ; yet he would have
come and kissed me. But I said, ' since he had turned
against the power of God I could not receive his show
of kindness.' The Lord moved me to slight him, and
to set the power of God over him."
Shortly after this Naylor was liberated and went to
Bristol, where the maddest scene in the whole tragedy
was enacted — a male votary leading Naylor's horse bare
headed, while the females spread their handkerchiefs
before him, and shouted " Hosannah ! " a manifest and
audacious parody of Christ's entry into Jerusalem.
Had such an event happened in our day, the chief
actors would have been kindly taken care of in the
nearest county asylum, and would probably in a few
months have come out cured. Puritanism, itself so
dour and dark, had no such compassion for the fevered
brains of those whom it regarded as wilful blasphemers.
Cromwell's second Parliament met on September 17,
1656, and one of its first employments was with the
case of James Naylor, upon whom it passed that
atrocious sentence, which in the eyes of posterity has
caused the folly of the fanatic to be well-nigh forgotten
in the thought of the bigot cruelty of his judges. To
be pilloried for two hours, to be whipped by the hang
man through the streets from Westminster to the Old
Exchange in the City, to be pilloried again two days
after for two hours, to have his tongue bored through
with a hot iron, and to be branded in the forehead
with the letter B, to be again flogged through the
streets of Bristol, and then to be committed to prison
with solitary confinement and hard labour during the
pleasure of Parliament — such was the sentence which
these men imagined that they honoured Christ by

IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 143
inflicting on His crazy imitator. We are rejoiced to
find that the cruel severity of the sentence shocked
many even of the Puritan party, and that Cromwell
showed his utter disapproval of the action of Parliament,
though he did not feel strong enough to come to an
open rupture with that body.1
The one bright point in the whole dreary business
is the fact that in the long hours of his solitary con
finement, Naylor recovered spiritual sanity, and in deep
contrition of soul retracted the claim to a kind of
Messiahship which the extravagance of his followers
had led him to set up.
It is the opinion of some of the most careful students of
Quaker literature, that this business of Naylor's exercised
a certain sobering influence on Fox himself. He per
haps saw that the doctrine of the Inward Light, wbich
was the very life of life to his own soul, needed to be
cautiously stated and kept always in its due relation
to the life and words of the historic Christ, if it was
not to work a kind of spiritual intoxication, such as it
had produced in Naylor and the mad women who sang
their hosannahs round him. It seems to me that in
Fox's conflicts with the authorities after this time, we do
not hear those charges of blasphemy advanced against
him which were common in his earlier career. Probably
too the very necessity of defending his doctrine against
the disputants who attacked it had given a certain
definiteness and coherence to those utterances, which
were at first only a wild and mournful cry after the
1 The dates are October 31, 1656, Committee of the House of
Commons on Naylor's case ; December 16, 1656, decision as to
his punishment ; December 18, 27, 1656, sentence executed in
London; some time afterwards at Bristol; September 8, 1659,
Naylor released from prison by order of the Rump Parliament.

144 GEORGE FOX
living God. He himself tells us that one of his hearers,
who had listened to him in his earlier days, remarked
the change which had of late come over his ministry.
Fox's comment is, " the change was in himself;" but it
seems probable that there was also a real growth, an
increased power and lucidity in the preacher.
The year 1656, which we have now reached, was a
fruitful one for the new Society. Many thousands had
nowjoined it, and there were seldom fewer than one
thousand in prison at the same time, " some for non
payment of tithes, some for speaking in the churches,
some for refusing to swear, and some for not putting off
their hats." All this, it must be remembered, was
under the Commonwealth, and under the rule of a
man who undoubtedly desired to give as much liberty
to religious dissidents as public opinion would allow.
It was about this time that Fox had his second inter
view with the great Protector. It happened that when
the Friends were entering London on their return from
their long western journey, as they came near Hyde
Park they saw a great concourse of people, and in the
heart of the throng the Lord Protector riding in his
coach. Fox spurred his steed and rode up to the
carriage. The life-guards who were riding alongside
of it were jostling him away, when Cromwell looked
forth and said, " Let him come." So he rode alongside
as far as the entrance into St. James's Park, discoursing
of Cromwell's own spiritual state, of the sufferings of
Friends in the prisons of the Commonwealth, and the
contrast between all this persecution for matters of
refigion and the spirit of Christ and His apostles. At
parting, Cromwell desired him to visit him at White
hall, and when he returned to his palace, he told one of

IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 145
his wife's maids, a Quakeress named Mary Saunders,
that he had good news for her — " George Fox was come
back to London, and had ridden with him from Hyde
Park to St. James's."
Shortly after, Fox went with his friend Pyot to call
on the Protector at Whitehall. The great Independent
John Owen, at this time Dean of Christ Church, and
Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, was closeted with
the Protector, and one can see that his presence was
not conducive to that open heart-to-heart intercourse
which there had once been between the two men. Fox
spoke about the Light of Christ. Cromwell got into
a theological discussion, whether there were anything
more in this than the natural light of conscience. Fox,
feeling the Divine afflatus strong upon him, urged
Cromwell repeatedly, and with strong emotion, " to lay
down his crown at the feet of Jesus." Cromwell was
in an unsympathetic vein, came and sat upon a high
table by Fox's side, and said in a light, joking way, " I
will be as high as you are." "Thus he continued
speaking against the Light of Christ Jesus, and went
away in a light manner. But the Lord's power came
over him, so that when he came to his wife and other
company, he said, ' I never parted so from them before,'
for he was judged in himself."
After this interview Fox made a circuit through the
home counties, as well as the northern shires of Lincoln
and York; he had a large meeting near the battle
field of Edgehill, and he experienced the rudeness of
the scholars at Oxford. In these travels he was en
deavouring to fulfil a commission which, as he felt,
was entrusted to him while he was still cooped up in
Launceston Gaol. The first promulgation of his doctrines

146 GEORGE FOX
in most parts of England was now accomplished — " the
truth was now spread, and finely planted in most
places," and his present business was "to answer and
remove out of the minds of people some objections
which the envious priests and professors had raised
and spread abroad concerning us. For what Christ
said of false prophets and anti-christs coming in the
last days, they applied to us, and said ' We were they.' "
Probably we may trace in this passage also some evidence
of the effect produced on Fox's own mind by James
Naylor's claim to Messiahship.
In the next year (1657) Fox broke new ground by
making visitations to Wales and Scotland. Wales
resembled Cornwall in the strength of its Royalism,
as it was to resemble it a century later in the fervour
of its Methodism. Apparently, however, Fox's preaching
in the Principality was more successful than it had
been in Cornwall.1 He was accompanied by a Welsh
man, named John-ap-John, who could speak the Cymric
tongue, evidently a fervid and fearless man, and one who,
strange to say, surpassed even Fox himself in his power
of arousing the opposition of " priests " and magistrates.
At several towns we hear of ap-John as being thrown
into prison, while Fox is still at liberty, but he appears
to have been generally liberated after confinement for
a day or two. At Brecknock, John-ap-John preached
to the people in the streets, no doubt using the Welsh
language. Fox went forth for one of his usual meditative
walks in the fields, and when he returned found the
whole town in an uproar. His room in the inn was
1 The small number of Friends now to be found in Wales is, I
believe, to be accounted for by the very large migrations thence
to Pennsylvania. It had a considerable Quaker population at
the close of the seventeenth century.

IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 147
full of people, all talking Welsh, but who at his request
spoke in English, and much discourse they had together.
At nightfall, the magistrates — so Fox believed — gathered
a multitude of people together in the streets, and bade
them shout, making such a noise as Fox had never
before heard. The wild clamour continued for two
hours, and reminded Fox of the similar scene enacted
by Diana's craftsmen at Ephesus. Probably the fact
that many of the people were shouting in Welsh made
the noise seem to Fox more meaningless than it really
was. He was a true Englishman, and evidently had
an instinctive feeling that English was the proper
language for a reasonable being to use.
Thus at Dolgelly, when John-ap- John's street preach
ing had gathered a multitude round him, he says, " there
being two Independent priests in the town, they came
out and discoursed with him together. I went up to
them, and finding them speaking in Welsh I asked
them, 'What was the subject they spoke upon, and
why were they not more moderate, and spake not one
by one ? For the things of God,' I told them, ' were
weighty, and they should speak of them with fear and
reverence.' Then I desired them to speak in English,
that I might discourse with them, and they did so."
The discussion turned on the nature of the "light
within," which the Independents, like Cromwell their
chief, declared to be "a created, natural-made light,"
while Fox maintained it to be heavenly, divine, and
God-enkindled. At Tenby, Fox had a curious argument with an
official whom he calls the governor, and who had, as
usual, thrown John-ap-John into prison.
" Why had he done this ? " Fox asked.

148 GEORGE FOX
Governor. " For standing with his hat on in church."
G. F. " Had not the priest two caps on his head, a
black one and a white one ? Cut off the brims of the
hat, and then my friend would have but one ; and the
brims of the hat are but to defend him from the
weather." Governor. " These are frivolous things."
G. F. " Why then dost thou cast my friend into
prison for such frivolous things?"
Governor. '' Do you own Election and Reprobation ? "
G. F. " Yes ; and thou art in the Reprobation."
Governm' (in a rage). "I will send you to prison till
you prove it."
G. F. " I will prove it quickly, if thou wilt confess
truth. Are not wrath, fury, rage, and persecution marks
of reprobation? Did Christ and His disciples ever
persecute or imprison any?"
"Then," says Fox, "the governor fairly confessed
that he had too much wrath, haste, and passion in him.
I told him Esau was up in him, the first birth, not
Jacob, the second birth. The Lord's power so reached
and came over him that he confessed to truth ; and the
other justice came and shook me kindly by the hand.
"As I was passing away, I was moved to speak to
the governor again, and he invited me to dine with
him, and set my friend at liberty. I went back to the
other justice's house, and after some time the mayor
and his wife, and the justice and his wife, and divers
other Friends of the town went about half-a-mile with
us to the water-side, and there, when we parted from
them, I was moved of the Lord to kneel down with
them and pray to the Lord to preserve them. So
after I had recommended them to the Lord Jesus

IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 149
Christ their Saviour and free teacher, we passed away
in the Lord's power, and the Lord had the glory. A
meeting continues in that town to this day."
Fox's opinion of the moral condition of the inhabitants
of the Principality was generally somewhat unfavour
able. The people of Haverfordwest, he says, "were
a kind of Independents, but it was a wicked town and
false. We bade the innkeeper give our horses a peck
of oats ; and no sooner bad we turned our backs than
the oats were stolen from our horses." Again at
another great town (the name of which he seems to
have forgotten) — "In that inn also I turned but my
back to the man that was giving oats to my horse, and
looking round again, I observed he was filling his
pockets with the provender. A wicked, thievish people,
to rob the poor dumb creature of his food. I would
rather they had robbed me."
The scene at the Straits of Menai brings vividly
before us the change which has been wrought in that
region by the genius of Telford and Stephenson. It
need not be said that there was then no bridge across
the stormy straits. " Next day being market-day, we
were to cross a great water, and not far from the place
where we were to take boat, many of the market people
drew to us, amongst whom we had good service for the
Lord, declaring the word of life and everlasting truth
unto them. . . . After the Lord's truth had been
declared unto them in the power of God, and Christ
the free teacher set over all hireling teachers, I bid
John-ap-John get his horse into the boat, which was
then ready. But there having got into it a company
of wild gentlemen, as they called them, whom we found
very rude, and far from gentleness, they with others

150 GEORGE FOX
kept his horse out of the boat. I rode to the boat's
side and spoke to them, showing them what unmanly
and unchristian conduct it was; and told them they
showed an unworthy spirit below Christianity or hu
manity. As I spoke, I leaped my horse into the boat
amongst them, thinking John's horse would have followed
when he had seen mine go in before him; but the
water being deep, John could not get his horse into
the boat. Wherefore I leaped out again on horseback
into the water, and stayed with John on that side till
the boat returned. There we tarried from eleven in
the forenoon to two in the afternoon before the boat
came to fetch us ; and then we had forty-two miles to
ride that evening; and when we had paid for our
passage we had but one groat left between us in
money." How the difficulty as to their short supply of cash
was surmounted Fox does not inform us. The passage
above quoted, and several other slight indications of
the same kind, make one think that Fox, who had
been a country-bred lad, was a skilful and fearless
horseman. The word " unmanly " is a favourite word
with him when he is denouncing cowardice or cruelty,
and everything about him seems to show that with
all his almost fastidious conscientiousness he was no
tender and unpractical recluse, but a full-blooded,
courageous, manly man.
I have room for only one more anecdote about this
Welsh journey, and it relates to the ridiculous prejudice
about his long hair. It was at Wrexham that " one
called a lady" sent for him. She kept a domestic
chaplain, or as Fox says "a preacher," in her house;
but he found both great lady and preacher " very light

IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 151
and airy, too light to receive the weighty things of
God." In her lightness she came and asked Fox if
she should cut his hair, but received instead a grave
admonition to cut down her own corruptions by the
sword of the Spirit of God. So the Friends passed
away from the house ; but Fox heard afterwards that
"she boasted in her frothy mind that she had come
behind him and cut off tbe curl of his hair, but she
spoke falsely."
Thus ended the Wesh journey. " Very weary we
were with travelling so hard up and down in Wales:
and in many places we found it difficult to get meat
either for our horses or ourselves."
More than ever welcome, after these rough and hard
journeyings, must have been the repose of hospitable
Swarthmoor, whither the travellers directed their steps,
riding through Cheshire and Lancashire, and over the
sands into Furness.
After enjoying a few months' respite from travel,
George Fox, who "had for some time felt drawings
on his spirit to go into Scotland," crossed the border
and entered that country. He had with him a friend
named Robert Widders, whom he describes as "a
thundering man against hypocrisy, deceit, and the
rottenness of the priests." His first interview in Scot
land was with an unnamed nobleman, and is described
by him in the following words : —
" The first night we came into Scotland, we lodged
at an inn. The innkeeper told us an Earl lived about
a quarter of a mile off who had a desire to see me,
and had left word at his house that if ever I came
into Scotland he should send him word. He told us
there were three drawbridges to his house, and that

152 GEORGE FOX
it would be nine o'clock before the third bridge was
drawn. Finding we had time in the evening we
walked to his house. He received us very lovingly,
and said he would have gone with us on our journey,
but he was previously engaged to go to a funeral.
After we had spent some time with him, we parted
very friendly and returned to our inn." It would be
interesting to discover who was this friendly nobleman.
Was it forgetfulness, or a desire not to expose him to
persecution, which prevented Fox from mentioning his
name ? x
Scotland in 1657, held down under the stern rule
of Cromwell, outwardly peaceable, but sore at heart,
clinging more tightly than ever to its Calvinistic
creed and its Presbyterian discipline, was no favour
able ground for the reception of Fox's anti-Calvinistic
teaching. Almost immediately on entering the country
he became engaged in a dispute with the ministers on
the central doctrine of Calvinism. "Now," as he
says, "the priests had frightened the people with the
doctrine of election and reprobation, telling them that
God had ordained the greatest part of men and women
for hell, and that, let them pray or preach or sing,
or do what they could, it was all to no purpose if they
were ordained for hell ; that God had a certain number
elected for heaven, let them do what they would, as
David, an adulterer, and Paul, a persecutor, yet elected
vessels for heaven. So the fault was not at all in the
creature less or more, but God had ordained it so."
Against this terrible doctrine Fox protested with all
1 From the geographical indications I am disposed to suggest
Caerlaverock Castle, the abode of the Earl of Nithsdale, as the
scene of this interview.

IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 153
the energy of his soul, pleading the world-wide character
of Christ's commission, "Go preach the gospel to all
nations " : which is the gospel of salvation. " He would
not have sent them into all nations to preach the
doctrine of salvation, if the greater part of men had
been ordained for hell ; " pleading also the benefits of
Christ's death as a propitiation for the sins of the whole
world ; and his own favourite text, " That was the true
light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into
the world."
The tidings of Fox's arrival, and the fear that he
would "spoil" their hearers, as they heard that he
had •' spoiled all the honest men and women in England
already," roused the Scottish ministers to strenuous
opposition. According to Fox, they drew up a number
of curses, which were to be read aloud in all the
churches, and to which the people were to thunder
out their " Amens," after the manner of the Israelites
on Mount Ebal.
The first was, " Cursed is he that saith ' Every man
hath a light within him sufficient to lead him into
salvation ' ; and let all the people say Amen."
The second, " Cursed is he that saith ' Faith is without
sin' [no doubt an allusion to Fox's teaching about
perfection] ; and let all the people say Amen."
The third, " Cursed is he that denieth the Sabbath
day ; and let all the people say Amen."
Fox dryly remarks on the last sentence, " In this last
they make the people curse themselves: for on the
Sabbath day (which is the seventh day of the week,
which the Jews kept by the command of God to them)
they kept markets and fairs, and so brought the curse
upon their own heads."

154 GEORGE FOX
After visiting several other places in the south of
Scotland, Fox came to Edinburgh and preached there.
Many officers of the army, which was stationed at
Leith, came with their wives to hear him, and were
convinced by his words. A cry for protection against
the new doctrines, and especially against the announce
ment that the Gospel ought to be preached without
charge, went up to the Protector's Council in London
from the clergy in Edinburgh. The result was an order
that he should appear before "his Highness's Council
in Edinburgh." He obeyed the summons; the door
keeper took off his hat, and hung it up, and he went
in and stood before the Council. "When I had stood
awhile," he says, "and they had said nothing to me,
I was moved of the Lord to say, ' Peace be amongst
you ; wait in the fear of God, that ye may receive His
wisdom from above, by which all things were made and
created; that by it ye may all be ordered, and may
order all things under your hands to God's glory.' "
The Council questioned him as to the reason of his
visit to Scotland, and he answered, " that he had come
to visit the seed of God which had long lain under
corruption, and that all in that nation that professed
the Scriptures might come to the fight, Spirit, and
power that they were in who gave them forth." The
result of the interview was an order that Fox should
" depart the nation of Scotland by that day sen-night."
Evidently the Protector's Council, while checking the
persecuting tendencies of the Presbyterian clergy, were
anxious not to have the precarious peace of Scotland
disturbed by the preaching of English " sectaries."
Fox, however, stayed on in Scotland, and told his
friends that he should stay, though the Council issued

IN WALES AND SCOTLAND 155
a cart-load of warrants against him. He left Edinburgh,
however, and travelled up and down through the Low
lands, having some strange adventures — with robbers
lurking behind bushes, whom his bold address daunted
— with Highlanders "who were so devilish that they
ran at us with pitchforks, and had like to have spoiled
us and our horses " — with some Baptists, " vain janglers
and disputers," who being vanquished in argument
went and informed the governor of the town. He
sent a whole company of soldiers to march Fox and
his three companions out of the place. "As they
guarded us out of the town, James Lancaster [one
of the three] was moved to sing with a melodious
sound in the power of God; and I was moved to
proclaim the day of the Lord, and to preach the
everlasting gospel to the people. For they generally
came forth, so that the streets were filled with them ;
and the soldiers were so ashamed that they said, ' they
would rather have gone to Jamaica than have guarded
us so.' But we were put into a boat with our horses,
carried over the water, and then left. The Baptists
who were the cause of our being put out of this town
were themselves not long after turned out of the army ;
and he that was then governor was discarded also when
the King came in."
Lastly, before leaving Scotland, Fox determined to
return to Edinburgh, where he knew that there were
warrants out for his apprehension. He and his friend
Robert Widders, passing two sentries, rode up the
street to the market-place, by the main guard, out at
the gate, by the third sentry, and so clear out at the
suburbs. "Now I saw and felt," he says, "that we
had rode as it were against the cannon's mouth or the

156 GEORGE FOX
sword's point; but the Lord's power and immediate
hand carried us over the heads of them all." The next
day being Sunday, he re-entered the city and had " a
glorious meeting at which many officers and soldiers
were present." Thence to Dunbar (still trembling at
the recollection of another Englishman, who seven
years before had refused to depart from the nation of
Scotland when summoned to do so by the Committee
of Estates), and here Fox had a meeting in the
churchyard, while the minister was giving an orthodox
"lecture" in the church. "Friends were so full, and
their voices so high in the power of God, that the
priest could do little in the steeple-house, but came
quickly out again, stood awhile, and then went his way."
"This," Fox says, "was the last meeting I had in
Scotland. The truth and the power of God was set over
that nation .... There is since a great increase,
and great there will be in Scotland. For when first I
set my horse's feet upon Scottish ground, I felt the seed
of God to sparkle about me like innumerable sparks of
fire. Not but that there is abundance of thick, cloddy
earth of hypocrisy and falseness above, and a briery,
brambly nature which is to be burned up with God's
Word, and ploughed up with His spiritual plough, before
God's seed brings forth heavenly and spiritual fruit to
His glory. But the husbandman is to wait in
patience." 1
1 The reader may be interested in comparing these words of
Fox with the opinions of Cromwell and an unnamed officer of his
army on the moral condition of Scotland, as given in Carlyle's
Cromwell, Letter cxlix., and Gardiner's History of the Common
wealth, i. 379.

CHAPTER XI
THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE
The three years following Fox's return from Scotland
(1657-1659) were years of strange, exciting, and per
plexing events in the political world, of which we get
fitful glances in the pages of his Journal. He himself,
except for an interval of some weeks, during which he
was laid by with sickness at Reading, was engaged in
his usual work, travelling up and down the country,
holding religious discussions, addressing meetings of
his followers, and putting forth "papers" on various
subjects on which he was moved to exhort his fellow-
countrymen. (1) Of the discussions, one of the most interesting
was that which he held with a Jesuit who was in the
train of the Spanish Ambassador. The discussion,
which was the result of a challenge from the Jesuit
took place in the town mansion of the Earl of Newport,
not far from St. Martin's Lane. The challenger at first
proposed to meet twelve of the wisest and most learned
men among the Quakers ; then he came down to six ;
then he sent word that there must be but three, on
which, as Fox slyly says, " We hastened what we could,
lest, after all his great boast, he should put it quite off
at last." There were some of the usual arguments
157

158 GEORGE FOX
about transubstantiation, materialist replies to a
materialist theory. " Seeing the bread is immortal
and divine ... let a meeting be appointed between
some of them (whom the Pope and his cardinals should
appoint) and some of us ; and let a bottle of wine and
a loaf of bread be brought and divided, each into two
parts, and let them consecrate which of these parts
they would. And then set the consecrated and the
unconsecrated bread and wine in a safe place, with a
sure watch upon it, and let trial thus be made : whether
the consecrated bread and wine would not lose its
goodness, and the bread grow dry and mouldy, and the
wine turn dead and sour, as well and as soon as that
which was unconsecrated."
A more interesting part of the discussion was that
which turned on the relative authority of the Scriptures
and tradition. It might have been thought that Fox,
who had so often argued against the undue exaltation
of the Scriptures as the sole guide of life, would here
have been at a disadvantage, but he defended the
Protestant position not unsuccessfully. The Jesuit
distinguished between "the written word," or the
Scriptures, and " the unwritten word, those things that
the apostles spake by word of mouth, and which are
those traditions that we practise."
" Scripture proof of this ? " asked Fox. " Read II.
Thessalonians ii. 5," said the Jesuit. " When I was
with you I told you these things." " That is," said he
[in effect, doubtless, not in so many words], " I told you
of nunneries and monasteries, and of putting to death
for religion, and of praying by beads and to images,
and all the rest of the practices of the Church of Rome,
which was the unwritten word of the apostles, which

THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE 159
they told them, and have since been continued down
by tradition unto these times." Fox had not much
difficulty in disposing of such an argument as this.
He desired his opponent to read that Scripture again,
and see how the apostle there alluded not to any such
portentous deposit of doctrine outside of the written
word, " but to the coming of the Man of Sin, the son
of perdition." Fox did not himself press home, as a
Puritan divine would have done, the identification of
the Man of Sin with the Pope, but undoubtedly the
Jesuit understood the significant allusion. Of course
neither party in the slightest degree convinced the
other, but Fox's comment on the whole is, " Thus we
parted, and his subtilty was comprehended by sim
plicity." (2) The most important of the meetings to which I
have referred, was one held at Luton x in Bedfordshire,
and was a gathering of the members of the new sect
from all parts of the country. This was called a
" General Yearly Meeting," and was either the first or
one of the first of a series of Quaker Parliaments, which
have since been held without interruption for nearly
two centuries and a half.2 " The meeting lasted three
1 " At John Crook's house," which we learn from a previous
entry in the Journal (I. 225) was at Luton.
2 From a very early date in the history of the Society these
annual synods have been held in London, first at Gracechurch
St., and of later times at a large meeting-house in Bishopsgate,
called Devonshire House. There is one assembly of men, and
another of women (the latter of more recent institution than the
former), and the numbers vary from two or three hundred to
something like two thousand. There is a system of representation,
but others besides the regularly appointed representatives are
allowed to take part in the proceedings. The presiding officer
is called the Clerk, and is elected annually, but generally holds
office for some years. No expressions of applause or disapproba-

166 GEORGE FOX
days, and many Friends from most parts of the nation
came to it, so that the inns and towns around were
filled. And although," Fox continues, " there was some
disturbance by rude people that had run out from
truth, yet the Lord's power came over all, and a
glorious meeting it was." Fox delivered two long and
impressive, though not argumentative sermons, one of
which seems to have been intended for those among
the hearers who were yet unconvinced of his principles,
while the other was addressed to his professed followers,
and contained many valuable hints as to the regulation
of the ministry (all, of course, voluntary and unpaid),
which was beginning to be exercised abundantly in all
the meetings of the new Society. " Take heed of many
words." "That which cometh from the [Divine] life,
and is received from God, reaches to the life, and settles
others in the life, for the work is not now as it was at
first; the work now is to settle and stay in the life."
" The ministers who travel must for their own particular
growth dwell in the life, which doth open, and that
will keep down that which would boast." " The
minister should first know his own spirit, and then he
may know others." " Keep down, keep low, that
nothing may reign in you but life itself." "Friends
must have patience [with disputers], must wait in
patience in the cool life, and he who is in this hath the
tasting of the Lamb's power and authority." " There
fore all Friends keep cool and quiet in the power of
tion are allowed, and there is no voting, strictly so called. Speakers
deliver short statements of their opinions on one side or another,
and the Clerk, in deciding on the sense of the meeting, is allowed,
and indeed expected to pay some regard to the maxim, "Sen-
tentiae ponderantur non numerantur." Practically one hardly
ever hears of these decisions being called in question.

THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE 161
the Lord God, and all that is contrary will be subjected ;
the Lamb hath the victory through the [Heavenly]
Seed, through the patience [of the saints]." With
many such words of cheer and counsel Fox addressed
the first Quaker Convocation.
(3) Of the " papers " published by Fox at this time,
one of the most interesting is that addressed to the
wreckers in Cornwall. Like almost all that proceeded
from his pen, it has no graces of style, but it is full of
that zeal for righteousness, for righteous doing as distinct
from pious talking, which is characteristic of all George
Fox's utterances, and which certainly had something to
do with the opposition which he encountered.
Fox's own account of the practices against which he
protested is as follows: — "While I was in Cornwall"
[this was on his second visit to the county, in 1659]
"there were great shipwrecks about the Land's End.
Now it was the custom of that country, that at such a
time both rich and poor went out to get as much of
the wreck as they could, not caring to save the people's
lives ; and in some places they call shipwrecks ' God's
grace.' x These things troubled me : it grieved my
spirit to hear of such unchristian actions, considering
how far they were below the heathen at Melita, who
received Paul, made him a fire, and were courteous
towards him, and them that had suffered shipwreck with
him. Wherefore I was moved to write a paper and
send it to all the parishes, priests, and magistrates, to
reprove them for such greedy actions, and to warn and
exhort them that, if they would assist to save people's
1 The fouler charge against the Cornishmen, that they actually
caused shipwrecks by displaying false lights on the shore, and so
forth, is not noticed by Fox, and may probably be set down as a
myth of later times. M

162 GEORGE FOX
lives, and preserve their ships and goods, they should
use diligence therein ; and consider if it had been their
own condition, they would judge it hard if they should
be upon a wreck, and people should strive to get what
they could from them and not regard their lives." One
feels that there is in these words the germ of those
noble institutions the Life-boat and the Life-saving
Brigade, which are among the best contributions that
the nineteenth century has made to the practical
exposition of Christianity.
At the close of the paper is a postscript addressed
more especially to Friends, exhorting them to "keep
out of the ravenous world's spirit which leads to
destroy, and which is out of the wisdom of God.
When ships are wrecked, do not run to destroy and
make havoc of ship and goods with the world, but to
save the men and the goods for them, and so deny
yourselves and do unto them as ye would that they
should do unto you."
While Fox was thus moving up and down the
country, and working according to his light for the
extension of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Common
wealth, which, as the Puritan hoped, was to have been
the earthly realization of that heavenly state, was
falling asunder into ruin, and another kingdom of a
very different kind was being set up once more in
England. I will collect here the notices, few but interesting,
which we find in Fox's Journal of the events which
led up to the Restoration.
Proposed Kingship of Cromwell. "There was also
a rumour about this time" (April — May 1657) "of
making Cromwell king : whereupon I was moved to

THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE 163
go to him, and warned him against it and of divers
dangers, which if he did not avoid he would bring a
shame and ruin upon himself and his posterity. He
seemed to take well what I said to him, and thanked
me : yet afterwards I was moved to write to him more
fully concerning that matter."
Sickness of Lady Claypole. The story of Oliver's love
for this, his favourite daughter, and of his grief for her
death, which happened so shortly before his own, is
well known. Elizabeth Claypole was his sixth child,
and was born in 1629. She was therefore five years
younger than Fox. She was married when about
seventeen to John Claypole, a Northamptonshire
gentleman, whom his father-in-law made first a baronet
and then a lord, whence his wife's title of Lady Claypole.
For many months apparently, in 1658, she lay sick,
stricken by a lingering and fatal malady. Fox says —
" About this time the Lady Claypole, so called, was sick
and much troubled in mind, and could receive no
comfort from any that came to her : which when I
heard of I was moved to write to her the following
letter." The letter, which is shorter than many of
its kind, as befitted the delicate state of the receiver,
is loving and tender, but contains no very striking
thoughts. Apparently the strident voice of the enthu
siastic preacher is softened, till the speaker himself can
hardly recognize it, by the silence of the sick-room.
He exhorts the dying lady to be still and cool in her
own mind and spirit from her own thoughts, desires,
and imaginations, and to be staid in the principle of
God within her, that it may raise her mind up to God,
whom she will find to be a God at hand, and a very
present help in time of trouble. The letter ends, " So

164 GEORGE FOX
in the name and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, God
Almighty strengthen thee. G. F."
"When the foregoing paper," he continues, "was
read to Lady Claypole, she said it stayed her mind for
the present. Afterwards many Friends got copies of
it, both in England and Ireland, and read it to people
that were troubled in mind, and it was made useful
for the settling of the minds of several."
Cromwell's last days. The death of Lady Claypole
happened on August 6. A fortnight later1 Fox,
after describing a short detention which he and two
of his companions suffered at the hands of two of
Colonel Hacker's troopers, and their speedy liberation,
continues : —
"The same day, taking boat, I went to Kingston,
and thence to Hampton Court to speak with the
Protector about the sufferings of Friends. I met him
riding into Hampton Court Park, and before I came to
him, as he rode at the head of his life-guard, I saw and
felt a waft of death go forth against him ; and when I
came to him, he looked like a dead man. After I had
laid the sufferings of Friends before him, and had
warned him according as I was moved to speak to him,
he bade me come to his house. So I returned to
Kingston, and next day went to Hampton Court to
speak further with him. But when I came he was sick,
and Harvey, who was one that waited on him [groom
of the bedchamber], told me the doctors were not
willing that I should speak with him. So I passed
1 Friday the twentieth of August 1658 is the date assigned by
Carlyle to this interview. He says justly enough, " George dates
nothing, and his facts everywhere lie round him like the leather
parings of his old shop, but we judge it may have been " the day
mentioned above.

THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE 165
away and never saw him more." It was a fortnight
after this interview, on the well-known date, the 3rd of
September, the anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester,
that the spirit of that noble and much calumniated
Englishman went forth from the world.
Anarchy after Cromwell's death. That ineffectual
cipher of a sovereign, Richard Cromwell, makes as
little impression on the pages of Fox's Journal as
elsewhere in history. Fox himself, as I have said,
was laid up for several weeks with sore sickness at
Reading. His countenance was altered ; he looked
poor and thin, and was tempted to think that the
plagues of God were upon him. Soon, however, he
recovered his health and vigorous appearance, and
returned to London, where, as he says —
" Now there was a great pudder (agitation) made about
the image or effigy of Oliver Cromwell lying in state :
men standing and sounding with trumpets over his image
after he was dead. At this my spirit was greatly
grieved, and the Lord I feared was highly offended." x
He wrote a short paper of protest against this pageant,
and told the authorities that "the sober people in
these nations stood amazed at their doings, and were
ashamed, as if they would bring in Popery."
As he truly says, at this time " there was great con
fusion and distraction amongst the people, and powers
were plucking each other to pieces." He addressed
an earnest warning to his followers to "keep out of
all the bustlings in the world, to meddle not with the
1 Cromwell's effigy, robed in purple, was taken to Westminster
Abbey on the twenty-third of November, seventy-four days after
his death. His embalmed body had been buried there a short
time before. Fox's return to London must therefore have taken
place not later than the close of November.

166 GEORGE FOX
powers of the earth, but mind the Kingdom, the way
of peace." I have already1 quoted the passage in
which Fox describes the agitation consequent on Sir
George Booth's premature Royalist outbreak (August
1659), and the exhortations which he then addressed
to his followers warning them against taking part in
such commotions. So, apart from all the " bustlings of
the world," Fox moves about his appointed sphere of
labour, visits Norwich, where he has a hot dispute with
a clergyman named Townsend ; visits Cornwall, where,
as we saw, he writes a paper against the wreckers;
visits Tewkesbury and Worcester, and groans over the
excesses which accompanied the General Election (April
1660). "In all my time," he says, "I never saw the
like drunkenness as in the towns, for they had been
choosing Parliament-men. At Worcester, the Lord's
truth was set over all, people were finely settled
therein, and Friends praised the Lord ; nay I saw the
very earth rejoiced. Yet great fears and troubles were
in many people, and a looking for the King's coming
in, and all things being altered. They would ask me
what I thought of times and things. I told them the
Lord's power was over all, and His light shone over
all ; that fear would take hold only on the hypocrites,
such as had not been faithful to God, and on our
persecutors." About General Monk, the adroit actor in the trans
formation-scene from Republic to Monarchy, Fox had
written these words, describing the impression produced
upon him by the General during his own visit to Scotland
(1657)—" And I saw General Monk that he was as a
man that bowed under O. P., and had a covering over
1 p. 44.

THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE 167
him ; and take away that covering and then he was the
man as he was before [Royalist], as he did fulfil it in
a few years after." x
After all, the great event of May 29, 1660, the cele
brated Oak Apple Day, when Charles II. recovered
the throne of his forefathers, passes absolutely unnoticed
in Fox's Journal. It is only at the time of his next
conflict with the authorities, which happened at Lan
caster, that we find he is accused, in the mittimus which
commits him to prison, of being "a disturber of the
peace of the nation, and an enemy to the King," and
then we know that the Restoration is accomplished
and that " the King enjoys his own again."
Posthumous insults to the Protector. Not the worst, but
one of the most contemptible actions of the triumphant
Royalism was the ghoul-like vengeance wreaked on the
bodies of the dead hero and his companions. On Janu
ary 30,1661 (the twelfth anniversary of King Charles's
execution), the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Brad-
shaw, which had been dug up out of their graves at
Westminster, were drawn in sledges to Tyburn, hung
there till sunset, and were then beheaded. The " loath
some trunks," says the Royalist scribe, " were thrown
into a deep hole under the gallows, and the three heads
were set up by the hangman on poles on the top of
Westminster Hall." The ghastly sight awoke strange
memories in the mind of Fox, who in connection
therewith gives us a singular story (unknown, I be
lieve, to any other author), of Oliver's vows on the eve
of the battle of Dunbar.
1 This passage, which is in the MS. Journal, was omitted in
the printed copies. Probably Ellwood thought it inexpedient to
publish it.

168 GEORGE FOX
"Though 0. C. at Dunbar fight had promised to
the Lord, that if He gave him the victory over his
enemies he would take away tithes, etc., or else let
him be rolled into his grave with infamy; but when
the Lord had given him victory, and he came to be
chief, he confirmed the former laws, that if people
did not set forth their tithe they should pay treble,
and this to be executed by two Justices of Peace in
the country, upon the oath of two witnesses. But
when the King came in they took him up and hanged
him, and buried him under Tyburn, where he was
rolled into his grave with infamy. And when I saw
him hanging, then I saw his word justly come upon
him."1 On a review of all the notices of Cromwell's actions
contained in the Journal, one feels that Fox hardly did
justice to his character, and especially to his genuine
desire for toleration all round, except to the Roman
Catholics. Fox seems to have thought that the Pro
tector had only to say the word, and all the doors of
the prisons wherein Friends were confined would fly
open. But, autocrat as Cromwell was, he ruled only
by the favour of the army and the Independent party,
1 This interesting passage is to be found in the MS. Journal,
a little after the account of Fox's release from Lancaster Gaol,
but is omitted from all the printed editions. Probably Ellwood
and his co-editors thought that it bore too hardly on Cromwell's
memory. It comes in just before the sentence, " And there being
about seven hundred Friends in prison." Vol. I. p. 490 (ed. 1892).
The expression about " being rolled into the grave with infamy "
occurs in the celebrated speech addressed to Oliver's first Parlia
ment, September 12, 1654. Fox was probably mistaken in
connecting it in any way with the abolition of tithes. The
alternative in Cromwell's speech was " the wilful throwing away
of this Government so owned of God"; in other words, his abdi
cation of the Protectorate,

THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE 169
and though these were in the main disposed to toler
ation, there was always in their eyes a fringe of eccen
tric and heterodox sects outside the circle of respectable
Christianity, which it was not wise or safe to tolerate.
Did the Quakers belong to this zone of intolerable
sectaries or no? Cromwell himself, and the more
enlightened of his counsellors, probably thought that
they did not, but there was many an enthusiastic
trooper in his army who thought that they did, and
who would have held that great occasion was given to
the enemy to blaspheme by announcing that no Quaker
was to be molested for preaching the Inward Light, or
refusing the oath of fidelity to the Commonwealth.
All this limited Cromwell's power to assist a body of
men whom he probably thought hot-headed and quarrel
some, but whom he perceived to have a grasp of some
spiritual truths, the promulgation of which could not
but be of benefit to the nation. Fox, however, who
saw the persecution, did not perceive the restraining
hand held over it by the Protector.
" What's done we partly may compute,
We know not what's resisted."

CHAPTER XII
THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS
IMPRISONMENTS AT LANCASTER AND SCARBRO'
The reign of the Saints was over, and the reign of the
Sinners had begun. No more would be heard the psalm
chanted by thousands of manly voices on the eve of
desperate battle. Such old-world sounds as these were
to be replaced by the rattle of the dice-box and the
light laugh of the courtesan, for " our most religious and
gracious king," Charles Stuart the younger, had set up
his harem in Whitehall, where lately Cromwell had
dictated his letters to Milton, and his commands to
Europe. Before returning to claim his father's throne,
Charles II. had published the celebrated " Declaration "
from Breda, in which he promised to grant " liberty of
conscience, so that no man should be disquieted or
called in question for differences of opinion in matters
of religion which did not concern the peace of the
kingdom, and to consent to such Acts of Parliament as
should be offered him for confirming that indulgence."
How Charles kept this promise all the world knows.
Except when Mary was kindling the fires of Smithfield,
or when Elizabeth was waging her most ruthless war
against the adherents of the old faith, there is perhaps
170

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 171
no period of English history in which the rights of
conscience were more atrociously invaded, or men and
women more tyrannically "called in question for
differences of opinion in matters of religion which did
not concern the peace of the kingdom," than during the
reign of Charles II. Three laws which disgraced the
English statute book in this reign stand out in bad
pre-eminence as the most conspicuous violations of the
virtual compact between the returning King and his
subjects. 1. The Act of Uniformity (May 19, 1662), by which
all clergymen were compelled to declare their unfeigned
assent and consent to all and everything contained in
the Book of Common Prayer, on pain of forfeiting all
their " spiritual promotions." In obedience to this Act, as
every one knows, about two thousand Puritan ministers
were ejected from their parsonages on St. Bartholomew's
Day (August 24, 1662), and had to begin the world
anew, without even the slender provision of one-fifth of
their late incomes which had been left to the Anglican
clergy by the Long Parliament when they were ejected
for refusing to take the Covenant.
2. The Conventicle Act (May 17, 1664), which is thus
described in the words of its promoters — "The first
offence of being in a Conventicle or meeting of more
than five persons in addition to members of a family for
any religious purpose not in conformity with the Church
of England, we have made punishable only with a small
fine of £5, or three months' imprisonment, and £10
for a peer. The second offence with £10, or six
months' imprisonment, and £20 for a peer. But for
the third offence — the party convicted shall be trans
ported [for seven years] to some of your Majesty's

172 GEORGE FOX
foreign plantations, unless he redeem himself by laying
down £100."
3. The Five Mile Act (October 31, 1665) is perhaps
the meanest and most spiteful of all the persecuting
edicts that ever received the sanction of an English
sovereign. As the ministers ejected on St. Bartholo
mew's Day still continued to earn a subsistence,
however scanty, by turning school-master in their old
age, it was enacted that no Nonconformist ex-minister
or teacher, of what denomination soever, who had not
taken the oath of passive obedience, should, " unless only
in passing upon the road," come within five miles of any
city or town corporate, or borough sending members to
Parliament, or within the same distance of any parish or
place where he had formerly preached or taught, under
a penalty of £40 for every offence. And what was this
oath of passive obedience ? Not only to the effect that it
is not lawful upon any pretence whatever to take arms
against the King, but that the swearer would not at any
time endeavour any alteration of government in Church or
State. Almost all the Nonconformist ministers felt that
they could not conscientiously make any such promise.
Of these three miserable Acts, the first and the last,
as they affected primarily the beneficed clergymen of
the Puritan party, did not greatly concern the Quakers.1
1 In fact, George Fox's reflections on the religious revolution of
St. Bartholomew's Day are almost like Isaiah' s song of triumph
over Babylon. " There was a secret hand in bringing this day
[the Restoration] upon that hypocritical generation of professors,
who being got into power, grew proud and haughty and cruel
beyond others, and persecuted the people of God without pity.
(I. 501.) I was moved to write to them [the fallen Puritans, who
said ' it was all on account of us ' ]. Did we ever resist them 1
Did we not give them our backs to beat, and our cheeks to pull
off the hair, and our faces to spit on 1 Had not their priests that
prompted them on to such work, pulled them with themselves

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 173
The second (the Conventicle Act) was the chief battle
ground on which the State came forth to fight them,
and on which they eventually beat the State. Some of
the other Nonconformists endeavoured by a harmless
artifice to evade this cruel law. When they came to
their meetings they would have " candles and tobacco-
pipes, flagons of drink, cold meat and bread and cheese
upon the table," and so when the officers of justice
entered the room, it would be no religious conventicle,
but a social party of jovial Englishmen that was going
forward.1 But the Quaker would stoop to no such
artifice. And his worship, from its very simplicity and

into the ditch ? Why then would they say ' It was all on account
of us,' when it was owing to themselves and their priests, their
blind prophets, that followed their own spirits, and could foresee
nothing of these times and things that were coming upon them,
which we had long forewarned them of, as Jeremiah and Christ
had forewarned Jerusalem 1 They had thought to weary us out
and undo us, but they undid themselves." (I. 502.) "Many warn
ings of many sorts were Friends moved .... to give to that
generation, which they not only rejected, but abused Friends,
calling us giddy-headed Quakers ; but God brought His judg
ments upon those persecuting priests and magistrates. For when
the King came in, most of them were turned out of their places
and benefices [St. Bartholomew's Day], and the spoilers were
spoiled, and then we could ask them, ' Who were the giddy heads
now ? ' Then many confessed we had been true prophets to the
nation, and said, ' Had we cried against some priests only, they
should have liked us then, but crying against all made them
dislike us.' But now they saw those priests which were then
looked upon to be the best were as bad as the rest. For indeed
some of those that were counted the most eminent were the
bitterest, and the greatest stirrers up of the magistrates to perse
cution ; and it was a judgment upon them to be denied the free
liberty of their consciences when the King came in, because when
they were uppermost, they would not have liberty of conscience
granted to others." (I. 504.)
1 See the description of these Presbyterian agapae in Fox's
Journal, II. 86.

174 GEORGE FOX
apparent baldness, was peculiarly hard to extirpate.
There was no chalice, or Geneva gown, or hour-glass, or
Bible, the removal of which would spoil the service.
Professor Masson has well described the perplexity of
the persecutors when brought face to face with " a
Quaker's meeting, where men and women were wor
shipping with their hearts, and without implements, in
silence as well as by speech. You may break in upon
them, hoot at them, roar at them, drag them about;
the meeting, if it is of any size, essentially still goes on
till all the component individuals are murdered. Throw
them out at the door in twos and threes, and they but
re-enter at the window, and quietly resume their places.
Pull their meeting-house down, and they re-assemble
next day most punctually amid the broken walls and
rafters. Shovel sand or earth down upon them, and
there they still sit, a sight to see, musing immovably
among the rubbish. This is no description from fancy.
It was the actual practice of the Quakers all over the
country. They held their meetings regularly, persever-
ingly, and without the least concealment, keeping the
doors of their meeting-houses purposely open, that all
might enter, informers, constables, or soldiers, and do
whatever they chose. In fact, the Quakers behaved
magnificently. By their peculiar method of open viola
tion of the law, and passive resistance only, they rendered
a service to the common cause of all the Nonconformist
sects, which has never been sufficiently acknowledged.
The authorities had begun to fear them as a kind of
supernatural folk, and knew not what to do with them
but cram them into gaols, and let them lie there. In
fact the gaols in these days were less places of punish
ment for criminals, than receptacles for a great propor--

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 175
tion of what was bravest and most excellent in the
manhood and womanhood of England." J
In addition to these three Acts, which were aimed at
all who dissented from the worship of the Church of
England, one was passed (May 2, 1662) which was
specially directed against the Quakers. By this Act,
which became law two years before the general Conven
ticle Act, it was provided that all Quakers, or other
persons refusing to take an oath required by law, or
maintaining the unlawfulness of oaths; and particularly
all Quakers meeting for worship to the number of
five or more, should be fined £5 for the first offence,
and £10 for the second, with an alternative of three
or six months' hard labour, and for the third offence
should be banished to the Plantations.
And yet, notwithstanding all this oppression and
tyranny, notwithstanding these scandalous violations
of the promises which Charles II. had made at Breda,
the hearts of his Quaker subjects still clung strangely
to the restored King. This was partly because they
believed, and rightly believed, that his own heart
was not in the work of persecution. But beside this,
there was the personal charm of the King's manner,
the fascination which, good-for-nothing fellow that he
was, he managed to throw over all who came in contact
with him. Fox seems to have felt this charm, and to
have been to some extent blinded by it. It is im
possible to read the Journal without feeling that
Charles II. receives much more favourable measure
from the writer than Oliver Cromwell ; and it is with
a feeling of something like amusement that we find
1 Masson's Life of John Milton and History of his Time, vi.
387-8.

176 George fox
George Fox writing to the King on his accession, not
only to exhort him to exercise mercy and forgiveness
towards his enemies (an admirable piece of advice), but
also " to warn him to restrain the profaneness and
looseness that had got up in the nation on his return."
Charles II. restraining any exhibition of profaneness
and looseness would indeed have been an instance of
" the devil rebuking sin."
But on a review of the whole position of the Quakers
at the time of the Restoration, and observing the
persistent bitterness of their tone towards the promi
nent members of the old Calvinistic, Puritan party, one
is brought to the conclusion that it required only a
very little gentleness and reasonable consideration for
their scruples, to have made of the new Society a real
bulwark of the Stuart throne. They would have been
not Royalists only, but (like William Penn) Jacobites
also, if they had had any chance of developing their
strong germs of loyal sentiment towards the throne.
Members of the Church of England they could never
have been, but they would have been the most amicable
of dissenters from her communion, if they had not
been harried with Conventicle Acts and penalties of
Praemunire. Only the blind fury of the Cavalier
squire and the Episcopalian parson turned these
peaceable and loyal-hearted people into Hanoverian
Whigs and " political dissenters."
Of this most unnecessary and ill-advised persecution,
from men in whom he might reasonably have hoped to
find friends, Fox was to have an early experience. It
was probably in the very same month of May (1660),
in which Charles II. entered London in triumph, that
Fox once more sought the shelter of hospitable Swarth-

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 177
moor. The kindly master of the house had died
nearly two years previously,1 but his widow and her
daughters were ready to give him whom they regarded
as their spiritual father a loving welcome. Before he
had been there many days, the chief constable and
three petty constables tramped into the house with
a warrant from Major Porter, Justice of the Peace and
Mayor of Lancaster, for George Fox's apprehension.
They marched him off to Ulverston, and deposited him
for the night in the constable's house. There they sat,
fifteen or sixteen rude, loud-talking men, keeping close
watch upon their prisoner, and refusing to allow him
any communication with his numerous friends in Ulvers
ton, some of whom would gladly have brought him
provisions for the night. So superstitious were these
Lancashire peasants that some of the guard went and
sat in the chimney-corner to prevent Fox flying away
up the chimney ! They bragged to one another about
the capture they had effected, as if it had been an
exploit of great bravery. "I did not think," said
Constable Ashburnham, "that a thousand men could
have taken this man prisoner." " Ah ! " said Constable
Mount, a very wicked man, " I would have served
Judge Fell himself so, if he had been alive, and I had
had a warrant to take him." Evidently these braggart
constables were the men who would stick oak-leaves in
their hats and cry, "Down with the Roundheads and
the Rump."
Next morning at six, Fox, who was to be dragged off
to a neighbouring justice, was putting on his boots and
spurs, but the rough constables pulled off the spurs,
picked his pocket of a knife, put him on another horse
1 Judge Fell died October 8, 1658.

178 GEORGE FOX
than his own, and set off, attended by many horsemen
and a rabble of followers. About a quarter of a mile
from Ulverston, some Friends with the Swarthmoor
ladies in their company came forth to meet them. The
stupid horsemen gathered round him in mad rage and
fury, crying out, " Will they rescue him ? will they
rescue him ? " Upon this Fox said, " Here is my hair ;
here is my back ; here are my cheeks ; strike me ! "
With these words their anger was a little assuaged.
Then they brought a little horse, and clumsily lifting
Fox, set him upon it behind the saddle, with nothing
to hold on by, and led the horse by the halter. When
they had got some distance out of the town, says Fox,
"they beat the little horse, and made him kick and
gallop; whereupon I slipped off him, and told them
' They should not abuse the creature.' They were
much enraged at my getting off, and took me by
the legs and feet and set me upon the same horse
behind the saddle again, and so led it about two miles
till they came to a great water. By this time my own
horse was come to us, and the water being deep, and
their little horse scarce able to carry me through, they
let me get upon my own, through the persuasion of
some of their own company, leading him through the
water. One wicked fellow kneeled down, and lifting
up his hands, blessed God that I was taken. When I
was come over the sands, I told them I heard I had
liberty to choose what justice I would go before ; but
Mount and the other constables cried, ' No, I should
not.' Then they led me to Lancaster, about fourteen
miles, and a great triumph they thought to have had ;
but as they led me I was moved to sing praises unto
the Lord in His triumphing power over all."

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 179
When Fox was come to Lancaster, the spirits of the
people being, as he says, " mightily up," in other words
much excited, he stood and looked earnestly upon them,
and they cried, "Look at his eyes!" This is one of
many indications that there was something peculiarly
piercing and even awful in the glance of Fox's eyes
when he was in one of his high-wrought moods.
To tell the story of Fox's examination before " Justice
Porter" would be to repeat much of what has been
already said as to previous examinations. Enough that
he was committed to prison, and put in the " Dark
House" in Lancaster Castle, a miserable dungeon
evidently, but not so horribly filthy as Doomsdale at
Launceston. The head-gaoler seems to have been a
reasonable man, but the under-gaoler was rude and
cruel, and often would let him have no food but such
as could be pushed in to him under the door.
However, Fox's imprisonment this time was not so
long as on some previous occasions, lasting as it did
only twenty weeks, from June 3 to October 25, 1660 ;
and these twenty weeks included a journey up to
London to plead for himself in the Court of King's
Bench. Two causes combined to produce this com
paratively early liberation — the courage of Margaret
Fell, and the cowardice of "Justice Porter." The
brave lady of Swarthmoor put forth a spirited protest
" to all magistrates, concerning the wrongful taking up
and imprisoning of George Fox at Lancaster." And
not only so, but she went up to London in company
with a Friend named Ann Curtis of Reading, whose
father, when Sheriff of Bristol, had been hung before
his own door for engaging in a Royalist conspiracy.1
1 The person here alluded to was no doubt Robert Yeamans,

180 GEORGE FOX
Such intercession as this the newly-returned King could
not disregard, and he ordered the issue of a writ of
habeas corpus, which resulted in George Fox's before-
mentioned journey to London, and appearance before
the Court of King's Bench. True, "Justice Porter"
went also, with no little bounce and swagger, to
London, declaring " that he would meet Mistress Fell
in the gap." But when he got there he met some old
Cavaliers whose houses he had plundered when he was
a zealous Parliamentarian, and heard from them some
disagreeable truths. Fox himself also wrote him a
letter, in which he reminded him of stout words which
he had used in old times against those that favoured the
King, declaring that he would leave them neither dog
nor cat if they did not bring him provision to Lancaster
Castle. He asked him also, " Whose great buck's horns
those were that were in his house, and where he had
both them and the wainscot from, that he ceiled his
house withal ? Had he them not from Hornby Castle ? "
These allusions were too painful to a man who was
only too anxious to obey the Apostolic precept about
" forgetting the things that were behind." He quickly
had enough of the Court, and returned into the
country. It was during this interval of Fox's detention in
London that he witnessed the disgusting sight of the
burning of the disentombed bodies of the dead regicides.
The trial of the living regicides was still going forward,
and when Fox was taken to the judge's chambers for
an examination into his case, Sir Thomas Mallet, who
Sheriff of Bristol in 1641-2, who in 1643 was hung opposite to
his house in Wine Street for conspiring to deliver up the city to
Prince Rupert.

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 181
was the judge chosen, was putting on his red gown in
order to go into court and sit on the trial of some of
these men. He was "very peevish and froward" —
perhaps, though a staunch Royalist, he did not like
the work on which he was engaged — and told Fox he
might come another time. Eventually the trial took
place before (1) the Chief Justice Sir Robert Foster, a
harsh, narrow, black-letter lawyer, who had taken an
active part in the disgraceful trial of Sir Harry Vane ;
(2) Judge Twisden, a learned lawyer and honest man,
but extremely passionate ; and (3) the above-mentioned
Judge Mallet. The trial was a pretty fair one, though
Judge Twisden lost his temper, and tried to scold Fox,
as a year later he scolded John Bunyan; but Fox
appealed, not unsuccessfully, to Foster and Mallet for
protection. The critical point of the trial was the
appearance of a Gentleman of the Bedchamber named
Marsh, who signified to the judges the King's pleasure
" that Fox should be set at liberty, seeing no accuser
came up against him." By this time apparently Major
Porter had returned crestfallen to his house at Lan
caster. Accordingly Sir Thomas Mallet drew up an
order for the prisoner's release, and on October 25,
1660, Fox was once more a free man.
The foolish outbreak of Venner and the Fifth
Monarchy men (January 6, 1661) seems to have been
a particularly feeble and frantic affair, one by which
no strong government need have been troubled for an
hour; yet it was made, most unjustly, a pretext for
practically revoking all the promises of toleration con
tained in the King's Declaration from Breda. Fox
himself was in London on the memorable Sunday
night when this mad rush of the Fifth Monarchy men

182 GEORGE FOX
set all London in an uproar. He heard the midnight
cry, " Arm ! arm ! " and went with early morning
through Whitehall to Pall Mall, where there was a
meeting of Friends, and near which he had, it seems,
a temporary lodging. He stayed here several days,
often molested by the soldiers, who were bursting
roughly into the houses of the citizens searching for
arms. Probably he would have been again committed
to prison, or cut down by the sword of some hot-headed
trooper, had not the friendly courtier, whom he calls
"Esquire Marsh," actually come and taken up his
quarters in Fox's lodging in order to protect him, and
obtained his liberation when the soldiers took him into
temporary arrest.
Though Fox was earnest in his appeals to Friends
not to get mixed up in the movements of the Fifth
Monarchy fanatics, and addressed paper after paper to
the Government to assure it of the absolute peace-
ableness of his followers, this outbreak was made the
pretext for a raid of exceptional severity upon the
Quakers. One such paper, addressed to the King,
probably early in 1662, gives us some much-desired
statistics as to the extent of the persecution. The
results are these. "Under the changeable powers
before thee " (as Fox styles the Commonwealth and the
Protectorate), 3173 Friends had been arrested and
imprisoned. Of these 32 had died in prison, 73 were
still in confinement under process issued in the name
of the Commonwealth, the rest had been liberated
before or at the Restoration. But that was the account
of a persecution spreading over something like ten
years (1650 — 1660). Now in the space of less than
two years from King Charles's accession there had

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 183
been imprisoned in his name, and by those who
thought to ingratiate themselves with him, 3068
persons. " Besides this, our meetings are daily broken
up by men with clubs and arms, though we meet
peaceably according to the practice of God's people in
the primitive times, and our friends are thrown into
waters and trod upon, till the very blood gushes out
of them, the number of which abuses can hardly be
uttered." The appeal to Charles II. was not altogether in vain.
Though his was certainly not one of the "tender con
sciences " about which so much was said, he probably
felt both the shame and the impolicy of flagrantly
violating the compact made at Breda. Moreover, being
himself a Roman Catholic at heart, he was conscious
of a certain languid desire to obtain for his oppressed
brother Romanists that little measure of toleration
which, as he knew, could only be obtained by jumbling
up their case with that of the Protestant Noncon
formists. Accordingly, on December 26, 1662, he put
forth a Declaration, in which, reminding himself of his
promises from Breda, he " renewed to his subjects con
cerned in those promises of indulgence, the assurance
that he would make it his especial care, without
invading the freedom of Parliament, to incline their
wisdom to join with him in making some Act for the
relief of those, who living peaceably did not conform
to the Church of England, through scruple or tender
ness of misguided conscience." Unfortunately the
religious rancour of the Cavalier Parliament, whose
members in the abused name of the Christian religion
were indulging all those passions of hatred and revenge
which Christ came to banish from the earth, would not

184 GEORGE FOX
allow the King to frame any effectual Toleration Act,
but it was something that the weight of his name
should thus be thrown on the side of mercy. It is
probably not a mere coincidence that Fox's imprison
ment (the sixth of the series), which took place at
Leicester this year, was of exceptionally short duration.
It was severe enough while it lasted, for the gaoler was
" a very wicked, cruel man," but some little mitigation
was obtained by appealing to the avarice of his wife,
who though lame, and almost confined to her chair,
was undoubted master, and " would beat her husband
with her crutch " when he came within her reach, if he
did not do as she would have him. However, when the
case came on for trial, it was clearly proved that no
offence even against the Conventicle Act had at the
time specified in the indictment been committed by
Fox and his friends, and they were liberated without
the usual device of requiring them to take the oaths of
allegiance and supremacy.
But the days of fairness and moderation were soon
over. Charles was too indolent, or too much hampered
by his own extravagance, to make any sustained effort
on behalf of toleration. George Fox's next imprison
ment was the longest, though not perhaps the most
cruel of any, and lasted for nearly three years, from
the beginning of 1664 to near the end of 1666. The
chief actors in this persecution were no doubtful
Royalists (such as Justice Porter), but two staunch
Westmoreland Cavaliers, Colonel Kirkby of Kirkby
Hall, and his cousin Daniel Fleming (afterwards Sir
Daniel Fleming) of Rydal Hall.
In this instance we have the opportunity, so rarely
granted us, of hearing both sides of the question, of

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 185
knowing what both persecutors and persecuted thought
of one another. This opportunity is afforded us by the
publication of an unusually rich collection of manu
scripts belonging to the Fleming family.1 Here we
see Daniel Fleming of Rydal, one of a numerous band
of cousins, Curwens, Lawsons, and so on, to which
Colonel Kirkby also belongs. All these Cumberland
and Westmoreland squires are jubilant over the King's
return, but they rejoice with trembling. They are
perpetually hearing of plots and rebellions ; Colonel
Lambert is said to have escaped from prison, and to
be marching from Scotland with 30,000 men; the
" fanatics," as they call all the Puritan Nonconformists,
are astir ; till the fanatics are suppressed there will be
no peaceable enjoyment of their estates by the West
moreland lakes for squires loyal to Church and King.
And with these alarms, as we can now see, the name
of the Quaker sect was honestly, but most ignorantly
connected. Thus, if these rural magistrates were, as
they certainly seem to have been, both cruel and un
just in their magisterial proceedings against the Friends,
their conduct is to be accounted for not merely by
religious bigotry and arrogant Episcopalian scorn of
Puritan sectaries, but also by that fruitful parent of
cruelty, fear.
Among these persecuting squires we find with regret
Daniel Fleming of Rydal taking the lead. That name,
Rydal, brings to our minds Wordsworthian calm and
repose, and a remembrance of the soothing ministra
tions of Nature. Yet from Rydal Hall, in the years
immediately following the Restoration, went forth
1 Historical Manuscripts Commission : Twelfth Report. Ap
pendix, Part vii.

186 GEORGE FOX
many a warrant that broke up the happiness of an
honest dalesman's home, sending the father or the
mother of the family to endure the foulness of a pesti
lential prison, for no crime but that of worshipping
God according to their conscience. "Oh, fye, Justice
Fleming," was the remonstrance of William Wilson of
Stangend, " that ever this report should be sounded in
our ears, that within thy liberties such plundering
should be amongst thy neighbours. We never had the
like in our parish since the Scots was amongst us, nor
never expected that our own justices should have made
such work, as set men on robbing and spoiling true
men's goods, who dare not spoil themselves, nor do
any hurt to any man."1
George Fox also wrote to him, " Oh Justice Fleming,
dost thou not hear the cry of the widows and the cry
of the fatherless, who were made so through perse
cution ? . . . One more is dead whom thou sent to
prison, having left five children, both fatherless and
motherless. . . . Again, Justice Fleming, consider,
when John Stubbs was before thee, having a wife and
four small children, and little to live on but what they
honestly got by their own diligence, as soon as he
appeared thou criedst out, ' Put the oath to that man.'
And when he confessed that he was but a poor man
thou hadst no regard, but cast away pity, not hearing
what he would say. . . . Consider also thy poor neigh
bour William Wilson' [the writer of the previous letter],
' who was known to all the parish and neighbours to be
an industrious man, and careful to maintain his wife
and children, yet had httle but what he had got with
his hands in diligence and travels to supply himself.
1 Fleming MSS. 580.

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 187
How should his wife maintain her children, when thou
hast cast her husband into prison, and thereby made
him incapable of working for them ? "
To all such appeals no doubt the Justice would have
answered, that these poor people should have thought
about wife and children before venturing to break the
Act of 1662 against Quakers' meetings. It is true that
the right to " obey God rather than men " was once
claimed by some Galilean fishermen, but it was out
rageous that it should be asked for by the dalesmen of
Westmoreland. What adds to our regret in having to leave the lord
of Rydal pilloried as a tyrant and persecutor is, that he
was evidently a man of some little culture, an antiquary
in his way, a friend of Sir William Dugdale's, and a
buyer of his books.1 But he had made up his mind
that the " rabble of fanaticks " who met at Mrs. Fell's
house must be suppressed. He looked upon the Quakers
as "vermin," and when he and his brother squires were
once in full cry after their prey, they showed more of
the ardour of the huntsman than of the patient impar
tiality of the judge.
Thus then it was that towards the end of 1663 the
squirearchy of Cumberland and Westmoreland began
to bestir themselves for the more effectual suppression
of the Quaker teachers. In this work Fleming was
the most active. In his report to Sir Henry Bennet,2
the Secretary of State, he said, " it was necessary to
spurr on the majestrates of Kendal to the good work of
1 It is amusing to find Daniel Fleming's two sisters Frances
and Bridget writing to him (February 21, 1662) to thank him
for making choice of them for his valentines, and to ask him for
some account of "Don Qizxote and Sankca Pankca." Fleming
MSS. 477.) 2 Afterwards Lord Arlington.

188 GEORGE FOX
the prosecution of the Quakers." x At Quarter Sessions
at Kendal he offered a reward of £5 to any one who
would apprehend George Fox; and so great was his
zeal, that his cousin and fellow-persecutor Kirkby said
that there was not such a man as Justice Fleming in
all those parts ; his whole time was taken up with the
Quakers; he had holed the Fox and staid his Ham-
brough Quaker from travelling.2
Yet outwardly Colonel Kirkby still preserved some
appearance of civility to the Friends. On some rumour
of warrants being issued for his apprehension Fox, as
his manner was, determined to march into the lion's
den, and started off for a five-miles walk to Kirkby
Hall. He found the Hall full of the Flemings and
others of the cousinry, who had come to take leave of
the Colonel (as they might now take leave of one going
to India) on the eve of his departure to take his seat
in Parliament. For some time Fox sat in the parlour
among the uncongenial squires, but they said little to
him nor he much to them. When the Colonel entered,
Fox said that, having heard of Kirkby's desire to arrest
him, he had come to visit him and hear what he had to
say against him. Said Kirkby before all the company,
"As I am a gentleman I have nothing against you.
But Mistress Fell must not keep great meetings at
her house, for they meet contrary to the Act." Fox
argued that the Act was meant for turbulent and
seditious persons, not for those who met at Margaret
Fell's house, the Colonel's own neighbours, whom he
well knew to be peaceable people. Kirkby repeated
that he had nothing against Fox, and shook him by the
1 Fleming MSS. 601.
' Ibid. 580. I cannot explain the last allusion.

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 189
hand at parting ; he then went up to Westminster to
take his place in the Cavalier Parliament.
Scarcely had Kirkby departed when a private meeting
of Justices and Deputy-Lieutenants was held at Justice
Preston's house, Holker Hall, to concert measures for
the suppression of the Quakers. A warrant was issued,
and an officer came with sword and pistols to arrest
Fox. He had been on the point of leaving that part
of England for a time, but fearing that the brunt of
the persecution would fall upon his followers if he were
absent, he did not avail himself of an opportunity to
escape, but went with the officer to Holker Hall, and
his faithful ally Margaret Fell accompanied him.
When they were brought into the justice-room, they
found Justices Preston and Rawlinson, both members
of the Fleming kinship,1 besides many more, unknown
to Fox. It was rather a strange thing that among
these magistrates who were going to put the strict
letter of the law in force against a Protestant Noncon
formist, there was a certain Sir George Middleton, who
as a Papist and a recusant was the object of laws almost
as fierce and as intolerant as those that were aimed
against the Quakers. The examination turned chiefly
on "the plot," that is apparently the so-called insur
rection of Farnley Wood in Yorkshire, which broke
out, or rather which made a feeble puff of smoke, in
the autumn of 1663, and which was so futile and so
obviously doomed to failure that many persons believed
it to have been no genuine plot at all, but a " trepan,"
as it was called, prepared by the agents provocateurs of
the Duke of Buckingham. However, against this plot,
whatever was its reality, Fox had put forth one of his
1 See Fleming MSS. 3143, 3144, and p. 380.

190 GEORGE FOX
"papers," urging his followers to have nothing to do
with any such revolutionary proceedings, but the
magistrates were not ashamed to use the monstrous
argument that he must have had a guilty know
ledge of the plot, otherwise he could not have written
against it.
The evidence, however, was beginning to prove in
sufficient, and then the ready expedient of tendering
the oath was resorted to. Middleton, who had already
had an altercation with Fox, in which he had got the
worst of it, cried out, "Bring the book, and put the
oaths of allegiance and supremacy to him." The oaths
were those which he himself, as a Papist, had refused
to take and which were meant for him, and not for the
Puritan sectaries. It certainly must have required a
good deal of modest assurance on the part of a magis
trate, himself a recusant, to press that argument
against his enemy. Fox was ready with the inevitable
tu quoque; some of Middleton's brother magistrates
seem to have felt the iniquity of the proceeding, and
eventually, instead of making out the mittimus and
sending him at once to Lancaster Gaol, they ordered
Fox to appear at the next Quarter Sessions at Lancaster,
and meanwhile he was allowed to return quietly with
Margaret Fell to Swarthmoor.
During the short respite thus obtained, of course the
meetings at Swarthmoor went on as of old. One day
(probably a Sunday) Colonel Kirkby, having returned
from Westminster, appeared with the constables at his
heels. He walked in to where the Friends were sitting
in silence, and "How now, Mr. Fox!" he cried; "you
have a fine company here." " Yes," said Fox, " we
meet to wait upon the Lord." Kirkby then began to

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 191
take down the names of Friends, and if any did not
readily tell him their names, he committed them into
the constables' hands, and declared that they should go
to prison. The constables were unwilling to take them
without a warrant, upon which the fuming magistrate
" threatened to set the constables also by the heels, but
the men knew the law better than their master, and
one of them told him, he could keep them so long as
they were in his presence, but after he was gone he
could not keep them without a warrant."
Now began a tedious and evidently much bungled
judicial campaign against Fox, in which the faithful
Margaret was also included. The Quarter Sessions at
Lancaster, January 11, 1664, the Assizes at the same
city in March and August of the same year, and in
March 1665, were successive stages of the affair. During
all this time Fox was kept in durance at Lancaster
Castle, for Fleming, Rawlinson, and the other Justices
at the Quarter Sessions, had committed him to prison
for not taking the prescribed oaths, thus purposely
laying the foundation for the much more serious pro
cedure which was to be put in operation before the
Judges of Assize.
This procedure was none other than the invocation
of the terrible penalty of Praemunire on George Fox,
and on Margaret Fell likewise. This penalty, at first
attached by Plantagenet kings to ecclesiastics who were
trying to override the royal prerogative by appeals to
Rome, caused the offender "to be out of the king's
protection, to be attached in his body, to lose his lands,
tenements, and chattels." After the Reformation this
old penalty was sharpened up and applied with remorse
less severity to all adherents of the old religion who

192 GEORGE FOX
should receive or publish bulls from Rome, bring in or
receive to wear an Agnus Dei, or send relief to a Jesuit
beyond sea. By a statute passed in the third year of
James I., in the first spasm of terror caused by the
discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, it was enacted that
if any person above eighteen, being not noble, should
refuse the oath of allegiance1 when tendered by a
bishop or by the Justices of the Peace at their Quarter
Sessions, such person should be liable to the penalties
of a Praemunire? and these penalties as explained and
expanded by the black-letter lawyers amounted to
confiscation of all property real and personal, to loss
of the king's protection, and to perpetual imprisonment
during the king's pleasure.
Now, with malicious ingenuity, the lawyers and
magistrates of the Restoration discovered that this
dreaded penalty of Praemunire, invented and perfected
solely as a weapon of defence against the wide-reaching
arm of Rome, might be used to rid themselves of a
much humbler enemy, the troublesome and disrespectful
Quaker. It was true that he was utterly at variance
with the men against whom all that array of statutes
had been aimed ; true that if he might only have sub
stituted a solemn promise for an oath, he would have
promised, and have kept as true allegiance to the re
stored King as the most devout preacher of Divine Right
could desire. Still the Act said — "If any person not
noble, and above eighteen, shall refuse the oath of
allegiance." The Quakers would refuse that and every
other oath. Therefore they could be deprived of every
penny of their property, and shut up in prison for the
1 The oath of supremacy is not mentioned in this statute.
* See Gardiner, History of England, i. 288 (Ed. 1883).

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 193
rest of their natural lives, if the King would only consent
so to prolong their captivity. And all this was done
in the name of religion. " Shall the throne of iniquity
have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief
by a law?"
The judges who came on the Northern Circuit at
the three before-mentioned Assizes, were Twisden and
Turner, and by one or other of these Fox was suc
cessively tried. We have already seen something of
Judge Twisden's little infirmities of temper, and there
was an amusing illustration of these in the trial at the
March Assizes of 1664. When the judge pressed him
to swear, Fox pleaded the King's Declaration from
Breda, in which he said that no man should be called
in question for matters of religion so long as he lived
peaceably. "If thou ownest the King," said Fox,
" why dost thou call me into question, and put me upon
taking an oath, which is a matter of religion, seeing
neither thou nor any one else can charge me with
unpeaceable living ? " " Upon this he was moved, and
looking angrily at me said, ' Sirrah ! will you swear ? '
I told him I was none of his sirrahs ; I was a Christian ;
and for him, an old man and a judge, to sit there and
give nicknames to his prisoners, it did not become
either his grey hairs or his office. ' Well,' said he, ' I
am a Christian too.' ' Then do Christian works,' said I.
' Sirrah ! ' said he, ' thou thinkest to frighten me with
thy words.' Then catching himself and looking aside,
he said, ' Hark, I am using the word [sirrah] again,'
and so checked himself. I said, 'I spoke to thee in
love ; for that language did not become thee, a judge.
Thou oughtest to instruct a prisoner in the law, if he
were ignorant and out of the way.' 'And I speak in

194 GEORGE FOX
love to thee too,' he said. ' But,' said I, ' love gives
no nicknames.' Then he roused himself and said, ' I
will not be afraid of thee, George Fox ; thou speakest
so loud, thy voice drowns mine and the court's ; I must
call for three or four criers to drown thy voice ; thou
hast good lungs.' ' I am a prisoner here,' said I, ' for
the Lord Jesus Christ's sake ; for His sake do I suffer,
for Him do I stand this day ; and if my voice were five
times louder, I should lift it up and sound it for Christ's
sake, for whose cause I stand this day before your
judgement-seat in obedience to Christ, who commands
not to swear; before whose judgement-seat you must
all be brought, and must give an account.' " The
judge, in answer to Fox's repeated attempts to draw
him into a discussion as to the meaning of Christ's
command not to swear, answered that he was a servant
of the King, sent there not to dispute with any one,
but to put the laws in execution, insisted on tendering
the oath of allegiance to Fox, and on his refusal to
take it ordered him off to prison, to be kept till the
next Assizes. Margaret Fell's case was dealt with in a
similar manner.
In the interval between this and his next appearance
in court, Fox employed part of the long leisure of the
prison in writing a paper to all judges and other
magistrates who professed themselves to be Christians,
arguing against the custom then far too prevalent,
of addressing abusive language from the bench to the
prisoners in the dock. According to his usual practice,
he draws all his arguments from the Bible. Joshua
said to the offending Achan, not " Sirrah ! you rascal,
knave, and rogue 1 " but, " My son : give glory to the
God of Israel." " Even Nebuchadnezzar called Shadrach,

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 195
Meshach, and Abednego by their names, not adding any
opprobrious epithets ; and shamefully as Paul and Silas
were entreated at Philippi, at least they were called
' men,' and not ' sirrahs, rogues, and knaves ' by the
magistrates." The clerk of the magistrates at Lancaster must have
done his work with disgraceful carelessness, for Fox
was able at the August Assizes to point out several
blunders as to dates and the like, both in his and in
Margaret Fell's indictments, but apparently these ad
mitted errors only procured the delay of his sentence
till the next Assizes, which were held on March 16,
1665. The indictment, according to Fox's account,
was still but a bungled business, but the judge carried
matters through with a high hand ; the undoubted fact
that the prisoners had refused the oath of allegiance
was proved to the satisfaction of the jury, and both
George Fox and Margaret Fell received the sentence
of Praemunire with all its terrible consequences, out
lawry, confiscation, perpetual imprisonment. According
to Fox's statement, he was not even present when
sentence was passed upon him, much less asked in
the usual form what he had to urge in mitigation of
the penalty, the object being to stop his mouth and
prevent him from pointing out any more flaws in the
indictment. For the fourteen months which had already elapsed
since Fox's committal to prison, he had been confined
in Lancaster Castle. At first his imprisonment was
not a very close one, but after the Assizes of August
1664, in which he exposed the blunders of the magis
trates who were persecuting him, Colonel Kirkby, he
says, " gave orders to the gaoler to keep me close, and

196 GEORGE FOX
suffer no flesh alive to come at me, for I was not fit to
be discoursed with by men. Then I was put into a
tower, where the smoke of the other prisoners came up
so thick that I could hardly see the candle when it
burned ; and I being locked under three locks, the
under-gaoler, when the smoke was great, would hardly
be persuaded to come up to unlock one of the upper
most doors, for fear of the smoke, so that I was almost
smothered. Besides, it rained in upon my bed, and
many times when I went to stop out the rain in the
cold winter season, my shirt was wet through with the
rain that came in upon me while I was labouring to
stop it out. And the place being high, and open to
the wind, sometimes as fast as I stopped it, the wind
blew it out again. In this manner did I lie all that
long, cold winter till the next assize ; in which time I
was so starved with cold and rain, that my body was
greatly swelled, and my limbs much benumbed."
In April 1665, Colonel Kirkby and his confederate
Justices decided that Fox's continued detention at
Lancaster was doing them harm, and worked hard to
get him removed to some distant place, so that he
might be forgotten, and sympathy with him might
die out in Lancashire. They talked about getting him
sent " beyond sea," but eventually, six weeks after the
sentence of Praemunire had been passed, they obtained
an order from the King and Council for his removal
from Lancaster to Scarbro'. He was so weak with
lying for so many months in that cold, wet, and smoky
prison, that he could hardly stand. However, the
sheriff's officers dragged him out of prison, not telling
him whither they were taking him. "They hurried
me away," he says, " about fourteen miles to Bentham,

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 197
though I was so very weak I was hardly able to sit
on horseback ; and my clothes smelt so of smoke that
they were loathesome to myself. The wicked gaoler,
one Hunter, a young fellow, would come behind and
give the horse a lash with his whip, and make him
skip and leap, so that I being weak had difficulty to
sit him ; and then he would come and look me in the
face and say, ' How do you, Mr. Fox ? ' I told him it
was not civil in him to do so. The Lord cut him off
soon after."
At York the treatment of the prisoner was somewhat
improved. Lord Frescheville (a loyal Cavalier who
had just received his patent of peerage from Charles
II.) commanded the cavalry stationed there, " and was
very civil and loving." " I gave him," says Fox, " an
account of my imprisonment, and declared many things
to him relating to truth. They kept me at York two
days, and then the marshal and four or five soldiers
were sent to convey me to Scarbro' Castle. Indeed
these were very civil men, and carried themselves
civilly and lovingly to me. When we were come to
Scarbro' they had me to an inn, and gave notice to
the governor, who sent six soldiers to be my guard
that night." Such extraordinary precautions seem to
show that, absurd as the suggestion sounds, the author
ities really looked upon Fox as a somewhat dangerous
conspirator, and believed in the possibility of an attempt
at rescue. Weak as he was at this time, and subject to
fainting fits, he was put into a room in the Castle which
was open to the rain, and the chimney of which was
always smoking. The governor, Sir J. Crossland, came
one day to see his prisoner, and as Fox knew him to be
a Roman Catholic, he told him that it was his Purgatory

198 GEORGE FOX
to which he had been consigned. The prisoner spent
fifty shillings out of his own pocket in order to make
the room somewhat tolerable, and then they removed
him to another worse room without a fire-place, and
much exposed to the weather. "Being," as he says,
" to the seaside, and lying much open, the wind drove
in the rain forcibly so that the water came over my
bed and ran about the room, that I was fain to skim
it up with a platter. And when my clothes were wet
I had no fire to dry, so that my body was benumbed
with cold, and my fingers swelled, that one was grown
as big as two." Besides all these hardships he seems
to have been left for some time without food, and had
to pay a woman to bring him some necessaries out of
the town, who when she came back was forced to run
the gauntlet of the soldiers trying to snatch the food
out of her hand. At last he had to hire a soldier to
bring him his provisions, which were truly anchorite's
fare. A three-penny loaf would last him for three
weeks or even longer, and his drink was for the most
part water with wormwood steeped in it. Once in the
bitter winter weather, having taken a violent cold, he
sent out for a little " elecampane beer." x The soldiers
heard of it, and by way of a practical joke, feigned
a message for Fox to go and wait upon the deputy-
governor, and in his absence drank up his cordial.
"When I came back," he says, "one of the soldiers
came to me in a jeer, and asked me for some strong
beer. I told him they had played their pretty trick ;
and so I took no further notice of it." Assuredly, when
we compare the prison discipline of the Stuart period
* " Elecampane," says the Imperial Dictionary, " is an aromatic
bitter, and was formerly regarded as an expectorant.''

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 199
with the prison discipline of the Victorian age we shall
not be tempted to say, " The former days were better
than these." It was felt as a great grievance by Fox
that the governor would not allow the Friends of
Scarbro' to visit him; and with his usual habit of quot
ing a Biblical precedent for everything, he reminded
the authorities of what was done in the case of St. Paul
at Rome, how the heathen rulers of that day allowed
him, though in prison, to see his friends, and to preach
Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding
him. " So you that go under the name of Christians
are worse in this respect than those heathen were."
Though the Friends were not permitted to visit their
apostle, all other sorts and conditions of men were
allowed to come and gaze at one whom the governor
seems to have looked upon as an interesting specimen
added to his collection. Lord Falconbridge (or Faucon-
berg), the Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding, and
in high favour with Charles II. , notwithstanding his
marriage with Cromwell's daughter ; old Lord Fairfax's
widow, and other members of the Yorkshire aristocracy,
came thus at various times to gaze or to dispute. There
came a Presbyterian physician, who argued against the
universality of the Light of Christ; and there came
also Papists — once in great numbers — to argue about
the infallibility of the Pope,1 and Christ's descent into
Hades. But the most interesting of these interviews,
as it seems to me, and one to which sufficient attention
has not yet been called, was one which he had with
a certain Doctor of Divinity named Cradock, who called
1 In this discussion Fox quoted the case of Pope Marcellinus,
who is alleged to have fallen away under the stress of Diocletian's
persecution.

200 GEORGE FOX
upon him together with three other clergymen, the
governor and his wife, and some other distinguished
visitors. After the cause of Fox's imprisonment had
been stated, and the usual arguments about swearing
had been exchanged, "'Why,' said Fox, 'dost thou
excommunicate my friends ? ' (for he had excommuni
cated abundance both in Yorkshire and Lancashire).
He said, ' For not coming to church.' ' Why,' said I,
' ye left us above twenty years ago, when we were but
young lads and lassies, to the Presbyterians, Independ
ents, and Baptists, many of whom made spoil of our
goods, and persecuted us, because we would not follow
them. Nor we, being but young, knew little then of
your principles; and if ye had intended to keep the
old men that did know them, to you and your principles
alive, that we might have known them, ye should either
not have fled from us as ye did, or ye should have sent
us your epistles, collects, homilies, and evening songs,
for Paul wrote epistles to the saints, though he was in
prison. But they and we might have turned Turks
or Jews for any collects, homilies, or epistles we had
from you all this while. And now thou hast excom
municated us, both young and old, and so have others
of you done ; that is, ye have put us out of your church
before you have got us into it, and before ye have
brought us to know your principles.' "
In these words Fox concisely sums up the whole
early history of Quakerism, fighting as it did with
Calvinism, with Puritanism, with much that the Anglican
spirit was also opposed to, but getting no help, no
guidance or counselling words, from the dismayed and
silenced Anglican clergy. St. Dominic and men of
that mould might be said to have earned the hateful

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 201
right to persecute others by the courage with which
they bore persecution when their enemies had the
upper hand. Even so with the Roman Catholics under
Elizabeth, and with the Scottish Covenanters under
Charles IL, but not so with the timid Church which
lay so low during the years of Puritan ascendency from
1640 to 1660.
The liberty thus given to the prisoner to converse
with those who differed from his religious views, and
who probably expected easily to vanquish him in argu
ment, did not extend to his brethren in the faith, as
to whom he says he was "as a man buried alive."
Rumours of an unpleasant kind as to the probable
termination of his case filtered through into his prison
cell. The officers of the garrison often threatened "that
he should be hanged over the wall," and the deputy-
governor once informed him that he was being kept
there as a kind of hostage — " the King knowing I had
a great interest in the people, had sent me thither, that
if there should be any stirring in the nation, they should
hang me over the wall to keep the nation down." All
which shows the utter ignorance of the Government as
to the true character of the Quaker movement. What
ever the faults of the early Friends might be, insurrection
and armed resistance to the Government were things
that for them never came within the region of the
possible, and no rebellion against the Stuart King
would have been either retarded or promoted for a
day by either the imprisonment of their founder or
by " hanging him over the wall." There was a wedding
at the house of a neighbouring Papist, and during the
merry-making that followed, there was much pleasant
discourse of the speedy execution of the prisoner in

202 GEORGE FOX
the Castle. Either the wedding guests, in the lightness
of their heart, came to taunt Fox with what they had
heard, or in some other way the news was conveyed
to him. Brave at heart for all his worn-out body, he
replied — " If this be what ye desire, and if it be per
mitted you by the Lord, I am ready. I have never
feared death or sufferings in my life, but have been well
known for an innocent and peaceable man, free from all
stirrings and plottings, and seeking the good of all men."
After a time Governor Crossland, having got into
trouble himself over a mismanaged privateer of his that
had made some illegal captures, was softened in spirit,
and showed a kindlier bearing towards his patient
prisoner. The ever faithful "Esquire Marsh," who said
" he would go a hundred miles barefoot for George Fox's
freedom," exerted his influence at Court on his behalf,
and presented a petition, drawn up by some London
Friends, setting forth the sufferings already endured by
their founder. In the end, Charles II. was persuaded
of the peaceable character of the prisoner at Scarbro',
or rather probably was persuaded to take the trouble
to give five minutes' attention to his case. An order
was signed stating that the King was certainly informed
that George Fox was a man principled against plotting
and fighting, and ready at all times to discover plots
rather than to make them, and signifying thereupon
the royal pleasure that he should be released from his
imprisonment. The order was brought down to Scar
bro' by a zealous Quaker minister, named John White
head, who had been one ofthe most active in procuring it,
and on September 1, 1666, Fox obtained his discharge.
He had been deprived of liberty since January 11,
1664, three years all but three months.

THE STUARTS AND THE QUAKERS 203
After his release he wished to make Governor Cross-
land a present for the civility and kindness he had lately
showed him, but the governor refused to receive it,
saying that he would gladly do anything that he could
for him and his friends. Ever after, when the mayor
of Scarbro' sent up to him for soldiers to break up the
meetings of Friends, if he appeared to comply, he
privately gave his soldiers a charge not to meddle, and
this friendly attitude he retained till his dying day.1
Much also was the bearing of the officers and soldiers
of the garrison changed from what it had been at first.
When George Fox's name was mentioned in their
presence, they would often say, "He is as stiff as a
tree, and as pure as a bell, for we could never move
him." 1 When Fox visited Scarbro' three years after his liberation,
Sir Jordan Crossland sent him a message, " Surely you will not be
so unkind as not to come and see me and my wife." Fox accordingly,
after his meeting with Friends, went up to the Castle and had a
courteous and even loving reception from his former gaoler.

CHAPTER XIII
MARRIAGE
While Fox had been shut up in prison great and
terrible events had been branding themselves on the
page of English history. In 1665 had begun the dis
astrous war with Holland, but far more calamitous was
the Great Plague of London, which began in the early
part of 1665, and which was at its height from April to
October of that year, or during the first six months of
Fox's imprisonment at Scarbro'.
And now, on September 2, 1665, the very day
after his release, broke out the memorable Fire of
London, which lasted for five days, and destroyed
thirteen thousand houses. On the last day of the fire,
" Justice " Fleming's brother Alexander, who was living
in London, wrote as follows from the Red Lion in Grub
Street, to his brother at Rydal — "The fire is almost
quenched. The houses are laid so flat to the ground,
that the City looks just like our [Westmoreland] fells,
for there is nothing to see but heaps of stones. You
may stand where Cheapside was and see the Thames." x
Of this calamity Fox deemed that he had received a
Divine warning when he was a prisoner at Lancaster.
" As I was walking in my chamber," he says, " with my
1 Fleming MSS. 41-2.
204

MARRIAGE 205
eye to the Lord, I saw the angel of the Lord, with a
glittering drawn sword stretched southward, as though
the court had been all on fire. Not long after, the
wars broke out with Holland, the sickness broke forth,
and afterwards the fire of London : so the Lord's sword
was drawn indeed." Soon after his release, Fox visited
London, and walked for awhile among the ruins,
" taking good notice of them, and beheld the city lying
according as the word of the Lord had come to me
concerning it several years before."
For Fox personally those three years of prison hard
ship had evidently been one of the turning-points in
his life. He was but forty-two years old when he obtained
his release, but we can see that he came forth an old and
broken man, having left his youth behind him in the
gloomy fortresses to which he had been confined. " I
was weak," he says, " with lying almost three years in
cruel and hard imprisonments ; my joints and my body
were so stiff and benumbed that I could hardly get on
my horse or bend my joints ; nor could I well bear to
be near the fire or to eat warm meat, I had been kept
so long from it." He still travelled frequently about
the country; nay, as we shall see, America and Germany
were to be the scenes of some of his future labours;
but the manly frame was bowed, the once expert and
active horseman was for some time only able with
great difficulty to mount on horseback, and there were
evidently some long spaces in his life when he was
altogether laid by through sickness.
But the years of imprisonment had not been all
wasted. He had evidently, in the dungeon vaults of
Lancaster and Scarbro', been meditating deeply on the
necessities and the dangers of the new Society which

206 GEORGE FOX
he had founded. He saw that some tighter bond of
discipline than had yet prevailed must be introduced,
or the Quaker churches scattered over the land would
slide downward into "the anarchy of the Ranters."
There was a necessity also, in view of the many hot
headed and excitable persons who had joined the
Society, of some organ which could say with distinct
and authoritative voice, " These are, and these are not
acts and words of which we as a Society are willing to
bear the responsibility." For this purpose, led as he
believed by the Divine Spirit of wisdom and truth,
he framed that scheme of church government which
has lasted for two hundred and thirty years in the
Society of Friends. This consists of Yearly, Quarterly,
and Monthly Meetings, with some smaller organizations
which need not be noticed here. The Yearly Meeting,
to which allusion has already been made, is the par
liament or convocation of the whole kingdom; the
Quarterly Meeting is virtually the synod of the county;
the Monthly Meeting is the vestry of the parish or of
a cluster of neighbouring parishes. The respective
rights and duties of these various bodies were carefully
defined ; and the system as a whole, blending as it did
congregational liberty with national unity, showed a
practical sagacity which has been attested by its suc
cessful working for more than two centuries. Probably
Fox may have been assisted in the working out of his
scheme by some of the educated and thoughtful men
who had by this time joined the new Society, but the
main idea seems to have been clearly his own; and
the really statesmanlike qualities which he showed,
both in its original conception and in securing its
establishment among all the widely- scattered com-

MARRIAGE 207
munities of the Quakers, are the best refutation of the
absurd statement of a recent historian, that " there
was no reason for placing him morally or intellectually
above Ludovick Muggleton or Joanna Southcote."
For the next few years after his release from prison,
Fox was chiefly employed in journeying through
England, Wales, and Ireland, confirming his followers
in their faith, and everywhere persuading them to
adopt the new organization. His life from this point
onward became more and more identified with the
history of Quakerism ; and from various causes (partly
that premature advent of old age to which I have
alluded) it yields less of individual interest to the
biographer than its earlier chapters. But we notice
with interest some of the indications afforded by this
part of the Journal, of the increasing number of
thoughtful and influential men who, notwithstanding
the bitter persecution to which it was subjected, came
out boldly and joined the new Society. Isaac Penning
ton and Thomas Ellwood had been for some years
Quakers;1 Robert Barclay, a lad of nineteen, in 1667
was girding himself up to write his great "Apology";
and William Penn, the courtier and the friend of the
Duke of York, in 1668 finally cast in his lot with the
despised and harassed Quakers. But besides these
well-known instances, we meet in the pages of the
Journal with an "ex-sheriff of Lincoln," "Walter
Jenkins, who had been a Justice of the Peace in Mon
mouthshire," and a Friend who had been sheriff of
Nottingham about the year 1649, and had had George
Fox for his prisoner. All these, besides several other
1 Their conversion to Quakerism was in the years 1658 and
1660 respectively.

208 GEORGE FOX
magistrates, and some clergymen, had joined the new
Society. In this connection, and as an evidence that Fox,
notwithstanding his own very imperfect education, did
not despise culture, we note that in 1667, when he was
hard at work establishing Monthly Meetings, he also
laboured at " the setting up of a school at Waltham for
teaching boys," and a girls' school at Shacklewell, "for
instructing them in whatsoever things were civil and
useful in the creation."
In one of his many visits to London, Fox called on
his old friend and protector the courtier whom he calls
" Esquire Marsh." He happened to be at dinner with
several aristocratic guests, and asked Fox to join the
party. The shy Quaker declined, but joined in the
conversation though not in the repast. There was " a
great Papist" there, with whom he had an argument
about Baptism, Purgatory, and persecution for religion.
" What is it that brings salvation in your Church ? "
said Fox. " Good works," said the great Papist. " Not
so," answered the Quaker ; " the grace of God, which
bringeth salvation, teaches to deny ungodliness and
worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and
godly. So it is not the good works, nor the good life
that brings salvation, but the grace." " What ! " said
the Papist, "doth this grace that brings salvation
appear unto all men ? " " ' Yes,' said I. ' Then,' said
he, 'I deny that.' I replied, 'All that deny that are
sect-makers, and are not in the universal faith, grace,
and truth which the apostles were in.' " A good deal
more discussion followed, in which happily neither of
the parties seems to have lost his temper. At the end,
" Oh ! " said Esquire Marsh to the Papist, " you do not

MARRIAGE 209
know this man ; if he would but come to church now
and then he would be a brave man."
After a time Fox went aside into another room to
speak with "Esquire Marsh," who as a Middlesex
magistrate in high repute, had often to deal with
Quaker recusants. "How," said Marsh, "am I to
distinguish between you and the Independents, Baptists,
and Fifth Monarchy men, who also say they cannot
swear, and refuse the oath of allegiance ? " '' Very
easily," said Fox. " All the members of those sects will
swear readily enough if their cows or horses have
been stolen, whereas our people will not swear even to
get their private wrongs righted. In fact, it has
happened that a Quaker, from whom two beasts had
been stolen, appeared in court, refused to swear in his
own matter, had the oaths of allegiance and supremacy
tendered to him, and was ' praemunired ' and cast into
prison, while the thief went free." " The judge who so
decided," said Marsh, " was a wicked man." In many
cases, after this conversation, " Justice Marsh " was able
to interpose to prevent Friends from being "praemun
ired," and when he could not avoid sending them to
prison, he sent them for a few hours, or for one night.
" At length," says Fox, " he went to the King and told
him he had sent some of us to prison contrary to his
conscience, and he could do so no more. Wherefore
he removed his family from Limehouse, where he lived,
and took lodgings near St. James's Park. He told
the King that if he would be pleased to give liberty
of conscience, that would quiet and settle all, for then
none would have any pretence to be uneasy. And
indeed he was a very serviceable man to Truth and
Friends in his day." p

2l0 GEORGE FOX
On October 18, 1669, three years after Fox's liber
ation from Scarbro' Castle, came an event to
which those who knew him had been for some time
looking forward — his marriage to Margaret, widow of
Thomas Fell. As we have seen, the good old Judge
had died in November 1658, a few months after the
great Protector. "Happy in the opportunity of his
death," he had not lived to see the ruin brought upon
the cause of Puritanism and the Parliament which he
loved, nor the indignities offered to the remains of his
old friend and patron Bradshaw, whose death followed
his own after nearly a year's interval (October 31, 1659).
We have also seen how bravely the widowed mistress
of Swarthmoor Hall had held on her way, opening her
house for the reception of travelling Friends, placing
its large hall at their disposal for their weekly meetings,
(despising the Act by which their thus assembling them
selves together was forbidden under heavy penalties,)
frowned upon and conspired against by the bigoted
Cavalier squires of Rydal and Kirkby, and at last, to
gether with George Fox, deprived of property and liberty
by the infamous sentence of Praemunire. This sentence
was passed in March 1665, when she had already been
fourteen months in prison, owing to the blunders in
the indictment, and the necessity of adjourning the
trial through three assizes. Strangely enough, though
the head and front of Margaret Fell's offending was the
support which she had given to George Fox, she was
not liberated from Lancaster in September 1666, when
he walked forth from Scarbro' Castle. In the year
1667, we read in the Journal — " To this meeting in
Lancashire Margaret Fell, being a prisoner, got liberty
to come, and went with me to Jane Milner'sin Cheshire,

MARRIAGE 211
where we parted." Apparently she returned to prison
soon afterwards, for in a letter written to her in May
1668 by Thomas Salthouse (formerly steward at
Swarthmoor), the writer says, "Doctor Lower hath
improved his interest of late with some lords of the
Royal Society to plead with the King on thy behalf
for liberty, but Pharaoh's heart is so hard." 1
However, soon after this (June 1668) "she was re
leased, on what terms we know not, but it is clear from
subsequent events that the Praemunire still hung over
her, and that she was liable to be re-committed to
prison at any time. This first spell of imprisonment
had lasted four and a half years (January 1664 — June
1668). Having obtained her liberty, the noble-hearted
woman, after a short visit to her home (still hers, for
the King seems to have interfered to prevent the
sentence of confiscation from being carried into effect),
spent her first year of freedom in visiting the prisons
throughout England, and doing all that lay in her
power to alleviate the sufferings of the Friends confined
therein. In this interval she also visited her youngest
daughter Rachel, who was a pupil at that school at
Shacklewell which we have seen established by George
Fox. After her circuit of the prisons was ended, she
paid a visit to her third daughter Isabel, who five years
previously had married William Yeamans of Bristol.
This son-in-law of Margaret Fell's was son of that ex-
sheriff of Bristol who, as we have already said, was
hung before his own door in 1643, for endeavouring to
betray the city to Prince Rupert. The remembrance
of this display of premature Royalism was probably
1 Quoted by Mrs. Webb, Fells of Swarthmoor Hall, p. 245.

£12 GEORGE FOX
some protection to William Yeamans and all his circle
of friends at Bristol.
It was during this visit (October 27, 1669) that
the long friendship of George Fox and Margaret Fell
ripened into matrimony. The bride was nine years
older than the bridegroom, she being in the fifty-fifth
year of her age, and he in the forty-sixth of his ; but
though she, as well as he, had now had sad experience
of a seventeenth-century prison, one may conjecture
from such slight indications as are afforded us, that in
mind, manner, and appearance she was the younger of
the two.
But such an important event in Fox's life as his
marriage must be told in his own words, though the
extract is a rather long one.
" After this meeting in Gloucestershire was over, we
travelled till we came to Bristol; where I met with
Margaret Fell, who was come to visit her daughter
Yeamans.1 I had seen from the Lord a considerable
time before, that I should take Margaret Fell to be my
wife. And when I first mentioned it to her, she felt
the answer of life from God thereunto. But though
the Lord had opened this thing to me, yet I had not
received a command from the Lord for the accom
plishing of it then. Wherefore I let the thing rest,
and went on in the work and service of the Lord as
before, according as He led me, travelling up and down
in this nation and through Ireland. But now, being
at Bristol, and finding Margaret Fell there, it opened
in me from the Lord that the thing should be accom
plished. After we had discoursed the matter together,
I told her, 'if she also was satisfied with the accom-
1 Yeomans in the Journal.

MARRIAGE 213
plishing of it now, she should first send for her
children,' which she did. When the rest of her
daughters were come, I asked both them and her
sons-in-law 'if they had anything against it or for
it,' and they all severally expressed their satisfaction
therein. Then. I asked Margaret ' if she had fulfilled
and performed her husband's will to her children.' She
replied, ' The children knew that.' Whereupon I asked
them ' whether, if their mother married, they should
not lose by it.' And I asked Margaret ' whether she
had done anything in lieu of it, which might answer it
to the children.' The children said ' she had answered
it to them, and desired me to speak no more of it.' I
told them I was plain, and would have all things done
plainly, for I sought not any outward advantage to
myself. So after I had thus acquainted the children
with it, our intention of marriage was laid before
Friends, both privately and publicly, to their full satis
faction, many of whom gave testimony thereunto that
it was of God. Afterwards, a meeting being appointed
for the accomplishing thereof in the meeting-house of
Broad Mead in Bristol, we took each other, the Lord
joining us together in the honourable marriage state
in the Everlasting Covenant, and immortal Seed of Life.
In the sense whereof, living and weighty testimonies
were borne thereunto by Friends, in the movings of
the heavenly power which united us together. There
was a certificate relating both to the proceedings and
the marriage openly read and signed by the relations,
and by most of the ancient Friends of that city, besides
many others from divers parts of this nation.''
Though expressed in somewhat archaic language,
the preceding extract describes the manner in which

214 GEORGE FOX
marriages have been solemnized by members of the
Society of Friends for nearly two centuries and a half.
Rejecting all sacraments, they have of course not called
marriage a sacrament, but they have always insisted
strongly on the religious character of the covenant
plighted (as the old phrase ran) "in the fear of the
Lord and in the presence of this assembly." But they
have contended with equal zeal that the presence of
no priest or minister is necessary to hallow the union,
which, like all the other acts of Quaker worship, is
believed to be hallowed by the unseen but spirit-felt
presence of Christ.
One point for which Fox had especially laboured
in settling the discipline of the new Society had been
"that widows should make provision for their first
husband's children before they married again," in order
" that all things might be kept pure and clean, and be
done in righteousness to the glory of God." It was
in accordance therefore with his own principle that
he made such anxious inquiry of Margaret Fell's
daughters and sons-in-law whether they were satisfied
that their pecuniary interests were not neglected in
their mother's second marriage. In point of fact it
seems that Judge Fell had provided for this con
tingency, devising the Swarthmoor property, in the
event of his widow's re-marriage, to his seven daughters,
whom he constituted his residuary legatees.
Thus there was probably no real conflict of interests
between George Fox and his wife's daughters. But
beyond that, there seems to have been unclouded
love and confidence between him and all the female
part of the family. All the six surviving daughters
and their husbands published after his death a

MARRIAGE 215
"Testimony" on his behalf, beginning, "Neither days
nor length of time with us can wear out the memory
of our dear and honoured father, George Fox, whom
the Lord hath taken to Himself." Even more con
vincing, perhaps, are the endorsements put by their
remoter descendants on the letters which they cherished
with pious care. "My dear and honoured grand
mother's affectionate letter to my dear and honoured
grandfather Fox," is one of such endorsements, and
there are many others similarly expressed.
Unhappily, the only son of the late Judge, George
Fell, did not look so favourably on his mother's second
marriage. He had kept his terms in London as a
barrister and was now a Lancashire squire, thirty-
three years of age, a magistrate and a commissioner
of militia, somewhat incapable, somewhat extravagant,
and married apparently to an extravagant wife. To
him his mother's re-marriage brought no accession of
income, and one can easily understand that the social
disparagement of such a kinship with the homely
shepherd of Leicestershire would be keenly felt by the
young magistrate when he met Kirkby, Fleming, and
others of the magisterial cousinry at Quarter Sessions
or Militia dinners. He brought vexatious and appar
ently unfounded claims against his mother for some of
her dealings with the Swarthmoor estate; and there
js too much reason to belieye that^ he approved, if he
did not actually originate the action of the Justices
in renewing Margaret Fell's suspended sentence of
imprisonment. In a letter written by George Fox
to his wife on March 23, 1669, he says—
"Dear Heart, to whom is my love. Thou mayest
have some trials, but keep in wisdom and patience,

216 GEORGE FOX
There hath been a great noise about thy son, George
Fell, as having orders to send thee to Westchester and
me to Jersey, which I have been desirous should get
as little as may be out among Friends for Truth's sake.
I am informed he hath been with Kirkby, , Monk, and
such-like persons; and I understand his intent is to
have Swarthmoor, and that he saith thou lost thy
right [thereto] by building before being married, [and
also that thou] cannot have thy third of Marsh Grange
and the Mills, they being customary estate ; and that
it cost him £40 to get a warrant to save that estate,
which he might have taken. The agreement thou
made with him, he says, signifies nothing, thou being
a prisoner. . . Now if thou should make another
agreement in another name [Fox instead of Fell] it
may beget another trouble worse than the former.
But of this thou canst inform thyself also, and let all
things be done in peace and quietness, and in the
power that binds. Do not look at, but keep over
all unnaturalness from him, if any such thing should
appear; keep in that which was and is, and will be.
If he hath defamed thee at Court, thou should come
up some time and clear it, that such things may be
emptied out of their minds; and then come over all
his orders, (?) if he have any orders, but I think he
hath none. But however it be, keep over them all
in the power of God that doth bind, for that must work
through all things.
"No word but my love to thee, Susan, Rachel, and
the little ones, and Leonard and Mary Fell, and all
be quiet and keep to the testimony.
"G. F."1
1 Fells of Swarthmoor Hall, p. 256,

MARRIAGE 217
The intrigues for Margaret Fox's imprisonment
were but too successful. It was not a difficult matter
for any one who had a spite against the Quaker non
juror to get him or her lodged in prison. George Fox,
who had parted from his wife a week after the marriage,
" betaking ourselves," as he says, " to our several
services," wrote to her early in 1670, appointing a
meeting with her in Leicestershire; but instead of
meeting with her, he heard she was haled out of her
house to Lancaster prison again, by an order obtained
from the King and Council to fetch her back to prison
upon the old Praemunire, though she had been dis
charged from that imprisonment by their order the
year before. The old persecutor, Colonel Kirkby, was
the informer, and some at least of the Fell family
believed that George Fell had been privy to the
scheme. The second imprisonment of Margaret Fox lasted
about a year (March 1670— April 1671). Two of her
daughters went at once to petition the King on her
behalf, and actually obtained his order for her release,
but when they took it down into Lancashire, Colonel
Kirkby and his brother magistrates, by some device
which is not very clearly explained, contrived to treat
it as of no validity. The matter had to sleep for a
time, for 1670 was a bad year for Nonconformists.
Archbishop Sheldon was in his most persecuting humour,
and the Conventicle Act had just been renewed with
heavier penalties than ever on offenders against it. In
fact, this seems to have furnished the magistrates with
a plea for disregarding the King's order.
However, at last, in April 1671, the desired deliver
ance came, As Fox says, "Now the persecution a,

218 GEORGE FOX
little ceasing, I was moved to speak to Martha Fisher
and another Friend to go to the King about my wife's
liberty. They went in faith and in the Lord's power,
who gave them favour with the King, so that he granted
a discharge under the broad seal, to clear both her
and her estate, after she had been ten years x a prisoner
and praemunired ; the like whereof was scarcely to be
heard of in England."
According to a letter from Margaret Fox to her
son-in-law Rous, we learn that "the two women
Friends took the grant out of the Attorney-General's
office, and he gave them his fee, which should have
been five pounds, and his clerk took but twenty
shillings, whereas his fee was forty. Yesterday they
went with it to the King, who signed it in the Council,
and Arlington also signed it, but would take no fees,
whereas his fees would have been £12 or £20. Neither
would Williamson's man take anything, saying that
if any religion be true it is ours. To-morrow it is to
pass the signet, and on Sixth-day [Friday] the privy
seal, and afterwards the broad seal, which may be done
on any day. The power of the Lord hath bound their
hearts wonderfully. Blessed be His name for ever."2
So ended the last imprisonment of the late mistress of
Swarthmoor. 1 Sic: it should have been seven, or more strictly five and
a half. 2 Fells of Swarthmoor Hall, p. 272,

MARRIAGE 219

NOTE

MARGARET FELLS DESCENDANTS
As it is only through these step-children of his that
George Fox is in any way linked with succeeding
generations,1 it may be worth while to give a brief
account of them here. Moreover, some of the sons-in-
law were men who themselves played an important
part in the early history of Quakerism.
George Fell, the undutiful son, died not many years
after his mother's second marriage. His son sold most
of the family property to a representative of the female
line. His grandson married William Penn's grand
daughter, but no other connection with Quakerism was
kept up by this, the direct line of the Fells of Swarth
moor Hall, and it seems to have died out near the
close of last century.
Margaret, the oldest of the seven daughters, married
a Quaker named John Rous, a West Indian merchant
in good circumstances, who resided in London, and
whose influence, as he was a man of some importance
in the City, was often successfully exercised on behalf
of his imprisoned friends and relatives. When George
Fox undertook the long journey to the West Indies
and the American continent, which will be described in
the next chapter, his son-in-law John Rous was his
zealous and most helpful companion.
Isabel, the third daughter, married, as has been said,
1 The various families of Fox, who now form one of the most
numerous and influential Quaker clans, are descended from
Francis Fox of St. Germans in Cornwall, and have not the
remotest connection with the founder of Quakerism,

220 GEORGE FOX
William Yeamans of Bristol, the son of the suspended
sheriff, and it was at her house that the marriage of
George Fox and Margaret Fell was finally settled.
Sarah, the fourth daughter, married William Meade,
who became a minister in the Society of Friends. His
name is one of historic importance, as he was fellow-
defendant with William Penn in that celebrated trial
at the Old Bailey (August 29, 1670), which became a
leading case in the law relating to juries. He was a
landowner of some importance in the county of Essex.
His son Nathaniel severed his connection with Quaker
ism, became a Serjeant-at-law, was knighted, and died
apparently without issue in 1760.
Mary, the fifth daughter, married Thomas Lower,
who was perhaps the most helpful, personally, to George
Fox of all his wife's sons-in-law. He was brother to the
celebrated Richard Lower, M.D., an early Fellow of the
Royal Society, and his influence with some of the
aristocratic patrons of that society was, as we have seen,
successfully exerted to obtain Margaret Fell's first release
from imprisonment. Thomas Lower was the owner of
a good property in Cornwall, and was one of those
Cornishmen who were converted to Quakerism by what
they saw and heard of George Fox's demeanour during
his cruel imprisonment in Launceston Castle. His
first wife was that "Elizabeth Trelawney, a baronet's
daughter," whom we have before heard of as convinced
by Fox's preaching at Plymouth. Six years after her
death Thomas Lower married Mary Fell. His mother-
in-law that was to be seems to have at first frowned
upon his courtship, but must afterwards have repented
of her opposition, for, as has been said, there was no
more brave or patient helper of what was called " the

MARRIAGE 221
cause of Truth" than Thomas Lower. He shared
George Fox's last imprisonment in Worcester Gaol.
Rachel, the youngest daughter, who was only five
years old at her father's death, married Daniel Abraham,
the son of a merchant at Manchester who had joined
the Society ef Friends. He bought Swarthmoor Hall
of his nephew Squire George's son, about 1690, and
it remained in his family for sixty years. Most of the
descendants of Margaret Fell who are still members of
the Society, Thirnbecks, Graces, Thorps, Shackletons,
etc., are derived from this branch of the family, which
has contributed of recent times one "clerk" and two
" assistant clerks," or in other words one Speaker and
two Deputy-Speakers, to the Quaker Parliament.

CHAPTER XIV
VISIT TO AMERICA
The year 1670, in which Margaret Fell's second
imprisonment took place, was, as has been said, one of
grievous oppression for Nonconformists generally. The
bigoted Cavalier Parliament passed, contrary to the
King's wishes, a new and sharper Conventicle Act, by
which any meeting for worship otherwise than according
to the practice of the Church of England, at which
more than four persons should be present, was declared
to be an illegal conventicle. Every adult attender at
such a meeting was liable to a fine of five shillings for
the first offence, and ten shillings for the second, while
the preachers thereat were to be fined £20 and £40
respectively. In every case one-third of the fines was
to go to the informer — an admirable expedient for the
manufacture of scoundrels — magistrates and constables
were empowered to break open doors, and deputy-
lieutenants and militia officers were to use horse and foot
for the dispersion of the illegal assemblies. A strange
fulfilment certainly of His Majesty's gracious Declaration
from Breda for the relief of tender consciences. In
justice to the King it must be repeated that all this
blind bigotry was the Parliament's work, not his, and
that he only acquiesced in it because the expensive
222

VISIT TO AMERICA 223
revelries of Whitehall made him dependent on Parlia
ment for money.
The storm of renewed persecution fell upon the
Quaker Society at the beginning of 1671. Fox
considers that it was caused by the riotous conduct of a
certain John Fox, a Presbyterian minister who tried by
force to retain possession of a village church in Wiltshire,
where he had been allowed to preach. He asserts that
this John Fox was often mistaken for himself (so that
people were accustomed to say that George Fox had
changed from a Quaker to a Presbyterian), and that
this confusion caused it to be supposed that the
Friends were resorting to force in order to redress
their grievances. This explanation may be true as far
as it goes, but it seems clear from the Parliamentary
history of the times that other and larger causes were
at work to produce the fierce Conventicle Act of 1670.
At any rate Fox was not going to hide his head from
the storm which was bursting on his followers. On the
first Sunday after the Act came in force, he went to
Gracechurch Street, where, as he says, " I expected the
storm was most likely to begin." The street was full of
people, and soldiers were guarding the entrances, but
he contrived to get in, if not to the meeting-house itself,
to the court in front of it, where another Friend was
then preaching to the people. As soon as he had
finished, Fox stood up and preached on the text, " Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou Me ? " After he had spoken
for some time there came the expected constable with
a guard of soldiers, and the informer, who hoped to
reap a good harvest of fines from the Quaker preachers.
Fox, with two other Friends, was marched off first to
the Royal Exchange, and then towards Moorfields, the

224 GEORGE FOX
mob jeering at the constable and this armed guard, and
saying, "Your prisoners will not run away." On the
road the informer got into conversation with one of
the company, and said, " It will never be a good world
till all peeple come to the good old religion that was
two hundred years ago." Hereupon George Fox turned
sharply round, "Art thou a Papist? What, a Papist
informer ? Two hundred years ago there was no religion
but that of the Papists." The man saw that he had
betrayed himself, and when they came to the Lord
Mayor's room tried to back out of the case, and refused
to give his own name. With difficulty he persuaded
the porter to let him out of the house, and when he
came into the street, the people gave a ringing shout,
" A Papist informer ! a Papist informer ! " By Fox's
desire, the constable and soldiers were sent out to
protect the hunted huntsman, which they did, not
without difficulty. He was led into a house in a side
alley, changed his periwig, and got away unknown.
This ludicrous incident caused the collapse of the
case. The Lord Mayor gave the Friends a little fatherly
advice on obedience to the Act, asking them why
they could not be satisfied to meet together no more
than four at a time, since Christ had promised His
blessing even to the two or the three ; but Fox not
unfairly urged the precedent of the twelve apostles and
the seventy disciples, whose meetings would certainly
have been rendered unlawful by the Conventicle Act, and
who would as certainly have disobeyed it. He was soon
set at liberty, and when his companions asked him
whither he would go, he answered, "To Gracechurch
Street meeting, if it be not yet over." Practically,
however, when they reached the meeting-house, they

VISIT TO AMERICA 225
found the meeting at an end; so they went into the
house of a Friend, and sent out messengers to inquire
how the other meetings in the City had passed off.
" I understood," he says, " that at some of the meeting-
places Friends were kept out; at others they were
taken, but set at liberty again a few days after. A
glorious time it was, for the Lord's power came over all,
and His everlasting truth got renown. For as fast as
some that were speaking were taken down, others were
moved of the Lord to stand up and speak, to the
admiration of the people ; and the more because many
Baptists and other sectaries left their public meetings,
and came to see how the Quakers would stand. As for
the informer aforesaid, he was so frightened, that there
durst hardly any informer appear publicly again in
London for some time after. But the Mayor, whose
name was Samuel Starling, though he carried himself
smoothly towards us, proved afterwards a very great
persecutor of our Friends, many of whom he cast into
prison, as may be seen in the trials of W. Penn, W.
Meade and others, at the Old Bailey, this year." This
was that celebrated trial to which allusion has already
been made, as a leading case on the liberty of the
subject, and the rights and duties of jurors.
Through all this year, 1670, the persecution raged
without abatement, especially in London. Colonel
Kirkby, Fox's old adversary, was forward in the cruel
work, going about with a squad of foot-soldiers to break
up meetings and drag away the preachers to prison,
and always asking if Fox were present, but asking in
vain. For in fact, during all the winter months, Fox
was laid up at a Friend's house at Stratford, with a
strange sickness, the result doubtless of his old hard
er

226 GEORGE FOX
ships in prison. He became blind and deaf, and believed
that he was reduced to that condition "as a sign to
such as would not see and would not hear the truth."
It was generally expected that his sickness would
be fatal, and in fact the rumour of his death got abroad
both in London and the country; but he had a per
suasion that his work was not yet ended. First a little
glimmering of sight came back to him ; then he grew
strong enough to be moved to Enfield, where he spent
the rest of the winter ; and at last, about April, he was
again preaching in the meeting-house at Gracechurch
Street, where he says, "though I was yet but weak, the
Lord's power upheld, and enabled me to declare His
eternal word of life."
And now, in the spring of 1671, his wife being liber
ated from prison, the reader expects to hear of their
having a few quiet years together at peaceful Swarth
moor. Not so. After giving the account of her liber
ation quoted in the previous chapter, he continues —
" I sent down the discharge forthwith by a Friend ; by
whom also I wrote to her, informing her how to get it
delivered to the Justices, and acquainting her that it
was upon me from the Lord, to go beyond the seas to
visit America ; and therefore desired her to hasten to
London as soon as she could conveniently after she had
obtained her liberty, because the ship was then fitting
out for the voyage." She obeyed his directions, joined
him at her son-in-law Rous's house at Kingston, and
on the 12th of August, 1671, went down with him to
Gravesend, to see him off for America on board the
" yacht " Industry. There was a large party of Friends
on board, ten men preachers, including John Roils,
besides Fox, and two women, but there does not seem

VISIT TO AMERICA 227
to have been even a suggestion that Margaret Fox
should accompany the husband from whom she had
been so strangely parted since their marriage.
The ship in which the Friends sailed was "counted
a very swift sailer," but was very leaky, and kept both
sailors and passengers working at the pumps night and
day. " One day they observed that in two hours' time
she sucked in sixteen inches of water at the well." One
is often reminded, in reading the account of seventeenth-
century voyages, how much the regulations and the in
spection insisted upon by the fraternity of under-writers,
have since then raised the standard of sea-worthiness
in ships, and added to the safety of human life.
There were not only perils of waters, but also perils
from sea-robbers to be encountered. A " Sallee man-
of-war," or in other words a Barbary pirate, chased the
Industry for several days. In his distress and anxiety,
the master invited George Fox into his cabin, and was
comforted and enheartened by his passenger's strong
conviction that "the Lord's life and power was placed
between us and the ship that pursued us." After the
peril was past, and the pursuer had disappeared, he and
some of his sailors tried to persuade the passengers that
it was not a Turkish pirate that had chased them, but
a merchantman going to the Canaries ; but on landing
at Barbadoes they found that she had been a " Sallee
rover " after all.
Though not suffering, like most of the other passen
gers, from sea-sickness, George Fox, whose constitution,
as I have said, was thoroughly broken down, suffered
both on the voyage and for some weeks after landing
at Barbadoes, from a severe illness, which, from his
description of it, looks like a protracted spell of rheu-

228 GEORGE FOX
matic fever. Happily he was not now in his chilly
prison at Scarbro', but in the house of one of the
chief merchants of the island, Thomas Rous, himself a
Friend, and father of John Rous, Fox's son-in-law
and companion. In these circumstances it may be
supposed that his bodily comforts were well attended to.
Though unable to travel about much, he used his pen
freely, and addressed several meetings of Friends held
for his convenience at the house of his host. The object
of this journey both to the West Indies and to the
American continent was not so much to gather in fresh
converts, as to impress upon those who had already in
large numbers joined the Society, the duty of living holy
and righteous lives, and bringing no discredit on their
new profession. Like a modern missionary to the dwel
lers by the Ganges, " he had to warn Friends against
allowing their children to marry too young, as at thirteen
and fourteen years of age, showing them the incon
venience thereof, and the inconveniences and hurts that
attend such childish marriages." " I admonished them,"
he says, " to purge the floor thoroughly, to sweep their
houses very clean, that nothing might remain that would
defile, and to take care that nothing be spoken out of
their meetings to the blemishing or defaming one of
another." The registration of marriages, births, and
burials, the provision of convenient burying-places for
Friends, and the right appropriation of legacies for
charitable purposes, were also carefully provided for by
this thoroughly practical apostle of the new community.
His language as to slavery is so interesting, in view of
the later " testimony " of his followers against all slavery,
that it is worth quoting in full. "Then as to their
blacks or negroes, I desired them to endeavour to train

VISIT TO AMERICA 229
them up in the fear of God, those that were bought, and
those born in their families, that all might come to the
knowledge of the Lord ; that so with Joshua, every
member of a family might say, ' As for me and my house,
we will serve the Lord.' I desired them also that they
would cause their overseers to deal mildly and gently
with their negroes, and not use cruelty towards them as
the manner of some hath been and is ; and that after
certain years of servitude they would make them free."
It was during his stay in this island that Fox, with
the help of his friends, in answer to some calumnious
misrepresentations of their doctrines, drew up a paper —
" For the Governor of Barbadoes with his Council and
Assembly, and all others in power, both civil and mili
tary, in this Island, from the people called Quakers."
This paper has attracted a good deal of attention from
the fact that it is the nearest approach to a formal
creed that the Society has ever promulgated. It has
been often reprinted, and is much too long for insertion
here; but three important sentences may be quoted.
After professing belief in the only wise, omnipotent,
and everlasting God, it continues — " And we own and
believe in Jesus Christ, His beloved and only begotten
Son, in whom He is well pleased, who was conceived by
the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary ; in whom
we have redemption through His blood, even the for
giveness of sins; who is the express image of the
Invisible God, the first-born of every creature, by whom
were all things created that are in heaven and that are
in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones
or dominions, principalities or powers, all things were
created by Him. And we do own and believe that He
was made a sacrifice for sin, who knew no sin, neither

230 GEORGE FOX
was guile found in His mouth ; that He was crucified
for us in the flesh, without the gates of Jerusalem;
and that He was buried, and rose again the third day
by the power of the Father, for our justification ; and
that He ascended up into heaven, and now sitteth at
the right hand of God. This Jesus, who was the
foundation of the holy prophets and apostles, is our
foundation ; and we believe that there is no other
foundation to be laid than that which is laid, even
Christ Jesus: who tasted death for every man, shed
His blood for all men, and is the propitiation for our
sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the
whole world; according as John the Baptist testified
of Him when he said, ' Behold the Lamb of God that
taketh away the sin of the world.' "
Towards the end of this interesting document, the
Friends repel " another slander which had been cast
upon them, that they taught the negroes to rebel."
This is, they say, " a thing we utterly abhor in our
hearts : the Lord knows it, who is the searcher of all
hearts, and knows all things, and can testify for us that
this is a most abominable untruth. For that which we
have spoken to them is to exhort and admonish them
to be sober and to fear God, to love their masters and
mistresses and to be faithful and diligent in their masters'
service and business, and then their masters and over
seers would love them and deal gently and kindly with
them ; also that they should not beat their wives, nor
the wives their husbands, neither should the men have
many wives ; that they should not steal or be drunk,
should not commit adultery or fornication, should not
curse, swear, lie or give bad words to one another or to
any one else ; for there is something in them that tells

VISIT TO AMERICA 231
them they should not practise these or any other
evils." Early in the new year (1672), Fox and four of his
friends set sail for Jamaica, which they reached after a
week's voyage. They travelled up and down through
this island, Oliver Cromwell's great addition to " England
beyond the sea," and Fox came to the conclusion that
it was " a brave country, though the people in it were,
many of them, debauched and wicked." While they
were there, the venerable Elizabeth Hooton, one of the
little band of missionaries, died. " She was well the
day before she died, and departed in peace, like a lamb,
bearing testimony to truth at her departure."
On March 8, 1672, they set sail for the American
continent. Contrary winds so delayed them, that they
were a week sailing backward and forward before they
could lose sight of land. Then came great storms as
they crossed the Gulf of Florida, and it was not till six
or seven weeks after their leaving Jamaica that they
finally cast anchor in the Patuxent river, in the province
of Maryland, on the western side of the bay of Chesa
peake. By far the greater number of the Friends who
had found their way to America by the time of George
Fox's visit, were settled either in Maryland or in Rhode
Island, the natural consequence of the large measure of
religious toleration which those two colonies almost
alone among the American settlements at this time
enjoyed. In Maryland religious freedom was the result
of the peculiar position of the founder and proprietor
of the colony, Lord Baltimore, who, himself a Roman
Catholic, could only obtain for "Holy Church within
this province the enjoyment of all her rights and
liberties," by guaranteeing "to all free Christian in-

232 GEORGE FOX
habitants the enjoyment of all such rights and liberties
as any natural born subject of England ought to enjoy
in the realm of England." x In other words, the Papist
in Maryland in 1639 had obtained for the extreme Pro
testant that toleration which the Papist King James
II. granted him in England for a short space in 1687.
In Rhode Island the toleration conceded to the
Friends was due to the wise counsels of that noble
man, who more than any other deserves to be called
the Apostle of Toleration, Roger Williams. Williams
hated the doctrines of Quakerism, and was willing to
debate against them with all the energy of his fiery
Welsh nature, but to persecute them, or to expel them
from that asylum of free thought, the province of
Rhode Island, he steadily refused. Thus in those
terrible years 1659 — 1661, when Massachusetts, under
the guidance of the gloomy bigot, John Endicott, was
staining her hands indelibly by the blood of the four
Quaker Martyrs,2 Friends had been left unmolested in
Rhode Island. Some of George Fox's happiest memories
were connected with his visit to his followers in this
brave little colony, a visit which he thus describes —
" This meeting lasted six days, the first four days being
general public meetings for worship, to which abundance
of other people came; for they having no priest in the
island, and so no restriction to any particular way of
worship, and both the governor and deputy-governor,
with several justices of the peace, daily frequenting the
meetings, this so encouraged the people that they flocked
in from all parts of the island. Very good service we
I ^??n9ardiner' History of England, viii. 180—181 (Ed. 1884).
w.,,. llllam Robinson, Marmaduke Robinson, Mary Dyer, and
William Leddra, all hung at Boston for no other offence but
simply venturing to set foot within the colony.

VISIT TO AMERICA 233
had amongst them, and truth had a good reception. I
have rarely observed people in the state wherein they
stood, hear with more attention, diligence, and affection
than they generally did, during the four days together,
which also was taken notice of by other Friends."
Rhode Island was the only New England colony
visited by Fox. Massachusetts, though no longer
actually putting Quaker intruders to death, still barred
her doors against them, as also did Connecticut, though
with somewhat less fierceness of attitude. No one who
has studied Fox's character attentively will suppose
that it was want of courage which prevented his visit
ing those colonies. His work on this mission was not
so much that of extending, as of " confirming the
churches," and apparently in 1672 there were no
Quaker churches to confirm in the large colonies of
New England.
His time in America was therefore chiefly taken up
in the above-mentioned visit to Rhode Island, in labours
among the Friends scattered in considerable numbers
along the eastern and western shores of the Chesapeake
Bay in the colony of Maryland, in a visit to Virginia,
" where things were much out of order," and in a short
incursion into North Carolina. All these journeys
involved the endurance of many hardships. Between
Maryland and New England the journey had to be
made by land, through "the wilderness country since
called New Jersey, not then inhabited by English," so
that they often travelled a whole day together without
seeing man or woman, house or dwelling-place. In
the course of this double journey to and fro across New
Jersey, Fox and his companions may have passed almost
within sight of the woods on the other side of the river

234 GEORGE FOX
Delaware, which were one day to give place to the mighty
" Quaker City " of Philadelphia.
Such entries as this are of frequent occurrence in
the Journal — " Our boat being open, the water splashed
often in and sometimes over us, so that we were com
pletely wet. Being got to land, we made a fire in the
woods to warm and dry us, and there we lay all night,
the wolves howling about us." " On the 27th [of
January] we had a very precious meeting in a tobacco-
house, and next day returned to James Preston's, about
eighteen miles distant. When we came there we found
his house was burnt to the ground the night before,
through the carelessness of a servant ; so we lay three
nights on the ground by the fire, the weather being
cold." "On the 12th of the month [February] we set
forward in our boat, and travelling by night, ran aground
in a creek near Manokin river. There we were fain
to stay till morning, when the tide came and lifted her
off. In the meantime, sitting in an open boat, and the
weather being bitterly cold, some of us had like to
have lost the use of our hands, they were so frozen
and benumbed with cold." All these hardships, so
unlike the experience of most men who now set forth
on a preaching tour, were endured by a man now in
full middle life, who was prematurely aged by the
rigours of his many imprisonments, and who seems to
have had rheumatic fever, or something like it, always
hanging about him.
Fox's interest was evidently much aroused by the
aboriginal inhabitants of North America. To him,
who believed that a certain measure of the Divine
Light was vouchsafed to every reasonable human being
who was born into the world, and who preached, in some

VISIT TO AMERICA 235
respects, a more universal gospel than any of his con
temporaries, the North American Indians were naturally
an interesting field for inquiry, and for evangelistic
labour. Not, however, that he was by any means the
first to conceive the idea of preaching Christianity to
the Indians, for Thomas Mayhew had begun that
difficult work nearly thirty years before Fox landed in
America, and John Eliot had been prosecuting it since
1646 with considerable success.1 Still, considering the
comparatively short time that Fox spent in America,
his references to the Indians are numerous and valuable.
When he was in North Carolina, he had a friendly
reception from the Governor and his wife, but a doctor
who was at the Government House insisted on con
troversy. " And truly," says Fox, " his opposing us
was of good service, giving occasion for the opening of
many things to the people concerning the light and
Spirit of God, which he denied to be in every one,
and affirmed that it was not in the Indians. Whereupon
I called an Indian to us, and asked him, ' Whether or
not, when he lied or did wrong to any one, there was
not something in him that reproved him for it ? ' He
said, ' There was such a thing in him that did so reprove
him, and he was ashamed when he had done wrong or
spoken wrong.' So we shamed the doctor before the
Governor and the people, insomuch that the poor man
ran out so far that at length he would not own the
Scriptures." At one of his earliest meetings on the eastern shore
of Maryland, Fox felt himself called to invite " the
Indian Emperor and his kings " to attend the meeting.
The Emperor came punctually; his kings, who were
1 See Fiske's Beginnings of New England, 201 — 204,

236 GEORGE FOX
further off, could not reach it in time, "yet they
came afterwards with their cockarooses." " I had," he
says, " in the evening two good opportunities with
them ; they heard the word of the Lord willingly, and
confessed to it. What I spoke to them, I desired them
to speak to their people, and let them know that God
was raising up His tabernacle of witness in their
wilderness country, and was Setting up His standard
and glorious ensign of righteousness. They carried
themselves very courteously and lovingly, and inquired
'where the next meeting would be, and they would
come to it ' ; yet they said they ' had had a great debate
with their council about their coming before they came
now.' " So too in the wilderness that was afterwards
New Jersey, on Long Island, in the colony of Delaware,
in Virginia, Fox on several occasions met the Redr
skinned huntsmen, sometimes an "Emperor" again,
sometimes a priest or " Pawaw," always no doubt
very dimly comprehending what the leather-garmented
medicine-man from over the big water wished to convey
to them, but always behaving with stately courtesy to
the stranger, and " sitting soberly " among the white
men till the end of the meeting. Perhaps in some
instances there was more comprehension of the Quaker
apostle's message than these words would imply. At
James Preston's house on the Patuxent river (that
house the burning of which some months afterwards
caused the travellers to bivouac for three nights in the
open air), "there came to us," says Fox, "an Indian
King with his brother, to whom I spoke, and found
they understood what I spoke of."
At length Fox felt his American mission ended. On
May 21, 1673, he and his friends set sail for England.

VISIT TO AMERICA 237
They had for some days foul weather and contrary
winds, and it was not till May 31 that they got past
the capes of Virginia and out into the open sea. From
that time onwards, however, they had favourable, though
tempestuous winds, " the waves rising like mountains,
so that the master and sailors wondered at it, and said
they never saw the like before." On June 28 they
reached Bristol, having been absent from England
rather more than a year and ten months.

CHAPTER XV
THE LAST IMPRISONMENT
Having landed at Shirehampton, Fox was rejoined
at Bristol by his wife, who came thither with two of
her daughters, and her son-in-law Thomas Lower, and
was also met by William Penn and several other
Friends from different parts of the country. A great
fair was held at Bristol apparently in September, and
in connection therewith Fox, unmolested notwithstand
ing the Conventicle Act, held many "glorious and
powerful meetings," at one of which he preached a
sermon on the " Three Estates and Three Teachers,"
of which he gives us an abstract. The first estate is
that of Adam and Eve in Paradise, and their teacher,
God. The second estate is that of the Fall, and is
caused by the teaching of the Serpent. The third
estate is the dispensation of Life and Power, under the
teaching of Christ Jesus, " the true gospel-teacher,
who bruises the head of the Serpent, the false teacher,
and the head of all false teachers and of all false
religions, false ways, false worships, and false churches."
After some journeyings in the southern counties,
and a visit with his wife to her son-in-law John Rous
at Kingston-on-Thames, Fox spent several weeks in
London, where he had many controversies with the
238

THE LAST IMPRISONMENT 239
Baptists and Socinians, and " with some old apostates,
grown very rude, who had printed many books against
the Friends."
After some time they started, a little family party,
on the journey from London to Swarthmoor. The
party consisted of George Fox and his wife, her
youngest and still unmarried daughter Rachel, and
Thomas Lower, the Cornish son-in-law, who was going
down to Swarthmoor to fetch his wife and child from
thence. They halted by the way at William Penn's
house at Rickmansworth (in fact it was here that
Lower joined them), and then passed on through
Oxfordshire, into Worcestershire. Fox had received a
message that his mother, now probably an old woman
of eighty, was on her deathbed, and longed to see him
before she died. He therefore intended to part company
from his wife in Warwickshire, accomplish this visit to
old Mary Fox at Fenny Drayton, and return to London
for a time. But the separation of husband and wife
came sooner than was intended, and the farewells of
mother and son were never said. After a large meeting
held in a barn at Armscott, near Stratford-on-Avon,
a magistrate named Parker, and a clergyman named
Hains, came to the farmer's house where they were
sitting, and apprehended Fox and Lower. The parson
and squire had intended to be present at the meeting,
in order to give personal testimony to its illegal holding,
but as Parker's baby had been baptized that morning
they had sat a little too long over their wine at the
christening-festival, and so had missed their opportunity.
This defect of testimony seems to have tainted with
irregularity most of their subsequent proceedings.
However, there was little doubt that the meeting in

240 GEORGE FOX
Armscott barn was a defiance of the Conventicle Act.
Parker made out what Fox calls "a strange sort of
mittimus," and sent him and Lower to prison, while
Margaret Fox and her daughters were suffered to
proceed on their homeward journey, under the escort
of a Friend, a merchant from Bristol, who, as Fox said,
"seemed to have met us providentially to assist my
wife and her daughter in their journey homewards,
when by our imprisonment they were deprived of our
company and help."
George Fox had had some foreshadowings in his soul
of the coming trouble, to which he alludes in the
following letter to his wife, written from Worcester
Gaol, as soon as he thought she would have reached
her home.
" Dear Heart,
" Thou seemedst to be a little grieved when I
was speaking of prisons, and when I was taken : be
content with the will of the Lord God. For when I
was at John Rous's at Kingston I had a sight of my
being taken prisoner, and when I was at Bray Dolly's
in Oxfordshire [the night before the arrest], I saw I
was taken, and I saw I had a suffering to undergo.
But the Lord's power is over all ; blessed be His holy
name for ever. "G. F."
The imprisonment in Worcester Gaol, thus begun,
lasted, in a fashion, for fourteen months (December
17, 1673— February 12, 1675), but it had many inter
ruptions, and it was not nearly so severe as any of
his previous incarcerations. Thomas Lower, who had

THE LAST IMPRISONMENT 241
influential friends at Court, might have been set at
liberty after a few weeks if he would have accepted
freedom for himself alone. Writing to his wife on
"the 7th of 11th month 1673" (January 7, 1674), he
says — " I have received several letters from London from
my brother [Dr. Lower, the King's physician] touching
my liberty, and a letter from the King's bedchamber
man [Henry Savile] to the Lord Windsor [Lord-
Lieutenant of Worcestershire], his brother[-in-law], but
since it only relates to my particular enlargement, I
have kept it by me unsent. I thought it might pre
judice and hinder my father's enlargement if I accepted
of it ; for I prize his liberty more than my own, and so
have written to my brother if he cannot obtain both
our discharges, not to labour any farther for mine." *
There were long and tedious proceedings, both at
Quarter Sessions and Assizes, of which George Fox
does not give a very clear account, and with which it
is not necessary to weary the reader. It seems pretty
clear that for lack of evidence there was no case against
the prisoners under the Conventicle Act; that they
ought to have been discharged ; and that there was a
strong party among the magistrates in favour of their
liberation ; but that Parker, egged on by a clergyman
named Crowder, pressed for imprisonment, and accom
plished his purpose by the easy injustice of tendering
the oaths and insisting on the penalty of Praemunire.
This clergyman, Dr. Crowder, furnished an amusing
instance of the proverbial ill-fortune of listeners. After
one of Fox's appearances before the magistrates, Lower
remained behind, and in the course of some conversation
1 From the Shackleton MSS. quoted in the Fells of Swarthmoor
Hall, p. 287. R

242 GEORGE FOX
with the magistrates, who were evidently anxious to
avoid taking harsh measures with the brother of the
King's physician, Justice Parker said to him, " Do you
think, Mr. Lower, that I had not cause to send your
father and you to prison, when you had so great a
meeting that the parson of the parish complained to
me that he has lost the greatest part of his parishioners,
so that when he comes among them he has scarcely
any auditors left ? " "I have heard," replied Thomas
Lower, " that the priest of that parish comes so seldom
to visit his flock (but once, it may be, or twice in a
year, to gather up his tithes) that it was but charity in
my father to visit so forlorn and forsaken a flock ; and
therefore thou hadst no cause to send my father to
prison for visiting them or for teaching, instructing,
and directing them to Christ, their true teacher ; seeing
they had so little comfort or benefit from their pre
tended pastor, who comes among them only to seek his
gain from his quarter." " Upon this the Justices fell
a-laughing, for it seems Dr. Crowder (who was the
priest they spoke of) was then in the room, sitting
among them, though Thomas Lower did not know
him ; and he had the wit to hold his tongue, and not
undertake to vindicate himself in a matter so notoriously
known to be true."
It is evident that Fox, in this imprisonment, was
on better terms with his keepers, and probably better
treated by them than either at Launceston or Lancaster.
He walked to and fro between gaol and court-house
unguarded, or nominally guarded by a little boy of
eleven years old. When the magistrates resolved to
let him out on bail, the gaoler's son offered to be bound
for him. After an earnest appeal to the principles of

THE LAST IMPRISONMENT 243
Christianity made at one of the Quarter Sessions, " the
people were generally tender, as if they had been in a
meeting." Nevertheless it all ended in the infamous
sentence of Praemunire, for refusal of the oath of
allegiance, though Fox tendered in lieu of the oath a
paper in which he went further than many Conservative
politicians would like to follow him to-day, in acknow
ledging the Divinely ordained kingship of Charles II.1
The Court, as we have seen, was favourably disposed
towards Fox at this time, and he was offered his release
by way of pardon from the crown, but he steadfastly
refused to accept any such way of escape, looking upon
it as not agreeable to the innocency of his cause. The
end of the whole matter was that Fox was brought up
to London by the under-sheriff on February 8, 1675.
His case came on before Chief Justice Hale and three
puisne judges at the King's Bench. The errors in the
indictment (which seem to have been many, and to
show that a bungler had been at work here as well as
in the magistrates' court at Lancaster) were pointed out
and insisted on by Mr. Corbet, George Fox's counsel,
but he also raised the important objection, " that they
could not imprison any man upon a Praemunire."
1 This paper, which any reasonable Christian Government
should surely have gladly accepted as an equivalent for the oath
of allegiance, began thus : —
" This I do in the truth and in the presence of God declare,
that King Charles the Second is lawful King of this realm and
all other his dominions ; that he was brought in and set up King
over this realm by the power of God ; and I have nothing but
goodwill to him and all his subjects, and desire his prosperity and
eternal good." The last sentence is —
" I dare not take an oath because it is forbidden by Christ and
the apostle, but if I break my Yea or Nay, let me suffer the
same penalty as they that break their oaths. "George Fox."

244 GEORGE FOX
Some of Fox's enemies wanted the Chief Justice to
put the oath to him once more, urging that he was a
dangerous man to be at liberty, but that noble judge
answered, " he had indeed heard some such reports,
but he had also heard many more good reports of him; "
and thus, largely no doubt through Hale's influence,
Fox regained his freedom, as he triumphantly says,
"without receiving any pardon, or coming under any
obligation or engagement at all." " Counsellor Corbet,
who pleaded for me, obtained great fame by it, for
many of the lawyers came to him and told him he had
brought that to light which had not been known before,
as to the not imprisoning upon a Praemunire; and
after the trial a judge said to him, ' You have attained
a great deal of honour by pleading George Fox's cause
so in court.' " x
1 My friend W. C. Braithwaite, of Lincoln's Inn, whom I have
consulted as to this trial, writes to me —
" I can find no case in the books respecting the Praemunire of
George Fox in 1674. On looking carefully at the passage in the
Journal, it is evident that there was no decision on the point
raised by Counsellor Corbet. He raised the question with
sufficient force to cause the judges to adjourn the case foT further
argument. But ' the next day they chose rather to let this plea
fall, and begin with the errors of the indictment.' It was on these
errors that the indictment was quashed ; and it is to be noticed
that the praise given to Corbet was for raising the question so
forcibly, and not for having actually obtained a decision upon it."

CHAPTER XVI
CLOSING YEARS
The fifteen remaining years of George Fox's life
must be sketched in this, as in all his other biographies,
much more briefly than those which have preceded
them. From this point onward there is somewhat of
a change in the character of the Journal, which be
comes much more of a mere register of documents
issued by Fox, and has few of the characteristic and
almost humorous touches which give life to its earlier
pages. Nor are indications wanting that in mind as
well as in body George Fox was a prematurely aged
man. His devotion to the cause of spiritual religion,
which he believed himself called to promote, is as
intense as ever, his zeal in its service, as far as his
bodily infirmities will allow him to display it, is un
abated, but there is not so much freshness of idea as
aforetime, and there are several instances of the tend
ency of old age to re-issue its old thought-currency.
Yet for the future life and permanence of the Society
which he had almost unwittingly founded, these years
of calm reflective old age were probably quite as impor
tant as the more picturesque and adventurous years of
his early apostolate. For questions had now arisen in
that Society, similar to those which had agitated the
245

246 GEORGE FOX
wider religous world of the English nation, and on the
solution of these questions (ultimately effected by the
personal authority and influence of George Fox him
self) the very existence of the Society probably de
pended. Quakerism had been at the outset essentially in
dividual in its character. George Fox's own individual
musings and meditations when he was wandering over
the fields of Leicestershire had given the impulse to
the new movement. He had appealed to what he
called the Inward Light, or the voice of the Divine
Spirit in the hearts of his hearers, and on those facts
of their own individual consciousness, rather than on
any external Church authority, he had based his re
ligious teaching. For some years the "Children of
Light," as they at first called themselves, had existed
and had multiplied, possessing none but the very
slightest formal bond of union, or system of Church
government. Then the disorders which had arisen
under this system of unchecked Individualism having
convinced Fox of the necessity of a change, he had,
as we have seen, with much real statesmanship, as well
as with invincible patience, succeeded in establishing
what were called " Meetings for discipline " ; first Yearly
Meetings (in 1658), then Quarterly Meetings (from
1660 onwards), and lastly Monthly Meetings (from
1666 to 1669). By all these meetings the principle
of absolute Individualism, the claim of each member
to do what was right in his or her own eyes, was
checked and bounded, and the right of the Church to
arrange for the orderly holding of meetings for worship,
the maintenance of the poor, the decorous celebration
of marriages, the registration of births and deaths, even

CLOSING YEARS 247
to some extent to control the business relations of the
members to one another, was recognized and enforced.
It seems also (though this is a point which has been
often lost sight of) that some pecuniary provision was
made by the new Church for the maintenance of those
travelling preachers who were too poor to support them
selves.1 Against all this machinery of Church government,
and to a certain extent against the authority of Fox
himself, as chief adviser of the body which had been
called into existence by his teaching, there was, about
1675, a formidable movement of revolt. It was not
quite the first time that a discordant note had been
sounded in the new community. There had been, as
we have seen (about 1656), a tendency to set up the
authority of the strange enthusiast James Naylor
against that of his chief. Then (about 1661), a certain
John Perrot, who had gone to Rome to convert the
Pope, and had spent some time in the prisons of the
Inquisition, started on his return a crusade against the
practice of uncovering the head in public prayer, thus
caricaturing Fox's own " testimony " against taking off
the hat to his fellow-men.2 But this schism soon died
away. Perrot left the Society of Friends, went to
America, and " fell into manifest sensualities and works
of the flesh, for he not only wore gaudy apparel, but
also a sword, and being got into some place in the
Government, he became a severe exacter of oaths,
1 All these points are well brought out in Barclay's Inner Life
of Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, chapters xviii. and xix.
J Sewel, the Quaker historian, says of Perrot, " as one error
proceeds from another, so he made another extravagant step, and
let his beard grow ; in which he was followed by some." {Hist.
of Society of Friends, ii. 315. Ed. 1833.)

248 GEORGE FOX
whereas before he had professed that for conscience'
sake he could not swear."1
The schism, however, which now (about the year
1675) threatened the disruption of the Society, and
which is known by the name of Wilkinson and Story's
Separation, was a much less fantastic, and therefore
much more formidable affair than Perrot's hat and
beard vagaries. The two men who headed it, John
Wilkinson and John Story, were eminent preachers
among the Friends, and had probably often worked
side by side with Fox himself.2 But they insisted,
like the Independents, on the right of each congrega
tion to transact its own affairs uncontrolled by any
Central body. " They regarded with great jealousy
the Central Yearly Meeting of London, which they
compared to a High Court of Judicature, and declared
it would become a New Rome in time. They made
use of the principle which Perrot had enunciated,
'that the fellowship of the Spirit did not stand in
outward forms,' against the form of Church govern
ment established by Fox. When asked, ' Ought not
Christian Churches to deny' (or excommunicate) 'for
breach of fundamental articles?' they answered, that
if such articles were against the Light of Christ in
individual consciences, was not the requiring of sub
mission an infringement of Christian liberty? If
these outward forms were to be obeyed at a moment
when the Spirit of God did not move an individual
1 Sewel, Hist, of Society of Friends, ii. 315.
2 John Wilkinson is erroneously identified by Barclay (Religious
Societies of the Commonwealth, p. 441) with the clergyman of
Broughton who turned Quaker (Fox's Journal, I. 393), and who,
as is there mentioned, died in 1675.

CLOSING YEARS 249
to obey, how was 'New Light' again to break forth
to God's glory?"1
Moreover, the Separatists objected to that law of
the Society by which all its members were required
to abstain from payment of tithes on pain of disown-
ment, saying that each individual should be left to
act according to the dictates of his own conscience.
Herein they seem to have borne a useful testimony
against what has always been the besetting sin of
Quakerism, a disposition to insist that if nine members
feel a conscientious scruple against doing a certain
thing, the tenth member shall feel it likewise.
But when it came to defending the practice of
fleeing in time of persecution, and discontinuing the
usual meetings of Friends in order to escape the cruel
provisions of the Conventicle Act, one can see that the
very existence of the new Society, and it might almost
be said the cause of religious freedom in England, were
at stake, and that with all their bold words on behalf
of Individualism, these opposers of all Church authority
in the new community would, if victorious, soon have
had neither community nor individuals left. In fact,
Wilkinson and Story, though there are some things
in their teaching which look like the legitimate out
come of Quaker doctrines, were at heart more nearly
akin to the " Seekers " or the " Ranters " than to the
Friends, and probably had their cause triumphed over
the steady opposition of Fox and his chief supporters,
the Quakers would have faded away into the same
limbo of forgotten religions in which both "Seekers"
and "Ranters" now lie entombed.
1 I have borrowed some sentences here from Barclay's Inner
Life, etc., p. 465.

250 GEORGE FOX
The literary part of the controversy against the new
schismatics was left chiefly to Robert Barclay and
Thomas Ellwood, the friend of Milton. The former
wrote a short treatise on The Anarchy of the Banters;
and the latter, in a work which he believed to be a
poem, and which he entitled Bogero Mastix, chastised
the yet more prosaic verses in which a certain William
Rogers of Bristol had championed the cause of Wilkinson
and Story.
Eventually the schism was ended by the apparent
victory of the party in favour of Fox's Church organiz
ation, but it is the opinion of a careful inquirer x that
the views of the defeated party were in some measure
adopted by the Society at large, and that the Quietism
which prevailed among Friends throughout the eighteenth
century, was in a certain sense the result ofthe Separatist
movement of 1675.
It is the life of Fox, not the history of Quakerism,
with which we are here concerned, but so much as this
it seemed necessary to say, in order to explain many
pages of his Journal, and the chief occupation of his
closing years. Such passages as this are of frequent
occurence —
"I wrote answers to divers papers concerning the
running out of some who had opposed the order of
the gospel, and had stirred up much strife and contention
in Westmoreland."
" Some that professed truth, and had made a great
show therein, being gone from the simplicity of the
gospel into jangling, division, and a spirit of separation,
endeavoured to discourage Friends, especially the women,2
1 Barclay, Inner Life, p. 472.
? For some reason, which is not very clear, the women's meetings

CLOSING YEARS 251
from their godly care and watchfulness in the church
over one another in the truth ; opposing their meetings,
which in the power of the Lord were set up for that
end and service."
At Bristol (1677), " Many sweet and precious meetings
we had ; many Friends being there from several parts
of the nation, some on account of trade, and some in
the service of truth. Great was the love and unity
of Friends that abode faithful in the truth, though
some who were gone out of the holy unity and were
run into strife, division, and enmity, were rude and
abusive, and behaved themselves in a very unchristian
manner towards me. But the Lord's power was over
all; by which being preserved in heavenly patience
which can bear injuries for His Name's sake, I felt
dominion therein over the rough, rude, and unruly
spirits, and left them to the Lord, who knew1 my
innocency, and would plead my cause. The more
these laboured to reproach and vilify me, the more did
the love of Friends that were sensible and upright-
hearted abound towards me, and some that had been
betrayed by the adversaries, seeing their envy and rude
behaviour, broke off from them, who have cause to bless
the Lord for their deliverance."
Owing to Fox's broken health, there were sometimes
now considerable pauses in his hitherto incessant
journeyings. At two separate intervals he spent about
four years restfully at Swarthmoor,1 perhaps the happiest
for business were the subject of especial opposition from the
Separatists. 1 The first time, 1675-6, of which Margaret Fox says, "This
was the first time that he came to Swarthmoor after we were
married, and he stayed there much of two years." The second
time,' 1679-80, of which she says, "He came into the North to

252 GEORGE FOX
part of his fife, though hurried over in the Journal
almost as though he were ashamed of having allowed
himself so long a rest by the wayside.
When Fox first appeared in the old Lancashire
manor-house after his liberation from Worcester, he re
ceived a visit from his former oppressor, Colonel Kirkby;
who came to bid him welcome into the country, and
" carried himself to all appearance very lovingly." True,
he afterwards sent a message by the Ulverston con
stables that there- must be no more meetings at Swarth
moor, and if there were such they had orders to break
them up. But on the very next Sunday the Friends
had "a very precious meeting," quite undisturbed by
the constables, and so they continued ever after. In
fact, as far as can be discerned from Fox's Journal,
the Conventicle Act, though still enforced spasmodically
in London, had become little more than a dead letter
in the north of England, the persecution of Friends,
which was still bitter, being generally for non-payment
of tithes, or on the easy ground of their refusal to take
an oath, which enabled the magistrates to' proceed
against them as "Papist recusants."
Another of Fox's old antagonists was the Rev.
William Lampitt, formerly the " Established " minister
of Ulverston, but since St. Bartholomew's Day an
ejected minister. A good man, we may surely believe,
perhaps correctly described by Calamy as " a warm and
lively preacher"; certainly one whose sacrifices for
conscience' sake entitled him to more respectful notice
than is contained in the following sentences from Fox's
Swarthmoor again, and stayed this time near two years ; and then
he grew weakly, being troubled with pains and aches, having had
many sore and long travels, beatings, and hard imprisonments,"

CLOSING YEARS 263
Journal— "In 1676,1 while I was at Swarthmoor, died
William Lampitt, the old priest of Ulverston, which
parish Swarthmoor is in. He was an old deceiver, a
perverter of the right way of the Lord, and a persecutor
of the people of God. Much contest I had with him
when I first came into those parts. He had been an
old false prophet; for in 1652 he prophesied (and said
he would wage his life upon it) that the Quakers would
all vanish and come to nought within half a year, but
he came to nought himself. For he continued in this
lying and false accusing of God's people till a little
before he died, and then he cried for a little rest. To
one of his hearers that came to visit him before he
died, he said, ' I have been a preacher a long time, and
thought I had lived well; but I did not think it had
been so hard a thing to die.' "
During these long periods of quiescence at Swarth
moor, Fox was busy with his pen, writing epistles to the
Yearly Meeting, and " a book of the types and figures
of Christ with their significations," collecting the papers
which he had addressed to Oliver and Richard Crom
well, and to Charles IL, providing materials for a future
history of Quakerism, and so on. In company with
his friend and fellow-traveller in America, John Burn-
yeat, he answered what he calls " a very envious and
wicked book which Roger Williams, a priest of New
England (or some colony thereabout), had written against
truth and Friends." The envious and wicked book
was no doubt Williams's George Fox digged out of Ms
Burrowes, published at Boston in 1676. This probably
seemed to Fox a very unscrupulous attack, and one
1 Calamy says, "he lived obscurely [after his ejection] and
dy'd Anno 1677."

254 GEORGE FOX
that absolutely required a reply; but he can hardly
have been aware how much the cause of religious
freedom owed to Roger Williams and his colony of
Rhode Island; otherwise he would have spoken more
respectfully of his antagonist.
In 1677, Fox paid a short visit1 to the Continent,
in company with William Penn, Robert Barclay, George
Keith,2 and some others. His wife was not of the
party, but was represented by her third daughter Isa
bel. The chief object of the travellers seems to have
been to visit the Friends in Holland, where there were
by this time a pretty large number of adherents to the
new Society. Holland must have been now only just
beginning to recover from the terrible strain of that
great five years' war with Louis XIV., in which she had
been brought to the brink of ruin, and had been only
saved by the valour of young William of Orange, and
by the desperate expedient of opening the dykes, and
laying the country under water. We have, however,
no allusion in the Journal to these exciting events,
except that when the travellers drew near the frontier
of East Friesland, "there came many officers rushing
into the boat, and being somewhat in drink they were
very rude. I spoke to them" (says Fox), "exhorting
them to fear the Lord and beware of Solomon's vanities.
They were boisterous fellows, yet somewhat more civil
afterwards." We have also an address from Fox's pen
" to the ambassadors who were met to treat for Peace
at the city of Nimeguen in the States dominions." The
address is chiefly about the wickedness of war, and its
inconsistency with the spirit of the Gospel. " Is it not
1 July 25 to October 2a
2 In later life a great opponent of Quakerism,

CLOSING YEARS 255
a sad thing," he says, " for Christians to be biting and
consuming one another in the sight of the Turks,
Tartars, Jews, and Heathens, when they should love
one another and do unto all men as they would have
them do unto them? Such devouring work as this
will open the mouth of Jews and Turks, Tartars and
Heathens, to blaspheme the name of Christ, and cause
them to speak evil of Christianity, for them to see how
the unity of the Spirit is broken among such as profess
Christ and Christ's peace." Certainly the diplomacy
of Christian Europe did not shine in the negotiations
of Nimeguen. The great personages charged with the
conclusion of the treaty entered that town in February
1676 (more than a year before Fox's visit to Holland),
and it was not till August 1678 that they concluded
what Macaulay has well styled "the hollow and un
satisfactory treaty by which the distractions of Europe
were for a time suspended."
An interesting event in Fox's journey to Holland
was the visit paid by George Keith's wife and Fox's
step-daughter Isabel Yeamans to the Princess Elizabeth.
This lady was a daughter of Frederick, Elector Palatine
(the "Winter King" of Bohemia), and our Princess
Elizabeth. Like her brothers and sisters, she had
experienced strange reverses of fortune, and she showed
much of that originality of character which — perhaps
on account of those very reverses — the members of this
family generally displayed.
There was Charles Louis, the eldest son, who well-
nigh broke his mother's heart by his selfishness and
ingratitude; there were Rupert and Maurice, those
Paladins of the Civil War, whose fives had such
different endings, Rupert the chemist and the inventor

256 GEORGE FOX
spending his old age at the Court of Charles II., while
Maurice, still young, and flying westwards before the
victorious Blake, sank out of sight in the waters of the
Antilles. Youngest of the band was the handsome
and sprightly Sophia, who had now been for some
twenty years married to Ernest Augustus, Elector of
Hanover; who, dying at eighty-four, only missed by
two months being proclaimed Queen of England, and
who was in fact the ancestress of all our royal Georges,
and of our present Queen Victoria. Twelve years
older than the Electress Sophia, and utterly unlike her
in disposition, was the calm and unworldly Elizabeth,
who, after refusing some brilliant offers of marriage,
spent her middle or later life as Protestant Abbess of
Herford, a position which, as the convent had been
long ago sequestered, brought with it no religious
obligations, but gave the holder an income and some
little territorial jurisdiction. She had come before
this time under the influence of that interesting, but
not altogether satisfactory enthusiast, Jean Labadie —
a Jesuit who turned Protestant and something more —
and his teaching, which has been described as " something
like a French Quakerism, but with ingredients from
older Anabaptism," x had prepared her to listen with
favour to the words of Fox and his disciples. She had
been already visited by Penn and Barclay, and had
addressed to the latter an epistle from which the
following is an extract.
" Your memory is dear to me, so are your lives, and
your exhortations very necessary. I confess myself
still spiritually very poor and naked ; all my happiness
is that I do know I am so, and whatsoever I have
1 Masson, Life of Milton, v. 595.

CLOSING YEARS 257
seemed or studied heretofore is but as dust in com
parison to the true knowledge of Christ. I confess
also my infidelity to this light, by suffering myself
to be conducted by a false politique light; now that
I have sometimes a small glimpse of the True Light
I do not attend to it as I should, being drawn away
by the works of my calling, which must be done.
Like your swift English hounds, I often overrun my
scent, being called back when it is too late. Let not
this make you less earnest in your prayers for me ;
you see I need them. Your letters will be always
welcome to me, so shall your friends if any please to
visit me.
" I should admire God's providence if my brother
[Prince Rupert] could be a means of releasing your
father,1 and the forty more prisoners in Scotland. Having
promised to do his best, I know he will perform it ; he
has always been true to his word ; and you shall find
me by the grace of God a true friend. " Elizabeth." 2
Following up the invitation contained in this letter,
the two Quaker ladies, Mrs. Yeamans and Mrs. Keith,
with a Dutch woman-Friend to act as interpreter,
went to visit the Princess in her home at Herford in
Westphalia, taking with them a long letter from George
Fox, which began as follows —
" Princess Elizabeth,
" I have heard of thy tenderness towards the
Lord and His holy truth, by some Friends that have
1 Colonel David Barclay, once an officer in the army of
Gustavus Adolphus, at this time a Quaker, and imprisoned in
the Tolbooth of Aberdeen.
2 Quoted in the Fells of Swarthmoor Hall, pp. 302-3.

258 GEORGE FOX
visited thee, and also by some of thy letters which I
have seen. It is indeed a great thing for a person
of thy quality to have such a tender mind after the
Lord and His precious truth, seeing so many are
swallowed up with voluptuousness and the pleasures of
this world ; yet all make an outward profession of God
and Christ one way or other, but without any deep
inward sense and feeling of Him." When we remember
that the Princess was first cousin to Charles II., and
that most of her kindred were more or less hangers-
on to the pleasure-loving Court at Whitehall, the hint
about " voluptuousness " is seen to be singularly
appropriate, and in truth, the contrast between that
Court and the old Abbey of Herford must have been
about as striking as any that Europe could exhibit.
The Princess sent the following reply to Fox's letter —
"Dear Friend,
"I cannot but have a tender love to those
that love the Lord Jesus Christ, and to whom it is
given, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer
for Him ; therefore your letter and your friends' visit
have been both very welcome to me. I shall follow
their and your counsel as far as God will afford me
light and unction, remaining still your loving friend,
"Elizabeth.
" Herford, the 30th of August, 1677."
Soon afterwards Penn and Barclay paid their second
visit to Herford, and were received with even more
cordiality than on their first. The royal Abbess of
Herford seems indeed to have become virtually a

CLOSING YEARS 259
Friend, and during the few remaining years of her
life (she died in 1680) she kept up a pretty fre
quent correspondence with the leading members of
the Society, exerting what influence she could with
her relatives at Whitehall on behalf especially of
the Scottish Friends who were suffering imprison
ment. Fox's Continental journey extended to North Germany
as well as Holland. He visited Emden, Oldenburg
(" lately a great and famous place, but then burnt down,
and but few houses left standing in it"), Bremen,
Hamburg, and penetrated some way into " the Duke
of Holstein's country." The whole visit occupied
him three months (July 25 to October 23, 1677),
and it was repeated on a smaller scale seven years
afterwards (June 4 to July 17, 1684). He occasion
ally had an argument with a Calvinist divine, or a
Baptist teacher, but his visit was chiefly directed
to those who were already Friends, and it may be
suggested that the necessity of speaking through an
interpreter, and the impossibility of exchanging quick
theological repartee with the travellers by the wayside,
somewhat cramped his energies, and prevented him
from undertaking a wider and longer campaign.
At this time there was a considerable number of
adherents to the new Society in many parts of Central
Europe. There was also a tolerably large congregation
of Friends at Dantzic, who were cruelly oppressed by
the Lutheran magistrates of that city. Their sufferings
lay very heavy on Fox's heart, and he several times
addressed long letters, both to their nominal sovereign,
John III., King of Poland, and to the city magistrates,
pleading for some respite to the persecuted and im-

260 GEORGE FOX
prisoned Quakers. The Quakers in Holland seem to
have been largely drawn from the very similar body of
the Mennonites, and this chiefly under the preaching
of William Caton, that young Swarthmoor convert of
George Fox's, of whom some description has been given
in an earlier chapter.1
It is interesting to note that in the interval between
Fox's two visits to the Continent, one of the most
celebrated Mennonite teachers entirely changed his
attitude towards Quakerism, and from an opponent
became a supporter of the new teaching. This was
Dr. Galenus Abrahams, a Mennonite with some
tendency towards Socinianism. At Fox's first visit
there was a five hours' discussion between this man
and Fox, assisted by Penn. Abrahams maintained a
favourite thesis of the English " Seekers," " that
there was no Christian Church ministry or commission
Apostolical now in the world." One might have
thought that this was an argument to be held rather
against a stout champion of Apostolical Succession than
against a theological free-lance such as Fox; but he
also contended — and here we see how his doctrine
would cut at the root of Fox's ministry — " that nobody
now-a-days could be accepted as a messenger of God,
unless he confirmed the same by miracles." The
discussion was not a very satisfactory one, having all
to be conducted through an interpreter, but it seems
to have been generally considered that the Quakers
had the best of it. The greatest share of the argument
on their side was taken by William Penn. George Fox,
as we are told by the Quaker historian Sewel (himself
a friend and former disciple of Abrahams), " spake also
1 See p. 73.

CLOSING YEARS 261
something to the matter, but he, being somewhat short-
breathed, went several times away, which some were
ready to impute to a passionate temper; but I well
know that herein they wronged him." But evidently
Abrahams thought that his opponent was too fierce,
and shrank, as others had done before him, from the
still undimmed lustre of those flashing eyes. " He was
then," says Fox, speaking of the earlier visit and the
disputation which was held between them — "he was
then very high and shy, so that he would not let me
touch him nor look upon him by his good-will, but bid
me ' keep my eyes off him, for,' he said, ' they pierced
him.' But now he was very loving and tender, and
confessed in some measure to Truth. His wife also
and daughters were tender and kind, and we parted
from them very lovingly."1
After Fox's return from his first Continental journey
(1677), with the exception of one year (1679), spent in
retirement at Swarthmoor, he passed most of his time
in London and its suburbs, sometimes making short
excursions into the home counties. It is not very
clear where he abode when actually in London, but the
hospitable shelter of Kingston-on-Thames, where dwelt
his son-in-law, the West Indian merchant, John Rous,
with his wife Margaret (daughter of Margaret Fox),
was ever ready to receive him when pining for the
fresh air of the country. His relation to this worthy
couple, as to all his wife's daughters and their hus
bands, seems to have been most friendly and cordial,
nor is there ever a sign of a welcome out-stayed at
1 For some account of Galenus Abrahams, consult, besides
G. F.'s Journal, Sewel's History of Friends, iv. 25; and Barclay's
Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, pp. 174, 251.

262 GEORGE FOX
their hospitable houses. In 1683, he records a
special visit of a week paid to Kingston, the occasion
being that " my son Rous's daughter Margaret lay
very sick and had a desire to see me." The young
grand-daughter, like her ancestress, felt the power of
goodness in the preacher of the Inward Light, and
longed to clasp his hand if she was about to fare forth
into the Unknown.1
One reason why these latter years of Fox's life were
for the most part spent in London and its neighbour
hood was that his presence there was still needed, in
order to counteract the efforts of the Separatists Wilk
inson and Story, allusions to whom are frequent in this
part of the Journal. Another was, that from the year
1681 onwards, after the defeat of the Exclusion Bill and
the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, there was a
spasm of fresh and fierce persecution against Friends
under the Conventicle Act, which had been perhaps
growing somewhat rusty under the Whiggish
Parliaments of 1679 and 1681. The pages of the
Journal give us a vivid picture of the scenes enacted
under this monstrous statute.
" One First-day it was upon me to go to Devonshire
House meeting in the afternoon, and because I had
heard Friends were kept out there that morning I went
sooner, and got into the yard before the soldiers came
to guard the passages; but the constables were there
1 The young Margaret did not die at this time. Perhaps it
would have been better for her if she had, for there, were storms
of some kind or other in her after-life. In her father's will, dated
October 20, 1692, there is a bequest of ten pounds only " unto my
daughter Margaret, who hath several ways disobliged, me," with
power to her mother to appoint her a further sum of £500 " if
after my decease she shall by her obedient and dutiful carriage
oblige " her said mother. Fell* of Swarthmoor Hall, p. 390.

CLOSING YEARS 263
before me and stood in the doorway with their staves.
I asked them to let me go in ; they said, they could not
nor durst not, for they were commanded the contrary,
and were sorry for it. I told them I would not press
upon them. So I stood by, and they were very civil. I
stood till I was weary, and then one gave me a stool to
sit down on, and after a while the power of the Lord
began to spring up among Friends, and one began to
speak. The constables soon forbade him, and said he
should not speak, and he not stopping, they began to be
wroth. But I gently laid my hand upon one of the
constables, and wished him to let him alone. The
constable did so, and was quiet, and the man did not
speak long."
Fox himself then rose and spoke, telling the intruders
that they need not come with swords and staves against
them, for they were a peaceable people, not met to plot
against the Government, but to worship God under the
spiritual presidency of Christ. His short sermon ended,
he knelt down to pray. "The power of the Lord,"
continues Fox, "was over all. The people, the con
stables, and the soldiers all put off their hats. When
the meeting was ended and the Friends began to pass
away, the chief constable put off his hat, and desired
the Lord to bless us : for the power of the Lord was
over him and the people and kept them under."
Another Sunday, Fox goes to the meeting at Grace
church Street, and finds three constables there keeping
the Friends out, and accordingly they meet in the court
yard. After some time of silence, Fox stands up to
preach. After he has spoken some time, one of the
constables comes and takes him by the hand, telling him
he must come down. " Be patient," says Fox, and con-

264 GEORGE FOX
tinues his sermon ; but after a little while the constable
pulls him down, and marches him off into the meeting
house. " Are you not weary of this work ? " asks Fox ;
and one of them answers, " Indeed we are."
If space allowed, several other passages of this kind
could be quoted, most of which show both magistrates
and police heartily ashamed of the foolish and tyrannical
acts which the wisdom of Parliament had ordered them
to perform. In reading page after page of this legalized
lawlessness, one feels it to be a marvel that the English
people should now possess that character which is in
truth theirs, of a law-abiding people.
When the sky is a little lightened it is from an
unexpected quarter. These last two years of the reign
of James II. , which the constitutional historian sees
to have been full of peril to the civil, and eventually to
the religious liberties of England, were nevertheless to
the cruelly harried Nonconformists years of surcease of
pain and recovery of freedom. The King's Declaration
of Indulgence, publised on April 4, 1697, expressed
sentiments which, had there been no sinister design
lurking behind them, would have done honour to Milton
or Locke. "It is, and hath been of long time, our
constant sense and opinion that conscience ought not
to be constrained, nor people forced in matters of
religion. It has ever been directly contrary to our
inclination, as we think it is to the interest of Govern
ment, which it destroys by spoiling trades, depopulating
countries, and discouraging strangers ; and finally, it has
never obtained the end for which it was employed.
And in this we are the more confirmed by the reflections
we have made upon the conduct of the last four reigns;
for after all the frequent and pressing endeavours that

CLOSING YEARS 265
were used in each of them to reduce this kingdom to
an exact conformity in religion, it is visible the success
has not answered the design, and the difficulty is
invincible." These words are true, whoever uttered
them, and the Declaration of Indulgence, however un
constitutional, marked a victory won for the cause of
Toleration, which no efforts of ecclesiastical bigotry
have ever been able thoroughly to reverse.
In the early part of 1686, a year before the Declara
tion of Indulgence, there had been some relaxation of
the severities practised upon Friends. Fox writes thus
in the Journal — " I came back to London in the First
Month (March), 1686, and set myself with all diligence
to look after Friends' sufferings, from which we had
now some hope of getting relief. The sessions came
on in the Second Month (April), at Hicks's Hall, where
many Friends had appeals to be tried; with whom I
was from day to day, to advise and see that no oppor
tunity were slipped, nor advantage lost, and they
generally succeeded well. Soon after also, the King
was pleased, upon our often laying our sufferings before
him, to give order for the releasing of all prisoners for
conscience' sake that were in his power to discharge,
whereby the prison-doors were opened, and many
hundreds of Friends, some of whom had been long in
prison, were set at liberty. Some of them, who had
for many years been restrained in bonds, came now up
to the Yearly Meeting, which was in the Third Month
(May) this year. This caused great joy to Friends, to
see our ancient, faithful brethren again at liberty in the
Lord's work, after their long confinement. And indeed a
precious meeting we had, the refreshing presence of the
Lord appearing plentifully with us and amongst us."

266 GEORGE FOX
It was soon observed that the liberty granted to
Nonconformists was shared (most justly according to
our present views) by the Roman Catholics. "As it
was a time of general liberty," says Fox, " the Papists
appeared more open in their worship than formerly;
and many unsettled people going to view them at it, a
great talk there was of their praying to saints and by
beads, etc., whereupon I wrote a short paper concerning
prayer." The paper begins —
" Christ Jesus, when He taught His disciples to pray,
said unto them, ' When ye pray, say, Our Father which
art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, etc' Christ
doth not say that they should pray to Mary the mother
of Christ; nor doth He say that they should pray to
angels or to saints that are dead. Christ did not teach
them to pray to the dead, nor for the dead ; neither
did Christ or His apostles teach the believers to pray
by beads, nor to sing by outward organs, but the
apostle said he would sing and pray by the Spirit,
for the Spirit itself maketh intercession,' and the
Lord that searcheth the heart knoweth the mind of
the spirit."
Next year (May 1687), the Declaration of Indulgence
having been issued, the result of the general toleration
and liberty now granted was seen in a very large
attendance of the Yearly Meeting. At the close of it,
Fox addressed a very wise "Word of counsel and
caution to Friends to walk circumspectly in this time
of liberty." The Lord having been pleased to incline
the King's heart towards them, to open the prison-
doors and to stop the spoilers of their goods, he had
an anxious desire " that none of them might abuse this
liberty nor the mercies of the Lord, but prize them, for

CLOSING YEARS 267
there is great danger in time of liberty, of getting up
into ease, looseness, and false liberty. And now," he
continued, " seeing that ye have not the outward per
secutors to war with in sufferings, with the spiritual
weapons keep down that which would not be subject
to Christ, that He, the Holy One, may reign in your
hearts, that your lives, conversations, and words may
preach righteousness and truth, that ye all may show
forth good ensamples of true believers in Christ, in
virtue and holiness, answering that, which may be
known of God in all people, that ye are the sons and
daughters of God."
And now the time was drawing on for the great
Revolution of 1688, the last cataclysm that has befallen
the English State. The reader shall see just how much
and how little mark it makes in Fox's Journal, and
shall conjecture for himself what his secret feelings
may have been concerning it.
(September 1688.) " I had not been long in London
before a great weight came upon me, and the Lord
gave me a sight of the great bustles and troubles,
revolution and change, which soon after came to pass.
In the sense whereof, and in the movings of the Spirit
of the Lord, I wrote a general Epistle to Friends, to
forewarn them of the approaching storm, that they
might all retire to the Lord, in whom safety is. . . .
About this time great exercise and weight came upon
me (as had usually done before the great revolutions
and changes of government), and my strength departed
from me: so that I reeled and was ready to fall as I
went along the streets. At length I could not go
abroad at all, I was so weak for some time, till I felt
the power of the Lord to spring over all, and had

268 GEORGE FOX
received an assurance from Him that He would preserve
His faithful people to Himself through all."
(March 5, 1689: the "Glorious Revolution" already
accomplished : William III. at Whitehall, and James
II. at St. Germains.) " It was now a time of much
talk, and people busied their minds and spent their
time too much in hearing and telling news. To show
them the vanity thereof, and to draw them from it, I
wrote the following lines : — ' In the low region, in the
airy life, all news is uncertain ; there nothing is stable ;
but in the higher region, in the Kingdom of Christ,
there all things are stable and sure, and the news
always good and certain. For Christ, who hath all
power in heaven and earth given unto Him, rules in
the kingdoms of men. . . . His power is certain and
changes not, by which He removes the mountains and
hills, and shakes the heavens and the earth. Leaky,
dishonourable vessels, the hills and mountains, and the
old heavens and the earth, are all to be shaken and
removed and broken to pieces, though they do not see
it nor him that doeth it; but His elect and faithful
both see it and know Him and His power, that cannot
be shaken, and which changeth not.
" About the middle of the first month (March), 1689,
I went to London, the Parliament then sitting, and
engaged about the bill for Indulgence. Though I was
weak in body and not well able to stir about, yet so great
a concern was upon my spirit on behalf of Truth and
Friends, that I attended continually for many days,
with other Friends, at the Parliament house, labouring
with the members that the thing might be done com
prehensively and effectually."
The end of Fox's long labours "for the cause of

CLOSING YEARS 269
Truth" was now approaching. Through these later
years, as has been said, his old energy had greatly
abated, and he had seldom travelled more than twenty
miles from London. Swarthmoor Hall was out of the
question for him, with his enfeebled frame, racked by
rheumatism and neuralgia, and actually it was his wife,
though ten years older than he, and now seventy-six
years of age, who made the long journey up from
Lancashire in order to accomplish their last meeting.
Their contemporaries, like modern readers, were evi
dently surprised that this faithful couple, strongly
attached, as they certainly were, to one another, should
have been willing to spend so much of their life
apart. We will hear Margaret Fox's account of this
last meeting, an account which bears somewhat of the
character of an Apologia for their long separation.
" Though the Lord had provided an outward habit
ation for him [by his marriage], yet he was not willing
to stay at it, because it was so remote and far from
London, where his service most lay. And my concern
for God and His holy eternal truth was then in the
North, where God had placed and set me, and likewise
for the ordering and governing of my children and
family : so that we were very willing, both of us, to live
apart for some years on God's account, and His truth's
service, and to deny ourselves of that comfort which we
might have had in being together, for the sake and
service of the Lord and His truth. And if any took
occasion, or judged hard of us because of that, the Lord
will judge them : for we were innocent. And for my
own part, I was willing to take many long journeys, for
taking away all occasion of evil thoughts ; and though
I lived two hundred miles from London, yet have I

270 GEORGE FOX
been nine times there upon the Lord and His truth's
account; and of all the times that I was in London,
this last was most comfortable, that the Lord was
pleased to give me strength and ability to travel that
great journey, being seventy-six years of age, to see my
dear husband, who was better in his health and
strength than many times I had seen him before. I
look upon it that the Lord's special hand was in it that
I should go then, for he lived but about half-a-year
after I left him, which makes me admire the wisdom
and goodness of God in ordering my journey at that
time." The last years and months of George Fox's life were
busily occupied in writing Epistles to the Friends in
various stations, to Friends in Barbadoes and America,
to the persecuted congregation at Dantzic, to the magis
trates of that city, and so forth. These documents suffer
from that tendency to diffuseness which was characteristic
both of the author and the age, and though they are
full of beautiful Christian feeling, it cannot be said that
the expositions of Scripture in which they abound are
particularly luminous or helpful. But there are many
grains of gold in the mass, expressions which come
straight from the heart of the writer, and help one to
understand the power which his spoken discourses had
on the hearts of his hearers. In one of the years of
persecution (1685) he comforted his suffering Friends,
by speaking to them of Christ, " in whom the promises
are Yea and Amen ; who is the First and the Last, the
Beginning and the Ending — the Eternal Rest. So
keep and walk in Christ, your rest, every one that hath
received Him."
Into that Eternal Rest the struggling, toiling soul

CLOSING YEARS 271
was now to enter. On January 10, 1691, he wrote a
letter to the Friends in Ireland, who had been suffering
from the Civil War between James and William, waged
in that country. The next day (Sunday) he went to
the Friends' meeting at Gracechurch Street; no need
now to meet in the courtyard, nor fear of constables
coming to arrest the preacher. There he preached a
long and powerful sermon, and the meeting ended, he
went to the house of a Friend named Henry Goldney, in
White Hart Court, near the meeting-house. "Some
Friends going with him thither, he told them he
thought he felt the cold strike to his heart as he came
out of the meeting ; ' yet,' he added, ' I am glad I was
here. Now I am clear ; I am fully clear.' "
He still complained of cold, " and his strength sensibly
decaying, he was soon obliged to go into bed, where he
lay in much contentment and peace, and very sensible
to the last." " Divers Friends came to visit him in his
illness, to some of whom he said, ' All is well : the Seed
of God reigns over all, and over death itself. And
though I am weak in body, yet the power of God is
over all, and the Seed reigns over all disorderly spirits.' "
" Thus lying in a heavenly frame of mind, his spirit
wholly exercised towards the Lord, he grew weaker in
his natural strength, and on the third day of the week
[Tuesday], between the hours of nine and ten in the
evening, he quietly departed this life in peace, and
sweetly fell asleep in the Lord, whose blessed truth he
had livingly and powerfully preached in the meeting
but two days before."
On the day appointed for the interment of George
Fox, a very great concourse of Friends assembled at
Gracechurch Street Meeting-house about noon. After

272 GEORGE FOX
a solemn meeting, which lasted about two hours, the
body was borne by Friends, accompanied by very great
numbers, to the Friends' burial-ground near Bunhill
Fields, " where after a solemn waiting upon the Lord,
and several living testimonies borne, recommending the
company to the guidance and protection of that Divine
Spirit and power by which this holy man of God had
been raised up, furnished, supported, and preserved to
the end of his day, his body was committed to the
earth ; but his memorial shall remain and be everlast
ingly blessed among the righteous."

CHAPTER XVII

CONCLUSION

We have heard Fox's friends tell in their own simple
language the story of his death and burial. From
the iloges dedicated to his memory by his widow,
his six step-daughters and their husbands, his friends
William Penn and Thomas Ellwood, I will extract a
few sentences which may help us to imagine the man
as he appeared to his contemporaries.
Margaret Fox. — " It hath pleased Almighty God to
take away my dear husband out of this evil, trouble
some world, who was not a man thereof, being chosen
out of it ; who had his life and being in another region,
and whose testimony was against the world, that the
deeds thereof were evil, and therefore the world hated
him 
" And now he hath finished his course and his testi
mony and is entered into his eternal rest and felicity.
I trust in the same powerful God that His holy arm
and power will carry me through, whatever He hath
yet for me to do ; and that He will be my strength and
support and the bearer-up of my heart unto the end
and in the end. For I know His faithfulness and
goodness and I have experience of His love, to whom
be glory and powerful dominion for ever. Amen." x
1 Margaret Fox survived her second husband nearly twelve
years, and died at Swarthmoor in her eighty-eighth year.
278 T

274 GEORGE FOX
The six daughters and their husbands. — " Neither days
nor length of time with us can wear out the memory
of our dear and honoured father, George Fox, whom
the Lord hath taken to Himself .... Though of no
great literature nor seeming much learned, as to the
outward (being hid from the wisdom of this world), yet
he had the tongue of the learned and could speak a
word in due season to the conditions and capacities
of most, especially to them that were weary and
wanted soul's rest, being deep in the divine mysteries
of the Kingdom of God.
"And the word of life and salvation through him
reached unto many souls, whereby many were convinced
of their great duty of inward retiring to wait upon God ;
and as they became diligent in the performance of
that service, were also raised up to be preachers of the
same everlasting gospel of peace and glad tidings to
others; who are as seals to his ministry both in this
and other matters, and may possibly give a more full
account thereof. Howbeit we, knowing his unwearied
diligence, not sparing, but spending himself in the
work and service whereunto he was chosen and called
of God, could not but give this short testimony of his
faithfulness therein, and likewise of his tender love
and care towards us ; who, as a tender father to his
children, (in which capacity we stood, being so related
to him,) never failed to give us his wholesome counsel
and advice."
William Penn (himself, it is to be remembered, a
courtier and something of a scholar). — " He was a man
that God endued with a clear and wonderful depth, a
discerner of others' spirits and very much a master of
his own. And though the side of his understanding

CONCLUSION 275
which lay next to the world, and especially the ex
pression of it, might sound uncouth and unfashionable
to nice ears, his matter was nevertheless very profound,
and would not only bear to be often considered, but the
more it was so, the more weighty and instructive it
appeared. And as abruptly and brokenly as sometimes
his sentences would fall from him about divine things,
it is well known they were often as texts to many fairer
declarations. And indeed it showed beyond all con
tradiction that God sent him ; that no art or part had
any share in the matter or manner of his ministry,
and that so many great, excellent, and necessary truths
as he came forth to preach to mankind had there
fore nothing of man's wit or wisdom to recommend
them; so that as to man he was an original, being
no man's copy.
"He had an extraordinary gift in opening the
Scriptures. He would go to the marrow of things
and show the mind, harmony, and fulfilling of them,
with much plainness and to great comfort and edifi
cation. " But above all he excelled in prayer. The inwardness
and weight of his spirit, the reverence and solemnity
of his address and behaviour, and the fewness and
fulness of his words have often struck even strangers
with admiration, as they used to reach others with
consolation. The most awful, living, reverent frame
I ever felt or beheld, I must say, was his in prayer.
And truly it was a testimony he knew [more] and
lived nearer to the Lord than other men: for they
that know Him most will see most reason to approach
Him with reverence and fear.
" He was of an innocent life, no busy-body nor self-

276 GEORGE FOX
seeker, neither touchy nor critical : what fell from him
was very inoffensive if not very edifying.1 So meek,
contented, modest, easy, steady, tender, it was a pleasure
to be in his company. He exercised no authority but
over evil, and that everywhere and in all; but with
love, compassion, and long-suffering. A most merciful
man, as ready to forgive as unapt to give or take an
offence. Thousands can truly say he was of an ex
cellent spirit and savour among them, and because
thereof the most excellent spirits loved him with an
unfeigned and unfading love. . . . And truly I must
say that though God had visibly clothed him with
a divine presence and authority, and indeed his very
presence expressed a religious majesty, yet he never
abused it, but held his place in the Church of God
with great meekness and a most engaging humility and
moderation. ... I write my knowledge and not report,
and my witness is true, having been with him for weeks
and months together on occasions, and those ofthe nearest
and most exercising nature, and that by night and by
day, by sea and by land, in this and in foreign countries ;
and I can say I never saw him out of his place or not
a match for every service or occasion. For in all things
he acquitted himself like a man, yea, a strong man,
a new and heavenly-minded man, a divine and a
naturalist, and all of God Almighty's making. I have
been surprised at his questions and answers in natural
things : that whilst he was ignorant of useless and
sophistical science, he had in him the foundation of
useful and commendable knowledge and cherished it,
everywhere. Civil, beyond all forms of breeding, in
1 This looks like dispraise. I imagine that Penn means, "even
when it was not very edifying."

CONCLUSION 277
his behaviour; very temperate, eating little and sleeping
less, though a bulky person.
"Thus he lived and sojourned among us; and as he
lived so he died : feeling the same eternal power that
had raised and preserved him, in his last moments.
So full of assurance was he that he triumphed over
death, and so even in his spirit to the last, as if death
were hardly worth notice or a mention."
Lastly, we may take a few words from Thomas
Ellwood, the friend of Milton, the suggester of Paradise
Regained, and the editor of George Fox's Journal.
" I knew him not till the year 1661 ; from that time
to the time of his death I knew him well, conversed
with him often, observed him much, loved him dearly
and honoured him truly; and upon good experience
I can say, he was indeed a heavenly-minded man,
zealous for the name of the Lord, and preferred the
honour of God before all things. He was valiant for
the truth, bold in asserting it, patient in suffering for
it, unwearied in labouring in it, steady in his testimony
to it, immovable as a rock. Deep he was in Divine
knowledge, clear in opening heavenly mysteries, plain
and powerful in preaching, fervent in prayer. He
was richly endued with heavenly wisdom, quiet in
discerning, sound in judgment, able and ready in
giving, discreet in keeping counsel; a lover of right
eousness, an encourager of virtue, justice, temperance,
meekness, purity, chastity, modesty, humility, charity,
and self-denial in all, both by word and example.
Graceful he was in countenance, manly in personage,
grave in gesture, courteous in conversation, weighty
in communication, instructive in discourse, free from
affectation in speech or carriage, a severe reprover of

278 GEORGE FOX
hard and obstinate sinners ; a mild and gentle admo-1
nisher of such as were tender and sensible of their
failings; not apt to resent personal wrongs, easy to
forgive injuries ; but zealously earnest, where the
honour of God, the prosperity of truth, the peace of
the Church were concerned. Very tender, com
passionate, and pitiful he was to all that were under
any sort of affliction ; full of brotherly love, full of
fatherly care, for indeed the care of the churches of
Christ was daily upon him, the prosperity and peace
whereof he studiously sought."
I have thought it better to give these descriptions of
Fox with some fulness, lest in condensing I should in
any way alter the proportions of the picture. They
of course are the work of loving friends and admir
ing followers, and are to be taken with all needful
allowances on that score. But even so, I think it will
be admitted that we have here the portrait not only of
a strong, but of a lovable man. That keen and piercing
eye of his was not always sparkling with indignation
against hypocritical "professors" — it could also shed
tears of sympathy with the sorrowful, and there was
something in his face which httle children loved.
To sum up in fewest possible words the impression
made by his words and works upon one who studies them
across the level of two centuries: he was a man of
lion-like courage and adamantine strength of will,
absolutely truthful, devoted to the fulfilment of what
he believed to be his God-appointed mission, and with
out any of those side-long looks at worldly promotion
and aggrandizement which many sincere leaders of
Church parties have cast at intervals of their journey.
The chief defect in Fox's character will perhaps be

CONCLUSION 279
best described in the words of Carlyle — " Cromwell
found George Fox's enormous sacred self-confidence
none of the least of his attainments." It is to be re
membered that Fox preached the doctrine of Christian
perfection as a thing of possible attainment in this life ;
nor is he any the less welcome as a teacher because he
does not indulge in that cant of exaggerated self-con
demnation which was one of the signs of degenerating
Puritanism. Still it is difficult for a reader of the
Journal not to feel that Fox is too confident of the
absolute Tightness of his own conduct, and the utter
Wickedness of all who oppose him. This is of course
the usual note of the Prophet, and one of the things
whereby he is most distinguished from the Philosopher,
at least the true Philosopher. It is the spirit of Hosea
rather than of Marcus Aurelius, and, paradoxical as it
may sound, if Fox's education had been such as to give
him a little less of the teaching of the Minor Prophets,
and a little more — he probably had none — of the teach
ing of the best of the Greek philosophers, the result
might have been a fuller manifestation of " the meek
ness and gentleness of Christ."
But the beauties or the blemishes of the man's indi
vidual character are not after all the chief point for
consideration by the student of his career. He believed,
and his whole life was moulded by the belief, that he
had a message from God to deliver to mankind. The
important question is, whether this was in any sense
true, or whether it was a mere delusion. Different
readers of this little book will no doubt answer that
question differently. To some the question will seem
to be negatived beforehand by the simple fact that
Fox received no commission to preach from those

280 GEORGE FOX
whom they regard as the successors of the Apostles.
Others, perhaps a more numerous class, will consider
that the mistakes and failings, the eccentricities, per
haps the symptoms of mental excitement which occa
sionally showed themselves in the earlier parts of his
career, equally remove the question from the zone of
rational discussion. But if we admit the existence
of any Divine revelation whatever, it may be worth
while to ask ourselves — and the question has a much
wider reach than to the individual instance now before
us — "Through what manner of men has the Being
whom we must believe to be All-wise, as well as
Almighty, generally spoken to mankind ? Speaking
now of the servants, not of the Son, have they as a
rule been men fallible or infallible ? " We know that
Stephen in his dying speech made a strange blunder as
to the burial-place of Jacob, that Peter at Antioch was
guilty of base compliance with the Judaizing party:
yet do we not in spite of these errors, intellectual and
moral, rightly regard them as message-bearers from the
Most High ?

INDEX

Abbaham, Daniel and Rachel,
221
Abrahams, Galenus, 260-261
America, visit to, 226-237
Ap-John, John, 146-150
Arlington, Lord, 218
Asbburnham, Constable, 177
Askew, Anne, 66
Audland, John, 69
Baltimore, Lord, 231
Baptists, 21, 103, 119, 239
Barbadoes, Address to Governor
of, 229, 230
Barclay, Robert, 6, 207, 250, 254,
256, 258
Barebones Parliament, 51, 101
Barton, Colonel, 43, 51
Bennet, Sir Henry (Lord Arling
ton), 187
Bennet, Col. (Launceston), 132,
138, 139
Bennet, Justice (of Derby), 42, 53
Benson, Col. Gervase, 75, 81, 86,
92, 101
Bible, authority of, 85, 111, 158
Blasphemy Act (1650), 79
Blasphemy Ordinance (1648), 53
Booth, Sir George, 166
Bradden, Captain, 130-132
Bradshaw, President, 75, 167, 210
Buckingham, Duke of, 189
Bunyan, John, 19, 181
Burnyeat, John, 253
Bushel (a Ranter), 62
Carlyle, Thomas, 279

Cary (of Devonshire), 119
Caton, William, 73, 260
Ceely, Peter, 121, 130-132
Charles II., 167, 170, 175, 176,
183
"Children of the Light," 54,
246
Claypole, Lady, 163
Conventicle Act, 171, 217, 222,
238, 241, 249, 252, 262
Corbet (barrister), 243, 244
Cornwall, Fox's visit to, 120-127
Cradock, Dr. (of Coventry), 23, 24
Cradock, Dr. (Episcopalian), 199,
200
Craven, Robert (Sheriff of Lin
colnshire), 102
Cromwell, Oliver, 43, 108-114,
117, 137, 144, 145, 154, 162-
165, 167-169
Cromwell, Richard, 165
Crook, John, 117, 159
Crosland, Sir Jordan, 197, 202,
203
Crowder, Dr., 241, 242
Curtis, Ann, 179
Daniel, book of, hats mentioned
in, 128, 129
Dantzic, Quakers at, 259, 270
Declaration of Indulgence, 264-
266
Desborough, Major-General, 124-
126, 188, 139
Dolly Bray, 240
"Doomsdale" in Launceston
Gaol, 133-139

282

INDEX

Drayton. See Fenny Drayton
Drury, Captain, 43, 109, 110,
112
Dugdale, Sir William, 187
Elecampane beer, 198
Elizabeth, Princess (Palatine),
255-259
Ellwood, Thomas, 33, 58, 167,
168, 207, 250, 277, 278
Endicott, John, 232
Fairfax, Lady, 199
Falconbridge (or Fauconberg),
Lord, 199
Farnsworth, Rev. Richard, 74
Fell, George, 73, 83, 215, 217,
219 221
Fell, Judge (Thomas), 65, 74, 75,
86, 92, 177, 214
Fell, Leonard 88
Fell, Margaret (afterwards Mar
garet Fox), 66-74, 179, 180,
188-190, 194-196, 210-221, 226,
239, 240, 251, 269, 270, 273
Fell family, 211, 219-221, 274
Fenny Drayton, 9-14, 103-107,
116
Fire of London, Great, 204
Five Mile Act, 172
Fleming, Sir Daniel, 184-191,
204
Foster, Sir Robert (Chief Justice),
181
Fox, Captain, 124, 135
Fox, Christopher, 15, 107
Fox, George, parentage, 15; birth
place, 9-14; "leather breeches,"
33 ; message, 34-44. Imprison
ment at Nottingham, 48-51 ; at
Derby,51-56; at Carlisle,97-101;
at Launceston, 126-139 ; at Lan
caster, 179-181 ; at Leicester,
184 ; at Lancaster and Scarbro',
191-203; at Worcester, 240-244.
"Alchemy" buttons, 113; long
hair, 122, 150; attitude to
wards Cromwell, 168 ; reflec
tions on St. Bartholomew's
Day, 172 ; marriage, 210-214 ;
vjsit to America, 226-237 ; to

Holland and Germany, 254-
261 ; death and funeral, 271,
272 ; character of, 273-280
Fox, John (Presbyterian minis
ter), 223
Fox, Mary, 15, 239
Frescheville, Lord, 197'
Glyn, Chief Justice, 127-131
Goldney, Henry, 271
Hacker, Colonel, 43, 108-110, 164
Hains (clergyman), 239
Hale, Chief Justice, 243, 244
Harvey (valet of Oliver Cromwell),
110, 164
" Hat-worship," 39-41, 128-131
Holland, visit to, 254-259
Hooton, Elizabeth, 231
Hotham, Justice, 60, 62, 75
Howgill, Francis, 69, 77
Hubberthorn, Richard, 88
Hunter (gaoler), 197
Independents, 114, 147
Indians, North American, 234-
236
Ireland, 271
Ireton, 167
Jackus (Lancashire clergyman),
85
Jamaica, 155, 231
James II. , 264-268
Jenkins, Walter, 207
Jesuit, discussion with, 157-159
John III., King of Poland. 259
Keat, Captain, 124, 126, 135
Keith, George, 254
„ Mrs., 257
Kirkby, Colonel, 184, 188, 189,
190, 195, 196, 217, 225, 252
Labadie, Jean, 256
Lambert, Colonel, 185
Lampitt, Rev. William, 69-75,
82, 252, 253
Larkham (clergyman of Cocker
mouth), 94
Lawson, Wilfred, 98

INDEX

283

Lichfield, "the bloody city of,"
57-58
"Light Within," 34-37, 119,
126, 145, 147, 234-235, 246-
249
Lower, Dr., F.R.S., 211, 220,
241
Lower, Thomas, 220, 221, 238,
239-244
Macham (or Machin), Rev. J., 24
Major-Generals, Cromwell's, 125
Mallet, Sir Thomas, 180, 181
Marcellinus, Pope, 199
Marshall (clergyman of Lancas
ter), 84, 85
Marsh, "Esquire," 181, 182, 202,
208, 209
Maryland, visit to, 231-235
Meade, William, 220, 225
Mennonites, 260
Middleton, Sir George, 189, 190
Milner, James, 88
,, Jane, 210
Monk, General, 166
Montague, Lady, 103
Moss-troopers, 100
Mount, Constable, 178
Myer, Richard, 88
Naturalism, 46
Naylor, Jas.. 59, 74, 76, 87, 88,
141-144, 247
Negro slavery, 228, 229, 230, 231
Newport, Earl of, 157
Nimeguen, Peace of, 255
Nithsdale, Earl of, 152
Norton, Humphrey, 137
Oaths, forbidden to Christians, 37-
39
Oaths, substitute for, tendered by
Fox, 243
Owen, Dr. John, 145
Parker (magistrate), 239-242
Parker, Alexander, 108
Parnell, James, 104
Pearson, Anthony, 75-78, 81, 99,
101
Penn, William, 15, 17, 207, 219,

220, 225, 238, 239, 254, 256.
258, 260, 274-277
Pennington, Isaac, 207
Perfection, Christian, 36
Perrot, John, 247
Peters, Hugh, 138
Porter, Major, 177, 179, 181
Praemunire, penalty of, 191, 192,
243, 244
Preston, James, 234, 236
Prisons, English, 133
Purefoys, of Drayton, 10-12
Pursloe, Captain, 60, 62
Pyot, Edward, 117-139, 145
Quakers (first use of the name), 54
,, Act of 1662 against, 175 ;
numbers of, imprisoned, 1650-
1662, 182; Fox's scheme of
Church government for, 206,
246 ; schism of Wilkinson and
Story, 246-250
Ranters, 62, 79, 103, 116, 249, 250
Rawlinson (magistrate), 191
Reckless, John, 49
Revolution of 1688, 267, 268
Rhode Island, 232, 233
Ripan, Major (Mayor of Lan
caster), 86
Robinson (Yorkshire magistrate),
74
Rogers, William, 250
Roman Catholics, 28, 158, 208, 266
" Roundheads," 123
Rous, John, 218, 219, 226, 228,
238, 261, 262
Rous, Margaret, 262
Rouse, Colonel, 135
Rump Parliament, dissolution of,
92
Rupert, Prince, 255, 257
Salt, W., 121-140
Salthouse. Thomas, 72, 211
"Saul's errand to Damascus," 89
Saunders, Mary, 145
Savile, Henry, 241
Savonarola, 21, 59
Sawrey (magistrate of Ulverston),
72, 75, 82

284

INDEX

Scotland, George Fox's visit to,
151-156
Sewel (Quaker historian), 33, 122,
247, 260
Sheldon, Archbishop, 217
Socinians, 239, 260
Starling, Samuel (Lord Mayor),
224-225
Stephens (or Stevens), Rev. Na
thaniel, 12-14, 22-23, 103-107
Story, John, 248-250, 262
Stubbs, John, 186
Swarthmoor Hall, 63-68, 151, 221,
251-253, 261
Swarthmoor Meeting-house, 68
Taylor (clergyman, convert to
Quakerism), 104
Tithes, proposed abolition of, 168
Townsend (clergyman of Nor
wich), 166
Trelawney, Elizabeth, 119, 220
Triers, the, 115
Turner, Judge, 193
Twisden, Judge, 181, 193

Uniformity, Act of, 171
Venner (Fifth Monarchy man),
181
Wales, Fox's visit to, 146-151
War, unlawful for Christians, 41-
44
West, Colonel, 86
Whitehead, John, 202
Whittier, J. G., 46, 47
Widders, Robert, 151, 155
Wilkinson, John, 248-250, 262
Williams, Roger, 232, 253
Wilson, William, 186
Windsor, Lord, 241
Worcester, battle of, 55, 56
Wreckers, Cornish, 161
Wrey, Sir Richard, 103
Yearly Meeting of Friends, 159
160
Yeamans, Isabel, 211, 255, 257
„ Robert, 179, 180, 211
„ William, 211, 220

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