Besides writing this letter she agreed to use her influence with Lady Lauderdale, and to get her brother to do his best with the Earl, but she explains she has little expectation of success as they are no friends of theirs.
This letter and other influences led to a royal recommendation to the King's Council in Edinbro', but some interval elapsed before it bore fruit. Meanwhile, the father and son had been removed to a gaol outside the town, called the Chapel. Their treatment here was malicious enough, but mild in comparison with what many of their brethren suffered; and though they protested, as became Britons and Quakers, no doubt they thanked God for the comparative ease of their lot. Whilst in prison they received many letters of sympathy from their friends. Amongst these is a little known letter from William Penn, hoping that they "may grow spiritual soldiers, expert and fitted by these exercises for such spiritual conflicts as the Lord hath for you to go through;" and that they may grow "as trees in winter, downwards, that your root may spread; so shall you stand in all storms and tempests."
One of the excuses for ill-using the Friends was that they were Popishly affected. This must have galled Robert Barclay's sensitive nature exceedingly. His growing friendship with the King and the suspected Duke of York gave colour to the charge, and his training in a Catholic college, his former profession of the Catholic faith, and his near kinship to many Catholics, were taunts ready to the hand of disputants like the Aberdeen students or the scurrilous John Brown.
From the "Chapel," Barclay wrote a strong appeal to Archbishop Sharpe to abandon his unchristian persecutions. Does the reader think this is like asking Shylock to renounce his pound of flesh? He must remember that the Quakers were accustomed to accomplish such impossibilities; and where their hardy faith could not succeed in such feats, it could persevere in attempting them. Their love was as invincible as their patience. They sincerely pitied their persecutors, and felt that they were harming themselves more than they hurt the Friends. So for their soul's sake they pleaded with them, using every argument which they thought they could ask God to bless. Whilst in Aberdeen prison, Barclay also wrote his treatise on "Universal Love," an earnest plea for religious toleration.
The prisoners gained their liberty by an amusing disagreement between the Aberdeen Magistrates and the Sheriff, which led to a lawsuit. Meanwhile, Robert Barclay and others who had been liberated on parole, went before a notary and claimed their full liberty.
We now find Robert Barclay attending the Yearly Meeting in London, and then going on to the Continent in company with George Fox and William Penn. Their object was two-fold, aggression and organisation. The Mennonite churches of the Netherlands and Germany were the special attraction. William Caton, at one time tutor at Swarthmoor Hall, had settled in Holland, and had met with a cordial welcome amongst these churches. William Ames and other Friends also visited them, and by degrees the Quakers had become very strong in Holland. William Penn had visited them before. We may here remark that the Friends have ever kept up a kindly and brotherly intercourse with the Mennonites whether in Germany, Russia, or the United States, visiting them for fraternal encouragement, and helping them in times of famine and persecution.
Considering that both of Barclay's companions kept diaries which have since been published, it is remarkable how little we learn of him from their records. Penn's narrative is a rich spiritual treat, but would have been richer had it been his purpose to tell of the private as well as of the public transactions of the "three great apostles of the sect," as Hepworth Dixon calls them. What glorious times of spiritual communion they must have had. With strongly marked individuality, there was yet a genuine bond of union and true sympathy between them. Fox, the senior by twenty years, was strongest in acquaintance with the facts about the state of the Society. His faulty English might at times jar on the ears of his scholarly brethren, but that was less offensive to them than the impure spiritual dialects of many professed Christians. His strong and many-sided nature enabled him to meet Penn in his large philanthropic schemes, and to sympathise with Barclay in his scholarly labours. If already his frame was feeling the effects of much suffering whilst his brethren were in their prime, his soul knew no decay. Penn might be the strongest of the three on the point of leavening earthly institutions with heavenly aims. Barclay's surpassing intellectual gifts might forbid any man to despise his youth. But in deep spiritual life they were equals. What mighty wrestlings must have been theirs as they talked of the spiritual needs of the world! How they must have exulted in the progress of spiritual truth! Their own Society at the time probably numbered at least 50,000 members. There were many not of their community with whom they held sweet intercourse through a common enjoyment of spiritual religion. Their faith was unfaltering that a new era had dawned upon the Christian church, which was about to renew its youth, and repeat the glorious triumphs of its days.
After successfully organising in Holland the same system of church government which had been set up in England, they visited Herford, the court of the Princess Elizabeth. Barclay had written to her from Aberdeen prison, strongly urging her, since she felt the power and blessing of silent waiting on God, to trust that, and especially to dismiss her "hireling" chaplain with his "unallowable services." In reply she had pleaded that the way was not yet plain to her; she must wait for light. If only her faith were strengthened what might she not do? But the result did not answer Barclay's expectation. They had, indeed, times of great spiritual refreshment, and the right hand of the Lord was revealed, but the Princess was not won to silent worship, nor to renounce the ordinary modes of worship. However Barclay urges and pleads with her, her reply still is "I must go by my light." "I cannot submit to the opinions or practice of others, though they have more light than myself."[24]
[24] Not that Barclay aimed at proselytising, but he wished her to take the course which seemed to him the necessary outcome of her views. "I pretend to be no sect master," he writes, "and disgust all such."
At Herford, Barclay left his friends and returned to Amsterdam. In September we find him in London, using his influence with the Duke of York to procure liberty for Friends in Scotland. He only succeeded, however, so far as his father and himself were concerned. When he wrote the result to his friend the Princess, and after shewing the dangers that awaited him, told her he was returning to Scotland, she was astonished, and warmly remonstrated with him for taking such a course. Robert Barclay had expressed sorrow at her non-success. She tells him that it is no cross to her that Lady Lauderdale returns no other answer to her request than a mere court compliment, and proceeds:—"But it is a cross to me that you will not make use of the liberty which God miraculously gave you, but will return into Scotland to be clapt up again into prison, for which we have neither precept nor example." But to stop in the path of duty because there were dangers ahead, would have been a failure of obedience which would have plunged Barclay's soul into darkness and distress. He must go forward and leave the consequences to God.