Elizebeth Houton,
prisonr in linckoln Castell.
George Fox, after his missionary visit into Lincolnshire, accompanied by Robert Craven, the Sheriff of Lincoln (who had been convinced by his preaching) and by Thomas Aldam, passed into Derbyshire and thence into Nottinghamshire to Skegby, “where,” he records, “we had a great meeting of divers sorts of people: and the Lord’s power went over them and all was quiet. The people were turned to the spirit of God, by which many came to receive his power, and to sit under the teaching of Christ their Saviour. A great people the Lord hath in these parts.”[33] No mention is made of Elizabeth Hooton, possibly she was in Lincolnshire at the time, but it may be that her fostering care of the infant Church and her unwavering steadfastness to the Truth which she had received had been mainly instrumental in raising up “a great people to the Lord.” In 1655 we know she was again in Lincolnshire, but the brief entry in the Lincoln Minute Book appears to be the only record of her labours in that county at this period. She was one of the first Quaker preachers to visit Oxfordshire as evidenced by an early Minute which runs: “Also Eliz Hutton, a good ould woman, came and vised us early.”[34]
In 1657 her husband, Oliver Hooton, died. The entry in the digest of Friends’ burial registers preserved at Nottingham reads:
Oliver Hooton died 30 4 1657 Seckbie, Mansfield Mo. Meeting Buried 30 4 1657. Seckbie.
This is confirmed by the Parish Register at Skegby where he is described as the Elder, but there is a slight discrepancy as to day and month, the latter stating he was buried 24th July, 1657.[35]
At an early date Friends acquired a Burial Ground at Skegby where members of the Society from the district were interred. The entries in the Register show that many Mansfield Friends were buried there, for until Elizabeth Heath gave a piece of ground as a burial place in 1693, Friends of Mansfield had no place of sepulture there.
Quite recently, in the course of repairs to the house at Skegby, which up to 1800 was the property of Friends and was known as the Meeting House, and by some was believed to be the house in which Elizabeth Hooton lived, a stone used as a shelf in the pantry was found on which there were remains of an inscription and the date 1687. An old lady of Skegby, aged ninety-eight, states that she fancies she can remember seeing some tombstones in the garden which covers the site of the old graveyard.
No record of Elizabeth Hooton’s ministry, or allusion to her, has been found in contemporary documents for the years 1658-1659, but in the early part of the year 1660 she was in Nottinghamshire, and Besse gives the following graphic description of an apparently unprovoked assault on her by Priest Jackson of Selston: “On the 2d of the Month called April, Elizabeth Hooton, passing quietly on the Road, was met by one Jackson, Priest of Selston, who abused her, beat her with many Blows, knockt her down, and afterward put her into the Water.”[36]
With this incident, the record of her early service in England ends. We next follow her in her perilous journeyings in a distant land.
Falſe Prophets and falſe Teachers deſcribed. 1652.