I had an old mother was here amongst you, & bore many of your stripes, & much cruelty at your hands, & when shee came at the first, I was against her coming; & now shee is returned. Is shee returned? saith Bellingham, Yea, I said, shee is safe returned. And now yᵉ lord hath laid it vpon mee to come hither to bear witness against your cruelty & hardheartednesse against the lords innocent lambs; And before I was made willing to give vp to come, I was brought even to deaths doore, if I had not obeyed I had been dead before this day. Therefore I can say with boldnesse, before you all, the lord hath sent mee hither to bear witnesse against your cruelty.
Truly the son had inherited something of the mother’s boldness.
As so many of Elizabeth Hooton’s letters are undated, they are of but slight assistance in determining the order of events in her life, but in an account written by Patrick Livingstone,[101] of his service in Leicestershire, and his subsequent imprisonment in Leicester gaol, we get a glimpse of her still engaged about what she conceived to be “her Master’s business.” Here are extracts from the narrative:[102]
As I was on my Journy I came into Sison [Syston], it was ordered, that some Friends, and other sober people of the Town came into the house, and the love of God did spring in my heart to the people whom I exhorted.... There came in a Constable, with one John Lewins, who violently haled me away ... to a Justices house.
A young man present, having “passed his word,” against the prisoner’s wishes, for his appearance several days later, he was liberated, and during the time other meetings were held and more Friends imprisoned. At what period Elizabeth Hooton comes on to the scenes we are not told, but while the prisoners were detained in an alehouse she
came in to see the Prisoners, and she prayed among them; but the wicked man Lewins pulled and drew her, & used her badly, and had like to have hurt her, being an old weak woman, and yet she was not at the Meeting....
At night they had them to one called Justice Babington,[103] but no justice appeared in him. He gave order to have them the next day to Thumerstone ... and put us in an Orchard, where many people came, and the everlasting Truth was declared.... For several hours we kept the Meeting amongst the people ... and we were at the back of the house where the Justice was, but none had power to stop the declaration of Truth.
These determined and intrepid “publishers of the Truth” were called away from their meeting one after another to stand before two Justices, on the charge of illegal gathering, and after much argument with the Bench they were fined and imprisoned, E. Hooton’s share being £1 or three weeks. The narrative concludes as follows (p. 38):
Now we are fully persuaded in our own minds by the Spirit of God that we do not meet out of contempt to Authority but in obedience to Divine commands: we must not forbear our Meeting because they say they fear we will plot. God in his due time will fully clear us; but in the mean time we must do our duty as the Lord requires us ... and so long as we stand obedient to the will of our God it shall be well with us whatever comes, loss of life or any thing else, our Life in God they cannot touch....