[85] Major-General Desborough was one of Cromwell's favorite generals, who received many places of honour from the Protector. In 1655 he received his commission as major-general, in charge of Wiltshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire and Cornwall, and in the main he proved an able administrator in this office.
[AE] Provender for their horses.
[86] This was Puritan England, and an appeal to Old Testament precedents was not out of place.
[87] This description of Doomsdale is far from pleasant reading, but it is a true and faithful picture of a dungeon in the seventeenth century, and because of its historic importance it is left exactly as it was written. It is no wonder the Quakers became prison reformers.
[88] This has the ring of one of Luther's utterances.
[89] The 14th of May, 1656, Edward Pyot, Fox's fellow prisoner, wrote a long letter to John Glyn, Chief Justice of England, in which he showed that they were suffering contrary to law. George Fox himself, as his custom was, spent much of his time of imprisonment writing letters and religious epistles. Here is a sound word of advice from his Epistle to "Friends": "Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your life and conduct may preach among all sorts of people and to them."
[90] It will be found interesting to compare this brief comment on the views of the "Fifth-monarchy men" with Cromwell's treatment of them. See Speech II., in First Parliament. Carlyle's "Oliver Cromwell," Centenary Edition, Vol. III., p. 113. The modern reader will also find it interesting to compare this passage with the present-day teachings of the "Second Coming."
[91] This Thomas Lower married Judge Fell's daughter, Mary.
[92] This, however, was not the last of the cheese. After their release they revisited Launceston, as this extract will show:
"From Thomas Mounce's we passed to Launceston again, and visited that little remnant of Friends that had been raised up there while we were in prison. The Lord's plants grew finely, and were established on Christ, their rock and foundation. As we were going out of town again, the constable of Launceston came running to us with the cheese that had been taken from Edward Pyot; which they had kept from us all this while, and were tormented with it. But being now set at liberty, we would not receive it."