[110] This was the persecution which called forth Milton's great sonnet:
"Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughtered saints whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold."
[111] This was Cromwell's Second Parliament.
[AJ] Harvey was "groom of the bed chamber."
[112] This visit of Fox to Cromwell is treated in Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell, Vol IV., pp. 199, 200. Oliver Cromwell died September 3d, 1658. This "waft" or whiff of death which Fox felt was not the only forewarning of his end which came to Friends. A letter was delivered into Cromwell's hand a month before his death, which contained these words: "If thou continueth in thy oppression, the Lord will suddenly smite thee." See Burrough's "Good Counsel and Advice Rejected by Disobedient Men."
[113] Isaac Penington was one of the finest, richest spirits that came under the influence of Fox. He was highest in social rank of all the early Friends, and after Fox himself the best exponent of the fundamental Quaker idea.
[114] This "Church-faith (so-called)" was a "Declaration of the Faith and Order owned and practiced in the Congregational Churches in England: Agreed upon and consented unto by their Elders and messengers in their meeting at the Savoy, October 12th, 1658." Fox's reply has the following title: "Something in Answer to that Book called, The Church-Faith: Set forth by Independants (sic) and others; agreed upon by Divine messengers at the Savoy in London."
[115] From being Cromwell's most intimate friend Sir Harry Vane had become his most fearless opposer, and an advocate of extreme republicanism. After the downfall of Richard Cromwell, Vane had a brief return to influence and power. In September, 1659, he was made President of the Council, and was in this position the executive head of the nation in civil affairs. This episode must, therefore, be dated in the autumn of 1659.
[116] This epistle begins: "All Friends everywhere keep out of plots and bustling and the arm of flesh." A little later he writes again: