[148] On this broad principle, of teaching everything useful and civil in creation, the work of Friends began in the cause of education. The subsequent history of their educational work is notable.
[AO] 1669.
[149] The "Bristol Register of Friends" shows the date of the marriage of George Fox to Margaret Fell to have been "Eighth month" 27th, 1669.
[150] During the next four years George Fox and his wife were almost continually separated from each other. About three months after their marriage Margaret Fox was thrown into Lancaster prison, where she was kept until a few weeks before her husband sailed on his memorable trip to the West Indies and the American colonies.
[151] In a very keen letter Fox told the magistrates that this act would have prevented the twelve apostles and the seventy disciples from meeting!
[152] This trial at the Old Bailey is reported in full in the Preface to the Works of William Penn. It is one of the most interesting episodes in his life, and, from a legal point of view, it is one of the most important jury trials of that century. William Penn had thrown in his lot with the Quakers definitely in 1666, though he had been influenced by the preaching of Thomas Loe while he was a student in Oxford University in 1659.
[AP] Near Rochester.
[153] This is another of the times in Fox's life when he underwent serious physical changes as a result of psychical disturbance.
[154] This was in 1669, about three months after their marriage. The sentence of præmunire was passed against Margaret Fell in 1663, so that for about seven (Fox says ten) years she was the King's prisoner, and her estate was in jeopardy.
[155] He speaks of "the yearly meeting" as though it were a well-established institution. Norman Penney has sent me an interesting extract from Barclay's "Letters of the Early Friends," which traces the development of the yearly meeting: