George Fox: An Autobiography

by George Fox

At length the rude people of the city rose, and came with staves and stones into the steeple-house, crying, "Down with these round-headed rogues"; and they threw stones. Whereupon the governor sent a file or two of musketeers into the steeple-house to appease the tumult, and commanded all the other soldiers out. So those soldiers took me by the hand in a friendly manner, and said they would have me along with them.

When we came into the street the city was in an uproar. The governor came down; and some of the soldiers were put in prison for standing by me against the townspeople.

A lieutenant, who had been convinced, came and brought me to his house, where there was a Baptist meeting, and thither came Friends also. We had a very quiet meeting; they heard the Word of life gladly, and many received it.

The next day, the justices and magistrates of the town being gathered together in the town-hall, they granted a warrant against me, and sent for me before them. I was then gone to a Baptist's; but hearing of it, I went up to the hall, where many rude people were, some of whom had sworn false things against me. I had a great deal of discourse with the magistrates, wherein I laid open the fruits of their priests' preaching, showed them how they were void of Christianity, and that, though they were such great professors (for they were Independents and Presbyterians) they were without the possession of that which they professed. After a large examination, they committed me to prison as a blasphemer, a heretic, and a seducer,[65] though they could not justly charge any such thing against me.

The jail at Carlisle had two jailers, an upper and an under, who looked like two great bear-wards. When I was brought in the upper jailer took me up into a great chamber, and told me I should have what I would in that room. But I told him he should not expect any money from me, for I would neither lie in any of his beds, nor eat any of his victuals. Then he put me into another room, where after awhile I got something to lie upon.

There I lay till the assizes came, and then all the talk was that I was to be hanged. The high sheriff, Wilfred Lawson, stirred them much up to take away my life, and said he would guard me to my execution himself. They were in a rage, and set three musketeers for guard upon me, one at my chamber-door, another at the stairs-foot, and a third at the street-door; and they would let none come at me, except one sometimes, to bring me some necessary things.

At night, sometimes as late as the tenth hour, they would bring up priests to me, who were exceeding rude and devilish. There were a company of bitter Scotch priests, Presbyterians, made up of envy and malice, who were not fit to speak of the things of God, they were so foul-mouthed. But the Lord, by His power, gave me dominion over them all, and I let them see both their fruits and their spirits. Great ladies also (as they were called) came to see the man that they said was to die. While the judge, justices, and sheriff were contriving together how they might put me to death, the Lord disappointed their design by an unexpected way.[66]

The next day, after the judges were gone out of town, an order was sent to the jailer to put me down into the prison amongst the moss-troopers,[Z] thieves, and murderers; which accordingly he did. A filthy, nasty place it was, where men and women were put together in a very uncivil manner, and never a house of office to it; and the prisoners were so lousy that one woman was almost eaten to death with lice. Yet bad as the place was, the prisoners were all made very loving and subject to me, and some of them were convinced of the Truth, as the publicans and harlots were of old; so that they were able to confound any priest that might come to the grates to dispute.

But the jailer was cruel, and the under-jailer very abusive both to me and to Friends that came to see me; for he would beat with a great cudgel Friends who did but come to the window to look in upon me. I could get up to the grate, where sometimes I took in my meat; at which the jailer was often offended. Once he came in a great rage and beat me with his cudgel, though I was not at the grate at that time; and as he beat me, he cried, "Come out of the window," though I was then far from it. While he struck me, I was moved in the Lord's power to sing, which made him rage the more. Then he fetched a fiddler, and set him to play, thinking to vex me. But while he played, I was moved in the everlasting power of the Lord God to sing; and my voice drowned the noise of the fiddle, struck and confounded them, and made them give over fiddling and go their way.

Whilst I was in prison at Carlisle, James Parnell, a little lad about sixteen years of age, came to see me, and was convinced. The Lord quickly made him a powerful minister of the Word of life, and many were turned to Christ by him, though he lived not long. For, travelling into Essex in the work of the ministry, in the year 1655, he was committed to Colchester castle, where he endured very great hardships and sufferings. He was put by the cruel jailer into a hole in the castle wall, called the oven, so high from the ground that he went up to it by a ladder, which being six feet too short, he was obliged to climb from the ladder to the hole by a rope that was fastened above. When Friends would have given him a cord and a basket in which to draw up his victuals, the inhuman jailer would not suffer them, but forced him to go down and up by that short ladder and rope to fetch his victuals, which for a long time he did, or else he might have famished in the hole.