12. April 23, 1661.
13. See page 56, and note there.
14. It is very probable that his persecutors knew the heroic spirit of this young woman, and were afraid to proceed to extremities, lest their blood-guiltiness should be known throughout the kingdom, and public execration be excited against them. Such a martyr’s blood would indelibly and most foully have stained both them and their families to the latest generation.—Ed.
15. ‘Smayed,’ an obsolete contraction of ‘dismayed.’—Ed.
16. Bunyan is silent upon the death of his first wife and marriage to the second; in fact he forgets his own domestic affairs in his desire to record the Lord’s gracious dealings with his soul. It is not his autobiography, but his religious feelings and experience, that he records.—Ed.
17. ‘Chafed,’ excited, inflamed, angry.—Ed.
18. This is a beautiful specimen of real Christian feeling; nothing vindictive, although such cruel wrongs had been perpetrated against her beloved husband.—Ed.
19. Nothing daunted by the cruel Statute which was then in force, Bunyan acted exactly as Peter and John did under similar circumstances, “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). If I suffer death for it, I am bound to speak the warning words of truth, “Touch not the unclean thing.”—Ed.
20. Application was made to Bishop Barlow, through Dr. Owen, to use his powerful influence in obtaining liberty for this Christian captive; but he absolutely refused to interfere. See Preface to Owen’s Sermons, 1721. Bunyan, upon his petition, heard by the king in council, was included in the pardon to the imprisoned and cruelly-treated Quakers. Whitehead, the Quaker, was the honoured instrument in releasing him.—Introduction to Pilgrim’s Progress, Hanserd Knollys Edition.—Ed.
21. See an authentic copy of this Royal Declaration, and observations upon it, in the Introduction to the Pilgrim’s Progress, published by the Hanserd Knollys Society, 1847.—Ed.