After his romantic adventures at Boscobel in 1651, Charles reached the little town of Brighthelmstone, and there engaged a fisherman to take him over to the coast of France. The captain and the mate alone were in the secret that the boat carried, not Cæsar indeed, but the heir of England's crown, with all his fortunes; and when they reached their destination, the mate conveyed the Prince ashore upon his shoulders. The boat, in after days, when the Restoration had changed the destiny of the Stuarts, lay moored by the stairs at Whitehall—a memento of its Royal master's deliverance; and the captain, whose name was Nicholas Tattersall, after having enjoyed an annuity of £100 a year, slept with his fathers in the churchyard of the town in which he had lived, and was buried beneath a slab of black marble, still existing, with a scarcely legible inscription. The mate, who set the King on dry land, and whose name was Richard Carver, became a member of the Society of Friends. When nearly twenty years had rolled away, this transformed mariner made his appearance one day in the month of January, 1670, at the doors of the palace, and obtained admission to the King's presence. Time, the rough wear and tear of a seaman's life, and the assumption of a Quaker garb, had altered the visitor since His Majesty saw him last, but with that faculty of recognition, which is a princely instinct, he remembered the man at once, and reminded the sailor of several occurrences in the vessel during his eventful voyage. Charles had been annoyed by people who had shown him kindness in adversity, coming or writing to Whitehall for some substantial acknowledgment of obligation, and he wondered that Carver had not come before to ask for assistance. In reply to some expression of that feeling, the Quaker told the King that "he was satisfied, in that he had peace and satisfaction in himself, that he did what he did to relieve a man in distress, and now he desired nothing of him but that he would set Friends at liberty who were great sufferers." Carver then proceeded to inform His Majesty that he had a paper in his hand containing no names of Quakers, who had been in prison above six years, and could be released only on Royal authority. Charles took the paper, and said it was a long list; that people of that kind, if liberated, would get into prison again in a month's time; and that country gentlemen had complained to him of their being so much troubled by Quakers. Touched, however, by the remembrance of long gone years, whilst a gracious smile played on the flexible features of his swarthy face, he said to Carver, he would release him six. Carver, not thinking that the release of six poor Quakers was equivalent to a King's ransom, determined to approach the Royal presence again, and now took with him another Friend, Thomas Moore. "The King was very loving to them. He had a fair and free opportunity to open his mind to the King, and the King promised to do (more) for him, but willed him to wait a month or two longer." What became of this sailor, who nobly looked on the preservation of the King's life simply as relieving a man in distress, we do not know; but Moore, whom he introduced to the Monarch, continued to make earnest appeals to Royalty on behalf of imprisoned Friends. In these attempts he received assistance from George Whitehead—another eminent name in the annals of Quakerism; and when, two years afterwards, there appeared the Royal decree, which we have described, there also occurred the following incident, which forms a notable link in a wonderful chain of Divine providences.
1672.
The King, who felt now more than ever a special regard for Quakers, kept his word; and on the 29th of March, 1672, thirteen days after the date of the Declaration of Indulgence, a circular letter was sent to the Sheriffs of England and Wales, requiring from them a calendar of the names, times, and causes of commitment of all the Quakers confined within their gaols.
The returns from the Sheriffs came in due order before the Privy Council in reply to the circular, when His Majesty declared that he would pardon all those persons called Quakers then in prison for any offence which they had committed against him; and not to the injury of other persons: 471 names were included in the pardon.[582]
Whitehead, who co-operated with Moore, the friend of Richard Carver—to whom he owed his introduction to the King—was a large-hearted man, and when other Dissenters saw what he had done, and solicited his assistance to procure the liberation of another class of religious prisoners, he readily assisted, and recommended that they should petition His Majesty; adding, that their being of different judgments did not abate his charity towards them. The advice was taken.
JOHN BUNYAN.
John Bunyan, with a number of others unknown to fame, encouraged by the Quakers, asked to be set at liberty. The document, containing this prayer, came before the Privy Council on the 8th of May, 1672—and on the 17th, Archbishop Sheldon being present, it was ordered that, as these persons had been committed "for not conforming to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, and for being at unlawful meetings," and for no other offence, the Attorney-General be "authorized and required to insert them into the general pardon to be passed for the Quakers."
The pardon is dated the 13th of September; and second on the list of sufferers in Bedford Jail appears the name of "John Bunnion," who in common with 490 others, received forgiveness for "all, and all manner of crimes, transgressions, offences of premunire, unlawful Conventicles, contempts, and ill behaviour whatsoever."[583] Our great allegorist owed his deliverance to the intervention of Friends; and we do not wonder to find that afterwards an end came to those unseemly controversies which had been waged between him and the disciples of George Fox.