The mayor of Weymouth wrote to Sir J. Williamson (Nov. 21, 1674), informing him that certain persons accused of keeping a Conventicle had pleaded His Majesty's "License and Warrant." He asks for direction how "to manage this affair."
[604] Dalrymple (Memoirs, iii. 92) remarks: "Charles' Declaration of Indulgence has been commonly imputed to the intrigues of France with Charles for the purpose of serving the interest of Popery. But Colbert's despatches show that France had not the least hand in it, that it was a scheme of Buckingham and Shaftesbury to gain the Dissenters, and that France was the cause of Charles' recalling it." The letters printed in Dalrymple indicate that Buckingham and Shaftesbury had strongly supported the Declaration, and show further that Charles wished Louis XIV. to believe that to please him he withdrew it. "He assured me," says Colbert, "that your Majesty's sentiments had always more power over him than all the reasonings of his most faithful Ministers." March 20, 1673.
[605] "All Sectaries," says Reresby (Memoirs, 174), "now publicly repaired to their meetings and Conventicles, nor could all the laws afterwards, and the most rigorous execution of them, ever suppress these Separatists, or bring them to due conformity."
[606] Where Owen's Church met has been regarded as uncertain, but the returns made in 1667 to Sheldon's inquiries specify the place of meeting at that time as White's Alley.
[607] Afterwards Lord Haversham.
[608] See Anecdotes of Mrs. Bendish in Noble's Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, ii. 329.
[609] Life, by Sir H. Ashurst, 27.
[610] Ibid., 100.
[611] He wished to be made a Justice of the Peace; but his appointment was opposed by Sir John Petties, a moderate Churchman, who remarks in a letter dated January 4, 1674–5—there are a "sort of men in this kingdom so hot and fiery, so active and inexperienced, who labour much in those things which tend to the disquiet of the kingdom (of whom we have a great share in our county), and are almost as dangerous as the other two sorts of Dissenters (Romanists and Nonconformists), for by their indiscreet and hot endeavours, instead of suppressing those Dissenters, I dare say that they (though unwittingly and unwillingly) give them the greatest animation and increase."
[612] There are numerous letters belonging to this period in the State Paper Office, written by Bowen. Letters dated 1675, Jan. 15; Feb. 17, 19, 24, furnish what I have said, and a great deal more. It appears from the following extract, as well as from a former one, that Nonconformists did not always meekly submit to their oppressors. In reading the letter, however, it must be remembered that an enemy writes it. "John Faucet had disturbed the Presbyterians at worship in the Granary—and, in consequence, was violently assaulted, beaten, and trodden upon by several rude persons, and in great danger of his life."