George Fox, hearing these things from the Friends assembled to greet him at the entrance to the town, was tried in his spirit, and determined that the matter should be dealt with, without more ado. The Journal saith: 'The Newcastle priests wrote many books against us, and one Ledger, an Alderman of the town, was very envious of truth and friends. He and the priests had said, "the Quakers would not come into great towns, but lived in the fells like butterflies." I took Anthony Pearson with me and went to this Ledger, and several others of the Aldermen, desiring to have a meeting among them, seeing they had written so many things against us: for we were now come, I told them, into their great town. But they would not yield we should have a meeting, neither would they be spoke with, save only this Ledger and one other. I queried: "Had they not called Friends Butterflies, and said we would not come into any great towns? And now they would not come at us, though they had printed books against us; WHO ARE THE BUTTERFLIES NOW?"
'As we could not have a public meeting amongst them we got a little meeting amongst friends and friendly people at the Gate-side. As I was passing by the market-side, the power of the Lord rose in me, to warn them of the day of the Lord that was coming upon them. And not long after all the priests were turned out of their profession, when the King came in.'
Thus did those same envious priests, who had accused Friends of living like butterflies in the fells, become themselves as butterflies, being chased out of the great town, and forced to flit to and fro in the open country. The Friends, meanwhile, increased on both sides of the river Tyne. In 1657 George Whitehead visited Newcastle, and was kindly received in the house of one John Dove, who had been a Lieutenant in the army before he became a Friend.
Whitehead, himself one of the 'Valiant Sixty,' writes:—'The Mayor of the town (influenced by the priests), would not suffer us to keep any meeting within the Liberty of the Town, though in Gate-side (being out of the Mayor's Liberty), our Friends had settled a meeting at our beloved Friend Richard Ubank's house.... The first meeting we then endeavoured to have within the town of Newcastle was in a large room taken on purpose by some Friends.... The meeting was not fully gathered when the Mayor of the Town and his Officers came, and by force turned us out of the meeting; and not only so, but out of the Town also; for the Mayor and his Company commanded us and went along with us as far as the Bridge over the river Tine that parts Newcastle and Gates-head, upon which Bridge there is a Blew Stone to which the Mayor's Liberty extends; when we came to the stone, the Mayor gave his charge to each of us in these words: "I charge and command you in the name of His Highness the Lord Protector. That you come no more into Newcastle to have any more meetings there at your peril.'"
The Friends, therefore, continued to meet at the place that is called Gateside (though some say that Goat's head was the name of it at first), and there they remained till, after divers persecutions, they were at length suffered to assemble within the walls of Newcastle itself, upon the north side of the 'Blew Stone' above the River Tyne. Here, in 1698, they bought a plot of ground, within a stone's-throw of St. Nicholas, facing towards the street that the townsmen call Pilgrim Street, since thither in olden days did many weary pilgrims wend their way, seeking to come unto the Mound of Jesu on the outskirts of the town. And that same Mound of Jesu is now called by men, Jesu Mond, or shorter, Jesmond, and no longer is it the resort of pilgrims, but rather of merchants and pleasure seekers. Yet still beside the Pilgrim Street stands the Meeting-House built by those other pilgrim souls, those Quakers, whom the men of the town in scorn called 'butterflies.' And there, so far from flitting over the fells, they have continued to hold their Meetings and worship God after their own fashion within those walls for more than two hundred years.
Before ever this had come to pass, and while the Quakers of Newcastle were still without an assembling place on their own side of the river, it happened that a certain man among them, named Robert Jeckel, being nigh unto death (though as yet he knew it not), was seized with a vehement desire to behold George Fox yet once more in the flesh, since full sixteen years had gone by since his visit to the town.
Wherefore this same Robert Jeckel, hearing that his beloved friend was now again to be found at Swarthmoor, dwelling there in much seclusion, seeking to regain the strength that had been sorely wasted in long and terrible imprisonments,—this man, Robert Jeckel, would no longer be persuaded or gainsaid, but set out at once with several others, who were like-minded and desirous to come as speedily as might be to Swarthmoor.
In good heart they set forth, but that same day, and before they had come even as far as unto Hexham, Robert Jeckel was seized with a sore sickness, whereat his friends entreated him to return the way he came to his own home and tender wife. But he refused to be dissuaded and would still press forward. At many other places by the way he was ill and suffering, yet he would not be satisfied to turn back or to stop until he should arrive at Swarthmoor. And thither after many days of sore travel he came.
The Mistress of Swarthmoor was now no longer Margaret Fell but Margaret Fox. Eight full years after the death of her honoured husband, Judge Fell, and after long waiting to be sure that the thing was from the Lord, she had been united in marriage with her beloved friend, George Fox, unto whom she was ever a most loving and dutiful wife. Therefore, when Robert Jeckel arrived with his friends before the high arched stone gateway that led into the avenue that approacheth Swarthmoor Hall, it was Mistress Fox, who, with her husband, came to meet their guests. Close behind followed her youngest daughter, Rachel Fell, the Seventh Sister of Swarthmoor Hall. She, the Judge's pet and plaything in her childhood, was now a woman grown. Seeing by Robert Jeckel's countenance that he was sorely stricken, Mistress Fox led him straight to the fair guest chamber of Swarthmoor, where she and her daughter nursed him with their wonted tenderness and skill, hoping thus, if it might be, to restore him to his home in peace. But it had been otherwise ordained, for Robert Jeckel, arriving at Swarthmoor on the second day of the fifth month that men call July, lay sick there but for nine days and then he died.
During his illness many and good words did he say, among others these: 'Though I was persuaded to stay by the way (being indisposed), before I came to this place, yet this was the place where I would have been, and the place where I should be, whether I live or die.'