'At night George Fox came: and after supper my husband was sitting in the parlour, and I asked him, "if George Fox might come in?" And he said, "Yes." So George came in without any compliment, and walked into the room, and began to speak presently; and the family, and James Nayler, and Richard Farnsworth came all in; and he spoke very excellently as ever I heard him, and opened Christ's and the apostles' practices, which they were in, in their day. And he opened the night of apostacy since the apostles' days, and laid open the priests and their practices in the apostacy that if all England had been there, I thought they could not have denied the truth of these things. And so my husband came to see clearly the truth of what he spoke, and was very quiet that night, said no more and went to bed. The next morning came Lampitt, priest of Ulverston, and got my husband in the garden, and spoke much to him there, but my husband had seen so much the night before, that the priest got little entrance upon him.... After awhile the priest went away; this was on the sixth day of the week, about the fifth month (July) 1652. And at our house divers Friends were speaking to one another, how there were several convinced hereaways and we could not tell where to get a meeting: my husband being also present, he overheard and said of his own accord, "You may meet here, if you will:" and that was the first meeting that we had that he offered of his own accord. And then notice was given that day and the next to Friends, and there was a good large meeting the first day, which was the first meeting that was at Swarthmoor, and so continued there a meeting from 1652 till 1690 [when the present Meeting-house, given by George Fox, was built]. And my husband went that day to the steeple-house, and none with him but his clerk and his groom that rid with him; and the priest and the people were all fearfully troubled; but praised be the Lord, they never got their wills upon us to this day.'
George Fox in his Journal also records his first eventful interview with Judge Fell as follows:
'I found that the priests and professors and Justice Sawrey had much incensed Judge Fell against the truth with their lies; but when I came to speak with him I answered all his objections, and so thoroughly satisfied him by the scriptures that he was convinced in his judgment. He asked me "if I was that George Fox whom Justice Robinson spoke so much in commendation of among many of the parliament men?" I told him I had been with Justice Robinson and Justice Hotham, in Yorkshire, who were very civil and loving to me. After we had discoursed a pretty while together, Judge Fell himself was satisfied also, and came to see, by the openings of the spirit of God in his heart, over all the priests and teachers of the world, and did not go to hear them for some years before he died. He sometimes wished I was awhile with Judge Bradshaw to discourse with him.'
This was Judge Bradshaw the regicide, and, coming as it did from such a friend of Cromwell's as Judge Fell, the remark was probably a high compliment.
The following year, 1653, George Fox came again to Swarthmoor, where he says he had 'great openings from the Lord, not only of divine and spiritual matters, but also of outward things relating to the civil government. Being one day in Swarthmoor Hall when Judge Fell and Justice Benson were talking of the news in the newsbook, and of the Parliament then sitting, (called the long Parliament) I was moved to tell them, "before that day two weeks the Parliament should be broken up, and the speaker plucked out of his chair"; and that day two weeks Justice Benson told Judge Fell that now he saw that George was a true prophet, for Oliver had broken up the parliament.' Although Judge Fell never actually joined Friends he was their constant protector and helper, and, in the words of Fox, 'A wall to the believers.' If he did not himself attend the meetings in the great Hall at Swarthmoor, he was wont to leave the door open as he sat in his Justice's chair in his little oak-panelled study close at hand, and thus hear all that was said, himself unseen. How entirely his wife had regained his confidence, and how entirely Lampitt and Sawrey had failed to poison his mind against her or her new teacher, is shown by the following letter written about this time, when the Judge was away on one of his frequent absences. It is the only letter to Judge Fell from his wife that has been preserved, but it is ample assurance that no shadow had dimmed the unclouded love of this devoted husband and wife.
'Dear Husband,' Margaret writes, 'My dear love and tender desires to the Lord run forth for thee. I have received a letter this day from you, and am very glad that the Lord carried you on your journey so prosperously.... Dear Heart, mind the Lord above all, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning, and who will overturn all powers that stand before Him.... We sent to my dear brother James Nayler and he is kept very close and cannot be suffered to have any fire. He is not free to eat of the jailor's meat, so they eat very little but bread and water. He writ to us that they are plotting again to get more false witnesses to swear against him things that he never spoke. I sent him 2 lb., but he took but 5 [shillings?]. They are mighty violent in Westmorland and all parts everywhere towards us. They bid 5 lb. to any man that will take George anywhere that they can find him within Westmorland.... The children are all in health, praised be the Lord. George is not with us now, but he remembered his dear love to thee....
'Thy dutiful wife till death,
MARGARET FELL.'
'Swarthmoor, Feb. 18, 1653.'
But whether Margaret Fell ever entirely forgave Justice Sawrey for the part he had played in trying to alienate her husband from her, is, to say the least, doubtful. Anyhow, later on she wrote of him as 'a catterpillar which shall be swept out of the way.' And 'swept out of the way' he eventually was, some years later, when it is recorded that 'he was drowned in a puddle upon the road coming from York.' But he was to have time and opportunity to do much harm to Friends, and especially to George Fox, before that happened, as the next two stories will show.