There were far fewer big towns in England in those days than there are now. Probably at least two-thirds of the people lived in the country, and only the remaining third were townsfolk: nowadays the proportions are more than reversed. There was then no thickly populated 'Black Country'; there were then no humming mills in the woollen districts of Yorkshire, no iron and steel works soiling the pure rivers of Tees and Wear and Tyne. Most of the chief towns and industries at that time were in the South.
'London had a population of half a million. Bristol, the principal seaport, had about thirty thousand; Norwich, with a similar number of inhabitants, was still the largest manufacturing city. The publishers of Truth would now make these three places their chief fields of service, showing something of the same concentration of effort at strategic centres which marked the extension of Christianity through the Roman Empire, under the leadership of Paul.'[19]
A certain impetuous lad named James Parnell, already a noted Minister though still in his teens, was hard at work in the counties of East Anglia. In the next story we shall hear how Howgill and Burrough fared in their mission 'to conquer London.'
Splendid tidings came from the two Johns, John Audland and John Camm, of their progress in Bristol and the West: 'The mighty power of God is that way; that is a precious city and a gallant people: their net is like to break with fishes, they have caught so much there and all the coast thereabout.' The memory of the enthusiasm of those early days lingered long in the West, in the memory of those who had shared in them. 'Ah! those great meetings in the Orchard at Bristol I may not forget,' wrote John Audland many years later, 'I would so gladly have spread my net over all and have gathered all, that I forgot myself, never considering the inability of my body,—but it's well, my reward is with me, and I am content to give up and be with the Lord, for that my soul values above all things.'
Women also were among the first Publishers of Truth and helped to spread the message. Even before Burrough and Howgill reached London, two women had been there, gently scattering the new seed. It is recorded that one of them, named Isabella Buttery, 'sometimes spoke a few words in this small meeting.'
Two Quaker girls from Kendal, Elizabeth Leavens and 'little Elizabeth Fletcher,' were the first to preach in Oxford, and a terrible time they had of it. 'Little Elizabeth Fletcher' was then only seventeen, 'a modest, grave, young woman.' Jane Waugh, one of the 'convinced' serving-maids at Cammsgill, was a friend of hers; but Jane Waugh's turn for suffering had not yet come. She was still in the North when the two Elizabeths reached Oxford. This is the account of what befell them there: 'The 20th day of the 4th month [June] 1654 came to this city two maids, who went through the streets and into the Colleges, steeple and tower houses, preaching repentance and declaring the word of the Lord to the people.... On the 25th day of the same month they were moved to go to Martin's Mass House (alias) Carefox, where one of those maids, after the priest had done, spake something in answer to what the priest had before spoken in exhortation to the people, and presently were by two Justices sent to prison.' The Mayor of Oxford seems to have been pleased with the behaviour of the two girls and caused them to be set at liberty again. But the Vice-Chancellor and the Justices would not agree to this, and 'earnestly enquired from whence they came, and their business to Oxford. They answered, "they were commanded of the Lord to come"; and it being demanded "what to do," they answered, to "declare against Sin and Ungodliness, which they lived in." And at this answer the Vice-Chancellor and the Justices ordered their punishment, to be whipped out of town, and demanding of the Mayor to agree to the same, and for refusing, said they would do it of themselves, and signing a paper, the contents whereof was this: To be severely whipped, and sent out of Town as Vagrants. And forthwith, because of the tumult, they were put into the Cage, a place common for the worst of people; and accordingly the next morning, they were whipped, and sent away, and on the backside of the City, meeting some scholars, they were moved to speak to them, who fell on them very violently, and drew them into John's College, where they tied them back to back and pumped water on them, until they were almost stifled; and they being met at another time as they passed through a Graveyard, where a corpse was to be buried, Elizabeth Holme spake something to the Priest and people, and one Ann Andrews thrust her over a grave stone, which hurt she felt near to her dying day.'
Two other women, Elizabeth Williams and a certain Mary Fisher (who was hereafter to go on a Mission to no less a person than the Grand Turk), were also cruelly flogged at Cambridge for daring to 'publish Truth' there. 'The Mayor ... issued his warrant to the Constable to whip them at the Market Cross till the blood ran down their bodies; and ordered three of his sergeants to see that sentence, equally cruel and lawless, severely executed. The poor women kneeling down, in Christian meekness besought the Lord to forgive him, for that he knew not what he did: so they were led to the Market Cross, calling upon God to strengthen their Faith. The Executioner commanded them to put off their clothes, which they refused. Then he stripped them naked to the waist, put their arms into the whipping-post, and executed the Mayor's warrant far more cruelly than is usually done to the worst of malefactors, so that their flesh was miserably cut and torn. The constancy and patience which they expressed under this barbarous usage was astonishing to the beholders, for they endured the cruel torture without the least change of countenance or appearance of uneasiness, and in the midst of their punishment sang and rejoiced, saying, "The Lord be blessed, the Lord be praised, who hath thus honoured us and strengthened us to suffer for his Name's sake." ... As they were led back into the town they exhorted the people to fear God, not man, telling them "this was but the beginning of the sufferings of the people of God."'[20]
These two women were the first Friends to be publicly whipped in England. But their prophecy that 'this was but the beginning' was only too literally fulfilled.
Not only had bodily sufferings to be undergone by these brave 'First Publishers.' Malicious reports were also spread against them, which must have been almost harder to bear.
William Prynne, the same William Prynne who had had his own ears cropped in earlier days by order of the Star Chamber, but who had not, apparently, learned charity to others through his own sufferings, published a pamphlet that was spread abroad throughout England. It was called 'The Quakers unmasked, and clearly detected to be but the Spawn of Romish Frogs, Jesuits and Franciscan Friars, sent from Rome to seduce the intoxicated giddy-headed English Nation.' George Fox called the pamphlet in which he answered this charge by an almost equally uncharitable title: 'The Unmasking and Discovery of Antichrist, with all the false Prophets, by the true Light which comes from Christ Jesus.'