HANS MEYLI, SR., AND HIS SON’S WIFE, ABOUT THE YEAR 1638.[351]
In the Knonow Bailiwick, the persecution, at this time, broke out with great violence, so that at one time about thirty thief catchers[352] entered, as by storm, the houses of the Anabaptists and defenseless Christians, made many watch-fires, raged and stormed, broke open doors and windows, ran with bare swords through the houses, and afterwards drank and rioted worse than soldiers.
Among others there was also vehemently assailed the house of an old man, named Hans Meyli, a minister of the church, who himself had been imprisoned in the year 1637; but now they also took along his son Martin’s wife, notwithstanding she had an infant at the breast.
She was bound hard, and confined in the convent prison called Othenbach, fed for a long time on bread and water, and very severely treated, in order to cause her to apostatize; but she continued steadfast in all her temptations, and was ultimately, through the grace of God, wonderfully delivered from bonds. Subsequently, being enceinte, she was again apprehended, and taken to the council house at Zurich, thence to Othenbach, and finally into the hospital, and there made fast to a chain, until the pains of travail came upon her, when she was loosed from her bonds, and seeing an opportunity for deliverance, once more escaped the persecutors’ hands. See Tract of the year 1645, by Jer. M., fol. 4, B. and fol. 5, A.
Note.—The authorities laid their hands also on the property, movable as well as immovable, of the old man, and realized from the sale of it fourteen thousand guilders, all of which they kept for themselves, without making any restitution.
Note.—On the 3d of May, A. D. 1639, the two sons of the aforementioned Hans Meyli, namely, Hans Meyli, Jr., and Martin Meyli, together with the wife of this Hans Meyli, were apprehended and imprisoned at Zurich, where there was inflicted upon them, especially upon the men, much misery, vexation and harm, with fetters and handcuffs, as well as iron shackles, which were put upon them twice, in order to make them apostatize from their faith.
Their children, as poor, forsaken orphans, were put out among strangers, which, as may easily be supposed, must have caused no small sorrow and anxiety to the hearts of these imprisoned parents; nevertheless they remained unchanged in their faith, refusing to apostatize therefrom, notwithstanding their love to their afflicted children, to whom they could not come, until they, on the Friday before Easter, A. D. 1641, after three years imprisonment, together with others of their fellow brethren, were delivered, in an unexpected manner, from their bonds, keeping a good conscience. See Tract of the year 1645, by Jer. Mang., fol. 5, A. B.
CATHARINA MULERIN, A. D. 1639.
CATHARINA MULERIN APPREHENDED.