Some of the earliest adherents indulged in extravagances of no measured kind. Some of them imitated the Hebrew prophets in the performance of symbolic acts of denunciation, foretelling or warning, going barefoot, or in sackcloth or undress, and, in a few cases, for brief periods, altogether naked; even women in some cases distinguished themselves by extravagance of conduct. The case of James Nayler (1617?-1660), who, in spite of Fox’s grave warning, allowed Messianic homage to be paid to him, is the best known of these instances; they are to be explained partly by mental disturbance, resulting from the undue prominence of a single idea, and partly by the general religious excitement of the time and the rudeness of manners prevailing in the classes of society from which many of these individuals came. It must be remembered that at this time, and for long after, there was no definite or formal membership or system of admission to the society, and it was open to any one by attending the meetings to gain the reputation of being a Quaker.

The activity of the early Friends was not confined to England or even to the British Isles. Fox and others travelled in America and the West India Islands; another reached Jerusalem and preached against the superstition of the monks; Mary Fisher (fl. 1652-1697), “a religious maiden,” visited Smyrna, the Morea and the court of Mahommed IV. at Adrianople; Alexander Parker (1628-1689) went to Africa; others made their way to Rome; two women were imprisoned by the Inquisition at Malta; two men passed into Austria and Hungary; and William Penn, George Fox and several others preached in Holland and Germany.

It was only gradually that the Quaker community clothed itself with an organization. The beginning of this appears to be due to William Dewsbury (1621-1688) and George Fox; it was not until 1666 that a complete system of church organization was established. The introduction of an ordered system and discipline was, naturally, viewed with some suspicion by people taught to believe that the inward light of each individual man was the only true guide for his conduct. The project met with determined opposition for about twenty years (1675-1695) from persons of considerable repute in the body. John Wilkinson and John Story of Westmorland, together with William Rogers of Bristol, raised a party against Fox concerning the management of the affairs of the society, regarding with suspicion any fixed arrangement for meetings for conducting church business, and in fact hardly finding a place for such meetings at all. They stood for the principle of Independency against the Presbyterian form of church government which Fox had recently established in the “Monthly Meetings” (see below). They opposed all arrangement for the orderly distribution of travelling ministers to different localities, and even for the payment of their expenses (see above); they also strongly objected to any disciplinary power being entrusted to the women’s separate meetings for business, which had become of considerable importance after the Plague (1665) and the Fire of London (1666) in consequence of the need for poor relief. They also claimed the right to meet secretly for worship in time of persecution (see below). They drew a considerable following away with them and set up a rival organization, but before long a number returned to their original leader. William Rogers set forth his views in The Christian Quaker, 1680; the story of the dissension is told, to some extent, in The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, by R. Barclay (not the “Apologist”); the best account is given in a pamphlet entitled Micah’s Mother by John S. Rowntree.

Robert Barclay (q.v.), a descendant of an ancient Scottish family, who had received a liberal education, principally in Paris, at the Scots College, of which his uncle was rector, joined the Quakers about 1666, and William Penn (q.v.) came to them about two years later. The Quakers had always been active controversialists, and a great body of tracts and papers was issued by them; but hitherto these had been of small account from a literary point of view. Now, however, a more logical and scholarly aspect was given to their literature by the writings of Barclay, especially his Apology for the True Christian Divinity published in Latin (1676) and in English (1678), and by the works of Penn, amongst which No Cross No Crown and the Maxims or Fruits of Solitude are the best known.

During the whole time between their rise and the passing of the Toleration Act 1689, the Quakers were the object of almost continuous persecution which they endured with extraordinary constancy and patience; they insisted Persecution. on the duty of meeting openly in time of persecution, declining to hold secret assemblies for worship as other Nonconformists were doing. The number who died in prison approached 400, and at least 100 more perished from violence and ill-usage. A petition to the first parliament of Charles II. stated that 3179 had been imprisoned; the number rose to 4500 in 1662, the Fifth Monarchy outbreak, in which Friends were in no way concerned, being largely responsible for this increase. There is no evidence to show that they were in any way connected with any of the plots of the Commonwealth or Restoration periods. A petition to James II. in 1685 stated that 1460 were then in prison. Under the Quaker Act of 1662 and the Conventicle Act of 1664 a number were transported out of England, and under the last-named act and that of 1670 (the second Conventicle Act) hundreds of households were despoiled of all their goods. The penal laws under which Friends suffered may be divided chronologically into those of the Commonwealth and the Restoration periods. Under the former there were a few charges of plotting against the government. Several imprisonments, including that of George Fox at Derby in 1650-1651, were brought about under the Blasphemy Act of 1650, which inflicted penalties on any one who asserted himself to be very God or equal with God, a charge to which the Friends were peculiarly liable owing to their doctrine of perfection. After a royalist insurrection in 1655, a proclamation was issued announcing that persons suspected of Roman Catholicism would be required to take an oath abjuring the papal authority and transubstantiation. The Quakers, accused as they were of being Jesuits, and refusing to take the oath, suffered under this proclamation and under the more stringent act of 1656. A considerable number were flogged under the Vagrancy Acts (39 Eliz. c. 4; 7 Jac. I. c. 4), which were strained to cover the case of itinerant Quaker preachers. They also came under the provisions of the acts of 1644, 1650 and 1656 directed against travelling on the Lord’s day. The interruption of preachers when celebrating divine service rendered the offender liable to three months’ imprisonment under a statute of the first year of Mary, but Friends generally waited to speak till the service was over.[2] The Lord’s Day Act 1656 also enacted penalties against any one disturbing the service, but apart from statute many Friends were imprisoned for open contempt of ministers and magistrates. At the Restoration 700 Friends, imprisoned for contempt and some minor offences, were set at liberty. After the Restoration there began a persecution of Friends and other Nonconformists as such, notwithstanding the king’s Declaration of Breda which had proclaimed liberty for tender consciences as long as no disturbance of the peace was caused. Among the most common causes of imprisonment was the practice adopted by judges and magistrates of tendering to Friends (particularly when no other charge could be proved against them) the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance (5 Eliz. c. 1 & 7 Jac. I. c. 6). The refusal in any circumstance to take an oath led to much suffering. The Act 3 Jac. I. c. 4, passed in consequence of the Gunpowder Plot, against Roman Catholics for not attending church, was put in force against Friends, and under it enormous fines were levied. The Quaker Act 1662 and the Conventicle Acts of 1664 and 1670, designed to enforce attendance at church, and inflicting severe penalties on those attending other religious gatherings, were responsible for the most severe persecution of all. The act of 1670 gave to informers a pecuniary interest (they were to have one-third of the fine imposed) in hunting down Nonconformists who broke the law, and this and other statutes were unduly strained to secure convictions. A somewhat similar act of 35 Eliz. c. 1., enacting even more severe penalties, had never been repealed, and was sometimes put in force against Friends. The Militia Act 1663 (14 Car. II. c. 3), enacting fines against those who refused to find a man for the militia, was occasionally put in force. The refusal to pay tithes and other ecclesiastical demands led to continuous and heavy distraints, under the various laws made in that behalf. This state of things continued to some extent into the 19th century. For further information see “The Penal Laws affecting Early Friends in England” (from which the foregoing summary is taken) by Wm. Chas. Braithwaite in The First Publishers of Truth. On the 15th of March 1672 Charles II. issued his declaration suspending the penal laws in ecclesiastical matters, and shortly afterwards, by pardon under the great seal, he released nearly 500 Quakers from prison, remitted their fines and released such of their estates as were forfeited by praemunire. It is of interest to note that, although John Bunyan was bitterly opposed to Quakers, his friends, on hearing of the petition contemplated by them, requested them to insert his name on the list, and in this way he gained his freedom. The dissatisfaction which this exercise of the royal prerogative aroused induced the king, in the following year, to withdraw his proclamation, and, notwithstanding appeals to him, the persecution continued intermittently throughout his reign. On the accession of James II. the Quakers addressed him (see above) with some hope on account of his known friendship for William Penn, and the king not long afterwards directed a stay of proceedings in all matters pending in the exchequer against Quakers on the ground of non-attendance at the national worship. In 1687 came his declaration for liberty of conscience, and, after the Revolution of 1688, the Toleration Act 1689 put an end to the persecution of Quakers (along with other Dissenters) for non-attendance at church. For many years after this they were liable to imprisonment for non-payment of tithes, and, together with other Dissenters, they remained under various civil disabilities, the gradual removal of which is part of the general history of England. In the years succeeding the Toleration Act at least twelve of their number were prosecuted (often more than once in the spiritual and other courts) for keeping school without a bishop’s licence. It is coming to be recognized that the growth of religious toleration owed much to the early Quakers who, with the exception of a few Baptists at the first, stood almost alone among Dissenters in holding their public meetings openly and regularly.

The Toleration Act was not the only law of William and Mary which benefited Quakers. The legislature has continually had regard to their refusal to take oaths, and not only the said act but also another of the same reign, and numerous others, subsequently passed, have respected the peculiar scruples of Friends (see Davis’s Digest of Legislative Enactments relating to Friends, Bristol, 1820).

2. Period 1689-1835.—From the beginning of the 18th century the zeal of the Quaker body abated. Although many “General” and other meetings were held in different parts of the country for the purpose of setting forth Period of Decline. Quakerism, the notion that the whole Christian church would be absorbed in it, and that the Quakers were, in fact, the church, gave place to the conception that they were “a peculiar people” to whom, more than to others, had been given an understanding of the will of God. The Quakerism of this period was largely of a traditional kind; it dwelt with increasing emphasis on the peculiarities of its dress and language; it rested much upon discipline, which developed and hardened into rigorous forms; and the correction or exclusion of its members occupied more attention than did the winning of converts.

Excluded from political and municipal life by the laws which required either the taking of an oath or joining in the Lord’s Supper according to the rites of the Established Church, excluding themselves not only from the frivolous pursuits of pleasure, but from music and art in general, attaining no high average level of literary culture (though producing some men of eminence in science and medicine), the Quakers occupied themselves mainly with trade, the business of their Society, and the calls of philanthropy. From early times George Fox and many others had taken a keen interest in education, and in 1779 there was founded at Ackworth, near Pontefract, a school for boys and girls; this was followed by the reconstitution, in 1808, of a school at Sidcot in the Mendips, and in 1811, of one in Islington Road, London; it was afterwards removed to Croydon, and, later, to Saffron Walden. Others have since been established at York and in other parts of England and Ireland. None of them are now reserved exclusively for the children of Friends.

During this period Quakerism was sketched from the outside by two very different men. Voltaire (Dictionnaire Philosophique, “Quaker,” “Toleration”) described the body, which attracted his curiosity, his sympathy and his sneers, with all his brilliance. Thomas Clarkson (Portraiture of Quakerism) has given an elaborate and sympathetic account of the Quakers as he knew them when he travelled amongst them from house to house on his crusade against the slave trade.

3. From 1835.—During the 18th century the doctrine of the Inward Light acquired such exclusive prominence as to bring about a tendency to disparage, or, at least, to neglect, the written word (the Scriptures) as being “outward” and non-essential. In the early part of the 19th century an American Friend, Elias Hicks, pressed this doctrine to its furthest limits, and, in doing so, he laid stress on “Christ within” in such a way as practically to take little account of the person and work of the “outward,” i.e. the historic Christ. The result was a separation of the Society in America into two divisions which persist to the present day (see below, “Quakerism in America”). This led to a counter movement in England, known as the Beacon Controversy, from the name of a warning publication issued by Isaac Crewdson of Manchester in 1835, advocating views of a pronounced “evangelical” type. Much controversy ensued, and a certain number of Friends (Beaconites as they are sometimes called) departed from the parent stock. They left behind them, however, many influential members, who may be described as a middle party, and who strove to give a more “evangelical” tone to Quaker doctrine. Joseph John Gurney of Norwich, a brother of Elizabeth Fry, by means of his high social position and his various writings (some published before 1835), was the most prominent actor in this movement. Those who quitted the Society maintained, for some little time, a separate organization of their own, but sooner or later most of them joined the Evangelical Church or the Plymouth Brethren.