Sometime after it happened that T. Curtis, his wife and man-servant being all prisoners, Armorer sent his man to inquire if there were any in the house more than the family, to which the maid having answered no, a little after Armorer came himself, and knocked at the door; but the maid being in fear, did not open it. Armorer then pulling an instrument out of his pocket, picked the lock, entered the house, and searching from room to room, came at length where he found one Joseph Coale, who dwelt in the house, and was not well at that time; and Armorer taking him by the arm, and pulling him down stairs, said to him, ‘Will you take the oath of allegiance?’ Which he refusing, was sent to the house of correction, whither the day before seven women, taken from a meeting, had also been brought. This bold act of picking the lock he did at other times also, and once when the maid was gone out to carry some victuals to her master and mistress in prison. In the meanwhile he searched the warehouse, where was much cloth; and to a woman that was there, and spoke against his picking of the locks, he said, ‘What have you to do with it?’ And ‘Where’s that whore?’ meaning the maid servant. The woman answered him, she had to do with it; for she was to see that nobody did steal any thing out of the house. Besides, Armorer continually made it his business to disturb the meeting which commonly was twice a week; and then he used to curse, and to strike those he found there with a great cane, always sending some to prison. Having once caused three women to be brought before him from the house of correction, he would have them pay a fine for having been at a meeting; to which one Anne Harrison said, ‘Thou hast got our house already that we built, and hast taken away our means; and wouldst thou have me pay more money when I have broken no law? We were but four above the age of sixteen years, and the act says, it must be above four.’ To which Armorer said, his man told him there were six: and two of them ran away. ‘It is false,’ said Anne, ‘there was Frances Kent, but she being a midwife, was fetched out of town; and as for the sixth, she was not there.’ But Armorer not regarding whatever Anne said, spoke in a rude manner, ‘I shall have Mrs. Kent, and then let the best lady in the land want her, she shall not go, except the king or court send for her.’
If I should mention all the enormities of Armorer’s violent behaviour, this relation must needs be very large; and therefore I pass by the most cases, and touch but on some few. More than once it happened when the prisoners being brought to their trial, reproved Armorer because of his injustice, and put him in mind that once he must give an account for his bad deeds; he in a most impudent manner said, ‘you shall see at the day of judgment whose arse will be blackest, yours or mine.’ And when a prisoner told him, it was an uncivil thing for one called a justice to speak such words, he replied, ‘Why, sirrah, what incivility is it? Is not your nose your nose, and your arse your arse?’ Other absurdities the prisoners met with in the court, I pass by, as also how from time to time, they were treated when they refused the oath. From what hath been said already in more than one place concerning the like cases, one may easily guess how matters were transacted here, which sometimes was so grossly, that the spectators showed their dislike. When once the jury for want of good witnesses, could not agree to find the bill, Armorer rose off the bench, and appeared as a witness. But notwithstanding the jury, returning the second time, brought it in ignoramus. Upon which the other justice said to them, that sir William Armorer, an honourable gentleman, had taken his oath also. To which the jury returned, it was true, sir William Armorer was an honourable gentleman, but was a man subject to passion. And they continuing unwilling to bring in the prisoners guilty, the two justices Proctor and Armorer, (for there were then no more on the bench,) for all that would not discharge the prisoners, but sent them to jail again, as seditious persons; for Proctor had told the jury the day before, that if they did not bring in the prisoners guilty, they would make William Armorer and the clerk perjured persons.
Anne, the wife of Thomas Curtis, being called to the bar, and asked if she would take the oath, said, ‘I look on it as a very hard thing, that I should be required to take this oath, being under covert, and my husband being here a present sufferer, for the same thing; for there is no other woman in England, that I have heard of, under covert, that is required to take that oath, and kept in prison on that account.’ But Armorer full of passion, cried, ‘Hold your tongue, Nan, and turn your back.’ And so she, with another woman, that had also been required to take the oath, was sent back to jail, as dangerous and suspected persons. At length some justices procured her liberty; and this so displeased Armorer, that he did not rest before he had her in prison again: but others it seems so eagerly desired her liberty, that she was discharged a second time, though her husband’s goods and money were seized. How a prisoner who spoke something in his own defence, was threatened to be gagged, how girls were sent to the house of correction, and how Armorer coming in winter-time into the meeting, and having got a bucket of water into the room, he himself threw it with a nasty bowl in the faces of some young maidens, I cursorily skipt over. He seemed exceedingly offended with Anne Curtis, who being a witty woman, did not omit, when occasion was offered, to tell of his uncivil behaviour: and therefore he soon had her in jail again; and when it was proposed in the summer-time to discharge some of the prisoners, because of the extreme hot weather, provided they gave security, ‘No,’ said Armorer, ‘Mrs. Curtis shall not go out, though she would give security, but she shall lie in jail till she rot.’ But how wicked soever he was, yet he could not prevent, that all his exorbitant carriage against the Quakers was published in print.
But such behaviour was at that time no rare or uncommon thing; for since persecution was continually cloaked with a pretence of rebellion and sedition all over the country, such were found, who to their utmost power did persecute the Quakers, so called; as among others, one Henry Marshall, priest at Crosthwait in Westmoreland, who being also a prebendary, and having several benefices, yet how great soever his revenues were, kept poor people of that persuasion in prison for not paying tithes to him: and once he said very presumptuously from the pulpit, that not one Quaker should be left alive in England. But this temerity he did not out-live long: for as he was going half-undressed to his chamber to bed, he fell down stairs, as was concluded from the circumstances; for he was found lying on the floor, with his skull broken, wrestling with death, without being able to speak one word; and being taken up he died, leaving his wife and children in such a condition, that by reason of debts they fell into poverty.
About this time a certain popish author, who expressed his name no further than with the letters A. S. gave forth a book called, ‘The Reconciler of Religions; or, A Decider of all Controversies in matters of Faith.’ Josiah Coale, who was very zealous for religion, and well saw what this author aimed at, answered him by a book that appeared in print, with the title of, ‘The Whore unveiled; or The Mystery of the Deceit of the Church of Rome revealed.’ Now although the said A. S. chiefly struck at the Quakers as the worst of heretics, falsely perverting their doctrine, as importing, that the same spirit that reproved Judas of sin, did also induce him to desperation, and to hang himself; yet he omitted not to encounter the doctrine of other Protestant societies; and the Roman church he stated as the true church, from which they were unjustly departed, and to whom they must all return again: for the Roman, said he, was the true church, and not any other; she was the holy Catholic and apostolical church, that was infallible, and could not err, and had the power to work miracles. He also asserted, that she was one in matters of faith, that she was governed by one invisible head Christ, and by a visible head, the pope; and that therefore she was the true church. Now for as much as he held forth at large these and several other positions, so Josiah Coale did not omit to answer all these pretences distinctly and emphatically; for he was an undaunted and zealous disputant. Besides the superstition, idolatry, and cruel persecution of the Roman church, which had taken away the lives of many thousands of honest and pious people, supplied abundant matter to Josiah Coale, to show the papal errors, and clearly to prove her to be the false church. For though he did not deny that the true church was Catholic, or universal, yet he denied that the universality of the church of Rome was a sufficient argument to prove her to be the true church, ‘What church, (thus he queried,) is more universal than the great whore, the false church, who had a name written, Mystery Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the Earth? Who sits upon the waters, which are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues? And did not the whole world wonder after the beast that carried the whore? Did she not sit as queen over them all, with her fair profession, or golden cup in her hand, full of abominations, and filthiness of her fornication? And did not all the inhabitants of the earth, and the kings of the earth, drink of the wine of her fornication, and commit fornication with her? Mark how universal was this great whore, the false church; and how confident she was: for she said in her heart that she should see no sorrow; and she glorified herself, and reigned over the kings of the earth. Is not this the very state of the church of Rome at this day? Doth she not reign over the kings of the earth? And hath she not done so long, even for many ages? And how she hath exercised authority over kings, may appear from the case of the emperor Frederick, who was fain to hold the pope’s stirrup while he got on horseback. And did not the great whore, which John saw, drink the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus. Surely the histories of many generations past testify this. And was she not to have blood given her to drink? as may appear not obscurely from Rev. xvii. 6.’ At this rate Josiah Coale encountered the masked A. S. but in a more copious way; and thus he answered his assertions. To that, that the church of Rome should always remain to the end of the world, and that therefore she was infallible, J. Coale said, that the bare affirmation of A. S. was no proof, except he would produce that saying of the mother of harlots, ‘I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.’ But indeed that would be a very pitiful argument to prove the church of Rome infallible, unless she was first proved to be the true church. And as J. Coale answered these and other objections at large, so he showed also the vanity of the boast of miracles, of which the church of Rome gloried; and he refuted all the falsities which that anonymous author had belched out against the Quakers, as a people that might be wronged without incurring any danger. But I omit to recite all J. Coale’s answers for brevity sake; yet may make mention of a poem which he wrote sometime before, when he was prisoner at Launceston, in Cornwall, to which the reader is referred, being to be found in Josiah Coale’s works, at page 111.
Thus zealously J. Coale wrote against popery; and yet such hath been the malice of many, that they represented the Quakers as favourers of the church of Rome, though on many occasions they had effectually shown the contrary. But their enemies endeavoured to brand them many ways; and they left no stone unturned to blacken them; to which sometimes false brethren gave occasion: for about this time there were yet many of the adherents of John Perrot, who often ill-treated, and spoke evil of those who did not approve their absurdities. This befel Richard Farnsworth, one of the first preachers among those called Quakers, though he was a man of a notable gift, and on his dying bed he gave evidences of a firm and steadfast trust in God; for it was not long before this time that he fell sick, and deceased at London. Among the many expressions which signified his good frame of mind, and the divine consolation he felt, were also these words, that were taken in writing from his mouth:
‘Friends,
‘God hath been mightily with me, and hath stood by me at this time; and his power and presence hath accompanied me all along, though some think that I am under a cloud for something. But God hath appeared for the owning of our testimony, and hath broken in upon me as a flood, and I am filled with his love more than I am able to express; and God is really appeared for us,’ &c.
This he spoke but a short time before his departure; and exhorted his friends to faithfulness and steadfastness, and that nothing might be suffered to creep in of another nature than the truth they professed, to intermix therewith, saying, ‘No linsey-woolsey garment must be worn.’ Some more consolatory words he spoke, and his last testimony was as a seal unto all the former testimonies he had given for the Lord. And after having lain yet an hour or two, he slept in peace with the Lord, and left a good repute behind, with those who truly were acquainted with him, and knew how zealously he laboured in the ministry of the gospel for many years.
Now I return again to G. Fox, who was this year not only in Wales, but in several other places, without being imprisoned, though at Shrewsbury, where he had a great meeting, the officers being called together by the mayor, consulted what to do against him, since it was said, the great Quaker of England was come to town. But they could not agree among themselves, some being for imprisoning him, and others for letting him alone: and they being thus divided, he escaped their hands.