Prosecution in this year was not very sharp at London, but for all that, active in other places, so that I do not want matter to make a relation of it; but to shun prolixity, I will mention but one case.
One Robert Tilles, in Buckingham, sick of a consumption, and believing his death to be nigh at hand, desired some of his friends to visit him. At this invitation some came to his house, yet not above the number of fourteen persons; and two informers went and acquainted a justice of the peace thereof, who recorded this small assembly as a seditious meeting, and fined the sick man twenty pounds for this pretended transgression; and so his goods were seized, and six cows taken from him. And one Robert Smith, being overheard by the informers to have spoken five or six words, was fined also twenty pounds as a preacher; which fine was afterwards extorted from some others then present.
The peace between England and Holland was concluded this year, at the instance of Spain, but the war between Holland and France continued still.
1675.
I now pass over to the year 1675. About the beginning whereof G. Fox came to London, whilst the parliament was sitting, who advised the king to the suppressing of the growth of popery; but in the meanwhile the Quakers bore the chiefest shock; for their religious meetings were styled seditious conventicles.
After G. Fox had been at the yearly-meeting of his friends at London, he left the city, and went to Lancaster, and from thence to Swarthmore, where having a dwelling-place of his own, he staid about two years to rest himself: having contracted distempers by hardships and imprisonments, which had much weakened his body. Being there, he understood that four young students at Aberdeen were convinced at a dispute held by Robert Barclay and George Keith, with some of the scholars of that university. And being visited by some of the neighbourhood, among others came also to him colonel Kirby, his old persecutor, who now carried himself very lovingly, and bid him welcome into the country. Yet notwithstanding this appearance of kindness, sometime afterwards he ordered the constables of Ulverstone to tell G. Fox, that they must have no more meetings at Swarthmore, for if they had, they were commanded by him to break them up; and they were to come the next Sunday after. But this threatening did not make G. F. afraid; for he, with his friends, had a meeting on that First day of the week, and none came to disturb them. During his abode at home, when he did not travel to and fro in the country, as he used to do, to edify his friends by his ministry, he supplied this with his pen, and exhorted them by writing, where he could not do it by word of mouth: besides he wrote other serviceable treatises, for he was a diligent man.
In the meanwhile persecution for the worship of God did not cease altogether: the act against seditious conventicles gave opportunity to the malicious to disturb the religious meetings of the Quakers, who never met in a clandestine manner, but always publicly: and on this account fines were extorted from them; to which may be added, that oftentimes they were still very ill treated, and most grievously abused, as among the rest at Long Clawston in Leicestershire, where some women were dragged by the neck along the street; and among these a widow, the skin of whose neck was rubbed off by this rudeness; and an ancient woman, above seventy, was violently cast down to the ground. Some of the men were dragged by the hair, and others by their legs, besides the many blows given them: and some were trodden upon till the blood gushed out of their mouth and nose. Yet all this they bore patiently, without making any resistance; whereby it happened sometimes that some who had not the gift of preaching, reached others by their patient suffering; showing by their meek behaviour, that their works did agree with their Christian profession: and though many were robbed of all they had, even clothes and beds not excepted, yet they continued steadfast without fainting; though often it was called a meeting when some were come together, not properly to perform religious worship, as hath been related already.
At Kirby Muckloe, where some were come to the house of John Penford, to provide for their poor, the priest of the parish, called John Dixon, informed against them by letter to Wenlock Stanly of Branston, who sent three of his servants to take inspection of the said meeting; and though these looking into the book, in which the charitable distributions were entered, found that this meeting had been only to consider of the necessities of the poor, yet several were fined, and Penford himself twenty pounds for his house, and ten pounds for the preacher, when there was never any one there; but they having heard him speak, this was counted sufficient to make him pass for a preacher. Now though he and Richard Woodland appealed for justice, yet the court positively denied their appeal, unless they would first take the oath of allegiance. This was the old snare, so that the hearing of the matter was denied, and treble damage given against them.
At Lewes in Sussex, the priest, William Snat, became himself an informer, and went several times to the Quakers’ meeting there; and from thence to the justice Henry Shully, to whom he declared on oath, in whose house the meeting had been, and who had preached; and this was so gross, that once he gave a false information with respect to the house; but the gain proceeding from this work, how abominable soever, did shine so alluringly, that his kinsman, James Clark, entered upon this informer’s office: which any one could easily do, without making suit for it.
In Norfolk, the rage of the persecutors was such, that some having been bereaved of all, were obliged, even in winter time, (as amongst the rest, Joseph Harrison, with his wife and children,) to lie on straw; and yet they, unwearied, did not leave frequenting their religious meeting; nay, even the dead were not suffered to rest, for outrageous barbarity came to that pitch, that Mary, the wife of Francis Larder, being dead and buried, was, by order of one Thomas Bretland, dug up again, whereby the coffin was broken, which they tied together, and carrying it away, exposed the corpse in the market-place. Thus this deceased woman was no more suffered to lie quiet in her grave, than in her sick bed, where the day before her death, she had been threatened by order of one Christopher Bedinfield, to have her bed taken from under her while living. Now the reason of thus taking up the corpse was, that though her husband was one of those called Quakers, yet she not being properly a member of that society, it was taken ill that she had been buried in a plain way, without paying to the priest his pretended due, for the ordinary service over the dead.