CHAPTER 1 (9)

In the afternoon I was brought up again, and put among the thieves some time, where I stood with my hat on till the jailer took it off. Then the jury having found this new indictment against me “for not taking the oath,” I was called to the bar; and the judge asked me, “what I would say for myself:” I bid them read the indictment, for I would not answer to that which I did not hear. The clerk read it, and as he read the judge said, “take heed it be not false again;” but he read it in such a manner that I could hardly understand what he read. When he had done, the judge asked me, “what I said to the indictment?” I told him, “at once hearing so large a writing read, and at such a distance that I could not distinctly hear all the parts of it, I could not well tell what to say to it; but if he would let me have a copy, and give me time to consider it, I would answer it.” This put them to a little stand; but after a while the judge asked me “what time I would have?” I said, “till the next assize.” “But,” said he, “what plea will you now make? are you guilty or not guilty?” I said, “I am not guilty at all of denying swearing obstinately and wilfully; and as for those things mentioned in the oath, as jesuitical plots and foreign powers, I utterly deny them in my heart; and if I could take any oath, I should take that; but I never took any oath in my life.” The judge said, “I said well; but,” said he, “the king is sworn, the parliament is sworn, I am sworn, the justices are sworn, and the law is preserved by oaths.” I told him, “they had had sufficient experience of men’s swearing, and he had seen how the justices and jury had sworn wrongly the other day; and if he had read in the Book of Martyrs how many of the martyrs had refused to swear, both within the time of the ten persecutions and in Bishop Bonner’s days, he might see, that to deny swearing in obedience to Christ’s command was no new thing.” He said, “he wished the laws were otherwise.” I said, “Our Yea is yea, and our Nay is nay; and if we transgress our yea and our nay, let us suffer as they do, or should do, that swear falsely.” This, I told him, we had offered to the king; and the king said, “it was reasonable.” After some further discourse, they committed me to prison again, there to lie till the next assize; and Colonel Kirby gave order to the jailer, “to keep me close, and suffer no flesh alive to come at me, for I was not fit,” he said, “to be discoursed with by men.”

Then I was put into a tower, where the smoke of the other prisoners came up so thick, that it stood as dew upon the walls, and sometimes it was so thick that I could hardly see the candle when it burned; and I being locked under three locks, the under-jailer, when the smoke was great, would hardly be persuaded to come up to unlock one of the uppermost doors, for fear of the smoke, so that I was almost smothered. Besides, it rained in upon my bed, and many times, when I went to stop out the rain in the cold winter season, my shirt was wet through with the rain that came in upon me, while I was labouring to stop it out. And the place being high and open to the wind, sometimes as fast as I stopped it, the wind blew it out again. In this manner did I lie, all that long cold winter, till the next assize; in which time I was so starved with cold and rain, that my body was greatly swelled, and my limbs much benumbed.

The assize began on the 16th day of the month called March, 1664-5. The same Judges, Twisden and Turner, coming that circuit again, Judge Twisden sat this time on the crown-bench, and before him I was brought. I had informed myself of the errors in this indictment also. For though at the assize before, Judge Turner had said to the officers in court, “Pray see that all the oath be in the indictment, and that the word, subject, be in, and that the day of the month and the year of the king be put in right; for it is a shame that so many errors should be seen and found in the face of the country;” yet there were many errors, and those great ones, in this indictment, as well as in the former. Surely the hand of the Lord was in it, to confound their mischievous work against me, and to blind them therein; insomuch, that although after the indictment was drawn at the former assize, the judge examined it himself and tried it with the clerks, yet the word, subject, was left out of this indictment also, the day of the month was put in wrong, and several material words of the oath were left out; yet they went on confidently against me, thinking all was safe and well.

When I was set to the bar, and the jury called over to be sworn, the clerk asked me, first, “whether I had any objection to make against any of the jury?” I told him, “I knew none of them.” Then, having sworn the jury, they swore three of the officers of the court to prove “that the oath was tendered to me at the last assizes, according to the indictment.” “Come, come,” said the judge, “it was not done in a corner.” Then he asked me, “what I had said to it, or whether I had taken the oath at the last assize?” I told him, what I had said, viz., “that the book they gave me to swear on, says, ‘swear not at all;’” and I repeated more of what I had formerly said to them, as it now came to my remembrance. Whereupon the judge said, “I will not dispute with you, but in point of law.” “Then,” said I, “I have something to speak to the jury concerning the indictment.” He told me, I must not speak to the jury, but if I had anything to say, I must speak to him. Then I asked him, “whether the oath was to be tendered to the king’s subjects only, or to the subjects of foreign princes?” He replied, “to the subjects of this realm; for I will speak nothing to you,” said he, “but in point of law.” “Then,” said I, “look in the indictment, and thou mayest see that the word, subject, is left out of this indictment also. And therefore seeing the oath is not to be tendered to any but the subjects of this realm, and ye have not put me in as a subject, the court is to take no notice of this indictment.” I had no sooner spoken than the judge cried, “Take him away, jailer, take him away.” So I was presently hurried away. The jailer and people looked when I should be called for again; but I was never brought to the court any more, though I had many other great errors to assign in the indictment.

After I was gone, the judge asked the jury, “if they were agreed?” They said, “yes,” and found for the king against me as I was told. But I was never called to hear sentence given, nor was any given against me, that I could hear of. I understood that when they had looked more narrowly into the indictment, they saw it was not good: and the judge having sworn the officers of the court, that the oath was tendered me at the assize before, such a day, according as was set in the indictment, and that being the wrong day, I should have proved the officers of the court forsworn men again, if the judge would have suffered me to plead to the indictment; which was thought to be the reason why he hurried me away so soon. The judge had passed sentence of premunire upon Margaret Fell, before I was brought in; and it seems, when I was hurried away, they recorded me as a premunired person, though I was never brought to hear the sentence or knew of it; which was very illegal. For they ought not only to have had me present to hear the sentence given, but also to have asked me first, “what I could say why sentence should not be given against me?” But they knew I had so much to say, that they could not give sentence, if they heard it.

While I was prisoner in Lancaster castle, there was a great noise and talk of the Turk’s overspreading Christendom, and great fears entered many. But one day as I was walking in my prison chamber, “I saw the Lord’s power turn against him, and that he was turning back again.” And I declared to some what the Lord had let me see, when there were such fears of his over-running Christendom; and within a month after the news came, that they had given him a defeat.

Another time, as I was walking in my chamber, with my eye to the Lord, “I saw the angel of the Lord with a glittering drawn sword stretched southward, as though the court had been all on fire.” Not long after the wars broke out with Holland, the sickness broke forth, and afterwards the fire of London; so the Lord’s sword was drawn indeed.

By reason of my long and close imprisonment in so bad a place, I was become very weak in body; but the Lord’s power was over all, supported me through all, and enabled me to do service for him, and for his truth and people, as the place would admit. For while I was in Lancaster prison, I answered several books, as the Mass, the Common-Prayer, the Directory, and the Church Faith; which are the four chief religions that are got up since the apostles’ days. And there being several Friends in prison at Lancaster and other prisons for not paying tithes, I was moved to give forth the following lines:—

“In the time of the law, they that did not bring their tithes into the store-house, robbed God; then there was not meat in their house; therefore the Lord commanded ‘to bring them into his house, that there might be meat in the store-house, which was to fill the fatherless, stranger, and widow.’ But these priests, who are counterfeits, who take people’s tithes now by a law, are from the beast; and if any will not pay them, they imprison them, or make them pay treble. These rob the poor, rob the fatherless; and the stranger and the widow are not filled; so their cry is gone up to heaven against these. Many are made almost beggars by these oppressing priests, their cattle and corn being taken away, and they cast into prison. Others are sued at law by them, and have treble damage taken from them; yet such priests are cried up to be ministers of the gospel. Though, when the unchangeable priest was come, the priesthood that was changeable, was denied, as we now deny these. But if any be moved now to cry against them, they are stocked, beaten, or imprisoned. Many are now in prison at Lancaster, and in other places, by a national law; the like whereof was never done by the law of God, which was delivered to Moses. For we do not read, that under Moses’s law any suffered imprisonment, or spoiling of their goods for not paying tithes, or had to pay treble damage. Surely, surely, the cry for vengeance will be heard, which arises from the oppressed souls that lie under the altar. There are many prisoners at Kendal, because they cannot pay tithes, as Captain Ward, Thomas Robertson,[8] and the widow Garland, who has many small children; these suffer because they cannot pay tithes. Others are in Kendal prison, who were moved of the Lord to speak to the priests, one to go in sackcloth, and with ashes upon her head. Others have been moved to go in sackcloth, as a lamentation for the miserable estate of this nation, seeing so much crying up of the preaching of the gospel, and yet so much strife, debate, and oaths, and dissension among people. But where the gospel is received indeed, strife and contention are ended, and oppression is taken off.

O! the land mourns, because of the oppression of those called ministers! And though the cry of the oppressed hath not entered into the ears of the magistrates; yet is the cry of the poor, oppressed people of God, entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, who now will be avenged of all his adversaries. You unjust lawgivers, and unjust judges, to that in all your consciences I speak, to be cleared, when ye are judged by the just Judge of heaven and earth; whose terror is gone forth against all the ungodly, and all the oppressors of God’s people whatsoever, whether ye will hear or forbear.”