CHAPTER VI (2)

Notwithstanding the opposition at the meeting at Slaughterford, yet a very good and serviceable one it was; for occasion was thereby administered to answer their objections and cavils, and to open the services of women in and for the church. At this the women’s meetings, for that county, were established in the blessed power of God.

After this I went to Marlborough and had a meeting there, to which some of the magistrates came, and were civil and moderate. Then passing to Bartholomew Maylin’s, I had a very precious meeting there; and then went a little beyond Oare, where we had a blessed meeting, and very large, as we had also soon after upon the border of Hampshire. Then turning into Oxfordshire, we visited Friends there; and then went to Reading, where we had a large meeting. Thence passing into Buckinghamshire, we had many precious meetings in that county. After which we visited Friends till we came to Kingston-upon-Thames, where my wife and her daughter Rachel met me. I made no long stay at Kingston, but went to London, where I found the Baptists and Socinians, with some old apostates, grown very rude, having printed many books against us; so that I had a great travail in the Lord’s power, before I could get clear of that city. But blessed be the Lord, his power came over them, and all their lying, wicked, scandalous books were answered.

I made a short journey into some parts of Essex and Middlesex, visiting Friends at their meetings, and their children at their schools, and returned soon to London. After some service there among Friends, I went to Kingston, and thence to Stephen Smith’s in Surrey, where was a very large meeting, many hundreds of people attending it. I stayed in those parts till I had cleared myself of the service the Lord had given me to do there, and then returned by Kingston to London, whither I felt my spirit drawn; having heard that many Friends were taken before the magistrates, and divers imprisoned in London and other towns, for opening their shop-windows on holidays and fast-days (as they were called,) and for bearing testimony against all such observations of days. Which Friends could not but do, knowing that the true Christians did not observe the Jews’ holidays in the apostles’ times, neither could we observe the Heathens’ and Papists’ holidays (so called) which have been set up amongst those called Christians, since the apostles’ days. For we were redeemed out of days by Christ Jesus, and brought into the day which hath sprung from on high, and are come into Him who is Lord of the Jewish Sabbath, and the substance of the Jews’ signs.

After I had stayed some time in London, labouring for some relief and ease to Friends in this case, I took leave of Friends there, and went into the country with my wife, and her daughter Rachel, to Hendon, in Middlesex, and thence to William Penn’s at Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire, whither Thomas Lower (who married another of my wife’s daughters) came next day to accompany us in our journey northward. After we had visited Friends thereabouts, we passed to a Friend’s house near Aylesbury, and thence to Bray Doily’s at Adderbury, in Oxfordshire, where, on First-day, we had a large and precious meeting. Truth being well spread, and Friends in those parts much increased in number, two or three new meetings were then set up.

At night, as I was sitting at supper, I felt I was taken; yet I said nothing then to any one of it. But getting out next morning, we travelled into Worcestershire, and went to John Halford’s, at Armscott, where we had a very large and precious meeting in his barn, the Lord’s powerful presence being eminently with and amongst us. After the meeting, Friends being most of them gone, as I was sitting in the parlour, discoursing with some Friends, Henry Parker, a justice, came to the house, and with him one Rowland Hains, a priest of Hunnington, in Warwickshire. This justice heard of the meeting by means of a woman Friend, who being nurse to a child of his, asked leave of her mistress to go to the meeting to see me; and she, speaking of it to her husband, he and the priest plotted together to come and break it up and apprehend me. But from their sitting long at dinner, it being the day on which his child was sprinkled, they did not come till the meeting was over, and Friends mostly gone. But though there was no meeting when they came, yet I being in the house, who was the person they aimed at, Henry Parker took me, and Thomas Lower for company with me; and though he had nothing to lay to our charge, sent us both to Worcester jail, by a strange sort of mittimus; a copy of which here follows:—

“To the constables of Tredington, in the said county of Worcester, and to all constables and tithing-men of the several townships and villages within the said parish of Tredington, and to the keeper of the jail for the county of Worcester.

“Complaint being made to me, being one of His Majesty’s justices of the peace for the said county of Worcester, that within the said parish of Tredington in the same county, there has of late been several meetings of divers persons, to the number of four hundred persons and upwards at a time, upon pretence of exercise of religion, otherwise than what is established by the laws of England. And many of the said persons, some of them were teachers, and came from the North, and others from the remote parts of the kingdom; which tends to the prejudice of the reformed and established religion, and may prove prejudicial to the public peace. And it appearing to me that there was, this present day, such a meeting as aforesaid, to the number of two hundred or thereabouts, at Armscott, in the said parish of Tredington, and that George Fox of London, and Thomas Lower of the parish of Creed, in the county of Cornwall, were present at the said meeting, and the said George Fox was teacher or speaker of the said meeting; and no satisfactory account of their settlement or place of habitation appearing to me, and forasmuch as the said George Fox and Thomas Lower refused to give sureties to appear at the next sessions of the peace to be holden for the said county, to answer the breach of the common laws of England, and what other matters should be objected against them; these are, therefore, in His Majesty’s name, to will and require you, or either of you, forthwith to convey the bodies of the said George Fox and Thomas Lower to the county jail of Worcester aforesaid, and there safely to be kept, until they shall be from thence delivered by due course of law; for which this shall be your sufficient warrant in that behalf. Dated the 17th day of December, in the 25th year of His Majesty’s reign over England, &c.”

Being thus made prisoners, without any probable appearance of being released before the quarter sessions at soonest, we got some Friends to accompany my wife and her daughter into the North, and we were conveyed to Worcester jail. From whence, by that time I thought my wife could be got home, I wrote her the following letter:—

“Dear Heart,

“Thou seemedst to be a little grieved when I was speaking of prisons, and when I was taken; be content with the will of the Lord God. For when I was at John Rous’s at Kingston, I had a sight of my being taken prisoner, and when I was at Bray Doily’s in Oxfordshire, as I sat at supper, I saw I was taken; and I saw I had a suffering to undergo. But the Lord’s power is over all; blessed be his holy name for ever!”

When we had been some time in the jail, we thought fit to lay our case before the Lord Windsor, who was lord-lieutenant of Worcestershire, and before the deputy-lieutenants and other magistrates: which we did by the following letter:—

“These are to inform you, the lord-lieutenant (so called,) and the deputy-lieutenants, and the justices of the county of Worcestershire, how unchristianly and inhumanly we have been dealt withal by Henry Parker, a justice (so called,) in our journey towards the North. We coming to our Friend, John Halford’s house, on the 17th of the 10th month, 1673, and some Friends bringing us on the way, and others coming to visit us there, towards night there came the aforesaid justice, and a priest, called Rowland Hains, of Hunnington, in Warwickshire, and demanded our names and places of abode. And though we were not in any meeting, but were discoursing together when they came in, yet he made a mittimus to send us to Worcester jail.

“Now, whereas he says in his mittimus, ‘that complaint had been made to him of several by-past meetings of many hundreds at a time,’ we know nothing of that, nor do we think that concerns us. And whereas he says further, ‘that no satisfactory account of our settlement, or place of habitation appeared unto him.’ This he contradicts in his own mittimus, mentioning therein the places of our abode and habitation, the account of which we satisfactorily and fully gave him. And one of us (Thomas Lower) told him, that he was going down with his mother-in-law (who is George Fox’s wife,) and with his sister, to fetch up his own wife and child out of the North into his own country. And the other of us (George Fox) told him, that he was bringing forward his wife on her journey towards the North (who had been at London, to visit one of her daughters that had lately lain in.) And having received a message from his mother, an ancient woman in Leicestershire, that she earnestly desired to see him before she died, he intended, as soon as he had brought his wife on her journey as far as Cossall, in Warwickshire, to turn into Leicestershire, to visit his mother and relations there, and then to return to London again. But by his interrupting us on our journey, taking the husband from his wife, and the son from his mother and sister, and stopping him from visiting his wife and child so remote, we were forced to get strangers, or whom we could, to help them on their journey, to our great damage and their hinderance. We asked the priest, ‘whether this was his gospel, and their way of entertaining strangers?’ And we desired the justice to consider, ‘whether this was doing as he would be done by?’ But he said, ‘he had said it, and he would do it.’ And whereas he says, ‘we refused to give sureties;’ he asked only George Fox for sureties; who replied, ‘he was an innocent man, and knew no law he had broken;’ but he did not ask Thomas Lower for any, as if it had been crime and cause enough for his commitment, that he came out of Cornwall. If we were at a meeting, as he says in his mittimus, he might have proceeded otherwise than by sending us to jail, to answer the breach of the common laws; though he showed us no breach of any; as may be seen in the mittimus. We thought fit to lay before you the substance of his proceedings against us, hoping there will more moderation and justice appear in you towards us, that we may prosecute our intended journey.”

But no enlargement did we receive by our application to the Lord Windsor (so called.) And although Thomas Lower received several letters from his brother, Dr. Lower, who was one of the king’s physicians, concerning his liberty, and one, by his procurement, from Henry Savile, who was of the king’s bed-chamber, to his brother, called the Lord Windsor, to the same effect; yet seeing it related only to his enlargement, not mine, so great was his love and regard to me that he would not seek his own liberty singly, but kept the letter by him unsent. So we were continued prisoners till the next general quarter sessions; at which time divers Friends from several places being in the town, spoke to the justices concerning us, who answered fair and said we should be discharged. For many of the justices seemed to dislike the severity of Parker’s proceedings against us, and declared an averseness to ensnare us by the tender of the oaths. Some Friends also had spoken with Lord Windsor, who likewise answered them fair, so that it was the general discourse that we should be discharged. We heard also that Dr. Lower had procured a letter from Colonel Sands at London, to some of the justices in favour of us. Some of the justices also spoke to some Friends to acquaint us, that they would have us speak but little in the court, lest we should provoke any of the bench; and they would warrant we should be discharged.