A Book of Quaker SaintsHodgkin, L. V. (Lucy Violet)
Religion
A Book of Quaker Saints
Hodgkin, L. V. (Lucy Violet)
Society of Friends
Now let us open it at the right place, and, before any of the other
stories, let us hear what the writer says about that dismal prison in
Scarborough Castle: how long he stayed there, and how he was at last
set free.
'One day the governor of Scarborough castle, Sir Jordan Crosland, came
to see me. I desired the governor to go into my room and see what a
place I had. I had got a little fire made in it, and it was so filled
with smoke that when they were in it they could hardly find their way
out again.... I told him I was forced to lay out about fifty
shillings to stop out the rain, and keep the room from smoking so
much. When I had been at that charge and had made it somewhat
tolerable, they removed me into a worse room, where I had neither
chimney nor fire hearth.'
(This last is the room in the castle cliff that is still called
'George Fox's prison,' where we have been standing in imagination and
looking in upon him. We will listen while he describes it again, so as
to get accustomed to his rather old-fashioned English.)
'This being to the sea-side and lying much open, the wind drove in the
rain forcibly, so that the water came over my bed, and ran about the
room, that I was fain to skim it up with a platter. And when my
clothes were wet, I had no fire to dry them; so that my body was
benumbed with cold, and my fingers swelled, that one was grown as big
as two. Though I was at some charge in this room also, yet I could not
keep out the wind and rain.... Afterwards I hired a soldier to fetch
me water and bread, and something to make a fire of, when I was in a
room where a fire could be made. Commonly a threepenny loaf served me
three weeks, and sometimes longer, and most of my drink was water,
with wormwood steeped or bruised in it.... As to friends I was as a
man buried alive, for though many came far to see me, yet few were
suffered to come to me.... The officers often threatened that I should
be hanged over the wall. Nay, the deputy governor told me once, that
the King, knowing that I had a great interest in the people, had sent
me thither, that if there should be any stirring in the nation, they
should hang me over the wall to keep the people down. A while after
they talked much of hanging me. But I told them that if that was what
they desired and it was permitted them, I was ready; for I never
feared death nor sufferings in my life, but I was known to be an
innocent, peaceable man, free from all stirrings and plottings, and
one that sought the good of all men. Afterwards, the Governor growing
kinder, I spoke to him when he was going to London, and desired him to
speak to Esquire Marsh, Sir Francis Cobb, and some others, and let
them know how long I had lain in prison, and for what, and he did so.
When he came down again, he told me that Esquire Marsh said he would
go a hundred miles barefoot for my liberty, he knew me so well; and
several others, he said, spoke well of me. From which time the
Governor was very loving to me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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