seasons till 9 of the clock at night, and later;--sometimes about 1,000 or 1,200 at a time,--to the great affrightening of this city as to what will be consequent thereof if not restrained, or should a suspension of the said oaths be to them given."[176] [Sidenote: PERSECUTION.] [Sidenote: 1660.] Many persons had to suffer severely. In Wales the fire was first kindled, and burnt most fiercely. Before the King landed at Dover the Episcopalians in the Principality busied themselves in persecuting Quakers. Several Nonconformists were imprisoned at Caermarthen, and the gaol at Montgomery was so filled with them that the gaoler had to pack them into garrets. Pitiful stories, with some exaggerations perhaps, are told of sufferers in the May and June of 1660, who were dragged out of their beds to prison, or like stray cattle driven into parish pounds, or led in chains to the Quarter Sessions.[177] If violence with so wide a sweep did not rage on our side the border, the confessors for conscience' sake in England were nevertheless numerous enough. In that transitional state of things all sorts of irregular proceedings took place. Even Philip Henry could not preach in quiet, but was presented in the month of September, at the Flint assizes, for not reading the Common Prayer. John Howe also fell into trouble for what he had said in the pulpit; and it is not generally remembered that long before the Uniformity, the Conventicle, and the Five Mile Acts were passed, John Bunyan was cast into Bedford gaol.[178] In England, as well as in Wales, many Quakers and Anabaptists suffered a loathsome imprisonment. If, in London, Nonconformity was strong, in the provinces it was rapidly becoming otherwise. Bishops were busy; Episcopalian Rectors were being restored, and Loyal Corporations were getting more and more noisy in their demonstrations of zeal for Church and Crown. Grey-headed squires, and nobles in Cavalier plumes and doublets, with their courtly dames in rustling silks, and with their children in bright-coloured sashes, and attended by servants clothed in gay liveries, sat with joy before the crackling yule log that merry Christmas; and when the boar's head and the roast beef had been despatched, they related stories of their virtuous and devout King,[179] and told their sons and daughters of the gay doings and merry games of their own young days. The mistletoe hanging in the hall corresponded with the holly suspended in the Church; and the service, which members of these merry parties had heard that Christmas morning for the first time, as they sat in the old family pew, sustained worthy association with the pleasant festivities of the afternoon and evening. Puritanism had been to them a religion of restraint, and now the return of Bishops and Prayer Books brought freedom and joy. Of course there were sentiments of a far higher order cherished at that season, but the existence of much of the humbler feeling now described may be taken for granted.