The journal of George Fox, vol. 2 of 2 : $b Being an historical account of his life, travels, sufferings, and Christian experiences.Fox, George
Religion
The journal of George Fox, vol. 2 of 2 : $b Being an historical account of his life, travels, sufferings, and Christian experiences.
Fox, George
Fox, George, 1624-1691
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
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