Authors, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography; Bunyan, John, 1628-1688; Puritans -- England -- Clergy -- Biography
Whereas information and complaint is made unto us that
(notwithstanding the Kings Majties late Act of most gracious generall
and free pardon to all his subjects for past misdemeanours that by his
said clemencie and indulgent grace and favor they might bee mooved and
induced for the time to come more carefully to observe his Highenes
lawes and Statutes and to continue in theire loyall and due obedience
to his Majtie) Yett one John Bunnyon of youre said Towne Tynker hath
divers times within one month last past in contempt of his Majtie's
good Lawes preached or teached at a Conventicle Meeting or Assembly
under color or ptence of exercise of Religion in other manner than
according to the Liturgie or practiss of the Church of England These
are therefore in his Majties name to comand you forthwith to apprehend
and bring the Body of the said John Bunnion before us or any of us or
other his Majties Justice of Peace within the said County to answer
the premisses and further to doo and receave as to Lawe and Justice
shall appertaine and hereof you are not to faile. Given under our
handes and seales this ffourth day of March in the seven and twentieth
yeare of the Raigne of our most gracious Soveraigne Lord King Charles
the Second A que Dni., juxta &c 1674
J Napier W Beecher G Blundell Hum: Monoux
Will ffranklin John Ventris
Will Spencer
Will Gery St Jo Chernocke Wm Daniels
T Browne W ffoster
Gaius Squire"
There would be little delay in the execution of the warrant.
John Bunyan was a marked man and an old offender, who, on his arrest,
would be immediately committed for trial. Once more, then, Bunyan became
a prisoner, and that, there can be little doubt, in his old quarters in
the Bedford gaol. Errors die hard, and those by whom they have been once
accepted find it difficult to give them up. The long-standing tradition
of Bunyan's twelve years' imprisonment in the little lock-up-house on the
Ouse bridge, having been scattered to the winds by the logic of fact and
common sense, those to whom the story is dear, including the latest and
ablest of his biographers, Dr. Brown, see in this second brief
imprisonment a way to rehabilitate it. Probability pointing to this
imprisonment as the time of the composition of "The Pilgrim's Progress,"
they hold that on this occasion Bunyan was committed to the bridge-gaol,
and that he there wrote his immortal work, though they fail to bring
forward any satisfactory reasons for the change of the place of his
confinement. The circumstances, however, being the same, there can be no
reasonable ground for questioning that, as before, Bunyan was imprisoned
in the county gaol.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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