The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His TimeMasson, David
History
The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time
Masson, David
Milton, John, 1608-1674; Poets, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography
Deceiver, False Prophet, Dog, and such like language." The
Protector's own chapel in Whitehall was not safe. On April 13, 1656,
"being the Lord's day," says the _Public Intelligencer_ for that
week, "a certain Quaker came into the chapel in sermon time, and in a
very audacious manner disturbed the preacher, so that he was fain to
be silent a while, till the fellow was taken away. His Highness,
being present, did after sermon give order for the sending him to a
justice of peace, to be dealt with according to law."--Naturally, the
whole sect suffered for these indecencies and extravagances of some
of its members, and the very name _Quakerism_ became a synonym
for all that was intolerable. The belief had got abroad, moreover,
that "subtle and dangerous heads," Jesuits and others, had begun to
"creep in among them," to turn Quakerism to political account, and
"drive on designs of disturbance." Altogether the Protector and
Council were sorely tried. Their policy seems, on the whole, to have
been to let Quakerism run its course of public obloquy, and get into
jail, or even to the whipping-post _ad libitum_, for offences
against the peace, but at the same time to instruct the
Major-Generals privately to be as discreet as possible, making
differences between the sorts of Quakers, and especially letting none
of them come to harm for their mere beliefs. "Making a difference,"
as by the injunction in Jude's epistle, was, as we know, Cromwell's
own great rule in all cases where complete toleration was impossible,
and he does not seem to have been able to do more for the Quakers. He
had not, however, forgotten his interview with their chief, and may
have been interested in knowing more especially what had become of
_him_.--Fox, after much wandering in the West without serious
mishap, had fallen among Philistines in Cornwall early in 1656, and
had been arrested, with two companions, for spreading papers and for
general vagrancy and contumacy. He had been in Launceston prison for
some weeks, when Chief Justice Glynne came to hold the assizes in
those parts. There had been the usual encounter between the Judge and
the Quakers on the eternal question of the hats. "Where had they hats
at all, from Moses to Daniel?" said the Chief Justice, rather rashly,
meaning to laugh at the notion that Scripture could be brought to
bear on the question in any way whatever. "Thou mayest read in the
third of Daniel," said Fox, "that the three children were cast into
the fiery furnace, by Nebuchadnezzar's command, with their coats,
their hose, and _their hats on_." Glynne, though he had lost his
joke, and though Fox put him further out of temper by distributing
among the jurymen a paper against swearing, did not behave badly on
the whole, and the issue was the simple recommitment of Fox and his
friends to Launceston prison. There, however, as they would not any
longer pay the jailor the seven shillings a week he demanded for the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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