Part 12

This pleased him much; and he embracing the offer, I undertook to give him notice of a suitable time, which after I had gone this little journey with my friend Richard Greenaway and was returned, I did, making choice of the monthly meeting to go to.

We met by appointment at Stoken Church, with our staves in our hands, like a couple of pilgrims, intending to walk on foot; and having taken some refreshment and rest at Wycombe, went on cheerfully in the afternoon, entertaining each other with grave and religious discourse, which made the walk the easier, and so reached thither in good time, on the seventh day of the week.

I gave my friends an account who this person was whom I had brought to visit them, and the ground of his visit. He had been a professor of religion from his childhood to his old age (for he was now both grey-headed and elderly), and was a teacher at this time, and had long been so amongst a people, whether Independents or Baptists I do not well remember. And so well thought of he was, for his zeal and honesty, that in those late professing times he was thrust into the Commission of the Peace, and thereby lifted up on the Bench; which neither became him nor he it, for he wanted indeed most of the qualifications requisite for a Justice of the Peace: an estate to defray the charge of the office and to bear him up in a course of living above contempt; a competent knowledge in the laws, and a presence of mind or body, or both, to keep offenders in some awe; in all which he was deficient; for he was but a fellmonger by trade, accustomed to ride upon his pack of skins, and had very little estate, as little knowledge of the law, and of but a mean presence and appearance to look on. But as my father, I suppose, was the means of getting him put into the Commission, so he, I know, did what he could to countenance him in it, and help him through it at every turn, till that turn came (at the King’s return) which turned them both out together.

My friends received me in affectionate kindness, and my companion with courteous civility. The evening was spent in common but grave conversation; for it was not a proper season for private discourse, both as we were somewhat weary with our walk, and there were other companies of Friends come into the family, to be at the meeting next day.

But in the morning I took John Ovy into a private walk, in a pleasant grove near the house, whither Isaac Penington came to us; and there in discourse both answered all his questions, objections, and doubts, and opened to him the principles of truth, to his both admiration and present satisfaction. Which done, we went in to take some refreshment before the meeting began.

Of those Friends who were come overnight in order to be at the meeting, there was Isaac’s brother, William Penington, a merchant of London, and with him a Friend (whose name I have forgotten), a grocer of Colchester, in Essex; and there was also our friend George Whitehead, whom I had not, that I remember, seen before.

The nation had been in a ferment ever since that mad action of the frantic fifth-monarchy men, and was not yet settled; but storms, like thunder-showers, flew here and there by coast, so that we could not promise ourselves any safety or quiet in our meetings. And though they had escaped disturbance for some little time before, yet so it fell out that a party of horse were appointed to come and break up the meeting that day, though we knew nothing of it till we heard and saw them.

The meeting was scarce fully gathered when they came; but we that were in the family, and many others, were settled in it in great peace and stillness, when on a sudden the prancing of the horses gave notice that a disturbance was at hand.

We all sat still in our places, except my companion John Ovy, who sat next to me. But he being of a profession that approved Peter’s advice to his Lord, “to save himself,” soon took the alarm, and with the nimbleness of a stripling, cutting a caper over the form that stood before him, ran quickly out at a private door, which he had before observed, which led through the parlour into the gardens, and from thence into an orchard; where he hid himself in a place so obscure, and withal so convenient for his intelligence by observation of what passed, that no one of the family could scarce have found a likelier.

By the time he was got into his burrow came the soldiers in, being a party of the county troop, commanded by Matthew Archdale of Wycombe. He behaved himself civilly, and said he was commanded to break up the meeting, and carry the men before a justice of the peace; but he said he would not take all; and thereupon began to pick and choose, chiefly as his eye guided him, for I suppose he knew very few.

He took Isaac Penington and his brother, George Whitehead, and the Friend of Colchester, and me, with three or four more of the county, who belonged to that meeting.

He was not fond of the work, and that made him take no more; but he must take some, he said, and bade us provide to go with him before Sir William Boyer of Denham, who was a justice of the peace. Isaac Penington being but weakly, rode, but the rest of us walked thither, it being about four miles.

When we came there the Justice carried himself civilly to us all, courteously to Isaac Penington as being a gentleman of his neighbourhood; and there was nothing charged against us but that we were met together without word or deed. Yet this being contrary to a late proclamation, given forth upon the rising of the fifth-monarchy men, whereby all dissenters’ meetings were forbidden, the Justice could do no less than take notice of us.

Wherefore he examined all of us whom he did not personally know, asking our names and the places of our respective habitations. But when he had them, and considered from what distant parts of the nation we came, he was amazed; for George Whitehead was of Westmoreland, in the north of England; the grocer was of Essex; I was of Oxfordshire; and William Penington was of London.

Hereupon he told us that our case looked ill, and he was sorry for it: “for how,” said he, “can it be imagined that so many could jump altogether at one time and place, from such remote quarters and parts of the kingdom, if it was not by combination and appointment?”

He was answered that we were so far from coming thither by agreement or appointment, that none of us knew of the others’ coming, and for the most of us, we had never seen one another before; and that therefore he might impute it to chance, or, if he pleased, to Providence.

He urged upon us that an insurrection had been lately made by armed men, who pretended to be more religious than others; that that insurrection had been plotted and contrived in their meeting-house, where they assembled under colour of worshipping God; that in their meeting-house they hid their arms, and armed themselves, and out of their meeting-house issued forth in arms, and killed many; so that the government could not be safe unless such meetings were suppressed.

We replied, we hoped he would distinguish and make a difference between the guilty and the innocent, and between those who were principled for fighting and those who were principled against it, which we were, and had been always known to be so; that our meetings were public, our doors standing open to all comers, of all ages, sexes, and persuasions, men, women, and children, and those that were not of our religion, as well as those that were; and that it was next to madness for people to plot in such meetings.

He told us we must find sureties for our good behaviour, and to answer our contempt of the King’s proclamation at the next general Quarter Sessions, or else he must commit us.

We told him that, knowing our innocency and that we had not misbehaved ourselves, nor did meet in contempt of the King’s authority, but purely in obedience to the Lord’s requirings to worship Him, which we held ourselves in duty bound to do, we could not consent to be bound, for that would imply guilt which we were free from.

“Then,” said he, “I must commit you;” and ordered his clerk to make a mittimus. And divers mittimuses were made, but none of them would hold; for still, when they came to be read, we found such flaws in them as made him throw them aside, and write more.

He had his eye often upon me, for I was a young man, and had at that time a black suit on. At length he bid me follow him, and went into a private room and shut the door upon me.

I knew not what he meant by this; but I cried in spirit to the Lord, that he would be pleased to be a mouth and wisdom to me, and keep me from being entangled in any snare.

He asked me many questions concerning my birth, my education, my acquaintance in Oxfordshire, particularly what men of note I knew there; to all which I gave him brief but plain and true answers, naming several families of the best rank in that part of the county where I dwelt.

He asked me how long I had been of this way, and how I came to be of it. Which when I had given him some account of, he began to persuade me to leave it, and return to the right way—the Church, as he called it. I desired him to spare his pains in that respect, and forbear any discourse of that kind, for that I was fully satisfied the way I was in was the right way, and hoped the Lord would so preserve me in it that nothing should be able to draw or drive me out of it. He seemed not pleased with that, and thereupon went out to the rest of the company, and I followed him, glad in my heart that I had escaped so well, and praising God for my deliverance.

When he had taken his seat again at the upper end of a fair hall, he told us he was not willing to take the utmost rigour of the law against us, but would be as favourable to us as he could. And therefore he would discharge, he said, Mr. Penington himself, because he was but at home in his own house. And he would discharge Mr. Penington of London, because he came but as a relation to visit his brother. And he would discharge the grocer of Colchester, because he came to bear Mr. Penington of London company, and to be acquainted with Mr. Isaac Penington, whom he had never seen before. And as for those others of us who were of this county, he would discharge them, for the present at least, because they being his neighbours, he could send for them when he would. “But as for you,” said he to George Whitehead and me, “I can see no business you had there, and therefore I intend to hold you to it, either to give bail or go to gaol.”

We told him we could not give bail. “Then,” said he, “you must go to gaol;” and thereupon he began to write our mittimus; which puzzled him again; for he had discharged so many, that he was at a loss what to lay as the ground of our commitment, whose case differed nothing in reality from theirs whom he had discharged.

At length, having made divers draughts (which still George Whitehead showed him the defects of), he seemed to be weary of us; and rising up said unto us: “I consider that it is grown late in the day, so that the officer cannot carry you to Aylesbury to-night, and I suppose you will be willing to go back with Mr. Penington; therefore if you will promise to be forthcoming at his house to-morrow morning, I will dismiss you for the present, and you shall hear from me again to-morrow.”