Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

of this persuasion, viz. Capt. Mildmay, Capt. Pack, and Sir John Harman, were preferred to commands at sea.* Major-general Harrison, "a man of excellent natural parts," says Mr. Baxter, for affection and oratory, but not well seen in the principles of his religion," was the only baptist among the king's judges.‡

Whatever concern, however, they may be supposed to have had in national affairs, it soon ceased after Cromwell assumed the reins of government, who, when he thought himself well settled, and perceived that it would please the dominant party, began to undermine the sectarians, and in particular to suppress the baptists. Mr. Baxter charges them with growing insolent both in England and Ireland, after Cromwell's death, and the succession of his son Richard was set aside and that, joining their brethren in the army, they were every where put in power. He complains of some personal insults and ungenerous treatment, which he received from some who resided near to him, irritated by their remembrance of the opposition he had made to their sentiments, and who, though not many more than twenty, "talked," as he expresses it," as if they had been lords of the world." This spirit of resentment and triumph was soon humbled by the disappointment of hope, and a subsequent series of sufferings.

This appears, in the first instance, from a petition presented to king Charles II. signed by thirty-five, on behalf of many others in Lincolnshire. It stated, that not only their meetings for religious worship were interrupted by the magistrates; and bonds for good behaviour were imposed upon them, for the violation of which, on account of renewing their assemblies, they were prosecuted as peacebreakers; but that they were abused in the streets, and their own houses could not afford them protection; for, if they were heard praying to God in their families, they were insulted by sounding of horns, beating against their doors, and threats that they should be hanged. If they appealed to the magistrates, the rage of their adversaries received a sanction from the odious terms with which those who sat on the bench of justice reviled them. Many of Crosby's History of the Baptists, vol. ii. p. 2-5. Baxter's Life, Crosby, vol. ip p. 9. § His own Life, part ii. p. 206.

part i. p. 57.

them were indicted at the sessions for not attending on the preaching of the episcopal clergy, and alarmed with a design of levying from every one a penalty of 201. per month.

The petition was graciously received by the king, who promised that he would take particular care that none should trouble them on account of their conscience, in things pertaining to religion; and immediately directed a member of parliament to go to the lord chancellor and secretary, that the proper measures for this end might be taken.

In the same year, another petition and representation of their sufferings was presented by some baptists, inhabitants of Kent, and prisoners in the gaol at Maidstone. In this paper they appealed to their "Confession of Faith," as truly representing their principles concerning magistracy and government; and deplored the danger which threatened their lives, and the ruin which hung over their wives and little ones, by the violence exercised against them. For, besides being made prisoners, the houses of some had, without any authority from the executive power, been broken open in the dead of night; and from others their goods and cattle had been taken away and detained.

Great also were the sufferings of those who resided in Gloucestershire. The most eminent cavaliers rode about, armed with swords and pistols, ransacking their houses, and abusing their families in a violent manner. At the house of Mr. Helme, at Winchcombe, the bed whereon his children laid was not spared; and their outrageous conduct so frightened his wife as to throw her into an illness which threatened her life. Mr. Warren, who possessed the parsonage of Rencome, was with his wife and family penned up into an upper room of his house, and so harassed night and day by the violence of the assailants and the noise of hautboys, that he died in the place. Mr. Fletcher, who had been put into a vacant place by authority, was so beat and inhumanly treated by a cavalier of his parish, that he and his family fled for their lives. One pious minister was assaulted as he was entering his pulpit. Another was violently pulled out of his house; his wife, ebildren, and goods, were thrown into the street, none of

the parish were allowed to give them entertainment and he himself was haled to gaol.*

It is less surprising that these people were insulted by the ignorant populace, and were abused by the petty officers of power, when even the legislature marked them as the objects of suspicion, hatred, and severity. For the parliament assembled upon the restoration, when it passed an act for confirming all ministers in the possession of their benefices, how heterodox soever they had been, provided they would conform for the future, excepting such as bad been of the baptist persuasion.†

So far from being encouraged to conform, or being permitted in peace and security to dissent, they were pursued with cruelty. Divers of them were cast into Reading prison, for conscientiously scrupling to take some oaths administered to them. At Newport in Wales, at the end of sermon, two were set upon by soldiers with swords and staves. At London, Dr. John Griffith was committed to Newgate, where he lay seventeen months, for no other crime but preaching to a congregation of protestants. In Lincolnshire, Mr. Thomas Grantham and some others were taken from their meeting at Boston by some soldiers, and after having been logded all night in a public inn, had their rest disturbed, and their minds grieved, by the incessant curses and oaths of their guards; they were, on the next morning, conveyed to the common gaol, and detained there, without so much as the least pretence of any crime laid to their charge, till the assizes, when they were dismissed. At Dover, the magistrates were severe against them, taking them from their meeting-houses, and committing them to prison. After four-and-twenty days they were admitted to bail, and appearing at the assizes were forbidden to assemble any more in their own place of worship, but were allowed the use of one of the churches. This privilege, which they enjoyed about the space of five months, was afterwards denied to them. Upon meeting again in their own place, their worship was disturbed, and twenty-four of them, under different commitments, sent to prison; at the quartersessions, a bill of indictment was found against them; * Crosby, vol. ii. թ. 1--30. + Wall's History of Infant Baptism, vol. ii. p. 215. Crosby, vol. ii. p. 94, 97

some traversed it, others submitted to the court, and the rest were remitted to the prison again.*

A circumstance which much aggravated the proceedings against these people was, that they were not apprehended by the peace-officers only, but by rude, youthful, and mercenary soldiers; who seized them, to the terror of women and children, with musquets and drawn swords, did violence to their persons, and broke their goods.†

In June 1661, one of these military banditties went to a meeting-house in White-chapel, and laid hands on more than twenty; one of whom refusing to go with them, unless they produced their warrant, they not only pulled him along by force, and beat him about the head with their hangers, but lifting him up between three or four several times, let him fall with violence, and drove his breast and stomach against the rails with such force, that his health was greatly injured by the blows and falls. When a suit was commenced against the actors of this tragedy, the persons, at whose complaint the soldiers were arrested, were themselves arrested, and were sent to Newgate, where they lay about ten or twelve days before they could be bailed, and were held bound from sessions to sessions, for a long time, before they could be discharged.

The persons assembling in the same meeting-house were assaulted by a like body of soldiers, October the 20th, 1661, and one of them, the minister objecting to the authority under which they pretended to act, was by a mittimus, pretending and inserting great matters, cast into Newgate, where he lay thirty weeks, without any thing laid to his charge, and then they released him.

On the 3d of November, in the same year, a similar outrage was committed, in the same place, with as little shew or face of law. The preacher and three more were seized, and thrown into New Prison, from which, in time of sessions, one was removed to Newgate, under pretence of being brought to his trial; which, however, he could nev er procure, though he called for it in the face of the court, nor was his name returned in the calender. Yet he was kept in gaol twelve weeks, till fetched out by a person in

* Crosby, vol. ii. p. 149, 150, 154, 5. †Crosby, vol. ii. p. 161.
VOL. IV.

68

authority. He suffered in all eighteen, and the other persons twenty-eight weeks imprisonment.*

In the following year, their religious assemblies, in different parts of the town, met with the like violent interruptions from the soldiery, breaking in with their swords and muskets, and acting under the authority of John Robinson the lieutenant of the Tower, as in the former cases. In one instance a child in the cradle was awaked out of its sleep by their violence, and so terrified, that it fell sick, and died in three days. In other instances, the forms and furniture of their places of worship were broken and desroyed. Robinson, being told by them that they had broken the pulpit in Brick-lane, replied, "it was well done; and gave them a piece of gold, as a reward for their good service. In all cases, the persons of those assembled were exposed to their indiscriminating rage; neither sex, nor childhood, nor old age, nor women with child, were spared. At one place the mob was let in to act with soldiers, at the direction of Robinson. Many of the conscientious sufferers by illegal commitments, were cast into prison. Even the walls of the prison did not afford them a secure retreat. In the prison itself they were exposed to outrage and fury. When they have been engaged together in religious conversation and acts of devotion, the felons of the gaol, the thieves and housebreakers, the pickpockets and highwaymen, have been let into their room, have threatened them, violently assaulted, and beaten them.†

But in the country, were usually the greatest injustice and cruelty practised. The gentlemen in the commission of the peace, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, distinguished themselves by their virulence in prosecuting the non-conformists, and particularly the baptists. They filled not the county gaol only with prisoners of this description, but hired large houses in Aylesbury, and converted them into prisons; and not contented with the severities in daily exercise, such as confiscation of goods and imprisonment, they attempted to revive the old practice of punishing heretics with banishment and death. They grounded their proceedings on the oppressive act of the 35th of Elizabeth, for the punishment of persons obstinately refus

* Crosby, vol. ii. p. 1625. † Crosby, vol. ii. p. 172–179.

« ZurückWeiter »