ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY leniency. According to Besse, in his Sufferings of the People called Quakers, James Lancaster and Christopher Atkinson ' for declaring the truth and warning people to repentance in the streets of Norwich,' were sent as prisoners to the castle in 1654 ; and about the same time George Whitehead was sent to the same prison for ' exhorting the people in Peter's stceplehouse, Norwich, after the priest had done.' After being set at liberty he was again detained on going to visit another Quaker, Thomas Simonds, in prison ; and as he was but eighteen years of age, and tenderly brought up, he suffered much through the hardships and severities he had to undergo in gaol. His fellow-prisoner, Thomas Simonds, had been sent to Norwich Castle for ' asking a priest a question in a steeple-house after sermon,' and had then been committed for contempt in keeping his hat on. The same year Dorothy Waugh was imprisoned for a quarter of a year for ' testifying against sin in Norwich market.' In 1655 Alice Day was imprisoned for speaking to a priest in a steeple-house at Norwich ; and Thomas Bond went into an Independent meeting-house at Great Yarmouth, where he addressed the meeting, but was violently attacked by a deacon and taken to prison ; imprisonment and fine also befell Richard Clayton and Elizabeth Court for speaking in Wymond- ham steeple-house ; and Edward Warne for ' speaking in Westfield steeple- house after the priest had finished his performances.' These imprisonments are intelligible, though the terms seem to have been excessively long ; but there is not the same excuse of provocation in some other cases of imprison- ment recorded that year — those of John Clifton and Henry Love, taken out of a meeting and committed to prison ; or of John Allen of Lamneas, com- mitted to prison for having a meeting in his house. Of this last Besse writes : ' When the cause seemed insufficient they ensnared him about his hat, and thence took occasion to demand sureties for good behaviour, which unreason- able demand he refused to comply with, and was continued in prison.' In 1656 Robert Jacob of Wymondham, John Goddard of Rockland, Thomas Dormer of Taslingham, and William King, were imprisoned for refusing to swear. Many other cases of punishment are recorded, and on 2 or 4 March, 1659-60, a letter of protest was addressed to the mayor and aldermen of the city of Norwich by John Fuller and nine others against the breaking up of a meeting of theirs. The person who delivered it was sent to prison for having posted up some papers in the city inviting people to a meeting there appointed by George Fox. In his Journal, George Fox, under the year 1654,' writes : — The Lord did move the spirit of many to labour in his vineyard, among these Richard Hubberthorn and George Whitehead at Norwich. George Whitehead wras a chief instru- ment in gathering a people to the Lord in and about Norwich. He suffered great hardships, long and sore imprisonments, and severe whipping for his testimony to the Truth. Later he writes of his own experiences in Norfolk^ in words which give a better notion than anything else can of what his meetings must have seemed to the people who had seen so much of a hard, inflexible, and inexorable temper in the preachers of the Word then among them : — ' Then we passed to a meeting at Captain Lawrence's in Norfolk, where, it was supposed, was above a thousand people ; and all was quiet. Many persons of note were present, and ' i, 190 (1901 ed.). ' >> 233-4. 295
