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Quaker Women, 1650-1690

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LIBRARY OF WELLES LEY COLLEGE Preservation photocopied with funds from i Barbara Lubin Goldsmith I Library Preservation Fund i Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Boston Library Consortium IVIember Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/quakerwomen1650100brai QUAKER WOMEN QUAKER WOMEN 1650— 1690 BY MABEL RICHMOND BRAILSFORD LONDON: DUCKWORTH & CO. HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN 1915 ii (AU rij;/ils reset vc'i) \ s ^vn 5 To MY MOTHER PREFACE In endeavouring to present a picture of the work and ideals of the first Quaker women of England one is struck by two facts—the modern atmosphere both of thought and effort which surrounds the ancient chronicles, and the strange chance which has left them unknown and un- explored, save by experts, for more than two centuries. The memory of the American women of the same period, who gave its woman martyr to Quakerism, has, however, been recently revived by Dr. Rufus Jones, in his study of the " Quakers in the American Colonies." For this reason their history, thrilling as it is, has been referred to in the following pages only in so far as it intermingled with the lives of the missionaries from England. Of the host of heroic Englishwomen who travelled, preached, and suffered at the time of Fox, three only have escaped oblivion, and they are celebrated rather through their connection with men who made history than for their own interest and merits. Mary Penington and her daughter " Guli "—the mother-in-law and wife of William Penn—being already the subjects of biography, are omitted from this account. Margaret Fell, the wife of Fox, though equally well known, is, perforce, included, no study of early Quakerism being possible without her. The diffidence with which a non-Quaker must face a task of this kind has been lessened as far as might be by the generosity and helpfulness of the Friends themselves. The chief sources of information upon the beginnings of Quakerism are the manuscript records, for the most part unpublished, which are preserved with contemporary books viii PREFACE and pamphlets in the Friends' Library at Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, London. I am indebted for my introduction to the Library to Dr. Rendel Harris, and for preliminary direction in research to Mr. William C. Braith- waite, the modern historian of Quakerism. I have had free access to the printed and written documents on which this book is based, thanks to the courtesy of Mr. Norman Penney, the Librarian, who is the Editor of The Journal of the Friends' Historical Society, and an expert in Quaker history. To Mr. Penney I am further indebted for con- siderable aid with the proof-sheets. I wish to take this opportunity of thanking himself and his assistants, Miss Crawshaw and Miss Smith, for their ready help and interest, which made the work of research in the Library both easy and delightful. I should like also to express my gratitude to Mr. Edward Garnett, to whom I owe the first suggestion of this study in early Quakerism ; and to my friend, Mr. A. H. Charteris, for detailed criticism and untiring practical help and en- couragement. Portions of Chapters IV., VL, XIV., and XV., have appeared in the Englishwoman, The Journal of the Friends' Historical Society, the Manchester Guardian, a.nd the Glasgow Herald, and are reprinted here by courtesy of the Editors. BIBLIOGRAPHY The Swarthmoor Manuscripts, consisting of about 1,400 origihal letters and otlier documents written by early Friends, chiefly to Fox and Margaret Fell, including the A.ccounts reiidered to Margaret Fell of the "Fund for the Service of Truth," 1654-1657. Other contemporary pamphlets, journals, and letters of Friends preserved in the Friends' Reference Library, Devonshire House. History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People called Quakers. By William Sewel. Third edition. London, 1795- The General History of the Quakers, containing the Lives, Tenents, Tryals, Speeches and Letters of all the most Eminent Quakers, both Men and Women, from the first rise of that Sect down to the present Time. Collected from MSS. by Gerard Croesc. London, i6g6. A Collection of the Sufferings of the People Called Quakers for the Testimony of a Good Conscience, from 1650-1689. Taken from Original Records and other Authentick Accounts by Joseph Besse. London, 1753. Persecution Expos'd in Some Memoirs, etc., in the West of England. By John Whiting. London, 1715. History of the Rise and Progress of the People called Quakers in Ireland. By John Rutty. Dublin, 1751. An Apology for the True Christian bivinity, as the same is held forth and preached by the People called in Scorne Quakers. By Robert Barclay. London, 1701. Works of Margaret Fell. London, 17 10. Journal of George Fox. Cambridge edition, with Notes by Norman Penney, F.S.A. 191 1. ix X ' BIBLIOGRAPHY " The First Publishers of Truth," being Early Records of the Intro- duction of Quakerism into England and Wales. Edited by Norman Penney for the Friends' Historical Society. London, 1907. Extracts from Slate Papers relating to Friends. Published for the Friends' Historical Society, 19 13. Modern Friends' Books, The Beginnings of Quakerism. By William C. Braithwaite. Mac- millan, 191 2. The Story of Quakerism. By Elizabeth B. Enimott. Headley Brothers, 1908. The Society of Friends ; its Faith and Practice. By John S. Rowntree. Headley Brothers, 1908. London Friends' Meetings. Beck and Ball. London, 1869. History of the Society of Friends in America. By James Bowden. London, 1850. General History. Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth. By Robert Barclay. London, 1876. History of my own Time. By Bishop Burnet. History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars. By Clarendon. Oxford, 1839. Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon, Written by himself. Oxford, 1759- ' Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn. Edited by Bray, Routledge. Diary of Samuel Pepys. Edited by Lord Braybrooke. Routledge. Cromwell's Letters and Speeches. Edited by Carlyle. Chapman and Hall, 1871. The Status of Women under the English Law, X066-1909. By Beatrice and Mar^ Wallis Chapman. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. GEORGE FOX, AND HIS INFLUENCE UPON THE WOMEN OF HIS DAY ------- I 11. ELIZABETH HOOTON—A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ELIZABETH FRY ------- i6 III, MARGARET FELL, THE " NURSING-MOTHER " OF QUAKERISM 42 IV. PRISONS AND SUFFERINGS - - - - -63 V. MARY fisher: A SERVANT-GIRL APOSTLE TO THE COLLEGES 94 VI. A MAIDEN AMBASSADOR TO THE GRAND TURK - - II4 VII. HUSBAND AND WIFE - - - - * 133 VIII. BARBARA BLAUGDONE, A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY MILITANT 158 IX. THE FIRST QUAKER WOMEN IN IRELAND - - - I77 X. QUAKER WOMEN OF THE WEST COUNTRY - - - 20I XI. THE FIRST QUAKER WOMEN IN HOLLAND - - - 217 XII. THE FIRST QUAKER WOMEN IN LONDON - - - 242 Xin. THE women's MEETING - . 268 XIV. " CONSARNING THE PLAGE " - - . - 29O XV. A STUART AMONG THE QUAKERS - - - . 304 XVI. QUAKER WOMEN OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY - - 324 XI CHAPTER I GEORGE FOX, AND HIS INFLUENCE UPON THE WOMEN OF HIS DAY In the year 1647, when George Fox, a lad of twenty- three, began his first missionary journey through the Midlands, there might well have seemed no room in England for the spread of a new gospel. Religion was already the guiding force in politics and the dominant factor in the estrangement of King Charles and his people. The translation of the Bible had brought life and vigour to a creed which had become through the centuries a matter of tradition or vicarious observance. An impetus had been given to thought, and a sanction to discussion, which was making itself felt through every department of national life. The Reformation of the sixteenth century bad de- posed the central authority in Church affairs, and split the religious world into almost as many schools of thought as there were thinkers. While the Independents and Presbyterians formed the two main divisions of the Puritan Church, a list has been drawn up of forty-six sects which flourished during the Commonwealth, deri- ving their names, for the most part, from some isolated doctrine or newly-developed heresy which it was their mission to emphasize. Each attracted to itself a greater or lesser number of adherents, whose hands were against every member of the other forty-five sects, and whose business in life was to confute them in public argument or printed pamphlet. Outward peace had been established under Cromwell's government, but the war of words a 2 QUAKER WOMEN which raged round these religious standards was as bitter in its enmity and as disintegrating in its social effects as the Civil War itself. It was not as the founder of a seven-and-fortieth sect that George Fox began to travel through Nottingham and Derby into Yorkshire, preaching in the open air, in private houses, and to the congregation assembled in the ** steeple-house," Indeed, for three years after its first proclamation, those who received his message were known by no distinctive title. They continued to call themselves after the existing society from which many of them had been drawn, " Children of the Light "— name which emphasized Fox's leading doctrine—or, it might be, by the simple name of Friends. It was not until 1650 that the name Quaker was imposed upon them, as the name Methodist was imposed upon the followers of John Wesley, in derision and by an enemy, " because," so Fox explains the title, " wee bid ym tremble att ye Word of God." His was no new gospel, but a summons to believers to return to the first prin- ciples of a common Christianity — a summons which, where it was obeyed, must bring the reconciliation of petty differences, the resolving of doubts, and the satisfac- tion of the longing soul.
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