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six years; and William Bartlett of the same place remained in the County gaol till his death.

1661. In January, John May of Devizes, a gunsmith, having in his shop some arms belonging to the trained bands, a party of horse came and seized him and the arms, and carried him before the Mayor, who after going through the accustomed form of tendering the Oath of Allegiance, committed him till the Assizes. At the same time were taken up at Devizes for attending Quaker Meetings, Robert West, Robert Sumner, Alexander Cuttine, and Mary Coole; and the following were carried before John Ernlé of Bourton, viz. John Fry, Arthur Estmead, John Hickman, and John Tyball, all of Calne. During the same year, Robert Stephens of Rowde, taken at a meeting at Lavington, was sent by Justice Richard Lewis to Fisherton, where he lay till two neighbours offered bail. At the Assizes, no offence being alleged, his bail was nevertheless retained for a second appearance, to which he also answered. An estreat now issued forth against his bail in the sum of £60, to prevent the execution of which he found it necessary to pay a quietus of £12. Eight years after, an under-sheriff said he had an estreat against him for non-appearance, but Stephens having a copy of his discharge staved off both this and another attempt next year. [At a meeting of the Society several years after, viz. in 1682, Thomas Gerrish and Edward Bezer are directed to obtain an account of the sufferings of Robert Stephens of Rowde and of Richard Joyner of Worton, and to transmit the report to London]. At Marden, in the house of William Moxon, a group of friends, to wit, John Bezer, Samuel Noyes, Edward Luffe of Chiverell, and Ralph Withers of Cannings, being

The family of Self was of good standing in the county. They were seated at Beanacre, which the Methuens afterwards inherited by intermarriage with the Selfs. In

1690 Isaac Self of Beanacre married Penelope second daughter of John Lord Lucas of Crudwell and Shenfield.

gathered for the amicable adjustment of some difficulty, were assaulted by a party armed with pikes, and carried before a Justice, who ordered them to produce sureties for their reappearance. Unconscious of any crime, they refused compliance, and were committed for contumacy.

1662. John Bezer of Bishops Cannings being at a friend's house in Devizes, and Ralph Withers waiting near in the street, they were both apprehended by Samuel Phelps and Richard Hillier and brought before the Justices William Yorke and John Kent, who remanded them till the next quarter sessions. After being again remanded by Judge Hyde and compelled to lie many weeks in gaol with common felons, they were at last indicted for meeting with force and arms, and the affair ended by the visitation of their houses by a bailiff who possessed himself of £8 worth of their wearing apparel. About the same time Thomas Withers and John Hudden of Chiverell were severally fined twenty shillings for coming into court with their hats on. Samuel Noyes was also brought again before the Devizes magistrates, who asked if he would promise to discontinue the meetings at his house. On his refusal, they committed him for some months.

George Keith whose life and labours were published in 1699, recording a missionary tour through this county, says he met with civil treatment at Devizes, Calne, and Chippenham. Another itinerant named Thomas Briggs of Cheshire, who made many converts in Salisbury, was with John Brathwaite incarcerated in that city. This was before the Restoration. Travelling in Wales about the same time, he was assailed by a constable, who, in his zeal to stop the Quaker from preaching, tore off half his coat. A by-stander, more humane than his fellows, brought it back, but Thomas Briggs left the other half also, as a witness against them. Ashamed of their conduct they then stitched the coat together and sent it to a Friend's house. Returning into Wiltshire some time after the Restoration, he appointed, in concert with J.

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Moon [of Fovant?] a meeting to take place near Devizes. A large number attended; but two Justices hearing of the congregation, came and broke it up: and having taken the names of most of those present, allowed them to go free, except Moon, Briggs, and three others, whom they committed to the House of Correction for three months. Here their Christian carriage so won upon the gaoler that he began to soften down, and in a little time even allowed their holding meetings in the prison. In the meantime, one of the Justices, whose design, (so Briggs came to understand) was to tender the Oaths at the expiration of the three months, having occasion to go to London, died on his return: so the prisoners escaped this second ordeal.

The relenting spirit of those in power signalized itself in 1671 by the "Declaration of Indulgence," in pursuance of which several Quakers were discharged from Fisherton Gaol, viz., Walter Penn, John Kingham, John Leonard, John Smith, Jane Self, Henry Long, John Miller, Robert Button, Edward Guy, John Gaine, Isaac Self, James Eve, and Edward Marshall; mostly of Lavington.

Notwithstanding the above Declaration of Indulgence, a reactionary feeling soon manifested itself among some of the more isolated of the country magistracy; and it so happens that the dishonourable pre-eminence in opening a new campaign against the Quakers belongs to the county of Wilts, where the persecution of Thomas Please in 1674 led to a letter of expostulation addressed by William Penn to the committing justice. But the so-called Popish plot of 1678 filled up their cup of misery, by furnishing a renewed opportunity for driving on a general persecution. William Penn himself, being by some scandal-mongers reported as a Jesuit and a Papist, his friends experienced the same prosecutions in the Exchequer as did the Romanists, viz. for penalties of £20 a month for absence from the Established form of worship, or of two-thirds of their estates for the like

offence, though there was actually no existing law against them as Quakers. Some of the first to suffer in this neighbourhood were-Roger Wheeler of Potterne, blacksmith, prosecuted in the Eccelesiastical Court for not receiving the Sacrament, excommunicated and cast into prison-Ralph Withers of Bishops Cannings, excommunicated at the suit of a Proctor, and imprisoned without any citation or presentment that he knew of; his offence being that he had married otherwise than as the Liturgy directed,-William Withers received from John Methuen Lord of the Manor of Bishops Cannings a notice to quit his copyhold estate; (whether executed or not, unrecorded.) In his letter of complaint to the Society he says it was a considerable copyhold estate left him by his father, and that he himself had long continued to be periodically presented by the homage as tenant. The manor belonging to the See of Sarum, had been farmed out to John Methuen who, it was admitted, had in some cases favoured the Friends and even allowed them to enjoy their estates without the customary forms of swearing; but as he (Withers) could not swear fealty, a declaration of ejectment had now been sent him, to which he must appear and try the cause at Sarum. [Mr. Methuen perhaps was not a free agent in the matter.] The sufferings of the Friends in this county were as nothing compared with what they underwent in Bristol, where, as they were led along the streets in droves to prison, the populace were encouraged to pursue them with execrations, to tear from the women their scarfs and kerchiefs, and in derision to the men, to pluck from their heads those hats which they showed so strong a tendency to retain. In Wiltshire, some of them found friends among the local magistracy, whose protection would be extended in the following form.

"1682. WILTS. May it please your Majesty. We whose names are underwritten, being Justices of the Peace and other gentlemen of the County of Wilts, do hereby humbly certify that Israel Noyes of Calne,

serge-maker; Arthur Estmead of the same, woollen draper; John Harris of Goatacre, clothier; prosecuted at the Exchequer as popish recusants, are of peaceable and quiet behaviour, and do not give disturbance to the Government, and are not reputed papists nor popish recusants, but are some of the Dissenters called Quakers in the said county; as witness our hands. James Long, George Johnson, Walter Norborne, William Duckett, Henry Chivers."

In order to avert the pressure of the Oath of Allegiance, Penn drew up a Memorial which he read in person to the Commons, praying that the simple word of the Quakers might be accepted in proof of their fealty. A quarterly meeting of the Friends at Devizes on the 1st of April 1678, though prior in date, seems also to bear reference to the same subject. It was then and there resolved that two delegates should be sent from Wiltshire to London; and the persons selected were Charles Marshall of Titherton and Ralph Withers of Cannings. The deputies present at Devizes on that occasion were: from Marlborough, William Hitchcock and Daniel Smith:-from Purton, John Gardner:-from Charlecot, Charles Marshall and Edward Jeffrey:-from Lea and Brinkworth, John Stockham and Edward Edwards:from Calne, Israel Noyes, William Tyler and William Savage:-from Heddington, none:-from Bromham and Rowde, Benjamin Shell and Robert Stephens:-from Kyngton, John Gingell:-from Chippenham, Marmaduke Roberts, John Husday, and Adam Gouldney:-from Slaughterford and Corsham, John Davis and Walter Edwards-from Shawhill and Melksham, none:-from Comerwell, William Stovey and John Drew:-from Westbury, none:-from Warminster, none:-from Alderbury and Fovant, George Harris, James Abbot and William Isaacs:-from Lavington, Isaac Self and Richard Few:-from Devizes, Samuel Noyes, John Clark, and John Bezer.

Persecution again broke out in Devizes on the 22nd of October 1682 when Bartholemew Lacy of Salisbury being discovered at a meeting here, was reported by the Mayor of

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