A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



more possible by the relaxation of religious controversy in the succeeding 

 age, and by the fact that till the Oxford movement, though the formularies 

 and government of the Church remained Catholic, its voice was predominantly 

 Protestant. 



All this was true in Northamptonshire, where the type of mind which 

 successively favoured Lollardism and Puritanism had been so persistent. The 

 actual strength of Nonconformity here was greater than would appear from 

 the return of the religious census already quoted, and in quality and personnel 

 the dissenters were stronger than their numbers indicate. These remarks 

 apply chiefly to the so-called 'three denominations,' Presbyterian, Independent, 

 and Baptist, whose history in Northamptonshire is of importance. The 

 Quakers were and remained apart. Under the Restoration government they 

 suffered even more persecution than before, chiefly through their refusal 

 to pay tithes and to take the oath of allegiance. In 1662 an Act was 

 passed against them for refusing to take lawful oaths, and in the same 

 year another Act prohibited their assembling for worship under a penalty 

 of £.$•> with transportation for a third offence. Under this statute 

 the Quakers were exported to Jamaica and Barbados, to become practically 

 the slaves of the colonists for the term of their punishment, whilst 

 the Conventicle Acts of 1664 and 1670 made things even worse, and 

 under these statutes the Quakers of Northamptonshire were severely dealt 

 with. In August, 1663,^ a meeting of some two or three hundred Quakers 

 in a private house at Muscott was broken in upon by a corporal and five 

 soldiers with a justice's warrant and ' pistols cockt.' Eight persons were 

 arrested and taken to Northampton; the next day the assizes were held, and the 

 judge ordered the oath of allegiance to be administered, and the prisoners, on 

 refusing to take it, were sent back to gaol. By the end of the year fever had 

 broken out in the crowded prison, and seven of the Quakers died. At the 

 April session, 1665, five Quakers were ordered '^ to Jamaica for the third 

 offence in meeting together for religious worship. In February of the following 

 year four others were transported. In May forty were captured at once by 

 the constable and a ' rabble of assistants ' in a meeting at Finedon.* The justices 

 fined them 40J-. each, and on refusing to pay, the whole of them were sent for 

 six weeks to gaol at Northampton. Justice Yelverton was the most active of the 

 Northamptonshire magistrates in harrying the Quakers, boasting that he had 

 signed the committals of eighty Quakers in a single year. The Quaker per- 

 secution in the county continued with fitful but almost unabated 

 energy until James II came to the throne, when, even before the Declaration 

 of Indulgence, the king's known intentions gave courage to the more humane 

 in the county to protest. At the quarter sessions of 1685, various petitions 

 were presented in favour of the release of particular imprisoned Quakers. A 

 petition from Kingscliffe was headed by the rector,* and was further signed 

 by two of the justices. In the case of three Quakers from Aynho, the 

 petition was signed by the two churchwardens, the two overseers, the parish 

 constable and seventeen others, whilst a testimonial signed by two justices 

 was also produced.^ A Whittlebury Quaker, in addition to the signatures of 



' Besse, op. cit. i, 532. ' Ibid, i, 533. 



Mbid. i, 534. * Ibid, i, 548. 



'' Ibid, i, 549. 



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