A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



occasional tactlessness and provocation of insults. The peculiar tenets pro- 

 fessed by the followers of George Fox were ' first preached in the north side 

 of this county of Sussex about the third month in the yeare 1655, at the 

 Towne of Horsham, by John Slee, Thomas Lawson, and Thomas Lawcock,' 

 who spoke in the market place and met with much mocking and some little 

 violence. These missionaries passed on the same day to the house of Bryan 

 Wilkason at Sedgewick Lodge, who was possibly already known to them, 

 having only recently come from the north, and was the first person in the 

 county to receive them. Meetings were then held at Ifield, where Richard 

 Bonwick, a weaver, received them, and at Twineham ; and about the same 

 time Thomas Robinson addressed a meeting in Southover, a suburb of 

 Lewes, at which Ambrose Galloway, a Lewes tradesman of good position, 

 and subsequently the most prominent of the sufferers in that town, was con- 

 vinced. Shortly after this George Fox himself came to Bryan Wilkason's 

 house, where he held a meeting at which he was opposed by Matthew 

 Caffyn, a Baptist preacher ; 284 he also spoke with such success at Ifield that a 

 weekly meeting was established there, ' which was the first meeting that was 

 Gathered in this County to Sitt Downe together in Silence to wait upon the 

 Lord.' Fox and his companion, Alexander Parker, afterwards visited 

 Steyning, Lewes, and Warbleton, and their missionary work was continued by 

 Ambrose Rigge and Joseph Fuce, with the result that Quakerism obtained 

 a firm hold in many parts of Sussex, which was increased rather than 

 weakened by the persecution its professors had to endure. 



Part of the unpopularity of the Quakers was due to their habit of 

 entering churches and interrupting the service by questioning, contradicting, 

 or admonishing the preacher. Occasionally they were silenced by the tact of 

 the minister, as in the case of the Quaker who came into Burwash church 

 and said to the vicar, Thomas Goldham, ' I am sent with a message from God 

 to thee,' to whom the vicar, seeing that he was a stranger, said, ' Dost thou 

 know my name ? ' Upon his answering, ' I know it not,' Goldham said, 

 ' If God sent thee to me He could surely have told thee my name,' and 

 pointed out that he might be mistaken as to the recipient of his message, 

 with such effect that he withdrew in confusion. 285 Far more often, however, 

 the intruder was seized, dragged before the nearest magistrate, and committed 

 to gaol, as happened to Thomas Lawcock at Horsham in i655, S86 to John 

 Pellatt at Westmeston in i657, 287 and in several other cases. The refusal to 

 swear or to remove their hats in court brought them into frequent collision 

 with the magistracy, as their refusal to pay tithes did with the clergy. For 

 this latter offence they suffered severely, especially at the hands of such 

 ministers as William Snatt of Lewes, and Leonard Letchford of Hurstpier- 

 point, the churchwardens usually seizing goods to the value of two or 

 three times the amounts due. 288 This religious intolerance, into the details of 

 which there is no space here to go, was due to the action of the local 

 authorities and was discouraged by the Protector himself and his associates. 

 Consequently, when in the autumn of 1656 a petition was sent up to Oliver 



14 This Caffyn was a great opponent of the Quakers, and published in 1656 an address which he had 

 delivered in Horsham church, called The deceived and deceiving Quakers discovered, a denunciation which at 

 least does not lack vigour. 



184 S//. Arch. Coll. a, 34. Ibid, xvi, 76. 



" Ibid - 77- >88 Ibid. 68, 69. 



38 



