ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



; pulpits which the priests lolled in ' ; " and found a friend in Mr. Boys, 

 minister of Goathland, who accompanied him in his wanderings through 

 moors. At one place Fox felt moved ' to famish ' his congregation 

 m words,' and sat in silence on a haystack for some hours, while Boys 

 orted them to wait until his lips were loosed.^" In 1652 Fox was arrested 

 ■ Patrington, but set at liberty," and was mobbed at Tickhill, where the 

 sh clerk struck him in the face with the Bible." He travelled through 

 kefield and Bradford into Craven, and by way of Pendle Hill, from the 

 of which the Lord let him ' see in what places he had a great people to 

 gathered,'" to Sedbergh and the dales. Here he had a vision of ' a great 

 pie in white raiment by a river-side, coming to the Lord.' " After 

 iching in the dales, he went into Westmorland and Lancashire." Between 

 4 and 1680 Fox paid nine visits to different parts of Yorkshire." From 

 leeting at Synderhill Green, near Halifax (1654), sixty ministers were sent 

 vork in other parts of England." Near Skipton (1660) a meeting of male 

 ;nds was called to provide for persecuted Friends at home and Friends 

 ond sea.''^ In 1665 Fox was removed from his prison at Lancaster to 

 rborough Castle, where his room lay open to the sea, ' so that the 

 er came over my bed, and ran about the room, that I was fain to 

 n it up with a platter.'" Imprisonment only kindled his zeal ; and in 

 7, arriving at York from a winter journey in the dales, he cries, ' I am 

 my holy element, and holy work in the Lord ; glory to His name for 



J. ]>60 



The spiritual activity begun by Fox spread with remarkable quickness, 

 les Naylor, convinced at Wakefield in 1651, was a victim to that exalta- 

 1 of spirit which to Fox himself was strength, and lost himself in spiritual 

 le." Of Fox's chief Yorkshire helpers, William Dewsbury spent nineteen 

 rs in prison ; Thomas Tayler of Skipton spent ten years in Stafford gaol, 

 . months in other prisons ; Thomas Aldam of Warmsworth was in York 

 ;tle for two years and a half.*^ Early Quaker enthusiasm was marked by 



meeting at Malton in 1653, attended by 200 persons, which lasted 

 more than three days, and included a bonfire of vanities.^' Fox's 

 thods of plain speech were imitated all over Yorkshire. A woman was 

 ;d ;^2oo (1652) for calling to the minister of Selby during sermon, ' Come 

 vn, come down, thou painted beast, come down.' ** John Pickering of 

 imbe (1654) disputed about tithes with his minister, refusing to pay for 

 maintenance of one who prayed in his ' Babylon pulpit against us humble 

 Its,' and referring to the Protector as ' the beast who is fallen from his 



" Fox, op. dt. 56. '» Ibid. 57, 58. " Ibid. CO, 00, 



"Ibid. 63. » Ibid. 66. "Ibid. "Ibid. 67-9. 



"Ibid. 114 seq. (1654); 265 (1657); 299 seq. (1660); 350 (1663, a passing visit to N. W. 



shire and Sedbergh) ; 377 seq. (1665-6) ; 392 (1666, short visit to Cleveland) ; 404 seq. (1669) • 



seq. (1677); 541 (1679-80). "Ibid. 114. 



^ Ibid. 300, 301. Cf. J. W. Rovratree, op. cit. and Isabel M. Hall, ' An Extinct Monthly Meeting' 



rsk), Friends' Quarterly Examiner (July 1903), 354. 



Ti ^°.'^' °P' "^" ^78, 379- "^ Ibid. 497. 



Ibid. 49 ; see Rowntree, op. cit., for short biographical notice. 

 '' Rowrntree, op. cit. Fox mentions Aldam's imprisonment, op. cit. 63. Thomas Thompson (see note 44 

 was in York Castle for nine years for refusing to go to church or pay for the repair of Skipsea 

 pie-house ' (Rowntree, op. cit. 24). 

 °^ Rowntree, op. cit. 17. 

 " Depositions from the Castle of York (,Surt. Soc), 54. 



3 6s q 



