ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



meetings at Baldock, Royston, Hitchin, Hertford and Ware/" but these 

 measures were entirely futile. Pepys when riding north in the following 

 year describes how he 'got to Baldwick ' (Baldock), and how he found that 

 both there and everywhere else that he came ' the Quakers do still continue, 

 and rather grow than lessen.' " The Quaker Act,^' which became law in 

 May 1662, made it penal for five or more persons of over sixteen years of 

 age to assemble at one place or time for unauthorized worship. On con- 

 viction, confession or notorious evidence of the fact the offender was liable, 

 for the first and second offences, to fines not exceeding ^^5 and ^(^lo 

 respectively, and for the third to transportation with the alternative of 

 abjuring the realm. Twenty-four persons were tried under this Act at the 

 Midsummer sessions of this same year.*^ In 1663 meetings were discovered 

 at King's Langley and at Widford.^^ At Hertford divers of the Quakers 

 were ' men of estates and repute,' *' and there seems to have been some 

 reluctance at prosecuting them. According to a report made in 1664 'the 

 Sectaries are said to grow so numerous there out of y® dislike and prejudices 

 they have taken up against one of y^ vicars of Hartford,*' who hath very 

 fewe auditors.' It was suggested that if two or three clergymen of parts and 

 temper could convince the Quakers it would be instrumental to the undeceiv- 

 ing of the rest of the sectaries ' in this chrisis of time' before the new Conventicle 

 Act came into force on i July 1664.°" The Act was straightway put in force, 

 and on 1 2 August Henry Feast and eight others were indicted for the third 

 offence under the Conventicle Act.'^ The witnesses for the prosecution 

 agreed that while they had found the Quakers assembled ' they neither heard 

 any of them speak, nor saw them do anything.' The Grand Jury returned 

 a bill of ' ignoramus,' but the judge, Orlando Bridgman, sent them back 

 with fresh instructions and they finally returned a true bill ; one of the 

 prisoners was found not guilty, the rest were sentenced to transportation to 

 the Barbadoes and Jamaica.'^ Meetings seem, however, still to have been 

 held at the house of Nicholas Lucas at Hertford, and three men and four 

 women were indicted at the quarter session for having been present." Five 

 of them stood mute and were sentenced to the Barbadoes.'* In October 

 twenty-one Quakers were sentenced to transportation.'' The meetings still 

 persisted, however,'^ and in 1669 it was reported that a public meeting was 

 held every Sunday at Hertford at a room specially fitted up for the purpose. 



^' Besse, op. cit. i, 241-2. 



^* Diary, 6 Aug. 1661. On 2 Aug. he had ridden to Ware, 'on the way having much discourse with 

 a fell-monger, a Quaker, who told me what a wicked man he had been all his life-time till within two years.' 



8' Stat. 13 & 14 Chas. II, cap. 1. ^ Besse, op. cit. i, 243. 



^' Ibid. 244; of. Quarter Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 153. 



^ Extract from State Papers (Friends' Hist. Soc. Ser. 2), 192. 



*' Thomas Ashton, vicar of St. Andrew's, instituted zo Dec. 1660 (Urwick, op. cit. 532 n.). For the 

 scandals connected with him see Turner, Orig. Rec. of Early Nonconf. i, 84-5 ; Ralph Wallis, Room for the 

 Cobler of Gloucester (1668), 17-18. *" Extracts from State Papers, loc. cit. ; Stat. 16 Chas. II, cap. 4. 



'^ Besse, op. cit. i, 244 ; cf Urwick, op. cit. 533-5 and n. 



'^ Ibid., where their adventures are related in detail ; cf. Quarter Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 164. 



'' Quarter Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 162. Margaret Bevis was wife of Thomas Bevis, gent., whose 

 children were registered as born (not baptized) in 1647, 1649 and 1652 (Urwick, op. cit. 532). She was 

 fined j^20 with an alternative of prison for six months. 



9* Quarter Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 166. ^' Besse, op. cit. i, 248. 



88 Quarter Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 176. Nicholas Lucas was a maltster. He lay in Hertford 

 Gaol under sentence of transportation from 1664 to 1672, and afterwards became one of the proprietors of 

 West Jersey {Friends' Hist. Soc. Joum. vii, 43). 



357 



