THE FOUNDERS OP CHARLES CHUHCH. 
2ol 
the ardour of their adherents should be sustained by suitable 
spiritual nourishment. Bedford was strong as a Royalist ; he would 
not be bent, so he must be broken, and the voice of the reader 
in St. Andrew's Church must be in accord with the popular side. 
Accordingly the eminent divine was superseded, the newly-appointed 
vicar was arrested and thrown into the town jail, then and now 
called, in local parlance, the clink. The discipline of prisons, and 
the care of prisoners, was very different in those days from what it 
is now. The complaints of the prisoners were heard by passers-by, 
and even amid the excitement of the siege men had time to regard 
with indignation the sight of one who for fourteen years had "lived 
and preacht with approbation," and by his consistent and kindly 
character had won the respect of friend and foe, thrust into the 
11 nasty " jail, as it was termed. Walker, in his Sufferings of the 
Clergy, relates the incident that the governor of Plymouth was 
changed at the time, and the friends of Bedford hoped that the 
opportunity might have been taken by the authorities to have 
mitigated the vigours of the imprisonment ; but although the 
governor was changed no sign was given, and at last the authori- 
ties were startled by the free expression of the opinion of one of 
the preachers of the town, who expounded from the text, "And 
Festus willing to show the Jews a pleasure left Paul bound," 
pointedly alluding to the circumstances of the vicar of Plymouth. 
"But," says Walker, "the preacher was like to have paid dear for 
the application ; for he had much ado to escape accompanying Mr. 
Bedford in prison, and administering to him in his bonds." 
Soon after this Bedford was conveyed away by sea, and Plymouth 
knew him no more. It is only within a recent period that his 
later history has been traced, and when found it was under such 
singular surroundings that for a long time he could not be identi- 
fied as the Bedford of Plymouth. He was alive in 1643 in 
Plymouth. In the same year he is again heard of; for Robert 
Trelawny, by his will of that date, gave to "Thomas Bedford, 
Bahr. in Divinity, £150 in money to be paid the one halfe within 
a yeare, and the other halfe within 2 yeares after my death." The 
following four years is a blank; but on the 5th May, 1647, a 
Thomas Bedford was presented to the living of St. Martin Outwich, 
Threadneedle Street, London, by the Merchant Tailors' Company ; 
and from 1649 to 1652 he is found acting as one of the ex- 
aminers of Merchant Tailors' School. This school, as an important 
