Chapter XVIII: The First Quaker Martyr

How Mrs. Benson managed it, there is no record. Perhaps she hardly knew herself! But she was not a woman to be easily turned aside from her purpose, and her husband, Colonel Gervase Benson, had been one of the 'considerable people' in the County before he had turned Quaker and 'downed those things.' Even after the change, it may be that prison doors were more easily unlocked by certain little golden and silver keys in those days, than they are in our own.

Anyway, somehow or other, the interview was arranged. 'Little James' found his desire fulfilled at last. When he passed into the stifling, crowded prison den, where human beings were herded together like beasts, he never heeded the horrible stench or the crawling vermin that abounded everywhere. Rather, he felt as if he were entering the palace of a king. He paid no attention to the crowd of savage figures all around him. He saw nothing, knew nothing, felt nothing, until at last he found that his hand was lying in the grasp of a stronger, firmer hand, that held it, and would not let it go. Then, indeed, for the first time he looked up, and knew that his long journey was ended, as he met the penetrating gaze of George Fox.

'Keep thine eyes off me, they pierce me,' the Baptist Deacon had cried, a few weeks before, in that same city. As James looked up, he too felt for the first time the piercing power of those eyes, but to him it brought no terror, only joy, as he yielded himself wholly to his teacher's scrutiny. In silence the two stood, reading each the other's soul. James felt, instinctively, that his new friend knew and understood everything that had happened to him, all his life long; that there was no need to tell him anything, or to explain anything.

Of an older friendship between two men it was written, 'Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.' Thus it proved once more in that crowded dungeon. No details remain of the interview; no record of what James said, or what George said. No one else could have reported what passed between them, and, though each of them has left a mention of their first meeting, the silence remains unbroken.

The Journal says merely: 'While I was in ye dungeon at Carlisle, a little boy, one James Parnell, about fifteen years old, came to me, and he was convinced and came to be a very fine minister and turned many to Christ.'

The boy's own account is shorter still. He does not even mention George Fox by name. 'I was called for,' he says, 'to visit some friends in the North part of England, with whom I had union before I saw their faces, and afterwards I returned to my outward dwelling-place.'

His 'outward dwelling-place': the lad's frail body might tramp back along the weary miles to Retford; his spirit remained in the North, freely imprisoned with his friend.

'George' and 'James' were brothers in heart, ever after that short interview in Carlisle Gaol: united in one inseparable purpose. While George was confined, James, the free brother, must carry forward George's work. Triumphantly he did it. By the following year he had earned his place right well among the 'Valiant Sixty' who were then sent forth, 'East and West and South and North,' to 'Publish Truth.'

The Eastern Counties, hitherto almost unbroken ground, fell to James's share. Assisted by two other 'Valiants,' Richard Hubberthorne and George Whitehead, the seed was scattered throughout the length and breadth of East Anglia. Within three short years 'gallant Meetings' were already gathered and settled everywhere.

James Parnell was the first Quaker preacher to enter the city of Colchester, which was soon to rank third among the strongholds of Quakerism. This boy of eighteen, still so small and delicate in appearance that his enemies taunted him with the name of 'little Quaking lad,' has left an account of one of his first crowded days of work in that city. In the morning, he says, he received any of the townspeople who were minded to come and ask him questions at his lodgings. He was a guest, at the time, of a weaver named Thomas Shortland, who, with his wife Ann, had been convinced shortly before, by their guest's ministry. In adversity also they were soon to prove themselves tried and faithful friends.

Later, that same Sunday morning (4th July 1655), James went down the High Street to Saint Nicholas' Church, and, when the sermon was ended, preached to the people in his turn.

In the afternoon 'he addressed a very great meeting of about a thousand people, in John Furly's yard, he being mounted above the crowd and speaking out of a hay-chamber window.' Still later, that same day, he not only carried on a discussion with 'the town-lecturer and another priest,' he, the boy of eighteen, but also 'appeared in the evening at a previously advertised meeting held in the schoolroom for the children of the French and Flemish weaver refugees in Colchester, who were being at this time hospitably entertained in John Furly's house.'[28]

George Fox says, 'many hundreds of people were convinced by the words and labours of this young minister.' But, far better than preaching to other people, he had by this time learned to rule his own spirit. Once, as he was coming out of the 'Steeple-house of Colchester, called Nicholas,' one person in particular struck him with a great staff and said to him, 'Take that for Jesus Christ's sake,' to whom James Parnell meekly replied, 'Friend, I do receive it for Jesus Christ's sake.'

The journey his soul had travelled from the time, only three short years before, when he had described his neighbours as 'the heathen round about,' until the day that he could give such an answer was perhaps a longer one really than all the weary miles he had traversed between Retford and far Carlisle.

The two friends, George and James, had one short happy time of service together, both of them free. After that they parted. Then, all too soon it was George's turn to visit James, now himself in prison at Colchester Castle, an even more terrible prison than Carlisle, where only death could open the doors and set the weary prisoner free. George's record of his visit to his friend is short and grim. 'As I went through Colchester,' he says, 'I went to visit James Parnell in prison, but the cruel gaoler would hardly let us come in or stay with him, and there the gaoler's wife threatened to have his blood, and there they did destroy him.'

An account, written by his Colchester friends, expands the terrible, glorious tale of his sufferings.

'The first Messenger of the Lord that appeared in this town to sound the everlasting Gospel was that eminent Minister and Labourer, James Parnell, whose first coming to ye town was in ye fourth month (June) in the year 1655.... Great were the sufferings which this faithful minister of the Lord underwent, being beat and abused by many.

'As touching the cause of his sufferings in this his last imprisonment unto death, which was the fruits of a fast kept at Great Coggeshall against error (as they said), the 12th day of the fifth month 1655, where he spoke some words when the priests had done speaking; and when he was gone out of the high place one followed him, called Justice Wakering, and clapt him on the back and said he arrested him. And so, by the means of divers Independent priests and others, he was committed to this prison at Colchester. And in that prison he was kept close up, and his friends and acquaintance denied to come at him. Then at the Assizes he was carried to Chelmsford, about eighteen miles through the country, as a sport or gazing-stock, locked on a chain with five accused for felony and murder, and he with three others remained on the chain day and night. But when he appeared at the Bar, he was taken off the chain, only had irons on his hands, where he appeared before Judge Hill ... the first time. But seeing some cried out against this cruelty, and what shame it would be to let the irons be seen on him, the next day they took them off, and he appeared without, where the priests and justices were the accusers. And the judge gathered what he could out of what they said, to make what he could against the prisoner to the jury, and urged them to find him guilty, lest it fall upon their own heads.... And when he would have spoken truth for himself to inform the jury, the judge would not permit him thereto. So the judge fined him about twice twenty marks, or forty pounds, and said the Lord Protector had charged him to see to punish such persons as should contemn either Magistracy or Ministry. So he committed him close prisoner till payment, and gave the jailor charge to let no giddy-headed people come at him; for his friends and those that would have done him good were called "giddy-headed people," and so kept out; and such as would abuse him by scorning or beating, those they let in and set them on. And the jailor's wife would set her man to beat him, who threatened to knock him down and make him shake his heels, yea, the jailor's wife did beat him divers times, and swore she would have his blood, or he should have hers. To which he answered, "Woman, I would not have thine."'[29]

One of James' own letters remains written about this time: 'The day I came in from the Assize,' he says, 'there was a friend or two with me in the jaylor's house, and the jaylor's wife sent her man to call me from them and to put me into a yard, and would not suffer my friends to come at me. And one friend brought me water, and they would not suffer her to come to me, but made her carry it back again.'

The name of this woman Friend is not given in this letter, but I daresay we shall not be far wrong if we fill it in for ourselves here, and think of her as the same Anne Langley, who would not be kept out of the prison later on. Other people mention her by name. It is only in little James' own account that her name does not appear. Perhaps the tie that bound them was something more than friendship, and he did not wish her to suffer for her love and faith.

James' letter continues: 'At night they locked me up into a hole with a condemned man ... and the same day a friend desired the jaylor's wife that she would let her come and speak with me, and the jaylor's wife answered her and the other friends who were with her, calling them "Rogues, witches ... and the devil's dish washers" ... and other names, and saying "that they had skipped out of hell when the devil was asleep!" and much more of the same unchristian-like speeches which is too tedious to relate.... And thus they make a prey upon the innocent; and when they do let any come to me they would not let them stay but very little,' (Poor James! the visits were all too short, and the lonely hours alone all too long for the prisoner) 'and the jaylor's wife would threaten to pull them down the stairs.... And swore that she would have my blood several times, and told my friends so, and that she would mark my face, calling me witch and rogue, shake hell ... and the like; and because I did reprove her for her wickedness, the jaylor hath given order that none shall come to me at any occasion, but only one or two that brings my food.'

Even this small mercy was not to be allowed much longer. The account of the Colchester Friend continues: 'And sometimes they would stop any from bringing him victuals, and set the prisoners to take his victuals from him; and when he would have had a trundle bed to have kept him off the stones, they would not suffer friends to bring him one, but forced him to lie on the stones, which sometimes would run down with water in a wet season. And when he was in a room for which he paid 4d. a night, he was threatened, if he did but walk to and fro in it, by the jaylor's wife. Then they put him in a hole in the wall, very high, where the ladder was too short by about six foot, and when friends would have given him a cord and basket to have taken up his victuals, he was denied thereof and could not be suffered to have it, though it was much desired, but he must either come up and down by that rope, or else famish in the hole, which he did a long time, before God suffered them to see their desires in which time much means was used about it, but their wills were unalterably set in cruelty towards him. But after long suffering in this hole, where there was nought but misery as to the outward man, being no hole either for air or for smoke, being much benumbed in the naturals, as he was climbing up the ladder with his victuals in one hand, and coming to the top of the ladder, catching at the rope with the other hand, missed the rope, and fell a very great height upon stones, by which fall he was exceedingly wounded in the head and arms, and his body much bruised, and taken up for dead, but did recover again that time.

'Then they put him in a low hole called the oven, and much like an oven, and some have said who have been in it that they have seen a baker's oven much bigger, except for the height of the roof, without the least airhole or window for smoke and air, nor would they suffer him to have a little charcoal brought in by friends to prevent the noisome smoke. Nor would they suffer him, after he was a little recovered, to take a little air upon the castle wall, which was but once desired by the prisoner, feeling himself spent for want of breath. All which he bore with much patience and still kept his suffering much from friends there, seeing they was much sorrowful to see it. Yea, others who were no friends were wounded at the sight of his usage in many other particulars, which we forbear here to mention.

'And divers came to see him, who heard of his usage from far, not being friends, had liberty to see him, who was astonished at his usage, and some of them would say "IF THIS BE THE USAGE OF THE PROTECTOR'S PRISONERS IT WERE BETTER TO BE ANYBODY'S PRISONERS THAN HIS," as Justice Barrington's daughter said, who saw their cruelty to him. And many who came to see him were moved with pity to the creature, for his sufferings were great.'

'And although some did offer of their bond of forty pounds [to pay the fine and so set him at liberty] and one to lie body for body, that he might come to their house till he was a little recovered, yet they would not permit it, and it being desired that he might but walk in the yard, it was answered he should not walk so much as to the castle door. And the door being once opened, he did but take the freedom to walk forth in a close, stinking yard before the door, and the gaoler came in a rage and locked up the hole where he lay, and shut him out in the yard all night in the coldest time of the winter. So, finding that nothing but his blood would satisfy them, great application was made to them in a superior authority but to no purpose. Thus he having endured about ten months' imprisonment, and having passed through many trials and exercises, which the Lord enabled him to bear with courage and faithfulness, he laid down his head in peace and died a prisoner and faithful Martyr for the sake of the Truth, under the hands of a persecuting generation in the year 1656.'[30]

It was his former host, Thomas Shortland the weaver, who had offered to lie 'body for body' in prison, if only James might be allowed to return to his house and be nursed back to health again there. After the boy's death this kind man wrote as follows:

'Dear Friend--In answer to thine, is this, James Parnell being dead, the Coroner sent an officer for me, and one Anne Langley, a friend, who both of us watched with him that night that he departed. And coming to him [the Coroner] he said, "that it was usual when any died in prison, to have a jury got on them," and James being dead, and he hearing we two watched with him, he sent for us to hear what we could say concerning his death, whether he died on his fair death [_i.e._ a natural death] or whether he were guilty of his own death.... He asked whether he had his senses and how he behaved himself late-ward toward his departure. I answered that he had his senses and that he spake sensibly, and to as good understanding as he used to do. He then enquired what words he spoke. To which Anne Langley answered that she heard him say, "HERE I DIE INNOCENTLY," and she said that she had been at the departing of many, but never was where was such sweet departing; and at his departing his last words were, "NOW I MUST GO," and turned his head to me and said, "THOMAS, THIS DEATH I MUST DIE," and further said, "O THOMAS, I HAVE SEEN GREAT THINGS," and bade me that I should not hold him, but let him go, and said it over again, "WILL YOU NOT HOLD ME?" And then said Anne, "Dear Heart, we will not hold thee." And he said, "NOW I GO," and stretched out himself, and fell into a sweet sleep and slept about an hour (as he often said, that one hour's sleep would cure him of all), and so drew breath no more.'

* * * * *

Little James was free at last. He had left his frail, weary body behind and had departed on the longest, shortest journey of all. A journey this, ending in no noisome den in Carlisle Castle, as when he first saw the earthly teacher he had loved so long, but leading straight and swift to the heavenly abiding-places: to the welcome of his unseen yet Everlasting Friend.

'How know I that it looms lovely, that land I have never seen,
With morning-glory and heartsease, and unexampled green?
All souls singing, seeing, rejoicing everywhere,
Yea, much more than this I know, for I know that Christ
is there.'[31]

FOOTNOTES:

[28] _James Parnell_, by C. Fell Smith.

[29] 'Lamb's Defence against Lyes.'

[30] _First Publishers of Truth_.

[31] Christina Rossetti.