Early Quakers and Imprisonment

Why don’t Quakers go to prison any more?

Well, they do.

One of the longest-lasting British Quaker institutions is Meeting for Sufferings. It has picked up, and laid down, many functions since it was founded in 1675, and will itself be laid down next year, 2026, but the original purpose was to record (in the ‘Great Book of Sufferings’) the punishment of Friends by imprisonment on account of their faith, and to organise aid for them, and to lobby for liberalisation of the law. It still carries out that function. One or two Friends, every year or two, will find themselves convicted of a crime which seems to have been committed as a consequence of their faith. Britain Yearly Meeting may consider such Friends to be prisoners of conscience. These days it tends to be because of their involvement in a direct action protest, perhaps as part of eXtinction Rebellion, or maybe Just Stop Oil.

Some people look back wistfully to the time when Friends were imprisoned in large numbers for their faith, and wonder if we haven’t lost our edge. This may be a false impression.

Well, the above was true when I started writing this post, some time ago. These days Friends find themselves under arrest (non imprisoned quite yet) for supporting Palestine Action, a group that I consider violent racist thugs, a strange choice for Friends…but here we are. I don’t think we’ve lost our edge so much as we’ve lost our way. But something else has changed, too.

I started to wonder: all those times that Fox went to prison, who put him there? And not only Fox.

The times of early Friends

Let’s consider the conditions under which early Friends were imprisoned.

It’s hard to say exactly when the Society of Friends started. It just sort of emerged out of efforts to establish various kinds of mutual aid, and yes also various kinds of organisation, discipline, and control of the growing Quaker community. Maybe the Society has its beginning in the established of Second Day Morning Meeting in 1673, recognising (or not) visiting Friends, censoring Quaker writing. But let’s say that the faith became a recognisable thing in June 1652, when George Fox preached for several hours to a large gathering, maybe a thousand people, on Firbank Fell. This is widely seen as the big step beyond being a small group of Seekers and the first opening to the ‘great people to be gathered’ that Fox had envisioned atop Pendle Hill on his way north earlier that year.

Fox had already been in prison a couple of times by then:

1649 Nottingham
1650 Derby

and would be in prison again

1653 Carlisle
1654 London
1656 Launceston
1660 Lancaster
1662 Leicester
1664-1666 Lancaster and Scarborough
1673 – 1675 Worcester

Let’s consider the historical context around these. Here’s that list again, with some detail added.

Timeline of Fox’s, Fell’s, and Nayler’s Lives, with historical context

biographical events in pink for Fox
biographical events in orange for Fell
biographical events in red for Nayler
imprisonment by the Crown in yellow
imprisonment by the Commonwealth/Protectorate in green

Year, and details, of particular note in Quaker affairs in bold. Years are “new style”.

Political and Religious Context

Jump here for specifically Quaker content.

1374 Wycliffe’s commentary on the Bible criticises church wealth, denigrates the church hierarchy, emphasised the gospel over the sacraments.
1395 An English-language Bible attributed to Wycliffe and his followers, the Lollards, appears.
1407 Lollard writings, including the Wycliffe Bible are suppressed, and rules are enforced at the University of Oxford (where Wycliffe had taught) to prevent new English-language translations and to restrict the use of the ones which did exist.
1509 Henry Tudor, called king, comes to the throne. He is born, lives, and dies a Catholic.
1517 Catholic priest Martin Luther publishes his 95 Theses, criticising many church practices including the hard separation of ordained clergy from laity, clergy celibacy, and the reading of scripture only through the lens of church doctrine. Many of these had been innovated only 500 years or so previously by Anselm of Baggio (Pope Alexander II) and more so Hildebrand of Sovana (Pope Gregory VII) as part of securing for the Roman church political and economic independence from the Carolingian monarchies.
1521 Luther is excommunicated by the Pope, and declared an outlaw by the Emperor.
1522 Ulrich Zwingli, a Swiss priest, beings his own journey away from Rome, believing that Luther is not going far enough or fast enough in his reforms.
1522 William Tyndale begins work on a new Bible in English, without permission.
1523 Luther marries former nun Katharina von Bora. Some followers of Zwingli decide that he is not going far enough or fast enough in his reforms, they split away into what will become the Anabaptist churches.
1526 Zwingli’s followers gain political power and violently suppress the Anabaptists, executing some of them.
1526 Tyndale’s English-language New Testament is condemned by the Church of England and copies burned.
c. 1530 French lawyer John Calvin leaves the Roman Catholic church.
1532 The Parliament of England detaches the Catholic Church in England from the authority of the Pope.
1533 The new Church in England, Catholic but not Roman, annuls the marriage of Henry Tudor and Catherine of Aragon
1534 Heresy against Roman Catholicism decriminalised, but other heresies against orthodox Christianity, such as Anabaptism, remain illegal and are violently suppressed. The Act of Supremacy recognises the king head of the Church in England.
1535 Tyndale’s followers complete his Bible, notably Miles Coverdale. The complete work is the first printed Bible in English. Henry begins dissolving the monasteries, convents, and friaries of England and Wales, confiscating their wealth, gifting their land to his followers. Resistance was met with violence, including imprisonment and executions.
1536 Calvin first publishes his Institutes, outlining his ideas for a “reformed” theology and church structure.
1537 Calvin becomes a “pastor”, he is never ordained.
1539 The English church authorises a Bible in English.
1547 Henry dies, his son Edward, a Protestant, becomes king. He takes the Church of England with him. Commissioners tour England, stripping churches of their Catholic trappings, destroying rood screens, paintings, sculpture. The Mass is re-written to remove Catholic “superstition”. Many English churches still display decapitated statues of saints. Every now and again a mediaeval decorated interior is discovered behind some plaster or panelling.
1549 The first Book of Common Prayer issued; under the Act of Uniformity the Church in England becomes recognisably Protestant.
1552 John Knox, exiled in England, preaches to Edward, becomes a royal chaplain.
1553 Edward dies, and after a brief interregnum his Catholic sister Mary becomes Queen; many Protestants flee England, including Knox who goes to join Calvin in Geneva. He works with the Reformers there to develop arguments against the Catholic Mary Stuart becoming Queen of Scots. The Statues of Repeal undo the church reforms of Edward and Henry, returning the Church of England to Roman Catholicism. Parish churches restored their chalices, tabernacles for reserved hosts, rood screens, and other Catholic paraphernalia. Protestant leaders could br imprisoned, tortured, executed, hundreds were burned at the stake.
1557-60 Rowland Hill publishes the Geneva Bible, with marginal notes giving a Calvinist Protestant gloss to the English text. It is published without permission from Mary. The Geneva Bible leans heavily on Tyndale’s Bible.
1558 Mary dies and is succeeded as queen by her sister Elizabeth. Hill secures permission to print the Geneva Bible in England. A new Act of Supremacy makes Elizabeth head of the Church of England, now established as a part of the state and completely independent of Rome or any other religious hierarchy. It has its own laws and courts, a state-within-a-state. A new Act of Uniformity equips the Church with a Reformed theology (in fact a via media between Luther and Calvin) but Episcopalian polity and a liturgy familiar to Catholics, all captured in a new Book of Common Prayer, including the 39 Articles. The rood screens and such come down again. Suppression and Persecution of Catholics resumes.
1559 Knox returns to Scotland. A year later he co-authors the Reformed Scots Confession, which is adopted by the Scottish Parliament. Knox leads the work to make the Church of Scotland into a Reformed, Presbyterian church. Celebrating the Mass becomes a crime in Scotland.
1561 Mary Stewart returns to Scotland as Queen, Knox agitates against her, leading to a charge of treason.
1567 Mary is forced to abdicate the throne of Scotland in favour of her Protestant son, James.
1579 By law, every household in Scotland had to have a copy of the Geneva Bible.
1568 the Bishops’ Bible, in English, authorised and published by the Church of England
1586 Richard Hooker, Anglican Priest, has a public quarrel with Walter Travers, a leading member of the new “Puritan” (ie Congregationalist and Calvinist) movement within the Church of England. Travers and the Puritans are suppressed by both church hierarchy and secular government.
1594-97 Hooker publishes Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, which counters the rising Puritan criticisms of the Church of England.
1603 Elizabeth dies. James Charles Stuart, called King of Scots, also Protestant, comes to the throne of England, which is now in personal union with Scotland. The Church of Scotland was still in the throws of its own Reformation, having adopted Calvinist theology and changing from an Episcopalian to a Presbyterian polity. James is immediately petitioned by Puritans who wish to do the same to the Church of England. James sees the church hierarchy as an instrument of social control, an arm of government, and does not agree to their requests.
1604 a new, more Reformed-leaning Book of Common Prayer is published by the Church of England
1611 The “King James” (ie Authorised Version) Bible is prepared. By direction of James it is without any explanatory notes, even though the body text leans heavily on the Geneva Bible, which had many. The text of Scripture is to stand by itself. This King James edition aims to be acceptable to all parties within the Church of England, a tool to foster unity. It is deliberately archaic in style.
1605 a Roman Catholic terrorist group attempts to assassinate James (and the whole of Parliament with him), their goal is to force a reversal of the persecution they had suffered under his predecessor, Elizabeth Tudor. In 1606 it becomes compulsory in England to hold and attend an annual thanksgiving service in every parish church to commemorate the failure of the plot.
1609 The Crown begins confiscating land from the Catholic Irish of Ulster and giving it to Protestants. The land is settled by English Anglicans and (especially) Scots Presbyterians. This, and other Plantations in Ireland, are considered by many the prototype for British settler colonialism, first in North America and then elsewhere. We would today consider this genocide.

Complicated times, in which your professed religion might be considered evidence of political unreliability, or even treason. Profess the “wrong” kind of Christianity, worship in the wrong way, read the wrong Bible worse yet make up your own mind about what it says, and you could be arrested, imprisoned, paupered, tortured, executed (possibly by being tortured to death) by those professing the “right” kind of Christianity.

Parts of the British Islands lurch from violent, repressive Catholicism to violent, repressive Protestantism, and back, and back again.

Lives of Fox, Fell, and Nayler

1614 Margaret Fell is born
1618 James Nayler is born.
1624 George Fox is born. Baptist churches in England anathematise the Anabaptists.
1626 Charles Stuart, called King, a Protestant, inherits the throne from his father James.
1629 Charles prorogues Parliament and rules directly until 1640; the Church of England becomes more ‘High Church’ (ceremonial liturgy, strongly hierarchical), tending towards pre-Reformation theology
1630 John Winthrop, a Puritan and a lawyer, leads a group of Puritans to Massachusetts Bay on the Mayflower. They take the Geneva Bible with them.
1633 Charles appoints Archbishop Laud to accelerate his changes to the Church of England.
1637 Charles’ imposition of the Book of Common Prayer on the (Calvinist) Church of Scotland leads to riots.
1638 The Church of Scotland rejects the Episcopal polity which had been favoured by James, becomes firmly Presbyterian.
1639 The ‘Bishop’s Wars’ begin in response to Charles’ continued attempts to bring the Church of Scotland into line with his Anglo-Catholic ideas.
1640 The ‘Long Parliament’ sits; Laud arrested.
1641 Parliament passes the ‘Grand Remonstrance’, a catalogue of complaints against Charles, political and religious; Parliament begins to develop Royalist (ie, Anglo-Catholic), Presbyterian, and Puritan (Congregationalist, Baptist and other Dissenting churches) parties; following a rebellion agains the Crown, the Irish Catholic Confederation seizes power in Ireland.
1642 The First Civil War begins; Bishops expelled from the House of Lords. James Nayler joins the army. He serves under John Lambert, a major figure throughout the Civil War, Commonwealth, and Protectorate.
1643 Fox begins his seeking after the Truth, the Calvinist Westminster Confession of Faith is rejected by Church of England.
1644 a partner work to the Confession, the Directory for Public Worship, is adopted by Presbyterian-inclined Anglican parishes and by Congregationalist and Independent churches but many parishes continue to use the Book of Common Prayer illegally and in secret.
1645 The (mainly Congregationalist and Baptist) New Model Army is raised under the authority of Parliament; Archbishop Laud, Charles’ high-church leader, is executed for treason.
1646 End of the First Civil War, Charles surrenders himself to the Scottish Presbyterians! They make a deal with the English Parliament and hand him over.
1647 The Presbyterians in the English Parliament try to disband the New Model Army; the Army leadership holds debates at their HQ in Putney to determine the form of government to follow the monarchy — the ‘Agitators’ (perhaps an early manifestation of the Levellers), elected to represent the ordinary soldiers, wanted universal male suffrage and a sovereign Parliament which would respect the ‘native rights’ of a free people, the ‘Grandees’, wealthy senior officers, wanted to restrict suffrage to landowners and a strong executive power outside Parliament. The Grandees won and suppressed their opponents. Then-Cornet George Joyce seizes Charles, he becomes a token in the struggles between Parliament and the Army Council.
1648 Charles engages the Scottish Presbyterians to invade England, promising them that England will become Presbyterian. The Second Civil War is brief and leads to Charles’ defeat and arrest; the New Model Army expels opponents from Parliament in ‘Pride’s Purge’, including remaining Anglicans and especially Presbyterians, government is left in the hands of senior Army officers, and the remaining Congregationalists in the ‘Rump’ Parliament; the Church of Scotland adopts the Westminster Confession as its subordinate standard, subordinate to Scripture. Parliament publishes the Blasphemy Ordinance, which made orthodox Trinitarian Protestant Christianity, specifically Calvinist in theology and Presbyterian in polity, the law of England and to deny any of its doctrines a capital felony.
1649 Fox imprisoned in Nottingham by the Crown; Charles Stuart is tried, convicted, and executed by Parliamentary authority; the Rump Parliament declares England and its Dominions and Territories to be a Commonwealth; House of Lords abolished. The episcopate is abolished and the Church of England becomes Presbyterian; Congregationalists object to this; the New Model Army invades (Catholic) Ireland with shocking violence — today it would be considered genocide.
1650 Fox imprisoned in Derby by the Commonwealth
1651 Fox is offered a commission in the Army, he declines. This may be the earliest personal manifestation of our testimony of peace.
1652 Catholics barred from public offices in Ireland, more Irish land given to Protestant British settlers. Fox has his experience on Pendle Hill, also visits Swarthmore for the first time. Nayler also has a profound religious experience and becomes a Friend. Nayler becomes a well-known and effective Quaker preacher. Well into the 19th century, some observers of the movement consider Nayler, not Fox, to have been the most prominent and important early leader. One of Nayler’s followers, William Edmundson, moves to Ireland and starts the first meeting there, in Co. Armagh.
1653 The Commonwealth falls to a coup led by Oliver Cromwell and England (etc.) is ruled by the ‘Protectorate’, essentially Cromwell and his senior officers. Cromwell is elected ‘Lord Protector’ for life. Congregationalism dominates in the parish churches. Fox imprisoned in Carlisle by the Protectorate
1654 A new unicameral Parliament is created by the Protectorate, elected, but dominated by Cromwell and the Army. Fox imprisoned in London by the Protectorate The ‘Valiant Sixty’ travel in pairs out from the northern English uplands to spread the message of Friends.
1655 The Protectorate Parliament is suspended, Cromwell rules directly via his Major-Generals, including Lambert, who are military governors of English regions. Essentially a fundamentalist Christian military dictatorship. Some consider this period to be the origin of the British distaste for both standing armies and religious zeal. Edward Burrough and Francis Howgil travel to Ireland, where they and other Quakers make many convincements within the Army, as well as in the civilian Protestant population, aided by Edmundson. Commanders in Ireland quickly begin to see these Quakers within the Army as a serious threat to its religious condition. Some newly convinced Friends do leave the Army, some do not. It’s the ones who stayed that are the problem for the commanders. Over the next few years Friends are purged from the Army in Ireland.
1656 Fox imprisoned in Launceston by the Protectorate. Also, Nayler is arrested, tried, and convicted by a new Parliament sitting as a court after he rides in apparent emulation of Christ first into first Glastonbury (to little attention) and into Bristol (to widespread outrage). The Blasphemy Ordinance is considered insufficient to address Nayler’s enormity, so Parliament innovates a new kind of aggravated blasphemy and convicts him of that…although he isn’t executed, only flogged, pilloried, maimed, branded and degraded. Historians will come to view his trial as a struggle between civilian and Army power-blocs within the Protectorate.
1658 Oliver Cromwell dies and his son Richard becomes Lord Protector, Congregationalists adapt the Westminster Confession and adopt it as the Savoy Declaration
1659 The Grandees remove Richard. Nayler released from prison, is (grudgingly) reconciled with Fox.
1660 Fox imprisoned in Lancaster by the Protectorate; collapse of the Protectorate, General Monck marches on London, restores the Presbyterians to Parliament, forces a new election; the new Parliament asserts in a legal fiction that Charles Stuart, son, called King, had in fact been head of state since 1649, the Commonwealth and Protectorate never happened. The Stuart monarchy is restored, bishops return to the re-established Church of England. The Puritans of Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, execute Mary Dyer and other Quakers. Fell petitions Charles for freedom of conscience and religion, which contains what may be the first articulation of Friends’ corporate testimony of peace. Nayler dies.
1661 The Corporation Act bars anyone but a professing Anglican, accepting the 39 Articles, from holding offices in local government; the Fifth Monarchy Men seize London in the name of Jesus, they are arrested and tortured to death for high treason. Perhaps as a result, Fox and others publish a pamphlet distancing Friends from such violent opposition to the state. Bishops return to the Lords. Charles instructs the Massachusetts Bay Colony to send Quaker to England for trial rather than trying them locally. The first session of New England Yearly Meeting.
1662 Fox imprisoned in Leicester by the Crown; the Act of Uniformity requires the Anglican Book of Common Prayer to be used in all public religious services in England, to be celebrated only by someone ordained by a bishop. The term ‘Nonconformist’ becomes current to describe Christians who are neither Anglicans nor Roman Catholic. Thousands of clergy forced to resign. Also the Quaker Act creates an escalating scale of punishments for those who refuse to swear oaths.
1664 – 1666 Fox imprisoned in Lancaster and Scarborough by the Crown; the Conventicle Act makes illegal in England any meeting of more than five people to practice any form of religious worship other than an Anglican service according to the Book of Common Prayer. As a result: Margaret Fell imprisoned.
1665 The Five Mile Act prevents ministers of religion who do not conform to Anglican forms from being near to major settlements or from teaching in schools. The Crown established a Commission to end the persecution of Quakers in Massachusetts, which slowly declines into the 1670s.
1666 Fox released from prison
1668 Fell released from prison. Charles Stuart’s younger brother James secretly becomes a Catholic. The first session of London Yearly Meeting.
1669 Fox and Fell marry
1673 Fox imprisoned in Worcester by the Crown; the Test Act requires anyone holding any public office, apart from the Lords, to be a professing Anglican (extended to cover the Lords too in 1678) — while the real target was Catholics, Nonconformists (including Quakers) were also barred. Non-conformists will not be able to take full part in civil life until the 19th century. Second Day Morning Meeting established.
1675 Fox released. Meeting for Sufferings established
1685 Charles dies, his younger brother James takes the throne; he soon suspends Parliament over their reluctance to weaken religious restrictions on Roman Catholics and Protestant Nonconformists.
1695 The Quakers Act allows Friends to affirm, rather than to swear, in some situations.
1681 Charles grants the land known as Pennsylvania to William Penn.
1688 a coup deposes James, installs Protestants on the throne: Willem Hendrik of Orange-Nassau (grandchild of the executed Charles) and Mary Stuart (daughter of deposed James) rule as “joint monarchs”.
1689 James attempts to regain England and Scotland from a base in the Kingdom of Ireland which had remained loyal to him.
1690 William defeats James, who flees to France. All the British Isles are now governed by a Protestant state: one of the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, or Ireland. As part of the settlement the Church of Scotland becomes firmly Presbyterian, although a Scottish Episcopal Church does continue. The Catholic church continues in Ireland, although the administration recognises the established, Protestant, Church of Ireland. Throughout the islands, Nonconformist Protestants, and especially Catholics have restricted civil liberties and Catholics are widely considered likely traitors.
1691 Fox dies.
1695 some of the restrictions on Quakers for not swearing oaths are lifted in England and Wales
1702 Fell dies

Later Events

1715 the permissions for Quakers to affirm rather than swear in some situations is extended to Scotland.
1753 Marriage is regulated by law in England and Wales, only Anglican, Jewish, and Quaker marriages are recognised.
1833 Quakers (and everyone else!) are relieved of any obligation to swear oaths.

While this timeline focusses on a small number of highly conspicuous Friends, do remember that throughout this period several thousand Friends were imprisoned, and hundreds of them died of the abuses they suffered in prison.

What changed

And why did Friends suffer in prison? Because their beliefs pleased none of the orthodox Christian groups vying for the combination of secular and ecclesiastical power that the age seemed to call for. Not Catholics, not Calvinists, not Anglicans. At the time, Friends got on least badly with the Baptists, themselves oppressed.

England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, these Christian states lurched violently between violent, repressive Catholicism and several kinds of violent, repressive Protestantism, over the course of two centuries. Friends came along about in the middle, arguably during the worst segment, and suffered for it.

Why do so few Friends going to prison these days? I think it is because, in very much of the world in the 19th, 20t, 21st centuries, governments haven’t and don’t feel the need to put religious orthodoxy into law. What would happen if a Friend today stood up during the service in an Anglican parish church to denounce the doctrine being preached? Some sort of protest, I’m sure, but would they (as Fox once was) be struck in the face with a Bible, drawing blood? Would they be arrested, charged, tried, imprisoned? In much of the world, excluding a few remaining theocracies and a couple of authoritarian (nominally Communist) states, it is no longer illegal simply to be a Friend. It is no longer illegal simply to meet without a minster for unprogrammed worship. And many of the social conventions that Friends broke such as declining to give ‘hat honour’, calling a supposed social superior ‘thou’ rather than ‘you’, no longer have force in the countries where Quakers mostly live.

Friends still do sometimes break laws, as a matter of conscience, and sometimes go to prison for it, but in some sense we’ve won a lot of arguments and religious orthodoxy and political acceptability are no longer linked in a way that friends once fell foul of.