CHAPTER V.

INTRODUCES QUAKERISM INTO ESSEX.

THE

“HE county of Essex has occupied a place in the annals of evangelical Nonconformity second to no other in the kingdom. Wycliffe's followers here were numbered by scores, and the first Wycliffan martyr was an Essex man. From 1402, when John Becket, of Pattiswick, suffered for his Protestantism, down to the death of Queen Mary, in 1558, a constant succession of Essex martyrs were hanged or burned at Smithfield, at Steeple Bumpstead, Coggeshall, Braintree, Maldon, Brentwood, Rayleigh, Horndon-on-the-Hill, Harwich, Manningtree, Rochford, and several other places in the county, for their belief in an open Bible. The Martyrs' Memorial (see illustration), designed by Mr. John Belcher, A.R.A., President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and erected by Samuel F. Hurnard, J.P., in 1903, in the new

Town Hall at Colchester, records upon its pure white marble tablet, the names of twenty-six men and women, who, in that town, laid down their lives for the faith that was in them. Among these names stand those of James Parnell and Edward Grant, an old man, who was so roughly beaten by soldiers when driven out of meeting, that he died from the blows only two years after the young pioneer, whom he had succoured in prison.

After the Reformation, Essex became a fertile soil for Puritan opinions to grow in, so that when the Restoration placed king and church once more in their ancient ascendancy, more than one hundred ministers in the county, or a twentieth part of the whole number for England, were ejected from their livings on St. Bartholomew's Day, because they refused to take the oath of Uniformity (1662).

In this county, therefore, our young friend, on his arrival, found a ready and prepared field for his work. We must never forget that, though Fox had been seven years lighting the torch of Quakerism in other counties, Parnell was the first of all his followers to visit Essex. Fox himself did not arrive here till two or three months later.

In the summer of 1655, Parnell passed from Cambridgeshire into the north of Essex. During the whole of the month of June, he was moving about, preaching at Stebbing, Felsted, Halstead, Witham and many other places near.

At Halstead he was made welcome at the house of John Isaacs, a tanner; at Witham, John Freeborn, baymaker, was inclined to receive him; at Felsted, John Child and his wife, Ann; John Chopping; Mary Brady and many others, soon adopted his teaching, and it was not long before they all proved their earnestness by lying in gaol in Colchester Castle, rather than turn back to their former ways.

James passed on to Colchester, where he met several sympathetic inquirers at the house of Thomas Shortland, a weaver, afterwards to become to him a true friend, faithful to death. Now the first Friends' meeting in Colchester was soon formed in Shortland's house, the earliest members being Stephen Crisp; Thomas Bales, a grocer; and George Weatherly, a malster, with others not named.

On Sunday, the 4th of July, 1655, this earnest young preacher of eighteen passed a remarkable day of strenuous service, the arduous