of Sydney, in the harbour of Port Jackson, he rested for a moment to
look at the beautiful bay before him, and compare it with one of the
lake-like reaches of the Humber, when he was roused from his musings by
a tap on the shoulder, and the salutation of "Well, Snowden, how are
you?"
He touched his cap, and looked up. Before him stood a sailor, who
grasped his hand and shook it warmly. The sailor was the little boy
whose life he had saved in the moat of Spaldington Old Hall so many
years before.
The sailor gave him some money, and told him he was about to return to
Hull. Dunhill at once produced his little Autobiography, and entreated
him to take it back to Yorkshire, and get it printed there. The sailor
readily promised to do this, and to his fulfilment of the promise we owe
the existence of the curious little memoir presented to the reader.
In August, 1833, Snowden Dunhill was seen by another Howden man, who was
at Hobart Town, Van Dieman's Land. His account of Dunhill is that he was
"a tall, stout man, bent and stooping with suffering and privation more
than from natural infirmity, but with the step and assurance of his old
self."
The Howden man would not have known Dunhill had not the convict heard
his name mentioned, and introduced himself to him: "Ye're one of ----'s
sons i' Howden?" in the broadest East Riding Yorkshire. Then, when the
stranger answered that he was, Dunhill's eyes filled with tears, and he
began to sob.
"In external appearance he was not very much altered. The boisterous and
overbearing manners of former years yet remained, unsoftened and
unrepressed by the sufferings he had undergone. An habitual stoop had
bent down his person, and somewhat taken away from the portly and
blustering gait of early life. The small, grey, quick, and piercing eye
still retained its cunning and prying character. His dress was much the
same as he wore in England."
Dunhill had received his ticket of freedom at Sydney two or three years
before this, and had then removed to Van Dieman's Land, where his wife
and daughter were settled.
There is a strange irony in facts. Sally Dunhill, who had been unable to
rear one of her own children in morality and honesty, so impressed on
the people of Hobart Town that she was a saintly woman by her vociferous
prayers and familiarity with Holy Scripture, that she was employed in
teaching at a day-school, and was entrusted with the education of
children in those paths she had never trodden herself. The residue of
her time was spent in making penny pies, which Snowden hawked about the
town.
Snowden Dunhill gradually sank into habitual drunkenness, and was
suspected of reverting to his old tricks of petty larceny. When he died
is not known.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] "The Life of Snowden Dunhill, written by Himself." Howden, 1833.
JAMES NAYLOR,
THE QUAKER.[8]
James Naylor was born at East Ardsley, near Wakefield, in 1616. He was
the son of a small farmer, whose house was near the old church. He
received a passable education in reading, writing, and arithmetic. In
1628, when he was aged twenty-two, he married, and settled in Wakefield
parish. He was a diligent reader of the Scriptures, and zealous as an
Independent. He spent about three years at Wakefield, and then joined
the Parliamentary army as a private in 1641. He rose to become
quartermaster of his regiment under Major-General Lambert, but in 1649,
on account of ill-health, he was obliged to leave the army and return to
Wakefield. The pulpits of the Established Church were now in the hands
of Independent ministers, and that of Horbury, near Wakefield, was
occupied by the "godly and painful Master Marshall," under whom James
Naylor sat and groaned with unction.
But Naylor relaxed his religious exercises on visits to a Mrs. Roper at
Horbury, a lady whose husband had been for some time absent. When this
lady became a mother by James Naylor, the Rev. Mr. Marshall thought it
necessary to expose him, and Naylor, indignant with his Independent
minister, joined the sect of the Quakers, then founded by George Fox. In
1652 he went on a religious visitation to the West, and in 1655 he
visited London, in which city a meeting of Quakers had been established
by the ministry of Edward Burrough and Francis Howgill, two men of
Westmoreland.
Naylor prophesied in the meeting with so great applause that several
women began to exalt him above Burrough and Howgill, and disturbed the
latter when they attempted to speak. The two ministers reproved the
women, and they in dudgeon complained to Naylor, and he encouraged them
in their opposition to Burrough and Howgill. Two of these women, Martha
Symonds and Hannah Stranger, became his most devoted adherents, and
followed him in all his wanderings.
In 1656 he revisited the West, prophesied in Cornwall, and on passing
through Exeter was arrested under the sweeping charge of vagrancy, and
committed to gaol. There he was visited by many devout females, amongst
others by one Dorcas Erbury, who fell into a swoon, and was revived by
Naylor, who cried over her, "Tabitha, I say unto thee, arise!" She
awoke, and the faithful believed that Naylor had restored her from death
to life.
He was released at length by order of Council and then he travelled to
Bristol at the head of six believers. On reaching Bedminster, a village
a mile from Old Bristol, though now a suburb of the town, Naylor and his
party formed in procession, intending to produce a scene in the streets
of Bristol.
One of his disciples, a young man with bare head, led the horse by the
bridle upon which Naylor was mounted; two men followed in single file on
horseback, each with his wife on a pillion behind him; and one woman
walked on the causeway. As they went forward the six shouted, "Holy,
holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth!" till they came to the almshouse in the
suburbs of Bristol, "when one of the women alighted, and she, with the
other of her own sex, lovingly marched on each side of Naylor's horse."
The road was deep in mud and rain was falling, but neither mud nor rain
damped the ardour of the enthusiasts. On reaching Redcliffe Gate,
Timothy Wedlock, a Devonshire man of the company, bareheaded, and Martha
Symonds holding the bridle on one side and Hannah Stranger holding it on
the other, advanced, chanting their hymn of praise.
Naylor wore a broad-brimmed hat and a long sad-coloured mantle. He was
of a moderate height, ruddy complexion, had a slightly arched nose,
large brown eyes, was a remarkably handsome man, and was thought by many
to resemble the traditional type of face attributed to our Lord. Martha
Symonds was the wife of Thomas Symonds, bookbinder of London; and Hannah
Stranger was the wife of John Stranger, combmaker in London. The two
other women accompanying Naylor were Dorcas Erbury, whom he had raised
from the dead, and her mother.
In this way the solemn procession advanced to the High Cross at Bristol,
and after that to the White Hart, Broad Street, where lodged two
Quakers, Dennis Hollister and Henry Row.
The magistrates at once apprehended the party, and committed them to
prison.
The following is the examination of the prisoners, somewhat condensed:--
EXAMINATION OF JAMES NAYLOR.
Being asked his name, he replied, "The men of this world call me James
Naylor."
_Q._ "Art not thou the man that rid on horseback into Bristol, a woman
leading thy horse, and others saying before thee, 'Holy, holy, holy,
Hosannah to the Son of David'?"
_A._ "I did ride into a town, but what its name was I know not; and by
the Spirit a woman was commanded to hold my horse's bridle, and some
there were that cast down clothes and sang praises to the Lord, such
songs as the Lord put into their hearts; and it is like it might be the
song, 'Holy, holy, holy,' &c."
_Q._ "Whether or no didst thou reprove these women?"
_A._ "Nay; but I bade them take heed that they say nothing but what they
were moved to by the Lord."
_Q._ "Dost thou own this letter which Hannah Stranger sent unto thee?"
_A._ "Yes, I do own that letter."
_Q._ "Art thou (according to that letter) the fairest of ten thousand?"
_A._ "As to the visible, I deny any such attribute to be due unto me;
but if as to that which the Father hath begotten in me, I shall own it."
Two letters were then produced and read; we need only give one:--
"JAMES NAYLOR,
"Oh! thou fairest of ten thousand, thou only begotten Son of God,
how my heart panteth after thee! O stay me with flaggons and
comfort me with wine. My beloved, thou art like a roe or young hart
upon the mountains of spices, where thy beloved spouse hath long
been calling thee to come away, but hath been but lately heard of
thee. Now it lies something upon me that thou mindest to see her,
for the spirit and power of God is with her, and there is given to
her much of excellent and innocent wisdom arisen and arising in
her, which will make all the honest-hearted to praise the Lord
alone, and no more set up self. And therefore let not my lord and
master have any jealousy against her, for she is highly beloved of
the Lord, and that shall all see who come to know the Lord. And now
He doth bless them that bless His, and curse them that curse His;
for this hath the Lord showed me, that her portion is exceedingly
large in the Lord, and as her sorrow hath been much, so shall her
joy be much more; which rejoiceth my heart to see her walk so
valiantly and so faithfully in the work of the Lord, in this time
of so great trials as hath been upon her especially.
"And I am,
"HANNAH STRANGER.
"_The Postscript._
"Remember my dear love to thy master. Thy name is no more James,
but Jesus.
"JOHN STRANGER."
"Remember my love to these friends with thee. The 17th day of 8th
month, superscribed to the hands of James Naylor."
_Q._ "Art thou the only Son of God?"
_A._ "I am the son of God; but I have many brethren."
_Q._ "Have any called thee by the name of Jesus?"
_A._ "Not as unto the visible, but as Jesus, the Christ that is in me."
_Q._ "Dost thou own the name of the King of Israel?"
_A._ "Not as a creature; but if they gave it to Christ within, I own it,
and have a kingdom, but not of this world; my kingdom is of another
world, of which thou wotest not."
_Q._ "Whether or no art thou the prophet of the Most High?"
_A._ "Thou hast said I am a prophet."
_Q._ "By whom were you sent?"
_A._ "By Him who hath sent the Spirit of His Son in me to try, not as to
carnal matters, but belonging to the kingdom of God, by the indwelling
of the Father and the Son, to judge all spirits, to be guided by none."
_Q._ "Is not the written Word of God the guide?"
_A._ "The written Word declares of it, and what is not according to that
is not true."
_Q._ "Who is thy mother? or whether or no is she a virgin?"
_A._ "Nay, according to the natural birth."
_Q._ "Who is thy mother according to thy spiritual birth?"
_A._ "No carnal creature."
_Q._ "Who, then?"
He returned no answer.
_Q._ "Art thou the everlasting Son of God?"
_A._ "When God is manifest in the flesh there is the everlasting Son;
and I do witness God in the flesh. I am the Son of God, and the Son of
God is but one."
_Q._ "Art thou the everlasting Son of God, the King of Righteousness?"
_A._ "I am; and the everlasting righteousness is wrought in me; if ye
were acquainted with the Father ye would also be acquainted with me."
_Q._ "Do any kiss thy feet?"
_A._ "It might be they did, but I minded them not."
_Q._ "How dost thou provide for a livelihood?"
_A._ "As do the lilies, without care, being maintained of my Father."
_Q._ "What business hast thou at Bristol, or that way?"
_A._ "I was guided and directed by my Father."
_Q._ "Where were you born?"
_A._ "At Arderslow, in Yorkshire."
_Q._ "Where lives thy wife?"
_A._ "She whom thou callest my wife lives in Wakefield."
_Q._ "Why dost thou not live with her?"
_A._ "I did till I was called to the army."
_Q._ "Under whose command didst thou serve in the army?"
_A._ "First under him they call Lord Fairfax."
_Q._ "Who then?"
_A._ "Afterwards with that man called Colonel Lambert. And then I went
into Scotland, where I was quartermaster, and returned sick to my
earthly habitation."
_Q._ "What wentest thou for to Exeter?"
_A._ "I went to Launceston to see the Brethren."
_Q._ "What estate hast thou?"
_A._ "Take no care for that."
_Q._ "Wherefore camest thou in such an unusual posture as two women
leading thy horse; others saying, 'Holy, holy, holy!' &c, with another
before thee bareheaded, knee-deep in the highway mud, when thou mightest
have gone on the causey; and at such a time that, it raining, thy
companions received the rain at their necks, and vented it at their hose
and breeches?"
_A._ "It tended to my Father's praise and glory; and I ought not to
slight anything which the Spirit of the Lord moves."
_Q._ "Wherefore didst thou call Marthy Symonds 'Mother,' as George Fox
affirms?"
_A._ "George Fox is a liar and a firebrand of hell; for neither I, nor
any with me, called her so."
_Q._ "Thou hast a wife at this time?"
_A._ "A woman I have, who by the world is called my wife, and some
children I have, which according to the flesh are mine."
MARTHA SYMONDS' EXAMINATION.
"She contendeth she knew James Naylor formerly, for he is now no more
James Naylor, but refined to a more excellent substance; and so she
saith she came with him from Eccles to Bristol."
_Q._ "What made thee lead his horse into Bristol, and cry, 'Holy, holy,
holy!' and to spread thy garment before him?"
_A._ "I was forced thereto by the power of the Lord."
_Q._ "Whether didst thou kneel before him?"
_A._ "I was forced thereto by the power of love."
_Q._ "Dost thou own him to be the Prince of Peace?"
_A._ "He is a perfect man; and he that is a perfect man is the Prince of
Peace."
_Q._ "Hast thou a husband?"
_A._ "I have a man which thou callest my husband."
_Q._ "What made thee leave him, and to follow James Naylor?"
_A._ "It is our life to praise the Lord, and the Lord my strength is
manifest in James Naylor."
_Q._ "Oughtest thou to worship James Naylor upon thy knees?"
_A._ "Yea, I ought so to do."
Hannah Stranger, Thomas Stranger, and Timothy Wedlock were next
examined. It is not necessary to reproduce their interrogations; they
much resemble what has been given above.
Dorcas Erbury was next called. She was widow of William Erbury, once a
minister.
_Q._ "Where dost thou live?"
_A._ "With Margaret Thomas."
_Q._ "Wherefore dost thou sing, 'Holy, holy, holy'?"
_A._ "I did not at that time; but those that sang did it discharging of
their duty."
_Q._ "Dost thou own him to be the Holy One of Israel?"
_A._ "I do, and with my blood will seal it."
_Q._ "And dost thou own him for the Son of God?"
_A._ "He is the only begotten son of God."
_Q._ "Wherefore didst thou pull off his stockings, and lay thy clothes
beneath his feet?"
_A._ "He is worthy of it, for he is the Holy One of Israel."
_Q._ "Christ raised those that had been dead; so did not he?"
_A._ "He raised me."
_Q._ "In what manner?"
_A._ "He laid his hand on my head after I had been dead two days, and
said, 'Dorcas, arise!' and I arose, and live, as thou seest."
_Q._ "Where did he this?"
_A._ "At the gaol in Exeter."
_Q._ "What witness hast thou for this?"
_A._ "My mother, who was present."
_Q._ "His power being so much, wherefore opened he not the prison doors
and escaped?"
_A._ "The doors shall open when the Lord's wish is done."
The Bristol magistrates sent Naylor and his deluded followers to London,
to be examined before Parliament.
On the 31st October it was ordered that a Committee should be appointed
to consider the information given touching "the misdemeanour and
blasphemies of James Naylor and others at Bristol and elsewhere, and to
report thereon."
The Committee met next day, and on December 2nd it was resolved that the
report of the Committee should be brought in and read on the following
Friday, December 5th. On that day it was read by the reporter,--it
consisted of thirteen sheets of paper--and the debate on the report
began on the 6th, when James Naylor was called to the bar of the House.
He came with his hat on, but it was removed by the Serjeant. The report
was read to him, and he was demanded whether each particular was true,
and he acknowledged that it was so.
The debate was adjourned to Monday, the 8th, and it occupied Parliament
till the 20th December. The House resolved "that James Naylor was guilty
of horrid blasphemy, and that he was a grand impostor and seducer of the
people," and his sentence was, "that he should be set on the pillory,
with his head in the pillory, in the Palace Yard, Westminster, during
the space of two hours, on Thursday next, and be whipped by the hangman
through the streets from Westminster to the Old Exchange, London; and
there, likewise, he should be set on the pillory, with his head in the
pillory, for the space of two hours, between the hours of eleven and
one, on Saturday next, in each place wearing a paper containing an
inscription of his crimes; and that at the Old Exchange his tongue
should be bored through with a hot iron, and that he should be there
also stigmatised in the forehead with the letter B; and that he should
afterwards be sent to Bristol, to be conveyed into and through the city
on horseback, with his face backwards, and there also should be whipped
the next market-day after he came thither; and that thence he should be
committed to prison in Bridewell, London, and there be restrained from
the society of all people, and there to labour hard till he should be
released by Parliament; and during that time he should be debarred the
use of pen, ink, and paper, and should have no relief but what he earned
by his daily labour."
The women were ordered to be kept in confinement. The severity of this
atrocious sentence deserves notice. The Independents, who had suffered
under Laud and the Star Chamber, now that they were in power, had no
idea of tolerating the Quakers, who read their Bibles differently from
themselves. Cromwell was especially prejudiced against them, and it is
probable that the Protector had something to do with the severity of the
sentence on Naylor.
One Robert Rich, a merchant of London, wrote to the Parliament, on
December 15, a petition in favour of Naylor: "If I may have liberty of
those that sit in Parliament, I do here attend at this door, and am now
ready out of the Scriptures of truth to show that not anything that
James Naylor hath said or done is blasphemy, &c."
Sentence was pronounced by the Speaker, Sir Thomas Widdrington. Naylor
on hearing it said, "I pray God He may not lay it to your charge." On
December 20th, 1656, Naylor suffered a part of his sentence, standing
two hours in the pillory, and receiving at the cart's tail three hundred
and ten stripes. "The executioner gave him three hundred and ten
stripes," says Sewell, "and would have given him one more, as he
confessed to the Sheriff, but his foot slipping, the stroke fell upon
his own hand, which hurt him much. Naylor was hurt with the horses
treading on his feet, whereon the prints of the nails were seen. His
wounds were washed by R. Travers, who certified, 'there was not the
space of a man's nail free from stripes and blood, from his shoulders
near to his waist; his right arm sorely striped; his hands much hurt by
the cords that they bled and were swelled: the blood and wounds of his
back did very little appear at first sight, by reason of abundance of
dirt that covered them, till it was washed off.'"
Another petition in his favour was presented, signed by about a hundred
persons, to Parliament, requesting the remission of the rest of his
sentence, and as this was refused, appeal was made to Cromwell the
Protector, with like want of success.
Five Independent ministers visited Naylor in prison, and vainly urged
him to recant.
Rich besieged the doors of Parliament on December 27th, from eight
o'clock till eleven, imploring a respite, but all in vain. Naylor was
then brought out to undergo the rest of his sentence; he was again
pilloried, his tongue bored through, and his forehead branded. Rich held
the hand of the unhappy man whilst his tongue was pierced, and the
red-hot iron applied to his brow, and he licked the wounds to allay the
pain. Thousands who witnessed the execution of the sentence exhibited
their respect by removing their caps. There was no reviling, and nothing
thrown at Naylor, but all stood silent and sympathetic.
James Naylor was then sent to Bristol, and whipped from the middle of
St. Thomas' Street to the middle of Broad Street, and taken back to his
prison in Bridewell. There he wrote his recantation, in epistles
addressed to the Quakers. In one of these he says: "Dear brethren, my
heart is broken this day for the offence which I have occasioned to
God's truth and people, and especially to you, who in dear love followed
me, seeking me in faithfulness to God, which I rejected, being bound
wherein I could not come forth, till God's hand brought me, to whose
love I now confess. And I beseech you forgive wherein I evil requited
your love in that day. God knows my sorrow for it, since I see it, that
ever I should offend that of God in any, or reject his counsel; and I
greatly fear further to offend or do amiss, whereby the innocent truth
or people of God should suffer, or that I should disobey therein."
He was confined about two years, and was then set at liberty. He
thereupon went to Bristol, where in a public meeting he made confession
of his offence and fall so movingly as to draw tears from most of those
present; and he was then restored to the community of the Quakers, from
which he had been excluded by George Fox at Exeter for his presumption
and pride.
Charges of the most gross immorality have been brought against James
Naylor, whether truly or falsely who can now decide? It is possible that
the language of the women who followed him, in speaking of him, their
letters to him, one of which has been quoted, may have given rise to
these reports. Naylor, however, never would admit that there had been
anything unseemly in his behaviour towards the women who followed him
from London into Cornwall, and from Cornwall to Bristol; and Sewell, who
knew Hannah Stranger, repudiates the charge as utterly false. But it is
curious to notice how that religious fanaticism and sensuality so
frequently run together. It was so in that outburst of mysticism in the
Middle Ages--the heresy of the Fraticelli; it was so with at least one
branch of the Hussites in Bohemia; and in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, when the great convulsion of the Reformation had set minds
naturally predisposed to religious excitement in a ferment, this was
most conspicuous, as in the ferocious licentiousness of John Bockelson,
the Anabaptist King of Sion, or the more cautious profligacy, under a
cloak of religion, of Ludwig Hetzer and David Joris.
James Naylor quitted London finally in 1660, intending to return to
Wakefield; but was found by a countryman one evening in a field near
Holm and King's Rippon, in Huntingdonshire, having been robbed and left
bound. He was taken to Holm, and his clothes were changed. To those who
kindly cared for him he said, "You have refreshed my body; the Lord
refresh your souls."
He shortly after died there of the rough handling he had received from
the highwaymen who had plundered him, and was buried in a Quaker's
cemetery belonging to Thomas Parnel, a physician.