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‘Defying the Powers and Tempering the Spirit.’ A Review of Quaker Control over their Publications 1672–1689

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Thomas O'Malley
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Extract

The role of the press in the history of post-Restoration nonconformity has gone largely unexplored. Indeed, the study of the press in the late seventeenth century has suffered from a lack of serious attention by historians and from a certain narrowness of vision in the otherwise excellent bibliographical work on the period. Bibliographers have tended to study books and printers in isolation from the world that the objects of their study inhabited. Historians have a tendency to see the press as mirroring the struggle for the growth of representative democracy and as playing an important part in national political and religious history only at times of maximum crisis, such as 1659–60 or 1679–81. Historians of Quakerism, although aware that the early Quakers made extensive use of printing, have neither detailed the extent of that involvement nor assessed its implications on a wider level. This article is written in an attempt to remedy, to some extent, these deficiencies.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 1982 , pp. 72 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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Footnotes

1

I am grateful to Mr E. Milligan and his assistants, Mr M. Thomas and Mr C. Horle, at the Friends House Library, London, for the help and courtesy I received whilst working there.

References

2 Many of the issues touched on in this paragraph are discussed in Eisenstein, E., The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 2 vols, Cambridge 1979 Google Scholar. See also Braithwaite, W. C., The Second Period of Quakerism, 2nd edn, Cambridge 1961, 418–19, 692Google Scholar.

3 For a summary of the laws under which the Quakers were prosecuted see Braithwaite, W. C., ‘The penal laws affecting early Friends in England’, in Penney, N. (ed.), The First Publishers of Truth, London 1907, 343–63Google Scholar.

4 Braithwaite, Second Period, 115.

5 Kitchin, G., Sir Roger L’Estrange, London 1913, 362 Google Scholar.

6 Cranfield, G. A., The Press and Society, London 1978, 19–20 Google Scholar.

7 Siebert, F. S., Freedom of the Press in England 1476–1776, Illinois 1965, 24.9Google Scholar.

8 Walker, J., ‘The ce’nsorship of the press during the reign of Charles 11’, History, xxxv (1950), 2124–8Google Scholar; J. Hall, Some Aspects of Press Censorship in Charles IPs reign 1660–85, unpublished Birmingham University B.A. dissertation, 1972, 44–52.

9 Muggleton, L., The Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit, London 1699, 155, 233–5 (irregular pagination)Google Scholar.

10 T. J. Crist, Francis Smith and the Opposition Press in England, 1660–88, unpublished Cambridge University Ph.D. thesis, 1977.

11 B.L. Add MS 60171; Reay, B., ‘The Muggletonians: a study in seventeenth century English sectarianism’, Journal of Religious History, ix (1976), 42–3Google Scholar.

12 Watts, M., The Dissenters, Oxford 1978, 270 Google Scholar.

13 These figures were arrived at by comparing Mason, W. G., ‘The annual output of Wing listed titles 1649–84’, The Library, 5th ser., xxix (1974), 219–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar with Runyon, D., ‘Types of Quaker writings by year 1650–99’, in Barbour, H. and Roberts, A. (eds), Early Quaker Writings, Michigan 1973, 567–77Google Scholar.

14 Hill, C., The World Turned Upside Down, Harmondsworth 1975 edn, 254–56Google Scholar; Braithwaite, Second Period, 215–50, 290–323. Early Quaker theology is still best dealt with in context in Nuttall, G. F., The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience, Oxford 1947 Google Scholar.

15 Mucklow, W., The Spirit of the Hat, London 1673, 12 Google Scholar.

16 Friends House Library (hereafter cited as F.H.L.), T. Crisp to G. Whitehead, September 1683, Abraham Barclay MS (hereafter cited as A.R.B. MS), 194. Conventional names are used for months in preference to the Quakers system of numbers. All dates are given in New Style.

17 Rogers, W., The Sixth Part of the Christian-Quaker, London 1681, 13–14 Google Scholar.

18 F. Bugg, De Christiana Libertate…In Two Paris, London 1682, part ii, 18. Similar attacks on the bodies established by Fox are in ibid., part ii, 9–10, 172–3, and in Mucklow, op. cit., 18.

19 Rogers, op. cit., 4.

20 F. Bugg to the Second Day Meeting, 10 April 1683, A.R.B. MS, 241.

21 Letters to and from Fox in F.H.L., Swarthmore MSS, v 62, Frame Case 17, and A.R.B. MSS 45, 46, 54, 197.

22 Braithwaite, Second Period, 487.

23 T. Aldam to G. Fox, c. 1653, Swarthmore MSS, iii, 39; Fox to Friends, n.d., ibid., vii, 154.

24 Fox, G., A Collection of...Epistles, London 1698 Google Scholar, epistle 131, vol ii. 104.

25 F.H.L., Leek MS, fo. 41.

26 Lloyd, A., Quaker Social History 1660–1738, London 1950, 147–56Google Scholar; Braithwaite, Second Period, 279–81. These accounts wrongly suggest that the Second Day Meeting was in full control from 1673.

27 F.H.L., Yearly Meeting Minutes Vol 1 1668–93 (hereafter cited as Y.M.), 10, 30 May 1672.

28 F.H.L., Morning Meeting Minutes Vol 1 1673–92 (hereafter cited as M.M.), 1, 15 September 1673.

29 Ibid., i, 2 i September 1674, 56, 21 November 1681. For examples of its non-printing activities, ibid., 20, 25, 49, 50, 79.

30 Ibid., 4, 11 January 1675.

31 F.H.L., The Minutes of the Meeting for Sufferings (hereafter cited as M.F.S.), vol i, 18 October 1675.

32 F.H.L., The Minutes of the Six Weeks Meeting (hereafter cited as S.W.M.), vol i, 23, 16 January 1675, 38, 18 January 1676.

33 The events leading to this clarification can be followed in: S.W.M., vol i, 100–1, 20 May 1679; M.F.S., vol i, 101–2, 22 May 1679; Y.M., 71, 10–11 June 1679; M.F.S., vol i, 105–6, 12 June 1679. A possible copy of the document put forward by Fox is in F.H.L., Portfolio MSS, vol iv, 72.

34 T.M., 78–9, 3 June 1680; M.M., 33, 23 August 1680, 71, 29 January 1683; M.F.S., vol ii, 5–6, 26 August 1680.

35 Y.M., fo. C 1668, 7 1672, 33–4 1676, 70 1679.

36 Ibid., 7 1672,11 1673. Bristol Quakers sent £30 in response to the 1672 appeal: Minute Book of the Men’s Meeting of the Society of Friends in Bristol 1667–86, ed. R. S. Mortimer (Bristol Record Society, 1971), 69, 9 December 1672.

37 S. W.M., vol i, 112, 16 December 1679, 114, 27 January 1680; M.M., 99, 28 January 1689; M.F.S., vol ii, 126, 2 June 1682, 197, 6 April 1683, vol vi, 187, 15 June 1688, 245, 1 February 1689.

38 M.F.S., vol iv, 53, 29 May 1685, 104, 14 August 1685, vol v, 305, 17 December 1686, vol vi, 83, 24 June 1687, 194, 13 July 1688.

39 Ibid., vol ii, 37, 9 April 1681, vol iv, 62, 12 June 1685.

40 Ibid, vol iii, 42, 28 September 1683, 339, 23 January 1685, vol vi, 263, 15 March 1689; M.M., 11, 7 February 1676, 84, 4 May 1685; Minute Book, ed. R. S. Mortimer, 125.

41 Extracts from State Papers relating to Friends 1654–72, ed. N. Penney, London 1913, 228–9.

42 Y.M., 3–4 1672.

43 Ibid., 11–12, 1673.

44 Lloyd, Social History, 153; Minute Book, ed. R. S. Mortimer, 111, 20 November 1676.

45 Y.M., 62 1678; M.F.S., vol i, 165, 10 June 1680

46 Y.M., 111–12 1682, 159, 163 1684.

47 M.M., 21, 28 October and 12 November 1678; M.F.S., vol ii, 196, 6 April 1683, vol iv, 29, 24 April 1685.

48 M.F.S., vol iv, 131, 11 September 1685, vol vi, 15 April 1687; T.M., no, 1682; Besse, J., A Collection of the Sufferings of the People Called Quakers, 2 vols, London 1753, vol i, 544–5Google Scholar.

49 M.F.S., vol ii, 191, 2 March 1683.

50 Calendar of State Papers Domestic (hereafter cited as S.P.D.), 1678, 124, 189; T.M., 71 1679; Vann, R. T., ‘Rejoinder’, Past and Present, xlviii (1970), 163 Google Scholar.

51 M.M., 6, 26 April 1675.

52 R. S. Mortimer, ‘Biographical notices of printers and publishers of Friends’ books up to 1750’, Journal of Documentation, iii (1947), 107–25.

53 M.M., 1, 21 September 1674, 10, 20 December 1675.

54 Ibid., 14, 24 July 1676; M.F.S., vol i, 137, 29 January 1680.

55 See M.F.S., vol i, 108, iii-1 4, 118, 153, 165.

56 S.W.M., vol i, 137, 28 December 1680; M.F.S., vol ii, 23, 27, 28.

57 M.F.S., vol ii, 10–11,8–15 October 1680, 23, 30 December 1680, 28, 4 January 1681; Bugg, De Christiana, part ii, 195–9.

58 M.F.S., vol vi, 148, 6 January 1688, 198, 3 August 1688; Moneys received and paid for the secret services of Charles II and James II, ed. J. W. Akerman (Camden Society, o.s., lii, 1851), 213.

59 The comparison was between the minute books used in this study and the information in The Short Journal and Itinerary Journals of George Fox, ed. N. Penney, Cambridge 1925. Definitive figures will be given in my forthcoming University of Birmingham Ph.D. thesis, Quakerism and the Press 1650–89.

60 1674 4%; 1675 10%; 1676 34%; 1677 44%; 1678 32%; 1679 75%; 1680 48%; 1681 33%; 1682 48%; 1683 50%; 1684 25%; 1685 37%; 1686 30%; 1687 35%; 1688 36%.

61 Draft letter, c. 1683, A.R.B. MS, 228.

62 M.M., 4, 11 January 1675, 16–17, 3o April 1677; M.F.S., vol i, 106, 19 June 1679.

63 M.M., 61, 20 March 1682, 85, 10 August 1685; M.F.S., vol ii, 11, 15 October 1680.

64 M.M., 4, 7 December 1674, 5, 5 April 1675, 98, 7 January 1689.

65 Braithwaite, Second Period, 361; M. G. F. Bitterman, ‘The early Quaker literature of defence’, Church History, xlii (1973), 228; E. Williams Kirby, ‘The Quakers’ efforts to secure civil and religious liberty 1660–96’, Journal of Modern History, vii (1935), 405.

66 F.H.L., Fox to Women’s Meeting, 28 April 1676, Box Meeting MS, 29.

67 The fourteen were: Benjamin Antrobus*; Jasper Batt; Stephen Crisp*; John Field*; George Fox; William Gibson; Ellis Hookes; James Parkes; Alexander Parker*; William Penn*; Richard Richardson; Francis Stamper; John Vaughton* and George Whitehead*. Those names marked * appear in the document of 1685 in The Journal of George Fox, ed. N. Penney, 2 vols, Cambridge 1911, ii. 347–9.

68 F.H.L., Original Records of Sufferings MS, 510; M.F.S., vol iii, 200, 4 July 1684; S.P.D., 1678, 124, 189, 497; Braithwaite, Second Period, 419; Besse, Sufferings, i. 331, 388, 389, 466, 528, 533, 657, 658, 661, 662, 709; ii. 52, 259.

69 Braithwaite, op. cit., 94.

70 The Journal of George Fox, ed. J. L. Nickalls, London 1975, 706.

71 M.F.S., vol iv, 65, 5 J u n e 1685; Short Journal, ed. N. Penney, 107–09.