A Book of Quaker Saints

FOOTNOTES:

XVII. LITTLE JAMES AND HIS JOURNEYSToC

XVII. LITTLE JAMES AND HIS JOURNEYS

Tramping! Tramping! Tramping! An endless journey along the white, dusty highroad it seemed to little James. Indeed the one hundred and fifty miles that separate Retford in Nottinghamshire from Carlisle in far-off Cumberland would have been a long distance even for a full-grown man to travel on foot in those far-off, railroad-less days of 1652. Whereas little James, who had undertaken this journey right across England, was but a boy of sixteen, delicate and small for his age.

'Ye will never get there, James,' the neighbours cried when he unfolded his plans. 'To go afoot to Carlisle! Did any one ever hear the like? It would be a wild-goose chase, even if a man hoped to come to speak with a King in his palace at the end of it; but for thee to go such a journey in order to speak but for a few moments with a man thou dost not know, and in prison, it is nothing but a daft notion! What ails thee, boy?'

The only answer James gave was to knit his brows more firmly together, and to mutter resolutely to himself, as he gathered his few belongings into a bundle, 'I must and I will see George Fox!'

George Fox! The secret was out. That was the explanation of this fantastic journey. George Fox, after gathering a 'great people' up in the North, was now himself kept a close prisoner in Carlisle Gaol: yet he was the magnet attracting this lad, frail of body but determined of will, to travel right across England for the hope of speaking with him in his prison cell.

Let us look back a little and see how this befell.

In the stately old church of Saint Swithin at East Retford a record shows that 'James, son of Thomas Parnell and Sarah his wife, was baptized there on the sixth day of September 1636.' James' parents were pious church people. It must have been a proud and thankful day for them when they took their baby son to be christened in the beautiful old font in that church, where their elder daughter, Sarah, had received her name a few years before. On the font may still be seen the figure of Saint Swithin himself, the patron Saint of the church. This gentle saint, whose dying wish had been that he might be buried in no stately building of stone but 'where his grave might be trod by human feet and watered with the raindrops of heaven,' was the guardian the parents chose for their little lad. All through his short life the boy seems to have shared this love of Nature and of the open air.

James' parents were well-to-do people, and wisely determined to give their only son a good education. They sent him, therefore, as soon as he was old enough, to the Retford Grammar School, to be 'trained up in the Schools of Literature.' James tells us that he was 'as wild as others during the time he was at school, and that he was perfect in sin and iniquity as any in the town where he lived, yea and exceeded many in the wickedness of his life,' until something or other happened to sober the wild boy. He does not say what it was. Perhaps it may have been the news that reached Retford during his school days, that the King of England had been executed at Whitehall, one cold January morning. Or it may have been something quite different. Anyhow, before he left school, he was already anxious and troubled about his soul.

School days finished, he sought for help in his difficulties from 'priests and professors.' But, like George Fox, a few years earlier, James Parnell got small help from them. Some of the priests told him that he was deluded. Others, whose words sounded better, did not practise what they preached. He says, they 'preached down with their tongues what they upheld in their lives.' Therefore he decided, out of his scanty experience, that they all were 'hollow Professors,' and could be of no use to him. A very hasty judgment! But little James was tremendously sure of himself at this time, quite certain that he knew more than most of the people he met, feeling entirely able to set his neighbours to rights, and yet with a real wish to learn, if only he could find a true teacher.

He says, 'I was the first in all that town of Retford which the Lord was pleased to make known His power in, and turn my heart towards Him and truly to seek Him, so that I became a wonder to the world and an astonishment to the heathen round about.'

He adds that, at this time or a little later, even 'his own relations became his enemies.' This is not surprising. A young man of fifteen who described his neighbours and friends as 'the heathen round about' must have been a distinctly trying companion to the aforesaid 'heathen.'

Possibly there was more than one sigh of relief heaved in East Retford when the first of little James's journeys began. It was to be only a short one, to 'a people with whom I found union a few miles out of the town where I lived. The Lord was a-gathering them out of the dark world to sit down together and to wait upon His name.'

These people were either a little group of Friends already gathered at Balby, or they may have been 'Seekers' meeting together here in Nottinghamshire, as they did in the North, at Sedbergh and Preston Patrick and many another place, 'not celebrating Baptism or the Holy Communion,' but 'waiting together in silence to be instruments in the hand of the Lord.' Truly helpful 'instruments' they proved to little James, for they sent him straight on to Nottingham, where a company of 'Children of Light' was already gathered, to worship God. 'Children of Light' is the first, and the most beautiful, name given to the Society of Friends in England.

When these Nottingham Friends saw the vehement, impulsive boy, his thin frame trembling, his eyes glowing, as he poured forth his difficulties, naturally their thoughts went back to the other lad who had also passed through severe soul struggles in this same neighbourhood, some ten or twelve years earlier.

They all said to him, one after the other, 'James Parnell, thou must see George Fox.'

'George Fox!' cried little James eagerly, 'I have never even heard his name. Who is he? Where is he? I will go and find him this very moment, if he can help me.'

At these words, all the Nottingham Friends shook their heads very solemnly and sadly and said, 'That is impossible, James, for our Friend languisheth in Carlisle Gaol. But we can tell thee of him.'

Then one after another they recounted the well-known story of George Fox's boyhood, of his difficulties, of his seeking, of his finding, and lastly of his preaching, when the Power of God shone through him as he spoke, and melted men's hearts till they became as wax.

James, drinking in every word, exclaimed breathlessly as soon as the story was finished, 'That is the man for me. I will set out for Carlisle this very minute to find him!'

Of course all the Friends were aghast at the effect of their words. They declared that he really couldn't and really shouldn't, that it was out of the question, and that he must do nothing of the kind! They did their very best to stop him. But little James (who, as we know, was not in the habit of paying over-much attention to other people's opinions at any time) treated all these remonstrances as if they had been thistledown. He swung his small bundle at the end of a short stick over his shoulder, tightened his belt, tore himself from their restraining hands, and exclaiming, 'Farewell, Friends, I go to find George Fox,' off he set on the long, long journey to Carlisle.

His spirit was aflame with desire to meet his unknown friend. The miles seemed few and short that separated him from his goal. But doubtless some of the women among the 'Children of Light' wiped their eyes as they watched the fiery little figure disappear along the dusty road, and said, 'Truly that lad hath a valiant heart!'

Thus, in a burning fury of desire, the journey began. After many weary days of travel the flame still burned unquenchably, although the boy's figure looked yet leaner and more under-sized than when he left his home.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, on and ever on, till at last the long-desired day came, when, over the crest of a low hill, he made out for the first time the distant spire and towers of the fair Border city. The river Eden in the meadows below lay gleaming in the sunshine like a silver bow.

Threadbare and very dusty were his clothes, his feet swollen and sore, but his chin was pressed well forward, and the light in his eyes was that of a conqueror, when at last, tramp, tramp, tramp, his tired feet came pattering up the stones of the steep old bridge that spans the Eden and leads to Carlisle Town.

'Which is the prison?' James asked himself, as his eyes scanned a bewildering maze of towers and roofs. The tall leaden spire of the Cathedral was unmistakable, 'no prisoners there.' Next he made out the big square fortress of sandstone, red as Red William the Norman who built it long ago, on its central mound frowning over the town.

His unknown friend might very possibly be within those walls. James quickened his tired steps at the thought, and then stopped short, for the gates of the bridge were shut. Droves of sheep and oxen on their way to market filled the entry, and all foot passengers must wait. James threw himself down, full length, on one of the broad stone parapets of the bridge to rest his tired limbs until the way should be clear again. Two men were seated in a stone recess below him, also waiting to pass. At first James noticed only the dress they wore; their tall hats and sombre clothes marked them out as Baptists; the younger man a deacon probably, and the elder a pastor.

Presently James began to listen to their conversation.

'It is well he is safe in the Castle,' said the younger man, 'most pernicious Quaker doctrine did he deliver that Sabbath day in answer to our questions in the Abbey.'

'Pernicious Quaker doctrine!' James pricked up his ears at the words. He settled himself comfortably to listen, without any scruples, seeing that the speakers were in a public place, and besides, the entrance to the bridge was by this time so packed with people that he could hardly have moved off the parapet had he wished.

The older man shook his head. 'I thought I had hewed him in pieces before the Lord,' he said in a low voice, 'for no sooner was he silent than I asked him if he knew what he spake, and what it was should be damned at the last day. Whereat he did but fix his eyes upon me and said that "it was that which spoke in me which should be damned." Even as he spoke my old notions of religion glittered and fell off me, for I knew that through him whom I despised as a wandering Quaker I was listening to the Voice of God. He went on to upbraid me as a flashy notionist and yet, even so, I was constrained to listen to him in silence.'

The pastor's voice had sunk very low: James could hardly catch the last words.

'Aye, no wonder,' rejoined the younger man, 'with those eyes he seemeth to pierce the fleshly veil and to read the secrets of a man's inmost heart. I, too, experienced this, the following market day, he being then come to the market cross "a-publishing of truth" as he and his followers term it, in their quaking jargon. The magistrates, godly men, had sent the sergeants commanding them to stop his mouth. Moreover, they had sent their wives as well, and even the sergeants were less bitter against him than the women. For they declared that if the Quaker dared to defile the noble market cross of Carlisle city by preaching there, they themselves would pluck off the hair from his head, while the sergeants should clap him into gaol. Nevertheless the Quaker would not be stopped. Preach he did, standing forth boldly on the high step of the cross.'

'And what said he?' enquired the older man.

'Right forcibly he declared judgment on all the market folk for their deceitful ways. He spoke to the merchants as if he were a merchant himself, beseeching them to lay aside their false weights and measures and deceitful merchandize, with all cozening and cheating, and to speak truth only to one another. Ever as he spoke, the people flocked closer around him, hanging on his words as if he were reading their secret hearts, so that the sergeants could not come nigh him for the press to lead him away. Thus only when he had finished he stepped down from the cross and would have passed gently away, but I and some of the brethren, thinking that now our turn had come, followed after him. The contention between us was sharp. Yet his words struck into me like knives, and scarce knowing what I did, I cried out aloud, for a strange power was over me. Thereat he fixed his eyes upon me and spake sharply to me, as if he knew that I was resisting the Spirit of the Lord. I know not why, but I was forced to cry out again, "Do not pierce me so with thine eyes. Keep thine eyes off me."'

'Well,' questioned the elder man, 'and what followed? Did his eyes leave thee?'

'They have never left me,' replied the other. 'Wherever I go those eyes burn me yet, although the man himself lies fast in gaol among the thieves and murderers, in the worst and most loathsome of the dungeons. Thither I go every day to assure myself that he is fast caged behind thick walls, and to rejoice my eyes with the sight of the gibbet nailed high over-head upon the castle wall. Men say he shall swing there soon, but of that I know not. Wilt thou come with me now, for see, the bridge is free?'

'Not I,' returned the pastor, moodily, as he shuffled away, like a man ill at ease with himself.

Little James, from his perch on the parapet, had drunk in greedily every word of this conversation. Directly the bridge was clear he crept down and followed the deacon like a shadow. They passed over the silver Eden and up the main street of the city, paved with rough, uneven stones, and with an open sewer flowing through the centre of it. Right across the busy market-place they passed, before the deacon halted beneath the castle walls.

Full of noise and hubbub was Carlisle city that day; yet, as the two entered the courtyard of the castle, James was aware of another sound, rising clear above the tumult of the town—strains of music, surely, that came from a fiddle. As they stepped under the inner gateway and approached the Norman Keep, the fiddler himself came in sight playing with might and main, under a barred window about six feet from the ground. By the fiddler's side, urging him on, was a huge, burly man with a red face. Whenever the fiddler showed signs of weariness the man beside him raising a large tankard of ale to his lips would force him to drink of it, saying, 'Play up, man! Play up!'

The thin, clear strains of the fiddle rose up steadily towards the barred window, but, above them, James caught another sound that floated yet more steadily out through the bars: the firm, full tones of a deep bass voice within, singing loud and strong.

Though he could not see the singer, something in the song thrilled James through and through. Forgetting his weariness he knew that he was near his journey's end at last. As he listened, he noticed a handful of people, listening also, under the barred window.

Loud jeers arose: 'Play up, Fiddler!' 'Sing on, Quaker!' or even, 'Ply him with more ale, Gaoler: the prisoner is the better musician!'

At these cries the fat man's countenance grew ever more enraged. He looked savage and huge, 'like a bear-ward,' a man more accustomed to deal with bears than with human beings. Finally, in his wrath, he turned the now empty tankard upon the crowd and bespattered them with the last drops of the ale, and then called lustily for more, with which he plied the fiddler anew. So the contest continued, but at last, the ale perhaps taking effect, the fiddler's head dropped, his bow swept the strings more wearily, while the strong notes inside the dungeon grew ever more firm and loud. The gaoler seeing, or rather hearing, himself worsted, caught the bow from the fiddler's hand and cracked it over his skull. The fiddler, seizing this chance to escape, leapt to his feet and dashed across the courtyard, followed by the gaoler and the populace in full chase. Even the sombre Baptist deacon gathered up the skirts of his long coat and bestirred his lean legs. The singing ceased. A face appeared at the window: only for an instant: but one glance was enough for James.

Timidly he approached the window, but he had only taken two steps towards it when he found himself firmly elbowed off the pavement and pushed into the gutter. Someone else also had been watching for the crowd to disperse, in order to have a chance of speaking with the prisoner. The new-comer was a portly lady in a satin gown, a much grander person than James had expected to find in the near neighbourhood of a dungeon. She carried a large, covered basket, and, as soon as the way was clear, she set it down on the pavement and began to take out the contents carefully: bread and salt, beef and elecampane ale. Without looking up from her work she called to the unseen figure at the window above her head: 'So thou hast stopped their vain sounds at length with thy singing?'

'Aye,' answered the deep voice from within. 'Thou mayest safely approach the window now, for the gaoler hath departed. After he had beaten thee and the other Friends with his great cudgel, next he was moved to beat me also, through the window, did I but come near to it to get my meat. And as he struck me I was moved to sing in the Lord's power, and that made him rage the more, whereat he fetched the fiddler, saying he would soon drown my noise if I would not cease.'

'Eat now, Dear Heart,' the woman interrupted, 'whilst thou hast the chance.' So saying, she handed some of the dishes up to the prisoner, standing herself on tiptoe beneath the prison window in order to reach his hand stretched out through the bars.

Here James saw his chance.

'Madam,' he cried, 'let me hand the meat up to you.'

The lady looked down and saw the worn, thin face. Perhaps she thought the boy looked hungry enough to need the food himself, but something in his eager glance touched her, and when he added, 'For I have come one hundred and fifty miles to see GEORGE FOX,' her kind heart was won.

'Nay, then, thou hast a better right to help him even than I,' she said, 'though I am his very good friend and Colonel Benson's wife. Thou shall hand up the dishes to me, and when our friend is satisfied, thou and I will finish what remains, for in the Lord's power I am moved to eat no meat at my own house, but to share all my sustenance with His faithful servant who lies within this noisome gaol.'

'Madam,' said the boy, speaking with the concentrated intensity of weeks of suppressed longing, 'for the food, it is no matter, though I am much beholden to you. I hunger after but one thing. Bring me within the gaol where I may speak with him face to face. There is that, that I have come afoot a hundred miles to ask him.

'Bring me to him, speedily I pray you, for, though even unseen I love him,

'I MUST SEE GEORGE FOX.'

XVIII. THE FIRST QUAKER MARTYR

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.'