RUILLICK-NY-QUAKERYN.

NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF FRIENDS IN THE ISLE OF MAN.

by Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L.

Reprinted from the "Friends' Quarterly Examiner, October 1908 pp 457-495

THE long mountainous island which lies nearly midway between England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales extends a hospitable welcome to visitors from all the three Kingdoms and the one Principality. "Other countries boast of their exports and imports," said a recent Governor of the Isle of Man. "Our great article of import is human beings " : and valiantly does the little island address herself to the task, of providing food, shelter, and amusement for the multitudes who in the summer months flock to her shores, chiefly from the manufacturing districts of the North of England and the West of Scotland. A dilettante archaeologist like myself will probably find it pleasanter to visit the island in early spring or late autumn when the human torrent has ceased to flow over. it. Then, besides the empty lodging houses and broad Esplanade of Douglas, one can visit at one's leisure the massive Rushen Castle at Castletown (the true historic capital of Man), or busy little Ramsey, or Port Erin, paradise of bathers. Or, if mountains and moorlands delight one more, there are glorious drives up among the hills; nay, it is even possible for the indolent traveller to reach by carriage or tramcar the summit of Snaefell itself, the shy mountain monarch of the island, more than 2000 ft. high.

But the wayfaring archaeologist will probably be most interested by Peel on the west of the island and by its adjoining islet of St. Patrick. Here within a space of seven acres are the remains of a noble cathedral, other very early churches, a round tower, and an episcopal palace. In the crypt under the cathedral the too-aspiring Eleanor Duchess of Gloucester is believed to have spent the last ten years of her chequered life, and here, too, as the guide takes care to inform us, many Quakers were imprisoned by order of a Bishop of Man.

This mention; of the imprisoned Quakers arouses our curiosity and makes us desire to learn something more about the past history of the Society of Friends in this island. Now we take note of the following paragraph in Ward, Lock & Co's handy and informing little guide-book (p. 202):-

"About a mile from Kirk Maughold, a field near the road and tram-line is known as Ruillick-ny-Quakeryn, 'the burial-ground of the Quakers.' The Friends came to the island about 1650 and made many converts, but religious intolerance brought about, their expulsion and imprisonment and the confiscation of all their property."

Enquiring a little further, we find that Kirk Maughold in the north-east of the island has an ecclesiastical interest all its own, with which we, aliens from the Holy Catholic Church, must not presume to intermeddle. This wide flat triangle, spreading forth into the sea and terminated by the guardian Maughold Head, has been for centuries, very likely even from prehistoric ages, a place of peculiar sanctity to the inhabitants of Man. Here in the churchyard is the great Maughold Cross, five feet high, with sculptured representations of the Virgin and the Crucifixion. Many other specimens of that very early art are collected in the churchyard, and altogether the parish of St. Maughold has contributed (if I remember right) fully two-thirds of the crosses catalogued in the whole island. Moreover, it has been for long the favourite marrying and burying-place of the inhabitants of that side of the island, and still the coffins of farmers and peasants who have died far from home are brought by devious ways and down steep, mountain roads to be laid in the beloved Maughold.

But with all this we have just now nothing to do, and we must not be tempted by words of the guidebook to descend into that sacred plain. We are travelling, probably by the electric tram (Mona is rich in trams) which runs, with many a glorious sea-view, along the tops of the cliffs from Douglas to Ramsey. We have reached Ballajora station, a little lonely hut among the hills: Maughold Head and its subject country outspread below us on the right, the noble "cone of North Barrule dominating the landscape on the left. We must alight here, and ask at one of the hospitable farmhouses for this mouthful of sounds "Ruillick-ny-Quakeryn." It is not, however, very difficult to find if we know in which direction to look. Mount the hill to the left of the tram-line for about ten minutes, and you will come on the crest of the hill, and on the left of the road to the traces of an enclosure with an upright stone, about three feet high in the middle of it. This enclosure, upon my first visit, I supposed to be the burial ground of which I was in search, but returning a second time, with the aid of a local archaeologist we clearly identified the burial-ground on the other side of the road. The map on next page will roughly show the position of the two enclosures.
The Quakers' burial-ground is much overgrown with gorse and fern, and it was not possible to discover any grave mounds on its surface, but it is separated by a low turf wall from the ploughed field at its side, and its inviolability is scrupulously respected by the farmer and his men. The road is still sometimes called the Quakers' Road, and it will be observed that there is a sort of bay on the side adjoining the graveyard in which, probably, the horses of the farmers accompanying the procession were wont to be tethered till the ceremony was ended. The situation of the ground is a very fine one: splendid views of the sea north-east and south-east of us, with probably, in clear weather, the Cumberland Mountains on the horizon, Maughold below, Barrule above-altogether a noble Machpelah for an oppressed and persecuted people. .

A visit to this place naturally inspires one with the desire to learn more of its past history. Consulting Mr. P. M. C. Kermode, the author of a goodly monograph on Manx Crosses, and one of the chief antiquaries of the island, I learned from him that the burial-ground formerly belonged to a certain William Callow, who joined the Society, of Friends soon after its first formation, and who, being apparently a yeoman cultivating land on this wind-swept hill, set aside a little plot of ground near the ruined Keill or old Celtic church which was situated on his farm, for the burial of his excommunicated friends.

Some further research in the old folio volume i. of Besse's Suferings of the People called Quakers,supplemented by an excellent article by Mr. A. W. Moore (Speaker of the House of Keys) in Lioar Manninagh,¹ furnished the following facts, throwing a little light on this almost forgotten corner of Quaker history.²

There is no mention in George Fox's Journal of any visits paid by him to the Isle of Man, but missionary journeys to that island seem to have been undertaken at a very early period by the enthusiastic Quakers of Cumberland, which then maintained a pretty frequent intercourse with Douglas and Ramsey. Thus in 1655,³ only three years after George Fox's memorable visit to Swarthmore Hall, we find in an account sent to Margaret Fell by George Taylor of Kendal an item of £1 15s. for money "advanced to Thomas Saltar and another for the Isle of Man," and again, probably in the following year,⁴ a similar entry for monies advanced to Thomas Saltar and Anthony Patrickson for Ireland and Isle of Man service, £2 8s. Missionary journeys were not expensive in those days.

A year later,⁵ December 26th, 1657, we find evidences of an attempt, apparently unsuccessful, to send another mission to the island. Richard Waller and Richard Roper inform Margaret Fell that "they cannot hear of any vessel that was bound for the Isle of Man." One of the writers, perhaps Waller, says later on, "I met with a man in Belfast that tould me he came from Whit(e)haven : and he said he did come with another vessell which had four of our Friends in (Lancashire men) and he said he did see them land safely at the Isle of Man." (So there, at any rate, is one mission started.) "I have wayted ten days for wind and now the shipmen seems to be very unwilling to carry mee, and hath said no Quaker. shall go with them but James More."

(As a postscript) "When I writ the beginning of this letter I had some hopes to have got to the Isle of Man. I am given (up to) doe the will of the Lord. I find true peace, though thinges come (out) so crossly. Farewell."

The sailors in these regions seem to have looked on the Quakers as the men of Tarshish looked on Jonah, as not a lucky portion of their cargo. This superstition, as we shall see hereafter, sometimes worked in Friends' favour.

After this entry, apparently, we get no further light on our subject from the Swarthmore MSS., and we shall have chiefly to depend upon the Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers(London folio, 1753). The industrious compiler of this book, Joseph Besse, informs us that it is "taken from original records and other authentic sources," and there is no reason to doubt either his industry or his faithfulness in the fulfillment of his self-imposed task. At the same time it is right to remember that he cannot be considered a strictly contemporary authority, as he was born only a few years before George Fox's death, while his book was published a century after the beginning of George Fox's apostolate.⁶

We learn from Besse that in the year 1656 (still, be it remembered, under Cromwell's Protectorate) " the magistrates of this place ⁷ being early prepossessed with an aversion to the Quakers and their doctrine which the Preachers of those times, whose Interest it thwarted, had industriously misrepresented, made laws against them at their first coming thither, one of which was for banishing all of that persuasion whether natives or others."

Mr. Moore, in his article in Vannin Lioar, vol. i.part 2, p. 281, says that this statement is incorrect:-

"Not only was there no legislation against them, but there were no orders in Council. In fact, except that, whether aliens or natives, they were sent out of the island, after undergoing a term of imprisonment, they were dealt with under the spiritual law of the isle, which inflicted severe penalties against those who did not attend the Established Church, conform to her rights, and pay her dues. This banishment was probably resorted to as a means of preventing their opinions spreading, but as regards the natives of the isle it was altogether illegal.

" None of the Acts of Charles II. directed against Nonconformists, viz.: the Act of Uniformity, the Five Mile Act, and the Conventicle Act applied to the Isle of Man, as it was not named in them, yet the treatment of the Quakers in the smaller island was very similar to that in the larger."

It was therefore probably without strict legal warrant that, as Besse says, "Katharine Evans was taken out of her bed at night and sent away."

In Whiting's Persecution Exposed (ed. 1791, P. 471) it is said: "Once in the Isle of Man there was a soldier came to Katharine Evans' bedside with a naked sword and took her by the arm and haled her out of bed at the tenth hour of the night and carried her on ship board to send her away."

This is no doubt the same Katharine Evans who with her friend Sarah Cheevers suffered four years of imprisonment (1658-1662) in the stifling dungeon of the Inquisition at Malta. She was released through the intercession of a Roman Catholic priest, Ludovic Stuart, Lord of Aubigny, who on this and many other occasions worked for toleration for Protestant Nonconformists, as well as for those of his own faith. After her return to England Katharine Evans suffered many imprisonments, but eventually died at a good old age in 1692.

The persecution of the Quakers seems to have been begun by no less a person than William Christian, the celebrated "Illiam Dhone,"⁸ who helped to wrest the Isle of Man from the warlike Countess of Derby, and for six years governed it under the English Parliament. This is a striking instance of the well-known hostility of the Parliamentary and Puritan party to the first preachers of Quakerism. Besse, who gives an inaccurate account of William Christian's death in 1662 (which he attributes to his having fallen under Lord Fairfax's displeasure), says that in his last speech before he was "shot to death " he mentioned with much regret what he had done to the Quakers. Mr. Moore has not been able to find a trace of this in any copies of Illiam Dhone's last speech that have been handed down.⁹

In the year 1657 we meet for the first time with the name of WILLIAM CALLOW, the occupier of the farm and the giver of the burial-ground which we have been visiting, high up on the hills, between North Barrule and the sea. Let us look a little at the outward circumstances of this man who, has imbibed, we know not from whom, the principles of "the people called Quakers," and who is destined to undergo a stiff fight in their defence with presbyter and priest, with bishop, governor, and Earl, for at least fifteen years.

William Callow was, as I have said, a farmer in the upper part of the parish of Maughold, he and his. forebears having been apparently for generations tenants of this property under the Earl of Derby.¹⁰

But, like most of his neighbours in all probability, he was also interested in the fishing industry, and the good or bad result of the herring-fishery made considerable difference to his income. Though he wrought with his hands he had servants of his own,¹¹ and was apparently a man of some little importance in his native island. His wife Anne Callow had a sister named Jane, whose husband Evan Christen accepted the Quaker teaching about the same time as his brother-in-law, and stood staunchly by him for its defence.

There is no hint in any of the proceedings against Callow and his friends that they had been guilty of any disorderly conduct, except on one occasion. In the year 1657 (the one that we have now reached) "William Callow was detained eight weeks in prison for publicly reproving a priest " (i.e. probably a Presbyterian or Independent minister) " whom he heard abusing the Quakers in his sermon to the people." I conjecture that it may, have been Callow's indignation at this calumnious attack from the pulpit and the punishment which he endured for refuting it which finally determined him to cast in his lot with the slandered sectaries ; but this is only conjecture.

The next offence for which they are proceeded against was evidently not interruption of the public peace, but daring to worship God after their own fashion, a presumption which the Roundhead would not tolerate any more than the Cavalier. A meeting is held in William Callow's house, for which crime he and Anne must spend a week in prison. When they are released they repeat the offence and several of their neighbours join them. The attenders are dragged out of the meeting (Sunday though it be) and set in the stocks four hours in the marketplace .¹² Callow and a farmer friend of his, John Christen (perhaps a brother of Evan's), are fined ten bushels of oats each. The oats are carted away to Douglas and laid up in the patriot Governor William Christian's barn. To do him justice,. this was not done from motives of greed. Next Sunday, after his sermon, the minister invites the poor of the parish to come to the barn and help themselves to "some corn which the Governor had ordered to be given them." The history of the sequestered corn, however, is too well-known, and Illiam Dhone's charity at the expense of other men evokes more sneers than gratitude. Minister, soldiers, some of the poor, and Callow himself adjourn to the barn ; but neither persuasion nor threats-though "the priest " grew angry and looking sternly at W. Callow said to the people, "Why don't you take the corn?" -will induce them to hold out their bags to be filled with the goods of their neighbour. Next Sunday the invitation was repeated, the minister telling the people that the Governor was displeased that none of the corn had been taken. Through fear of his anger some of the poor people went to the barn, "but only one among them, named Coole, would take any, and he vauntingly said to the rest, 'You are so proud; you will not take it. I have got this and there will be more of his goods taken before this be eaten, and then I'll get more.' But so it was that before he had eaten what he took he was taken away by death. His sudden exit was interpreted by the other poor as a judgment upon him, and they rejoiced that they had kept themselves clear. The rest of the corn lay till it was spoiled, for nobody would take it, and then it was said to be cast into the streets to the horses and swine."

A year after these events William Christian lost the office of Governor and the favour of his patron Lord Fairfax, being accused of malversation in respect to the revenues of the sequestrated bishopric. His successor, James Challoner, no doubt continued the policy of stern repression towards the unfortunate Quakers, though there is no reason to accept Besse's estimate of him as a violent persecutor, or to believe that "he was heard to say, a little before his death, that he would quickly rid the island of Quakers." This unfavourable estimate of his character does not agree with the remembrances of his Manx subjects, nor does it correspond with what we know of him from other sources. He was generally accounted a "regicide," having been present at three early sittings of the Court for the trial of Charles I., but he was, evidently half-hearted in the business, never attended the Court after the 22nd of January, and never, signed the death-warrant. ¹³ On this account, after the Restoration he was exempted from the death penalty inflicted on the more flagrant offenders, but was committed to prison, where he appears to have died, after a short incarceration.¹⁴ Altogether James Challoner appears before us as a gentle, rather ineffectual kind of man; and when we find in addition that he was a large collector of antiquarian manuscripts, we are determined not to admit that he was a violent persecutor.

However harsh the Governor might be or gentle, soldier or antiquary, Roundhead or Cavalier, things went about equally ill for the unfortunate Quakers. The next "suffering" which was inflicted upon them under the rule of James Challoner seems to us, with our present feelings about such matters, of a peculiarly mean and hateful type-" Anno 1659 William Callow and several others for 2d. each demanded by the priest for bread and wine, which it was well known they had not received, were imprisoned by a warrant from James Challoner the Governor."

How would the simple-hearted fishermen of Galilee, who partook of the first Eucharist in "the large upper room furnished " at Jerusalem, have abhorred the suggestion that the remembrance of that meal should bring bonds and imprisonment to their brother fishermen in a far-off island of the West!

The next imprisonment in the same year (1659) was for non-payment of tithes, which were as rigorously exacted by Presbyterians under the Commonwealth as by Episcopalians under the Monarchy. Landing early one morning, after a cold and rainy night at sea, Callow and Christen were hurried off to prison in their wet clothes and there detained several days, to punish them for non-payment of tithes. What made the imprisonment harder was that these days were in the middle of the herring season, , the harvest of the fisherman's year. However, this imprisonment lasted not long, and there was plenty of fish for them when they were liberated, as many as they could drag to the shore.

Next year (May 29th, 1660) came the happy restoration of Charles II., which brought with it the end of the reign of Lord Fairfax in the little island, and its restoration to its former sovereigns the Earls of Derby. The new Lord of Man, Charles Stanley, eighth earl of his house, was a man of respectable but not conspicuous ability,¹⁵ and was evidently possessed by one strong desire, to avenge the wrongs which the house of Stanley had suffered during the sixteen years of the obsouration of the royal power. His father, the seventh earl, after fighting at Marston Moor, had retired to his island, and held it stoutly for six years against the Parliament. Then, in 1651, having joined in the desperate attempt to replace the Stuarts on the English throne, he had been wounded at the battle of Worcester, had shared the early stages of Charles the Second's flight, had been captured in Cheshire, and finally executed at Bolton on the 15th of October, a deed which was too much like the execution of a prisoner of war to be altogether approved of even by some of the opposite party. His wife, the granddaughter of 'William the Silent, 'Prince of Orange, best known to posterity by her ' heroic defence of Lathom House, would fain have repeated that exploit after her husband's death with regard to the Isle of Man, but was soon overpowered by the Parliamentary forces. She accused William Christian of having combined with these enemies against her, and she possibly included him among the murderers of her late husband, concerning whom, on the 8th of June, 1660, she petitioned that they might be brought to condign punishment. Vengeance, however, was not in fact taken by her ¹⁶ but by her son, who had been engaged (in 1659) in the unsuccessful Cheshire rising against the Parliament, headed by Sir George Booth. For this he had suffered nearly a year's imprisonment, but now, after the happy restoration, released from prison with the Parliamentary attainder reversed, with some, though by no means all,¹⁷ of the old family estates restored to him, he resumed possession of that Lordship of Man which had been for so many years the property of Lord Fairfax.

Owing to William Christian's absence from the island, Earl Charles's vengeance had to tarry for three years, but when he returned in 1663, trusting, as he had a right to trust, to the Act of Indemnity passed at the Restoration, he was arrested by the earl's order, tried before a packed and illegal tribunal, and shot (January 2nd, 1663). His son and nephew appealed to the King in Council against this illegal act, and obtained a reversal of the forfeiture of his estates, and some rather slight punishment by way of fine and imprisonment on his unjust judges. The shady aspects of Illiam Dhone's character were forgotten; he became and continues still a martyred memory to all Manxmen, and a ballad in the Manx language, lamenting his fate, has been preserved to our own day.¹⁸ Thus, then, two Governors of the island, Christian and Challoner, both of whom figure in the Society's annals as persecutors of the Quakers, had fallen from their high estate and suffered imprisonment and death. But this change of rulers brought no abatement of the sufferings, of Friends; rather, it would seem, their sorer punishment. Weak as his character might be Earl Charles had determined to root the Quakers; out of his island. He would not have that place infected with heresy or schism, which it might be liable to if Quakers should be permitted to reside there; and "if they would not conform they should not go to poison his island."¹⁹ One is at first rather surprised to find that this eighth Earl of Derby was staunch Protestant, and,that he wrote a book — "a,very, thin quarto " — containing a dialogue between Orthodox, a Royalist, and Cacodaemon ("One Popishly affected "), to prove that the Protestant religion is a sure foundation of a true Christian and a good' subject. His lordship, we are told "is warm against the Church of Rome, their casuists, and the Jesuits, and seems well read both in the Fathers and in polemic divinity, from both of which his style has adopted much acrimony."²⁰ We might have expected from such a valiant Protestant a little gentler treatment of Protestant Nonconformists; but, not to mention that ecclesiastically-minded Peers sometimes ride their church hobbies harder than Bishops and Canons, we have also to remember that in the early days of Quakerism there was a common persuasion among the more ignorant of their critics that they were in some mysterious way themselves in secret alliance with the Papists. This persuasion was not perhaps to be wondered at in the reign of James II., when William Penn was a persona grata at Court, and when Declarations of Indulgence were easing the lot of Catholics and Quakers alike; but it was of earlier date than this, as we know from sundry allusions to George Fox's Journal and elsewhere, and it undoubtedly accounted for some of the harshness with which the early Friends were treated. But whatever the cause might be, whether zeal for Protestantism or mere hatred of the Roundhead fanaticism which had brought his father to the block and kept himself for years out of his inheritance, it is evident that the eighth Earl of Derby was a bitter and determined persecutor of the Quakers, and, according to my reading of the history of the time, a larger share of the blame of that persecution should rest upon him than upon the man who is generally held responsible for it, and who certainly was the hand to execute the Earl's orders-the Governor and Bishop of the Isle of Man, Dr. Isaac Barrow.

"This man, who must not be confounded with his far more celebrated namesake and nephew (the great preacher, and one of the inventors of the Differential Calculus), was born in 1614, and thus was nearly fifty years of age when, in 1663, the Earl of Derby, in the exercise of his semi-regal prerogative, appointed him Bishop of Sodor and Man. He had studied at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, and had afterwards become chaplain of New College, Oxford. Then came the fifteen years of Royalist obscuration, which meant probably for Barrow, as for most other Episcopalian clergymen, quiet living on a very narrow. income; and then with the Restoration he regained his Fellowship at Peterhouse, received other preferments besides, and was finally, as we have seen, decked with the lawn sleeves of a bishop and sent to be the ruler of the Isle of Man in things spiritual, to which office that of the civil governor of the island was added in the following year (1664). This combination of civil and ecclesiastical offices was certainly unusual, and I suspect that there was no other instance of it since the Reformation.

Apart from his persecution of the unfortunate Quakers, Bishop Barrow's record, both in the Isle of Man and in his later acquired See of St. Asaph, seems to be a respectable one. We hear of his building schools, founding exhibitions, endowing libraries, lead-roofing his cathedral, building bridges, and establishing almshouses. These are not the works of a hard-hearted and selfish man. On the other hand, his was evidently an unsympathetic nature, nor does he show the slightest conception of what is meant by spiritual religion. I imagine him a rather dull, commonplace college Don, very likely sharing some of his illustrious nephew's proficiency in mathematics, but not the kind of man who could understand what his prisoners were talking about when they spoke of "the Light of Christ shining in their hearts, and of their knowing something of the Grace of God which hath appeared unto all men, by which salvation is witnessed."

Bishop Barrow was consecrated to his office in Henry VII.'s Chapel in Westminster Abbey, on the 5th of July, 1663, and no doubt, soon after his entry on his diocese, the question of the suppression of heresy claimed his attention. Already, in 1662, Callow and, Christian had been arrested on the old charge of refusing to pay a few pence for the sacramental bread and wine, and had been confined for more than a fortnight in the crypt of St. German's cathedral at Peel, where they lay "without fire, candle, or bedding, having only straw to lie on and a stone for their pillow"; and again these same two men, with six of their friends, had been taken out of meeting and confined in a high tower of Castle Rushen during the dark cold months from December to January, without fire or candle. In the following year Evan Christian's father, an old man of eighty, was joined with the brave two in their imprisonment in Peel Castle, their crime being absence from the parish church. After sixteen days' confinement their imprisonment was. ended, singularly enough by the order of Bishop Barrow himself, who "had come to the island to be sworn," and apparently would celebrate his accession to the bishopric by an exhibition of clemency.

This act of grace was not the only means used by Barrow gently to bring the recalcitrant Friends into a better frame of mind. Early in 1664 he addressed them in a monition of considerable length ²¹

"My good friends," he began, "for soe I desire you would bee, I am not a little troubled to see you run on in this wilful way to your own ruin. Beeing called upon by God's providence to the care of His Church, I must look upon you as a part of my charge, and though I have hitherto acted the part of a Governor in outward appearance (i.e., by imprisoning you), yett have not ceased to pray dayly for you, and doo now exhort you in the spirit of meekness to consider, as you will answer it at the day of judgment, whether you doo not sin against God in refusing to obey the lawful commands of magistrates whom God's providence has set over you, when the Apostle expressly commands, 'Let every soul be subject to the higher powers,' telling us the danger of the sine in the following words: 'Hee that resists shall receive to himself damnation.' "

The duty of passive obedience was thus insisted on by the worthy bishop in terms which would have equally condemned the martyrs under Diocletian and justified the actions of their persecutor. And then he proceeds to rebuke them for their

'sine in withdrawing their obedience from the Church, despising its ministry and so despising not man but God, for Christ said,'Hee that heareth you heareth mee, and hee that despiseth you despiseth mee and Him that sent me'; neglecting God's ordinances the sacrements, without which there is no ordinary means of salvation ; and forsaking the publique meeting of Christians, that sine which the apostle reprehends in the Corinthians."

Their plea for this omission is that they cannot join with wicked men in the worship of God; but this is like the self-righteousness of the Pharisees, and shows that they have forgotten the words of Christ about the wheat and the tares growing together till the harvest: —

" Consider again your sine of neglecting your estates and not providing for your families, when the Apostle tells us that such is worse than Infiddles. All you give in answer for these things is that you doe according to your conscience, but I must tell you that the testimony of conscience must arise from the conformitie your accons [actions] carry with the dictates of reason or the Word: now your accons are contrary to both as the places [passages] above mentioned prove, and therefore your conscience can be no excuse."

Finally, after warning them that Satan often transforms himself into an angel of light, he invites them to return to the Church

"which is ready to embrace you and earnestly invites you. And believe," he concludes, "though I have been forced to use rigour with you to preserve the rest of the flock (which are my charge also), yett you sall ever find me most loving ffriend and faithful servant in our common Lord and Saviour.

ISAAC SODOR AND MAN."

This well-meant exhortation, which would have had more logical force in the mouth of a bishop of the Unreformed Church, seems to have produced no effect on the minds of the Quakers. Accordingly, before the close of the year 1664, the Church got her batteries in order and caused them to he scientifically directed against these audacious persons who dared to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences. Two clergymen named Parr and Harrison, judges of the Ecclesiastical Court, issued the following order to the apparitors of the Court :-

"We have received of late orders from our reverend Ordinary (the Bishop) to admonish the Quakers to conform and come to church, or be committed until they submit to law: and forasmuch as they refuse, after several charges and publications in the parish church, but continue their meetings and refractoriness to all government of the church, and are therefore censured to be committed into St. Germain's prison, and there let them remain till orders be given to the contrary, and for so doing this shall be your discharge.

ROBERT PARR.
JOHN HARRISON.

P.S.- If they refuse to be committed by you, call for the assistance of a soldier from captain Ascough. Let the Sumner ²² put this in execution immediately."

In pursuance of this order, first the men, Callow and Christen and their friends, and then the women, five in number (all but William Callow's wife who was mercifully suffered to return home, having only just recovered from a dangerous fever), were taken to the prison in the cathedral crypt at Peel, where two centuries before Eleanor Duchess of Gloucester had endured her long imprisonment to punish her for her alleged traffickings with the Powers of Darkness.²³

Having brought them all to the deepest part of the dungeon, the solemn sumner "took off his hat and formally pronounced what he called the bishop's curse, to. this effect namely " :-

"I do here, before the standers by, deliver you up into St. Germain's prison by the law of my lord the bishop and his clergy, you being cast out of the church by excommunication, and I do here take witness that I do deliver you over from the power of the bishop and his law to be and continue the Earl of Derby's prisoners."

So here we have the Church of England in the latter half of the seventeenth century using the correct ecclesiastical dialect of the Middle Ages and handing over her heretics to the secular arm, quite in the style of Arundel or Bonner ; but, as the narrator says, "What he meant by this they knew not, there being none present but himself and them." In the hundred years and more that had elapsed since the Reformation, people had forgotten how terrible were the tender mercies of the Catholic Church.

Of the five women thus imprisoned-

"one was seventy-four and another sixty-seven years of age: a third was a poor serving man's wife having three children, one of whom sucking at her breast she took with her to prison: a fourth was the wife of one not called a Quaker, having a large family and many children, and the fifth was a servant of William Callow, whom they took away from her sick mistrow, and there they lay many months enduring the hardships of a close and unhealthy confinement, the cruel mercies of the bishop and his clergy."

The next measure resorted to by the bishop-governor was the deportation of the Quakers from the island. This was, as Manx lawyers now tell us and as the bishop was over and over again informed by English magistrates, an absolutely illegal act, and one which for that reason caused him much trouble; but for four years (1665-1669) he persisted in these violations of the law : a strange comment on his exhortation to the Quakers to render absolute obedience to the law under all circumstances. In these transactions Barrow generally appears as the prime agent, but he was evidently well backed by his patron the Earl of Derby, who, as was seen in the case of William Christian, liked the exercise of his power all the better if it had in it a strong spice of illegality.

On the 15th of June,²⁴ 1665, Henry Nowell, the Deputy Governor (the same man who had unlawfully tried William Christian), came to Peel Castle and read to the prisoners an order from the Earl of Derby "that they must be forthwith transported into some other land." A fortnight later two clergymen came by Nowell's order and ordered that the sentence should be remitted if they would conform to the church, but, as they refused to do so, on the 5th of September the poor prisoners were marched down to Douglas under a guard of soldiers and after a few days' delay

"were put on board a ship whereof Thomas Brittain was Master. As the prisoners entered on one side of the ship, the seamen went out on the other into a boat, telling the Master that ' they were not hired to carry people out of their native country against their wills, neither would they go with him if he carried them,' and so went on shore leaving him only a boy or two. The Master, seeing his men resolute and himself unable to proceed on his voyage without them, conferred with the soldiers and set the prisoners on shore again, which being done, the seamen returned to the ship and set sail."

In three days' time some more vessels came into Douglas harbour, but all stoutly refused to be made transport ships for prisoners. The captain of one of them, Anthony Nicholson, said, "No, not unless you will give me money for their maintenance, and a guard of soldiers and a paper stating what crimes are laid to their charge. If they are such dangerous persons that the Isle of Man cannot endure them, how do I know that they will not rise and overpower me and my crew ? " "But this he spake ironically," doubtless with a shrug of his shoulders and a good humoured glance at the patient men and women who were shivering there on Douglas sands. However, on the 18th of September, four of the prisoners, William Callow and his sister (?) Mary, Evan Christen and his wife, were taken out of their beds and hurried half-clothed on board two ships, Nicholson's and Crosthwaite's (both Whitehaven men), contrary to the will of the captains, who had been bullied into submission by the forcible seizure of their sails. When they arrived at Dublin the Mayor of that city demanded of the two captains What. they meant by bringing prisoners thither against their will and without any warrant. The four Friends were placed on board Crosthwaite's ship, and he received a sharp rebuke and an order to carry them at once back to their native island "to follow their necessary occasions." Cumberland-bred, however, Crosthwaite hankered after his native county, and had no desire for any further acquaintance with the constables of the Isle of Man, and he accordingly carried his prisoners to his native Whitehaven. Again they claim the protection of the magistrates, and John Lamplugh, Esq., one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace, and Quorum for the County of Cumberland, orders the Whitehaven constable to see that the two Callows and two Christens who have been brought thither "without any order or. legal proceedings " be again put on board and carried him at the next opportunity. But Crosthwaite, humane or perverse, takes them again to Dublin and then back to Whitehaven. "Thus were these innocent people harassed and tossed up and down in the cold winter season. At last the upshot of the whole matter is that the two poor women, Mary and Jane, are back again in the prison in their native island, while the two men, having landed in England, make their way to Knowsley, the beautiful Lancashire home of the Stanley's, ' to see if anything can be done to mitigate the stern decree of the Earl and the Bishop who are holding conference together.

As for the poor, much-buffeted and bugeong Crosthwaite, it is recorded that a few days after he had landed the women in the island "his vessel was driven on shore by a violent storm, and some passengers with almost all his goods were lost." I much fear that Joseph Besse wishes us to regard this as a judgment of Providence.

After some delay the desired interview was granted the two Friends at Knowsley on the lst of June, 1666. The Earl of Derby was not present himself, but was represented by his Countess, by Bishop Barrow, and Archdeacon Fletcher.²⁵

The dialogue, which was a long one, is reported in full: but I shall only quote some of the more characteristic passages:-

Bishop: "What have you to say to me?
Callow and Christen: "We have to say to thee to let,thee know that we are persecuted and banished from place to place for Conscience-sake, and most of it 'long of thee."
Bishop: "I did not banish you: I left you fast enough (in prison) when I came out of the island."
Callow: "Yet, notwithstanding we know that our banishment hath been 'long of thee, or else the Earl would be loth to use us there worse than his tenants in this country."
Bishop: "I have no more to say to you but what I told you before, that if I can persuade my Lord to the contrary you shall not go back to the island."
Callow: " Indeed we do expect no better from the spirit of persecution in any (person) whomsoever."
Bishop: "Ye are not persecuted, but banished because you do not come to the Church."
Callow: "When did Christ or His Apostles banish any for not coming to hear them, as you do ?
Bishop: " Yes, many."
Callow: "Prove it, for I cannot remember that I ever read of any.,'
Bishop: "Did not Paul cast out them that were disorderly in the Church ? "
Callow: "But he did not banish or imprison them as thou hast done to us."
Bishop: "I did not banish you neither, but excommunicate you as he did: and I have no more to say to you."
Callow: "But neither Christ nor His Apostles did force them that were without to come in or else be banished."
Bishop: "Yea, Christ bade His servants go and compel them to come in."
Callow: "That was a parable concerning a man that had bidden many to a feast, who began to make excuses. Mark what He said, 'They shall not taste of my supper.' He did not say, Banish them and persecute them."

The dialogue then passes on to discuss the Quakers' reason for not coming to church : their claim to be moved by the Spirit of God :-

Bishop: "How shall I know that ye have the Spirit of God? "
Callow: Thou mayest try us: for every tree is known by its fruits."
Bishop: Let me see the Spirit of God."
Callow: "Blessed are the pure in heart: they shall see God: but they that am not led by the Spirit of God, they are, none of His.'

The Bishop asserts that all men have not the Spirit of God, and instances thieves, Simon Magus, Judas: but the Friends argue that even thieves have something in them which reproves for stealing, that Simon Magus had that which let him see his errors and pray for forgiveness, and Judas that which prompted him to bring back the thirty pieces of silver.

Then the Bishop takes another ground and says,

Let me have the liberty of my conscience "; the Friends agree, and he replies, "Then-my conscience tells me that I must punish you."This clever repartee (it is obviously nothing more) rather puzzles the Friends, who make a long and not very conclusive reply, and the Bishop says "I thought so, you would have the liberty of your conscience, but you would not that I should have the liberty of my conscience." And he goes on to tell them that if they had the liberty they plead for they would corrupt all their neighbours :-

Callow: "Nay, we would not corrupt them, they are corrupted enough. Swearers, liars, whoremongers, are all corrupted."
Bishop: "But you would be bad examples to them to follow your ways."
Callow: "They have seventeen priests among them to be examples to them, if they be good and as they ought to be', and what need they fear us, who are but two men, if we be as thou hast said. The people are their hearers, and ought to follow the best examples, whether it be us or them, or at least that of God in their consciences which reproves them for sin and evil, which we would have all men to be guided by."
Bishop: "The Devil is cunning. He will not appear in his own shape to deceive the people. I thought you would have been better for the punishment but you are rather the worse."
Callow: "We did think that thou mightest have been in a better mind, to consider what thou hast done to us and to our families and children, and to have given us thy order to return to the island again to them, but it seems thou art worse indeed."
Bishop: "This is all your discourse, both in the island and here, but you will neither give reason nor take reason. I have nothing to say to you nor to do to you, neither will I consent that you shall go to the island again if I can help it."

The Friends offer the usual prayer for the forgiveness of their persecutors ; the bishop repels, the offer, and bids them pray for themselves and finally says, "Go your ways to Mr. Fletcher (the Archdeacon) and see what he will say to you."

Callow: "Thou art the man we have waited so long for, and seeing thou art resolved to persuade the earl against us, what should we go to him for? "
Bishop: "He is the Dean (sic) of the island, and it concerns him as well as me, and if you can satisfy him I'll be satisfied."
"Then the Bishop's man directed them to the Dean in his chamber."

There is no need to copy the report of the conference with the Archdeacon, which followed nearly the same lines as that with the Bishop; save that the Archdeacon, who was apparently the better logician, stuck more closely to his point. "You are not persecuted, but only punished because you do not obey the law, the outward law to which you must make your actions conform. We meddle not with your conscience at all; God forbid we should, but you must obey the outward law and you may keep your conscience to yourselves."

Towards the end of this long dialogue, while the disputants were going wearily over the old battleground, "the law of God " or "the higher power in Church and State, the law which we have here in England and you have in the Isle of Man," the Countess of Derby came with the Bishop into the room. She was a Dutch lady, daughter of the Baron de Rupa, and had been Maid of Honour to the Queen of Bohemia. One who had seen so much of the war of creeds, and possibly had suffered somewhat in the cause of Protestantism, could not listen unmoved to such a discussion. She struck in with the question :-

"What is it then you hold to be the Higher Power?
Callow: "The Power of God which crucified Paul to the World and the World to him."
Countess: "It is true."
Bishop: "What will you say of St. James who says "We must obey the King'? "²⁶
Callow: "We do own the King's power over the outward man, but I hope you will allow the Power of God, who is King of Kings, to be above the King's power."
Countess : "It is true: the Power of God is above the King's power."
Callow: "We own both, and for our obedience to the Power of God, the higher Power, we are persecuted and do stand here this day under persecution, desiring an order for our return to our native country."

It is amusing — or rather we should say pathetic to note the serene unconsciousness with which the disputants on both sides venture into this controversy, wide and deep as an ocean, concerning the respective rights of conscience and authority. From Daniel kneeling, in defiance of the King's decree, with his face towards Jerusalem, down to American Abolitionists disobeying the Fugitive Slave Law in obedience to the "higher law " of humanity, the debate has been in spirit, if not in set terms, proceeding. Not the least curious reflection is as to the wonder which the disputants on both sides would have experienced if the lists had been opened, the issues fairly joined, and they could have seen each one all his spectral allies. Probably in that case Marcus Aurelius would have been found fighting on the side of the Bishop, and Athanasius casting in his lot with the Quaker. Barrow would have been perceived arguing for Rufus and the Emperor Frederick II., while Callow would have championed Anselm and Hildebrand.

The conference brought no mitigation of the doom of exile to the two Friends, who must perforce return to Cumberland; but at last home-sickness prevailing over fear of imprisonment they took shipping again for the island. The captain was ordered not to suffer them to land, but at length obtained leave for them to go on shore and visit their families, on security being given for their return on his departure from the island. A slight concession this, to treat the unfortunate Quakers like goods liable to duty, stored in a bonded warehouse. Thus they had by the Bishop's permission a month's enjoyment of their homes

till the vessel being ready to sail, a soldier was sent to fetch them to Ramsey, where they were kept till the lst of October, and then put on board by two soldiers, William Callow's wife and relations taking leave of him with tears. The Master of the vessel also wept, compassionating their condition and said to William's wife "Fear not, your husband is an honest man. We will live and die together, and he shall want for nothing that I have or can do for him.' "

A contrary wind forced them back to the island, and during their short detention there all the property of the two men, real and personal, was by order of Lord Derby, backed by "Sodor and Man " and the Deputy Governor Nowell, confiscated to his lordship's use. Even the fanaticism of the Earl's hostility to the Quakers would have been a little more respectable if we had not found him soiling his hands with the plunder of his oppressed tenants.

At this point another intercessor appeared upon the scene, no less a person than the once fiery Prince Rupert, now in his middle age settling down into a quiet statesman-philosopher, spending most of his time in his laboratory, manufacturing "Rupert's Drops," patronising the invention of mezzotint engraving, and planning Hudson's Bay Companies for the developpient of North America. It seems highly probable that the Countess of Derby, who, as has been said, was once a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth of Bohemia, and who at the conference seemed more than half inclined to take part with the victims of her husband's tyranny, may have induced Prince Rupert, the son of her late mistress, to interest himself in their fate. The letter written by this prince, one of the best specimens of the Stuart race, to the Earl of Derby is so creditable to his head and he think I must be allowed to quote it in full

Whitehall, the 18th of December, 1666.

MY LORD,

There is one William Callow, an ancient tennant of your Lordship's in the Isle of Man, is now it seems turned Quaker, and for that reason banisht the country. I am desired by another of that Profession whom I know to be a faithful and loyal subject to his Majesty in the time of the late war²⁷to intreat with you for the said Callow: he assuring me that he is ib quiet inoffensive person in every Thing, save in the matter of his religion, and though I would not be an advocate of any dangerous unpeaccable person, yet in such an Instance induced to give your Lordship this Trouble, the Man himself appearing to me not likely to be dangerous, and also expressing as much Respect and Reverence toward your Lordship as his Profession will give him leave. If there be no more in it than being a Quaker, I do presume your Lordship may be inclined to restore him and his family to their ancient Possessions and that u may please to do so is the reason I give your Lordship this trouble who am

Your Lordship's faithful Friend and Servant

RUPERT."

The Earl's reply was as follows

"May it please Your Highness.
I had the honour to receive a letter from Your Highness by the hands of a Manx Quaker, wherein your Highness is pleased to intimate your Command (sic) to me, that he should be permitted to return to the Isle of Man from where he stands banished (with others because they are Quakers) by the Laws of that place.²⁸ I make bold to inform your Highness that there is now in the Island not one Quaker or dissenting Person of any Persuasion from the Church of England,²⁹and I humbly conceive your Highness, for that one man's Concern would not have that place endangered to be infected with Schism and Heresy, which it might be liable to if Quakers should bepermitted to reside there. Having given your Highness this Account I shall now detain your Highness no longer from your more serious Affairs. I shall only add that I am

Your Highness's most humble Servant,

DERBY."

A sufficiently ungracious answer, breathing a hint of "Mind your own business." But, in the words of the homely proverb, "What can you expect from a pig but a grunt? "

For three years the illegal deportation of this little handful of persecuted Christians continued. There is a sad monotony about the proceedings of "Isaac Sodor and Man" and his myrmidons, and it will not be necessary to describe them in detail. The Bishop orders the Quakers to be put on shipboard; the captain unwillingly consents to convey them to Dublin or Whitehaven. When they are landed, the authorities of the place enquire into the circumstances, find that they have been made penniless by the arbitrary action of the lord of the island, and have been transported from their homes in defiance of the law. They very properly protest against having the charge of these poor exiles illegally thrust upon them. As, a Cumberland magistrate, Mr. Lamplugh, says, 'It doth not appear that there hath been any legal proceedings anainst any of them to prohibit them from their habitations." As the Mayor of Dublin says, "William Callow and Anne his wife, and Jane Christen, all inhabitants of the Isle of Man, have been brought into, this city, without their own consents, contrary to the Law and. the Privilege of the Subjects without any legal proceedings against them. And forasmuch as the said persons ought rather to live in the same island. upon their own estates than to be burthensome to' mHis Majesty's subjects here, and if they committed crimes worthy of banishment, they ought not to be continued here in this Kingdom, unless by legal and special order."²⁹ Two Lancashire magistrates, Henderson and Kirby, say that the Callows and Christens "have been banished out of the said island, the place of their habitation without any legal Proceedings, as is by them alleged, or doth any way appear to us, and not sent or confined to any certain Place of Banishment by any legal authority, but turned out as vagabonds to the wide World to the Scandal of the Laws and His Majesty's Government."

Vain were the attempts of these poor wanderors to soften the hearts of their oppiessors. Anne Callow, wrote from her prison in Peel Castle to her husband "that she and (her sister) Jane Christen were with child and that they had writ to the Bishop for leave to return to their own houses till the Spring and then return to prison, they not having wharewith to subsist in winter nor necessaries for persons in their condition, but that the Bishop had returned a short and rough answer" to the effect that if on their release they would promise to come to service and conform to the order of the church, and those who were excommunicated to receive absolution would so far presume on the Earl of Derby's favour as to grant them liberty, but if otherwise they must impute any evil consequences to their own wilful disobedience "and they must be accounted murderers of themselves, and this is all I can say to them. ISAAC SODOR AND MAN."

In 1667, Callow tried once more to move the Earl of Derby to pity..-

"Having formerly showed unto thee my condition of Impriaonment.and Banishment from thy Island (about three years and three months at times) from my wife and small children for Conscience sake, and though often with thee, could not have thy order for my return into the Island again: Therefore being in the North of England and hearing that my Wife was in prison and had been a long time in the Winter season of Frost and Snow and by reason of the cold and she being with child and likely to die, I was persuaded to adventure to see her, although it should cost me my life, and the same day that I came home (when I found my Wife in a weak condition) I was sent for to Prison by order from the Bishop and after seven days was put on board a Scotch vessel and sent to England. And now I appeal unto that of God in thee who will let thee see and know the Estate of my weak Family, who by reason of my Banishment and my Wife's imprisonment (our Estates being seized on for thee) are much destroyed and she and the children likely to suffer for want, well knowing that it is in thy power to relieve us and restore me to them that I may be helpful for their relief : for if I have done anything worthy of bonds or imprisonment, let me suffer in my own country, that we may suffer want all together if it must be so, I with them and they with me, but rather that I might be helpful to them."

There spake the true Manxman. Anything rather than this perpetually repeated banishment from our own land. Let us die all together, if it must be so, in Ellan Vannin, rather than leave me here in unfriendly England while they are pining in the dungeons of Peel Castle. The appeal, however, was quite fruitless. "That of God" in Charles, Earl of Derby would have given him some perception of the claims of mere justice, to say nothing of humanity, was not listened to.

Only the dogged refusal, "If the man will not conform he shall not go to poison my island"

A pathetic memorial of this miserable time has been lately discovered, and is thus described by Mr. Moore in the article from which so much of my information is drawn:-³¹

The following memorandum has been found in a black letter Bible printed in 1630, belonging to Mr. J. C. Fargher: 'I, William Callow, of Ballafield, a Manxman, who have been banished out of ye Isle of Man by bishops and priests for conscience towards God, above 2 years and 3 months from my dear wife and tender children, have bought this book, rate eight shillings and ten pence, in London, where I am now this fourth day of the 11th month of the year1667' " (Jan.1668.)

At last in September, 1669, the Governor ³² attempted to ship William Callow off to Virginia. Callow denied his power to make any such order, and appealed to the King in Council, "desiring the benefit of the laws of England if not of the laws of this place." The Governor flouted the talk of an appeal, but the captain of the ship which was to have transported Callow to America was evidently somewhat impressed by it, and the sailors refused to go on the voyage if they carried him, saying they never heard of a ship that carried Quakers against their will that prospered. "The captain accordingly (while perhaps apparently complying with the Governor's order) promised that he would carry him no farther than Ireland, and accordingly set him on shore almost forty miles north of Dublin, from, whence he speedily returned to Whitehaven, then the chief place of refuge for the harried Friends of the Isle of Man.

With the year 1669 the records of the persecution cease for several years. Is this lull in the storm, (if really a lull) to be attributed to Bishop Barrow's departure from the island ? He was probably not often there after his appointment to St. Asaph in March, 1669. Or had the Declaration of Indulgence, published by Charles Il. (March 16, 1672), notwithstanding its early revocation, some effect in mitigating the sufferings of the Manx Quakers ? That is the opinion of my chief guide, the Speaker of the House of Keys, who says that on the publication of that Declaration the Quakers obtained permission to return to the island. One can well understand that a courtly Earl, finding which way the wind of royal favour was blowing after the so-called Treaty of Dover, might deem it advisable to suspend the absolutely unconstitutional persecution of his Manx Nonconformist subjects. But I cannot help thinking that his death, which happened in December, 1672, was the best of all Declarations of Indulgence for the persecuted Quakers, who now, with their chief temporal oppressor dead, and their ecclesiastical oppressor building bridges and endowing colleges in Wales, had a rest like that enjoyed by the first Christians after the conversion of Saul.

At this time William Callow seems to have been restored to his ancestral farm of Ballafield,³³and to have there marked out, over against the mounds of the long-abandoned church, a little burying ground for himself and his friends. There in the lonely Ruillick-ny-Quakeryn, the much-enduring and sorely persecuted man at length found rest. We know not the year of his decease, save that it was between 1672 and 1682, but we are sure that he rejoiced in this that at least he did not die in exile, and that his bones would be laid between Barrule and the friendly sea.

After thirteen years we hear once more of trouble for the Quakers. A female preacher named Eleanor Stockdale, for delivering what would now be called a Revival sermon to the inhabitants of Douglas and exhorting them to repent of the evil of their ways, was arrested with her companion Jane Hall, put in a dungeon, and taken to a ship lying in the harbour for transportation to England. The captain, a Scot, refused to receive them ; his ship was arrested by two soldiers and detained for some time; but patience prevailed.; the soldiers at last departed, having taken away from the said Eleanor an apron worth 5s. 6d.," and the woman remained on shore.

Next year (1683) we find ,the said Eleanor " married to Robert, son of William Callow. As the marriage-rite had been performed Quaker fashion, without the intervention of a priest, both the guilty parties were committed as prisoners, the wife to the fort of Douglas, and the husband to Peel Castle, where he remained eighteen days in time of harvest, his corn and hay being in danger of spoiling. For some reason the woman seems to have stirred, the anger of the clergy more than the man. There is a long history of her successive imprisonments, banishments, returns (the Cumberland magistrate who protests against the illegality of her deportation being now not John but Richard Lamplugh), and at length towards the end of 1683 she enjoys the unwonted luxury of twelve weeks alone with her husband. Back to prison she must go in 1684, when she is expecting shortly to become a mother. She petitions the clergy in vain for liberty to return home till her child should be born. "But the soldiers of the castle, more merciful than the priests, representing to the Governor the weakness of her condition and her petition, on that occasion he inteiposed his authority, over-ruled the cruelty of these rigorous ecclesiastics, and sent her home to her husband." Six months later, she with her husband and the little child, unfortunately sick of the small-pox, was again committed to Peel Castle. There we leave them, with some of their relations, including their mother, 'William Callow's widow, sent to prison at Ramsey for non-payment of tithes. But we have now reached the year 1686. The year 1688, era of the Glorious Revolution," is nigh at hand. The worst distresses of Quakers and other Nonconformists are ended by the blessed Toleration Act, and we hear no more of the sufferings of the Manx Quakers.

One by one as the old generation dropped off they were laid in the wind-swept Ruillick-ny-Quakeryn. 64 During the fifty-eight years that the illustrious Thomas Wilson held the diocese of Sodor and Man, the few Quakers who resided on the island visited, loved, and respected him."³⁴Some of them early in the nineteenth century emigrated to America; and the rest gradually dropped off to join other religious bodies. There are descendants probably of William Callow now among the chief people of the district, but practically the Isle of Man has been for nearly a century as free from "the poison of Quakerism as even Charles Earl of Derby could have desired.

THOMAS HODGKIN.

NOTE.-I append a short pedigree of the Callows drawn out from Besse's narrative. The list of names of Friends also mentioned by Besse may be found useful for genealogical purposes. In the narrative, as I was often noting Besse's words, I have called the members of the Christian family Christen, but the other form of the name which I have used in this list is that which has finally prevailed:-

?
                         |         The Father and Mother of Evan C.
                +--------+----------+             |
				|                   |             |
WILLIAM CALLOW=ANNE?                      JANE=EVAN CHRISTIAN
              |                               |
+-----+-----+-----+                       EVAN CHRISTIAN
|     |           |
ANNE MARGARET ROBERT=ELEANOR STOCKDALE,
|
her child

Footnotes

1 Otherwise called theJournal of the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society, vol. ii. pp. 281-287.

2 I have also, by the kind help of Norman Penney, been able to add some information gleaned from the Swarthmore MSS. at Devonshire House.

3 Swarthmore MSS., iii. 552.

4 Ibid. iii.665.

5 Ibid. iii.780.

6 Joseph Besse, born about 1683, was a writing-master at Colchester, and originally a member of the Church of England. At some sacrifice of his worldly interests he joined the Society of Friends, and became a diligent controversialist on their behalf. He died in 1757(Dictionary of National Biography).

7 A Manx patriot would not thank Joseph Besse for calling the Kingdom of Man a "place."

8 Brown William.

9 This is an illustration of what is, I think, a notable fact in Besse's book, that the inaccuracies are in his comments on the persons and events described, while the main body of his narration, derived apparently from documentary sources, is generally very accurate.

10 "An ancient tenant of your Lordship. "-Prince Rupert's letter to the Earl of Derby, Besse, i. p. 279.

11 Mary Christen, "a servant of William Callow, whom they took away from her sick mistress."Ibid. p. 271.

12 These are Besse's words. They may throw light on the disputed question whether stocks were actually used in the Isle of Man.

13 Besse says that he was sent for to London to be tried among the regicides, but "on the day he should have gone, took something called Physick which killed him in a short time "-in other words, committed suicide. That this is all quite wrong is shown by the sentence in his petition, quoted in the article in the Dictionary of National Biography. [seeManx Soc vol 10]

14 Masson's Life of Milton,vi. p. 35.

15 See his life in the Dictionary of National Biography,and in Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, iii. 126(where his portrait is given). Horace Walpole calls him "a peer of whom extremely little is known."

16 As represented in Peveril of the Peak; but in this novel Scott has somewhat exceeded his usual limits in the manipulation of history. Edward Christian, the brother and avenger of William Christian, is confessedly a fictitious character. The Countess Charlotte, defender of Lathom House, was not a Catholic but a Protestant, and, as stated above, it was not she but her son who was guilty of the illegal trial and execution of W. Christian. In fact, for any real student of the history of the Isle of Man during this interesting period, the sooner he gets Peveril of the Peak (the novel, that is to say, but not the notes to the novel) out of his head the better.

17 "We may allow the family," observes Mr. Tennant (Tour to Alston Moor, p. 40), to be a little out of humour with its misfortunes, for William Earl of Derby used to say that he never passed by any estate of his in Yorkshire, Wastmorland, Cumberland, Warwickshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, or Wales but he saw a greater near it, lost by the fidelity of his ancestor to the royal cause " (Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, ed. 1806, P. 128,Editor's note).

18 "For thy fate, William Dhone, sickens our soul," is the concluding line of two verses in the translation of this ballad furnished by his descendant to Sir Walter Scott, and printed by him with Introduction to the later edition of Peveril, where will be found a very fair and full account of Illiam Dhone's trial.

19 Besse, ii. 280-281.

20 Walpole, pp. 126-7.

21 Not in Besse's Sufferings,but quoted by Mr. Moore (p. 283), apparently from documents preserved in the island.

22 This form of the word Summoner, corresponding to the Sompnour of Chaucer, is still in use in the Isle of Man.

23 The place of confinement is called by Besse "a dungeon under a yard where dead corpses ware buried " and , the aforesaid dismal dungoen under the-burying-ground." There cannot be much doubt that he means the crypt.

24 So says Besse. I suspect that it was really August, to which the Sixth Month of the Quakers then corresponded.

25 Besse calls him the Dean of the island. Mr. Moore corrects this to Archdeacon.

26 In the text the Bishop adds, "Will you make the King God? " This is probably an error in the report.

27 It would be interesting to discover who this person was.

28 This was false.

29 Also false.

30 The sentence is imperfect in the original.

31 Lioar Manninagh, ii. 286.

32 Was this Governor Bishop Barrow ? He received the appointment to the See of St. Asaph in March,1669, but he continued to hold the See of Sodor and Man incommendam with it till 1671.

33 Possibly on an inferior tenure to his old holding. The Introduction to Peveril of the Peak describes the dispute between the Earl of Derby and his tenants, whether they should hold -"per traditionem stipulae"or on an ordinary lease for years. Apparently Ballafield was the same farm which is now called Ballafayle.

34 So says his biographer, Cruttwell, quoted by Moore, p. 287.