The history of the life of Thomas Ellwood

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Chapter I. 1639 — 1658

Motives for writing — Birth and parentage — Removal to London — Lady Springett and her daughter — Return to Crowell — Sent to School at Thame — Early promise in learning — Brought home — Life of idleness — Lord Wenman — Adventure with a quarrelsome husbandman — Serious reflections on taking human life — Death of mother and brother — Visit to I. Penington — Effect of Quaker manners — The young Quaker before Justice Ellwood — Another visit to I. Penington's — Meeting at the Grove — Family sitting — E. Burrough — J. Nailor — Meeting at High Wycombe — Religious exercises and their fruits — Delusion and deliverance — Visit to Oxford Sessions — Close trial and safe escape — Objections urged against the Quakers — Another visit at I. Penington's — Mary Penington — Monthly Meeting at Wycombe — Ministry of E. Burrough — Honour due to parents — Uses plain language and manners to his father.

Although my station, not being so eminent either in the church of Christ, or in the world, as others who have moved in higher orbs, may not afford such considerable remarks as theirs, yet, inasmuch as in the course of my travels through this vale of tears, I have g THE HISTORY OF THE [1639.

passed through various, and some uncommon exercises, which the Lord hath been graciously pleased to support me under, and conduct me through, — I hold it a matter excusable, at least, if not commendable, to give the world some little account of my life, that in recounting the many deliverances and preservations, which the Lord hath vouchsafed to work for me, both I, by a grateful acknowledgement thereof, and return of thanksgivings unto him therefor, may, in some measure, set forth his abundant goodness to me ; and others, whose lot it may be to tread the same path, and fall into the same or like exercises, may be encouraged to persevere in the way of holiness, and with full .assurance of mind to trust in the Lord, whatsoever trials may befall them.

To begin therefore with mine own beginning, I was born in the year 1639, about the beginning of the eighth month, so far as I have been able to inform myself: for the parish register, which relates to the time (not of birth, but) of baptism (as they call it) is not to be relied on.

The place of my birth was a little country town, called Crowell, situate in the upper side of Oxfordshire, three miles eastward from Thame, the nearest market town.

My father's name was Walter Ellwood, and my mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Potman; both well descended, but of declining families ; so that what my father possessed, which was a pretty estate in lands, and more, as I have heard in moneys, he re-

1647.] LIFE OF THOMAS ELLWOOB. 9

ceived (as lie had done his name Walter) from his grandfather Walter Gray ; whose daughter, and only child, was his mother.

In my very infancy, when I was but about two years old, I was carried to London. For the civil war between king and parliament breaking then forth, my father, who favoured the parliament side, though he took not arms, not holding himself safe at his country habitation, which lay too near some garrisons of the king's, betook himself to London, that city then holding for the parliament.

There was I bred up, though not without much difficulty, the city air not agreeing with my tender constitution ; and there continued, until Oxford was surrendered, and the war in appearance ended.

In this time my parents contracted an acquaintance and intimate friendship with the Lady Springett, w T ho being then the widow of Sir William Springett, who died in the parliament service, was afterwards wife of Isaac Penington, eldest son of Alderman Penington of London. And this friendship devolving from the parents to the children, I became an early and particular playfellow to her daughter Gulielma; being admitted as such to ride with her in the little coach, drawn by her footman about Lincoln's Inn Fields.

I mention this in this place, because the continuation of that acquaintance and friendship having been an occasional means of my being afterwards brought to the knowledge of the blessed truth, I shall have frequent cause, in the course of the following discourse, to make honourable mention of that family, to which I am under so many and great obligations.

Soon after the surrender of Oxford, my father returned to his estate at Crowell ; which by that time hemight have need enough to look after, having spent, I suppose, the greatest part of the moneys which had been left him by his grandfather, in maintaining himself and his family at a high rate in London.

My elder brother, for I had one brother and two sisters, all elder than myself, was, while we lived in London, boarded at a private school, in the house of one Francis Atkinson, at a place called Hadley, near Barnet in Hertfordshire; where he had made some good proficiency in the Latin and French tongues. But after we had left the city, and were re-settled in the country, he was taken from that private school, and sent to the Free School at Thame in Oxfordshire.

Thither also was I sent, as soon as my tender age would permit : for I was indeed but young when I went, and yet seemed younger than I was, by reason of my low and little stature. For it was held, for some years, a doubtful point whether I should not have proved a dwarf. But after I was arrived to the fifteenth year of my age (or thereabouts) I began to shoot up, and gave not over growing, till I had attained the middle size and stature of men.

At this school, which at that time was in good reputation, I profited apace ; having then a natural propensity to learning ; so that at the first reading over of my lesson, I commonly made myself master of it ;

and yet (which is strange to think of) few boys in the school wore out more birch than L For though I was never, that I remember, whipped upon the score of not having my lesson ready, or of not saying it well, yet being a little busy boy, full of spirit, of a working head, and active hand, I could not easily conform myself to the grave and sober rules, and as I then thought severe orders of the school ; but was often playing one waggish prank or other among my fellow scholars, which subjected me to correction, so that I have come under the discipline of the rod twice in a forenoon. Which yet brake no bones.

Had I been continued at this school, and in due time preferred to a higher, I might in likelihood have been a scholar : for I was observed to have a genius apt to learn. But my father having, so soon as the republican government began to settle, accepted the office of a justice of the peace, w^hich was no way beneficial, but merely honorary and every way expensive, and put himself into a port and course of living agreeable thereunto, and having also removed my brother from Thame-school to Merton College in Oxford, and entered him there, in the highest and most chargeable condition of a fellows-commoner, he found it needful to retrench his expenses elsewhere ; the hurt of which fell upon me.

For he thereupon took me from sehool, to save the charge of maintaining me there; which was somewhat like plucking green fruit from the tree, and laying it by, before it was come to its due ripeness ; which will thenceforth shrink and wither, and lose that little juice and relish which it began to have.

Even so it fared with me. For being taken home when I was but young, and before I was well settled in my studies, (though I had made a good progress in the Latin tongue, and was entered in the Greek) being left too much to myself, to ply or play with my books or without them as I pleased, I soon shook hands with my books by shaking my books out of my hands, and laying them, by degrees, quite aside ; and addicted myself to such youthful sports and pleasures as the place afforded, and my condition could reach unto.

By this means, in a little time I began to lose that little learning I had acquired at school ; and by a continued disuse of my books, became at length so utterly a stranger to learning, that I could not have read, far less have understood, a sentence in Latin. Which I was so sensible of, that I warily avoided reading to others, even in an English book, lest, if I should meet with a Latin word, I should shame myself by mispronouncing it. Thus I w T ent on, taking my swing in such vain courses as were accounted harmless recreations; entertaining my companions, and familiar acquaintance, with pleasant discourses in our conversations, by the mere force of mother wit and natural parts, without the help of school cultivation : and was accounted good company too. But I always sorted myself with persons of ingenuity, temperance and sobriety: for I loathed scurrilities in conversation, and had a natural aversion to immoderate drinking. So that in the time of my greatest vanity, I was preserved from profaneness, and the grosser evils of the world ; which rendered me acceptable to persons of the best note in that country then.

I often waited on the Lord Wenman, at his house at Thame Park, about two miles from Crowell, where I lived ; to whose favour I held myself entitled in a twofold respect, both as my mother was nearly related to his lady, and as he had been pleased to bestow his name upon me, when he made large promises for me at the font. He was a person of great honour and virtue, and always gave me a kind reception at his table, how often soever I came. And I have cause to think, I should have received from this lord some advantageous preferment in this world, as soon as he had found me capable of it, though between him and my father there was not then so good an understanding as might have been wished, had I not been, in a little time after, called into the service of the best and highest Lord ; and thereby lost the favour of all my friends, relations, and acquaintance of this world. To the account of which most happy exchange I hasten, and therefore willingly pass over many particularities of my youthful life. Yet one passage I am willing to mention, for the effect it had upon me afterwards : which was thus.

My father being then in the commission of the peace,

and going to a petty sessions at Watlington, I waited

on him thither And when we came near the town,

the coachman seeing a nearer and easier way, than the common road, through, a corn-field, and that it was wide enough for the wheels to run, without damaging the corn, turned down there. This being observed by a husbandman, who was at plough not far off, he ran to us, and stopping the coach, poured forth a mouthful of complaints, in none of the best language, for driving over the corn. My father mildly answered him, that if there was any offence committed, he must rather impute it to his servant, than himself; since he neither directed him to drive that way, nor knew which way he drove. Yet added, that he was going to such an inn at the town : whither if he came, he would make him full satisfaction, for whatsoever damage he had sustained thereby. And so on we went, the man venting his discontent, as he went back, in angry accents. At the town, upon enquiry, we understood that it was a way often used, and without damage, being broad enough ; but that it was not the common road, which yet lay not far from it, and was also good enough : wherefore my father bid his man drive home that way. It was late in the evening when we returned, and very dark ; and this quarrelsome man, who had troubled himself and us in the morning, having gotten another lusty fellow, like himself, to assist him, waylaid us in the night, expecting we should return the same way we came. But when they found we did not, but took the common way, they, angry that they were disappointed, and loath to lose their purpose, which was to put an abuse upon us, coasted over to us in the dark, and laying hold on the horses' bridles, stopped them from going on. My father asking his man, what was the reason that he went not on, was answered, that there were two men at the horses' heads, who held them back, and would not suffer them to go forward. Whereupon my father opening the boot, stepped out, and I followed close at his heels. Going up to the place where the men stood, he demanded of them the reason of this assault. They said, we were upon the corn. We knew by the ruts, we were not on the corn, but on the common way, and told them so. But they told us, they were resolved they would not let us go on any farther, but would make us go back again. My father endeavoured by gentle reasoning to persuade them to forbear, and not run themselves farther into the danger of the law, which they were run too far into already ; but they rather derided him for it. Seeing therefore fair means would not work upon them, he spoke more roughly to them, charging them to deliver their clubs, for each of them had a great club in his hand, somewhat like those which are called quarter-staves. They thereupon, laughing, told him they did not bring them thither for that end. Thereupon my father, turning his head to me, said, " Tom, disarm them."

I stood ready at his elbow, waiting only for the word of command. For being naturally of a bold spirit, full then of youthful heat, and that too heightened by the sense I had not only of the abuse, but insolent behaviour of those rude fellows, my blood began to boil, and my fingers itched, as the saying is, to be dealing with them.

Wherefore, stepping boldly forward, to lay hold on the staff of him that was nearest to me, I said, " Sirrah, deliver your weapon." He thereupon raised his club, which was large enough to have knocked down an ox, intending no doubt to have knocked me down with it ; as probably he would have done, had I not, in the twinkling of an eye, whipt out my rapier, and made a pass upon him. I could not have failed running him through up to the hilt, had he stood his ground ; but the sudden and unexpected sight of my bright blade, glittering in the dark night, did so amaze and terrify the man, that slipping aside, he avoided my thrust ; and letting his staff sink, took to his heels for safety : which his companion seeing, fled also. I followed the former as fast as I could : but fear gave him wings, and made him swiftly fly : thus although I was accounted very nimble, yet the farther we ran, the more ground he gained on me ; so that I could not overtake him, which made me think he took shelter under some bush, which he knew where to find, though I did not.

Meanwhile, the coachman, who had sufficiently the outside of a man, excused himself from intermeddling, under pretence that he durst not leave his horses ; and so left me to shift for myself. And I was gone so far beyond my knowledge, that I understood not which way to go : till by hallooing, and being hallooed to again, I was directed where to find my company.

We had easy means to have found out who these men were, the principal of them having been in the day-time at the inn, and both quarrelled with the coachman, and threatened to be even with him when he went back ; but since they came off no better in their attempt, my father thought it better not to know them, than to oblige himself to a prosecution of them.

At that time, and for a good while after, I had no regret upon my mind for what I had done, and designed to have done, in this case ; but went on in a sort of bravery, resolving to kill, if I could, any man that should make the like attempt, or put any affront upon us ; and for that reason seldom went afterwards upon those public services without a loaded pistol in my pocket. But when it pleased the Lord, in his infinite goodness, to call me out of the spirit and ways of the world, and give me the knowledge of his saving truth, whereby the actions of my past life were set in order before me, a sort of horror seized on me, when I considered how near I had been to staining my hands with human blood. And whensoever afterwards I went that way, and indeed as often since as the matter has come into my remembrance, my soul has blessed the Lord for my deliverance ; thanksgivings and praises have arisen in my heart, as now at the relating of it they do, to Him who preserved and withheld me from shedding man's blood. This is the reason for which I have given this account of that action, that others may be warned by it.

About this time my dear and honoured mother, who was indeed a woman of singular worth and virtue, 9 * departed this life, having a little before heard of the death of her eldest son, who falling under the displeasure of my father, for refusing to resign his interest in an estate which my father sold, and thereupon desiring that he might have leave to travel, in hopes that time and absence might work a reconciliation, went into Ireland with a person powerful there in those times, by whose means he was quickly preferred to a place of trust and profit ; but lived not long to enjoy it.

I mentioned before, that during my father's abode in London, in the time of the civil wars, he contracted a friendship with the Lady Springett, then a widow, and afterwards married to Isaac Penington,- Esq., to continue which he sometimes visited them at their country lodgings, as at Datchet, and at Causham Lodge near Reading.

Having heard that they were come to live upon their own estate at Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, about fifteen miles from Crowell, he went one day to visit them there, and return at night, taking me with him.

But very much surprised we were, when being come thither, we first heard, then found, they w T ere become Quakers, a people we had no knowledge of, and a name we had till then scarcely heard of. So great a change, from a free, debonair, and courtly sort of behaviour, which we formerly had found them in, to so strict a gravity as they now received us with, did not a little amuse us, and disappoint our expectation of such a pleasant visit as we used to have, and had now promised ourselves. Nor could my father have any opportunity, by a private conference with them, to understand the ground or occasion of this change; there being some other strangers with them, related to Isaac Penington, who came that morning from London to visit them also.

For my part I sought, and at length found, means to cast myself into the company of the daughter, whom I found gathering some flowers in the garden, attended by her maid, who was also a Quaker. But when I addressed myself to her, after my accustomed manner, with intention to engage her in some discourse, which might introduce conversation on the foot of our former acquaintance — though she treated me with a courteous mien, yet, young as she was, the gravity of her look and behaviour struck such an awe upon me, that I found myself not so much master of myself as to pursue any further converse with h'er. Wherefore asking pardon for my boldness, in having intruded into her private walks, I withdrew, not without some disorder (as I thought at least) of mind.

We stayed dinner, which was very handsome, and lacked nothing to recommend it to me, but the want of mirth and pleasant discourse ; which we could neither have with them, nor, by reason of them, with one another among ourselves, the weightiness which was upon their spirits and countenances, keeping down the lightness that would have been up in us. We stayed, notwithstanding, till the rest of the company took leave of them, and then we also, doing the same, returned, not greatly satisfied with our journey, nor knowing what in particular to find fault w T ith. Yet this good effect that visit had upon my father, who was then in the commission for the peace, that it disposed him to a more favorable opinion of and carriage towards those people, when they came in his way, as not long after one of them did. For a young man, who lived in Buckinghamshire, came on a first-day to the church (so called) at the town of Chinner, a mile from Crowell, having it seems a pressure on his mind, to say something to the minister of that parish. He being an acquaintance of mine, drew me sometimes to hear him, as it did then. The young man stood in the aisle before the pulpit all the time of the sermon, not speaking a word till the sermon and prayer after it were ended ; and then spake a few words to the priest : of which all that I could hear was, " That the prayer of the wicked is abomination to the Lord, and that God heareth not sinners.' ' Somewhat more I think he did say, which I could not distinctly hear for the noise the people made ; and more probably he would have said, had he not been interrupted by the officers, who took him into custody, and led him out in order to carry him before my father.

When I understood that, I hastened home, that I might give my father a fair account of the matter before they came. I told him the young man behaved himself quietly and peaceably, spake not a word till the minister had quite done his service ; and that what lie then spake was but short, and was delivered without passion or ill language. This I knew would furnish my father with a fair ground whereon to discharge the man if he would.

And accordingly when they came, and made an high complaint against the man, who said little for himself, my father having examined the officers who brought him, what were the words that he spake, (which they did not well agree in) and at what time he spake them, (which they all agreed to be after the minister had done,) and then, whether he gave the minister any reviling language, or endeavoured to raise a tumult among the people, (which they could not charge him with;) — not finding that he had broken the law, he counselled the young man to be careful that he did not make or occasion any public disturbances, and so dismissed him : which I was glad of.

Some time after this, my father having received some further account of the people called Quakers, and being desirous to be informed concerning their principles, made another visit to Isaac Penington and his wife, at their house called the Grange, in Peter's Chalfont ; and took both my sisters and me with him.

It was in the tenth month, in the year 1659, that we went thither, where we found a very kind reception, and tarried some days ; one day at least the longer, for that, while we were there, a meeting was appointed at a place about a mile from thence, to which we were invited to go, and willingly went.

It was held in a farm-house called the Grove, which having formerly been a gentleman's seat, had a very large hall, and that well filled. To this meeting camb Edward Burrough, besides other preachers, as Thomas Curtis and James Naylor ; but none spake there at that time but Edward Burrough. Next to whom, as it were under him, it was my lot to sit on a stool, by the side of a long table on which he sat ; and I drank in his words with desire, for they not only answered my understanding, but warmed my heart with a certain heat, which I had not till then felt from the ministry of any man. When the meeting was ended, our friends took us home with them again ; and after supper, the evenings being long, the servants of the family, who w T ere Quakers, were called in, and we all sat down in silence. But long we had not so sat, before Edward Burrough began to speak among us. And although he spake not long, yet what he said did touch, as I suppose, my father's religious copyhold, as the phrase is. And he having been from his youth a professor, though not joined in that which is called close communion with any one sort, and valuing himself upon the knowledge he esteemed himself to have in the various notions of each profession, thought he had now a fair opportunity to display his knowledge, and thereupon began to make objections against what had been delivered.

The subject of the discourse was, " The universal free grace of God to all mankind." To which my father opposed the Calvinistical tenet of particular and personal predestination. In defence of this indefensible notion, he found himself more at a loss than he expected. Edward Burrough said not much to him upon it, though what he said was close and cogent ; but James Naylor interposing, handled the subject with so much perspicuity and clear demonstration, that his reasoning seemed to be irresistible ; and so I suppose my father found it, which made him willing to drop the discourse.

As for Edward Burrough, he was a brisk young man, of a ready tongue, and might have been for aught I then knew a scholar, which made me the less to admire his way of reasoning. But what dropped from James Naylor had. the greater force upon me, because he looked but like a plain, simple countryman, having the appearance of an husbandman or a shepherd. As my father was not able to maintain the argument on his side, so neither did they seem willing to drive it to an extremity on their side. But treating him in a soft and gentle manner, they after a while let fall the discourse ; and then we withdrew to our respective chambers.

The next morning we prepared to return home, that is, my father, my younger sister, and myself, for my elder sister was gone before by the stage-coach to London ; and when, having taken our leaves of our friends, we went forth, they, with Edward Burrough, accompanying us to the gate, he there directed his speech in a few words to each of us severally, according to the sense he had of our several conditions. And when we were gone off, and they gone in again, they asking him what he thought of us, he answered them, as they afterwards told me, to this effect : "As for the old man, he is settled on his lees ; and the young woman is light and airy; but the young man is reached, and may do well if he does not lose it." And surely that which he said to me, or rather that spirit in which he spake it, took such fast hold on me that I felt sadness and trouble come over me, though I did not distinctly understand whatT was troubled for. I knew not what I ailed, but I knew I ailed something more than ordinary, and my heart was very heavy. I found it was not so with my father and sister; for as I rode after the coach, I could hear them talk pleasantly one to the other; but they could not discern how it was with me, because I, riding on horseback, kept much out of sight.

By the time we got home it was night. The next day, being the first day of the week, I went in the afternoon to hear the minister of Chinner; and this was the last time I ever went to hear any of that function. After the sermon I went with him to his house, and in a freedom of discourse, which, from a certain intimacy that was between us, I commonly used w T ith him, told him wdiere I had been, what company I had met with there, and what observations I had made to myself thereupon. But he seemed to understand as little of them as I had done before, and civilly abstained from casting any unhandsome reflections on them.