thy sufferings, and mayest reap the benefit of them, finding that pared off thereby, which hindereth the bubblings of the everlasting springs, and maketh unfit for the breaking forth and enjoyment of the pure power! This is a brief salutation of my dear love to thee, which desireth thy strength and settlement in the power, and the utter weakening of thee as to self. My dear love is to thee, with dear Thomas Goodyare and the rest of the imprisoned Friends. I remain thine in the truth, to which the Lord my God preserve thee single and faithful,

"From Aylesbury Gaol.

I. PENINGTON.

"The 14th of the 12th month, 1660." (February, 1661, N.S.)

While Penington was still at Aylesbury, Ellwood was released from Oxford through his father's influence with the surrounding gentry. The old squire made various efforts to prevent his son from attending meetings, but at last gave up the attempt. In April, 1661, he went to London to see the King's coronation, leaving Thomas in the house with the man-servant and the maid, so that from that time he found full liberty to go and come as he pleased.

VIII. PATIENT ENDURANCE.

Stand like an anvil.

ST. IGNATIUS.

OT long after Ellwood's return to Crowell, he

NOT walked over to Aylesbury with several other

He found the gaol

refused to take the

Friends to see Isaac Penington. crowded with Quakers who had oath. Many of them, he says, had been "taken out of their houses by armed men." There were about sixty of them, "being well nigh all the men Friends that were then in the county of Bucks." They were mostly crowded together "in an old room behind the gaol, which had anciently been a malt house, but was now so decayed that it was scarcely fit for a dog house." It would have been quite possible for the Friends to escape from this building, but the gaoler placed such confidence in them that they were left there without much supervision, and, on Ellwood repeating his visits during the spring, he was allowed more than once to stop in the malt house with the rest of the Friends.

Mr. R. Gibbs in his "History of Aylesbury" (page 490), says, "The malt house in which Penington was confined, was connected with the Bear public-house in Walton-street. It was standing a very few years ago;

it was pulled down, and stabling erected by Mr. Lepper, veterinary surgeon."

Isaac Penington was probably committed to Aylesbury Gaol about the middle of January, and remained there apparently till May. From his letters to his wife, preserved at Devonshire House, it appears that on the 16th of March he was summoned, with others, before a judge, and asked if he would take the oath. He handed in a paper, giving his reasons for not doing so. The judge, thinking it was identical with one which he had received from Friends elsewhere, declined to read it, in spite of Penington's entreaties, and he was taken back to gaol. On the 18th, at six in the morning, he was brought into court and asked to give sureties to keep the peace, which he declined to do. On the 19th, he was brought into court with John Whitehead and another. Whitehead had drawn up a form of affirmation which the Friends were willing to take in lieu of the oath, and the judge expressed himself willing to be satisfied with that, but told Isaac Penington that, as he was the son of one of the rebel High Court of Justice, he could not be asked to do less than to give sureties not to enter into or conceal any plot against the Government. Penington, after a long pause, declined, and met the arguments of the judge and the ridicule of some in the court with the calm reply that his word was more to him than a bond; that he had lost all his property by the change of government, but had no wish whatever to see it overthrown. The judge re-committed him, giving the magistrates power to release him, either on his own recognisance for £200, or that of two sureties for £100

each. Soon after this, Penington was sent for to the White Hart Inn, where he met three magistrates, with whom he had a long interview. They strongly urged him to give the required security, but he calmly told them that "he durst not do what did appear to him to cast any cloud or doubt over his innocency."

It seems from the "Memorial of Sufferings" that the other four Friends, who were arrested with Penington at Chalfont Grange, were discharged at this time; but his imprisonment, as we have seen, lasted till late in the spring, when he was at last released, perhaps out of compassion for his weakness and sufferings, and allowed to return to Chalfont Grange. Here, during the rest of the year 1661, he received frequent visits from Thomas Ellwood. In addition to meetings twice a week at the Grange, a monthly meeting was held there, at which many Friends from the surrounding district attended, and Ellwood usually was present at this, coming over on the Saturday, and staying till the Monday, or longer. On one of these occasions he met a Friend from London named Richard Greenaway, who finding that he was from Oxfordshire, asked after an old acquaintance named John Ovy, of Watlington. This led to Ellwood and Greenaway soon afterwards paying a visit to Ovy's house, when the Londoner expounded the Friends' principles to him and his family. Ovy then got into conversation with Ellwood about Isaac Penington, whose writings he had read with much interest, and with whom he expressed a great desire to be acquainted. Accordingly, the day before the next monthly meeting, Ellwood and Ovy met, by appointment, at Stokenchurch,

"with their staves in their hands, like a couple of pilgrims," and after stopping to take some refreshment and rest at Wycombe, "went on cheerfully in the afternoon entertaining each other with grave and religious discourse, which made the walk the easier."

The Peningtons were somewhat surprised at the sight of Ellwood's companion, who was an insignificantlooking elderly man. Thomas told them privately what he knew of his history. John Ovy was a staunch and zealous Puritan, probably an Independent, and accustomed to act as a teacher among his fellow-religionists. He was a fellmonger by trade, and used to ride about the country on his pack of skins, but in the "late professing times" his zeal and orthodoxy had secured him a place on the commission of the peace, in spite of a very slender qualification.

The Grange was somewhat in a stir that Saturday afternoon, as one party after another arrived in readiness for the next day's meeting. George Whitehead, a leading Friend from the North of England, was there, as well as William Penington, Isaac's brother, a London merchant, who brought with him a him a Friend from

Early on the Sunday

Colchester, a grocer by trade. morning Ellwood and Ovy went for a walk in "a pleasant grove" near the house, where they were joined by Penington, who had a long conversation on religious. matters with the Watlington man, who was much struck by the way in which he dealt with his objections and questions. They went into the house and partook of some refreshment, after which they gathered for the meeting. The house party had taken their seats, and