Light and Silence

I've been enjoying William C. Braithwaite's The Beginnings Of Quakerism To 1660, and I'm almost through. It'll be enriching this site soon enough, on multiple levels. Braithwaite provides an incredible (if dense) foundation, loaded with excellent quotes and amazing stories. The contrast between his perspective and that of later writers is more than a matter of style, but I think it's fair to say that his work is necessary reading for anyone who wants to pursue early Quaker history in depth.

I'm almost through the book, and nearly used to stories of Quakers being beaten, stoned by mobs, thrown into fiendish jails, mocked, put in the stocks, and occasionally executed. Still, this story of Ellis Hookes, who wrote (among other things) a Speller with George Fox, is stunning for its violent attempt at a conversion away from Quakerism:

The case of Ellis Hookes, who seems to have come from Odiham, in Hampshire, and became the official clerk to Friends, illustrates vividly the domestic persecution which befell them.

In 1657 he went with a letter to his mother, who was at Sir William Waller's house at Stanton Harcourt, in Oxfordshire. Lady Waller, a high religious professor, thought to convert him from his Quaker notions, and had him into her chamber. She took his hat off his head, locked the door, and rated him soundly.

He remained silent until she cried that now his hat was gone his religion was gone, and he could not speak, but only hum. Then he angered her still more by saying unceremoniously, "Woman, shew thyself a sober woman." She fell to beating him about the head and pulling his hair, saying that she was never called Woman before.

When she had wearied herself, the young man spoke a second time, "Woman, I deny thy religion that cannot bridle thy tongue nor thy hands," a speech that only added fuel to her passion. She commanded her man and her son to stand before Hookes and keep him up in a corner of the room, where she continued to beat him, and called for a stick, as her fists were sore.

After a time he said, "Instead of showing thyself a sober woman, thou hast shown thyself more like a beast." At this insult to his wife, Sir William Waller, who had hitherto taken no part, struck the Quaker down with a blow on his head, and they all cried, "Out of the doors with him."

He was thrust out and sent off, bare-headed, and deaf for a weak with the blows which he had received. Moreover, his father was written to the next day to have nothing to do with his son, but to turn him out of doors, which he did, though he must afterwards have relented, for on his death in 1672 he left him a considerable fortune.

So, there's something of a happy ending.

Still, let's look at some of the odder moments here:

• 350 years later, we may be too cynical to expect that a lady would take this man into her chamber, take off his hat, and lock the door for the sake of a religious conversation.

• Removing his hat is supposed to remove his religion. I think some shouting was involved, if 'rating' is like 'berating'.

• Hookes offends with plain language on two levels, with "Woman" and the use of "thy" and "thou" rather than the more courteous language Lady Waller no doubt expected.

• Apart from three sentences, Hookes barely responds to these provocations.

• She beats him up and pulls his hair, and calls for a stick to keep beating him, with the help of her son and husband to "keep him up".

• Hookes' final comment - which could fairly be taken as an insult for its (apparently well-deserved) use of "beast" - earns him a final blow from Sir Waller and ejection to the outdoors.

• The beating isn't enough - they write his parents as well.

It's hard to imagine this situation today. I suspect that a large part of why is that there are relatively few people who feel they can safely beat up those they disagree with, but even so, it seems that even the angriest religious conversations don't reach this level any longer. That calmer conversational temperature may in part be the result of Quaker calls for and implementation of religious liberty. Maybe we learned a bit from moments like this.