The Quaker message come to Lewes
When Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509 England was a Catholic country, and Lewes was dominated by the church. A House of Grey Friars stood near Cliffe Bridge, and St Michael's College at South Malling was a great land-owner, but both were insignificant when compared with the Priory which possessed 19 parish churches, more than 20,000 acres and a monastic church longer than Chichester Cathedral.
When Henry died in 1547 the Grey Friars House was empty, the college had been closed, and the Priory had been destroyed. England became Protestant under the rule of the infant Edward VI, but returned to Catholicism when Mary succeeded him in 1553. During her reign 17 martyrs were burned at the east end of the market place in Lewes.
In the next hundred years Acts of Parliament frequently required the clergy in the established church to change their beliefs and practices. Officially there were no martyrs in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; actually as many Roman Catholics died in her reign as there were Protestant martyrs under Queen Mary. Those executed were charged not with heresy, but with treason, since they acknowledged the Pope who was a foreign ruler.
As the Bible became more accessible and better known by all classes, controversy flourished within the Anglican Church between Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Independents. The Puritan movement grew, and eventually political and religious strife led to the Civil War. Men like the Vicar of Bray could change their preaching and practice to reflect the changes in political climate, but men of integrity could not.
In 1662 the Act of Uniformity compelled many of the remaining ministers to leave their benefices. Under these conditions the seeds which had long been germinating sprang up. The Diggers, Levellers, Ranters, Etheringtonians, Grindletonians, Manifestarians, Fifth Monarchists and Muggletonians withered away, but the Baptists, Unitarians and Quakers took root.
The long period of religious strife explains more than the growing dissatisfaction which many people felt with the existing religious groups. It also explains why there were so many laws about religious practice. Each faction made its own laws to control its opponents, and although the earlier contradictory laws were forgotten they remained on the statute books. Eventually the enemies of the Quakers sought weapons to use against them and inventive lawyers resurrected old laws made for quite different purposes. The Friends were caught in the crossfire of almost forgotten battles.
Before we meet any Lewes Quakers we must make the acquaintance of George Fox, since without him the behaviour of his followers would be incomprehensible. As a boy he was noted for his religious enthusiasm and his strict adherence to truth, but in his late teens he became severely depressed by the contrast between the faith and practice of the early church and that of the church around him. None of the religious men whom he consulted had anything to offer him and in despair he set out on a life of wandering, during which he seems to have memorised most of the Bible. Eventually several revelations, 'openings' as he called them, broke in on his mystic nature. He never questioned the authority of the Bible, but from that point on the ultimate source of authority was not in church or book, but in living experience.
Some of his insights now seem commonplace, but before his time they were almost unthinkable. He believed that 'to be bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not sufficient to fit a man to be a minister of Christ.' He forsook the priests and the dissenting preachers, and, 'when all my hope in them and in all men was gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, O then I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition", and, when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.'
He saw that 'every man was enlightened by the Divine Light of Christ, and I saw it shine through all. In this I saw the infinite love of God. I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love which flowed over the ocean of darkness.'
He mission was that of 'walking cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one', and this he did, preaching fearlessly in spite of repeated imprisonment and physical abuse to which he never responded in kind. Yet he was not a saint. He spoke with excessive zeal against anything or anyone who opposed his message, and he regarded any misfortune which happened to his opponents as the judgement of God.
Nevertheless he made thousands of converts, many of whom would give their lives for the truth, and none of whom responded with violence to the persecution which they suffered. In addition to his genius as preacher and mystic, he had a sound, practical approach to organisation which welded together inseparably the Quaker approach to worship and church business.
If Quakers had their origin in any pre-existing group, it was in the Seekers. They had little organisation, no clergy, no creeds, no sacraments and no ritual. They met on Sundays for divine worship, sitting in silence unless anyone felt moved to speak or pray, waiting for a revelation of the nature of the true church. George Fox took his message to these groups, and Quakerism sprang from his message and their practice. We know little of the Seekers who met in Lewes until, in 1655, their waiting came to an end.
An Account of the First comeing of the People of God (in scorne called Quakers) into this county of Sussex, and in what Places they first declared the Truth, and by whome they were first received, &c.
God, whose Mercyes are over all his Works, and hath Regard to the Cry of the Poore, and the sighing of the Needy in all Ages, and to the Breathing of his owne seed through all Generations, Did in this, our Day and Age, send forth his servants to Preach the Everlasting Gospell of Peace, and Bring the Glad Tidings of Salvation, and Redemption and Liberty to the Captive, and that the oppressed should be sett free, as people came to yield obedience to the heavenly Gift of God, the Light of Christ Jesus, as it was made manifest in them.
This Blessed Testimony and Joyful Tidings of Salvation was first preached in the north side of this county of Sussex, about the third month in the yeare 1655, at the Towne of Horsham, by John Slee, Thomas Lawson, Thomas Lawcock; and no man receiving them into his house, some of them Declared the Tuth in the oppen market, in a powerfull maner Directing the people to yield obedience to the heavenly Gift of God, the Light of Christ Jesus, as it was made manifest in them; this was to the Great admiration of some, Yet (as in all ages) the most part reviled, and some stoned them; others counted them mad men, yett all did not Daunt them, nor Stop their Testimony; but they bore all with such meekness and patience as was wonderfull to behould, and after haveing finished their Testimonys for that time, at that place, they Came the Same Day from rhence to the house of Bryan Wilkason, who then Lived in a Park at Sedgwick Lodg in Nuthurst parish, about two milles from Horsham, who received them (he being, endeede, the first man that Gave Entrance as well to their persons as to their Testimony). This Bryan Wilkason came out of the North of England not long before, and the next day beeing the first day of the Weeke they had a meeting in his house, where thorow the power that attended their Testimony, the Witness of God in Some were Preached unto, and soe from that time Truth began to Spread it Self in the County of Sussex.
The next meeting after that was at Ifeild the next first day following at the house of Richard Bonwick (a Weaver by Trade), who was the first that received them and their Testimony in that place, where was allso Convinced Richard Bax (since a Labourer in the Lord's Vinyard now Liveing at Capel, in Surrey), as allso Several others; and thus the Lord's work began to prosper.
Soone after that meeting held at Richard Bonwick's the same friends, viz., Thomas Lawson and Thomas Lawcock (and John Slee as is Suposed), Came to Twinham to Humphrey Killingbecks, and had there a meeting which was very Great and Servisable to the Convinceing of Severall and particularly John Grover, the Elder, William Ashfold, and Elizabeth Killingbeck, the Elder.
And about this time, viz., the 3d month in the aforesaid yeare, Came Thomas Robinson the elder, to the Towne of Lewis, and came to a Seeker's meeting held in Southover, near Lewis, at the house of John Russell, where he Declared the Truth to the Convincement of Ambrose Galloway, and Elizabeth, his Wife, and Stephen Eager, who were then members of the Said Meeting, and he was the means of Extinguishing of that meeting.
Soone after that came (that Memorable Man) Georg Fox, and with him in Company Alexander Parker, to the house of the aforesaid Bryan Wilkason's, where they met with Thomas Lawcock.
... After which they two, viz., Georg Fox and Alexander Parker, Came from that meeting at Stenning to Lewis, where they had again another meeting at the house of John Russell, in Southover, a Parish Joyning to Lewis, and they travelled from thence Eastward to Warbleton, and them parts. Quickly after which came Ambrose Rigg and Joseph Fuce through this country and travelled much amongst us by visiting all the Meetings and served much to the establishing of them and continued their labours amongst us for several years.
For a while they may have been known to themselves as 'Children of the Light', or 'Friends of Truth', but the people of Lewes would have known them by the derisive name of 'Quaker', first given to George Fox. (The name 'Religious Society of Friends' cannot be traced before 1793.) Colin Brent has identified John Russell's house as The Croft in Southover High Street. The front of the house has since been extensively rebuilt, but it retains its original Horsham slab roof.
The Croft, Southover High Street