PART OF THE SUFFERINGS OF LEICESTERSHIRE & NORTH HAMPTONSHIRE, BY INFORMERS AND PRIESTS.
London: [N.p.], 1683. First Edition. Small Quarto, 12 pages. In Good condition. Side-sewn pamphlet, with moderate age-toning overall, some light damp-staining to top corners of all pages (not impacting text), and front and back pages separated from binding (but intact). RW Consignment. Shelved case 7.
1353568
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NOTES
An early Quaker tract describing the persecution of the Society of Friends in Leicestershire and Hamptonshire. Pooley (d. 1711) appears to have been a prominent Friend in Northamptonshire, as he authored that county's record contained in the "First Publishers of Truth" (no. 53). In the wake of the Civil War and the collapse of the Commonwealth, Quakers came to be seen as fanatical revolutionaries, and faced near-relentless harassment from authorities. Out of this experience, and the experience of other dissenting or non-conforming religious communities, came a long-term campaign for religious toleration that ultimately bore fruit in the Toleration Act of 1689. Religious dissenters, and Quakers in particular, took up the principle of a right to "freedom of worship", articulated as such in William Penn's colony of Pennsylvania in 1701 - which would ultimately form a bedrock principle in later American constitutionalism. References: ESTC R8559; Wing P2859.