Page 24 - SPRING 2024 News and Views

The Suffering of Thomas Smallbone Connie Hazell

Readers of Syd Tyrrell’s ‘A Countryman’s Tale’ may recognise the name of Thomas Smallbone as the
subject of a letter sent by John Parkes, the Priest at Eydon, to Parliament, complaining about the conduct
of the ‘Quakers and Anabaptists in the Towne’. Research has now shown that Thomas Smallbone was
very unusual, being one of the first Quakers in the country to suffer for his faith.

When Thomas Smallbone was imprisoned in Northampton goal in 1658, he had the distinction of being
one of the first Quakers to be jailed in the country. Two years later the situation had changed completely
and Eydon’s first recorded dissenter would have been a statistic in thousands. The figures speak for
themselves: in September 1658 there were 115 Quaker prisoners in the whole of England; by 1661, 120
Friends were arrested from a single meeting in Gloucester. Historians calculate that about 15,000
Quakers were persecuted between the 1660s and 1680s – at a time when the entire English Quaker
Movement only numbered about 45,000. The reason for this dramatic escalation in number was the
restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and with it, the re-establishment of the Church of England. But back
in 1658, the Puritan Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector. He was a man personally committed to religious
tolerance and in 1655 and 1656 he had intervened with local justices who had imprisoned Quakers. So
why was Thomas Smallbone put in prison? Not simply because of his religious beliefs.

The parish priest, John Parkes, served a writ on him, because he refused to pay his tithes. This was a
serious threat to the establishment. It struck at the heart of the clergy’s personal survival and financial
well being. Consequently, the Quaker’s stand against this church tax, it has been estimated, caused more
suffering in the long run than any other disobedience. They resented supporting a church they deemed
ungodly. As Edward Burroughs put in a tract published in 1658: there is no justice in it … that any should
be caused by force to uphold a house for other men to commit … idolatry in.

The issue of tithes versus voluntary contributions was a very public dispute during the Interregnum years
and the Quakers very nearly had the law on their side. As early as 1647, the discussion with Charles 1 to
draw up a new constitutional scheme included the abolition of tithes. In 1652, Cromwell’s spiritual
advisor, John Owen, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, appointed a committee to look at the issue.
It decided in favour of the church tax and its report was promptly shelved, possibly because it was the
wrong answer or simply because the whole topic was too contentious to rule on. In 1653, the
‘Barebones’ parliament tried to follow up the proposal before it was dissolved by Cromwell. No wonder it
was such a touchy subject in this parish. It must have been a very worrying time for John Parkes. Not only
did he have to pick a very careful path between the ebb and the flow of various religions debates during
these years, his livelihood was constantly under threat.

It appears that Cromwell, perhaps swayed by the committee’s report, began to harden his line against
non-payment of tithes and, from 1656 onwards, Quakers increasingly began to be persecuted on this
charge alone. Apart from the looming spectre of a breakdown of local clergy, Cromwell might well have
been influenced by the Quaker movement’s growing confidence which produced increasingly
judgemental and apocalyptic pronouncements. Before 1652, it has been estimated that there were about
500 Quakers, by 1654 the movement had grown to about 5,000 and by 1657 to an incredible 20,000. To
the early Quakers, this success meant the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom and justification for exultant
proclamations.

Both the emphasis on tithes and the flavour of the language can be read in a petition drawn up and
presented to Richard Cromwell at the end of 1658 after his father had died. It included the list of 115
Quakers in prison at that time. (There is no mention of Thomas Smallbone possibly because he was

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