350 years ago this month a small group of men and women approached the gates of Bristol, singing hosannas before a man on a horse. They appeared to be imitating Christ's entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The man was James Nayler (1617-1660), a leader of the upstart Quaker movement and onetime member of Cromwell's New Model Army. The Puritan authorities were outraged. Nayler was seized and charged with blasphemy. Sent to London where he was the subject of a full Parliamentary debate for ten […]
Taken from Bristol Past and Present by J. F. Nicholls and John Taylor, published in 1882 In our ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, at 24 and 285, we have already given some description of the rise and sufferings of that section of the church of Christ known originally as the Quakers, but now more frequently called the Friends, who were the first sufferers in Bristol for conscience sake since the days of the Marian persecution. Their first appearance in Bristol was probably in 1652; certainly they were here […]
