Protest and peace
Description of the background of the Peace Declaration 116
Imagine a world in which violent radicals struggle to take possession of London institutions. London is rocked by protests. An attempted insurrection leads to fighting in the streets and the occupation of St Paul’s Cathedral. There are rumours of similar plans for action in the regions – Devon, Newcastle, Lincolnshire.
The response from the authorities is swift and fierce. Soldiers exchange fire with the activists. Many are killed; others arrested. The new government issues a proclamation banning ‘unlawful meetings’. News of the uprising leads to increased surveillance across the country. Private houses are searched and documents and files seized. Lumping together a variety of radical groups, the government makes little distinction between those directly involved in the violence and those on the fringes.
This world is the one in which the statement which we now think of as the definitive start of the Quaker Peace Testimony was written. At the beginning of 1661, Charles II had been on the throne for less than a year and the coronation ceremony had not yet been held. The Fifth Monarchist uprising on 6 January 1661 led to the arrest of thousands of Anabaptists, Quakers and Fifth Monarchists, and within a few weeks, over 4,000 Friends were in prison.
A Declaration from the Harmless and Innocent People of God, called Quakers, was sent to the king on 21 January 1661. Written by George Fox and Richard Hubberthorne and signed by twelve Quaker men, it aimed to remove ‘the ground of jealousy and suspicion’ from ‘the harmless and innocent people of God’. The statement was not prepared or issued by any Meeting; instead the authors took it upon themselves to speak for all Quakers when they wrote:
‘All bloody principles and practices, we … do utterly deny, with all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world.’
While the Declaration was a significant factor in the development of the Peace Testimony, it was not the first such statement. The turbulent political events of the late 1650s had been hard for Friends. Support for the religious Commonwealth established by civil war and regicide in the 1640s had declined. Plots and rumours of plots spread throughout the land. Persecution of Quakers and other sectarians increased markedly during the 1650s. As Fox wrote in his journal in 1658:
‘Great sufferings we went through in these times of Oliver Protector and the Commonwealth, and many died in prisons. And they have thrown into our meetings wild fire and rotten eggs, and brought in drums beating and kettles to make noises with; and the priests … have beat and abused Friends.’
After the death of Oliver Cromwell on 3 September, 1658, the political situation deteriorated still further. Richard Cromwell, his successor and eldest son, could not command the loyalty of the army, and in April 1659 the Protectorate fell. Hostility towards Quakers and other dissident groups increased. Friends’ Meetings throughout the country were broken up and Quakers were violently attacked. George Fox was arrested. Margaret Fell travelled to London to try to establish good will with the new government and to work for Fox’s release. In 1660 she saw the king and presented him with a statement, signed by a number of leading Friends, which declared:
‘We are a people that follow after those things that make for peace, love, and unity … and do deny and bear our testimony against all strife, and wars, and contentions that come from the lusts that war in the members, that war against the soul. … We love and desire the good of all. … Our weapons are not carnal, but spiritual.’
Fell’s statement depicted Quakers as people who refused to participate in war. The 1661 pronouncement took that idea further, by declaring that not only would Quakers not fight then, but they would never do so. They assured the king that:
‘That Spirit of Christ by which we were guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil, and again to move unto it. And we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the Spirit of Christ which leads us into all truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world.’
The 1661 Declaration was not a universal pacifist statement. It spoke only for Friends. It did not say anything about those outside the Quaker movement. But it rapidly became an accepted statement of Quaker belief. It was translated and published the same year in Holland and Germany and later printed in full in the published version of Fox’s Journal. Writers such as Robert Barclay, William Penn and William Bayley extended and reinforced the position during the remainder of the seventeenth century. Over time, we have become known as a people of peace and have maintained that testimony, a position that continues to earn us respect today.
Betty Hagglund is the new Quaker Studies Project Development Officer within the Centre for Postgraduate Quaker Studies at Woodbrooke, where she will be developing ways in which to make the research carried on at the centre better known.
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