Note 15 — Chapter I · Early Service in England
Reading edition
According to a MS. in D. (Swarth. MSS. iii. 91), William Peares died in York Castle. Fox endorses this scrap of paper: “W peres died in presen at York abought 1654.” In the MS. we read: “The cause of his Jmprisonment was, because he was moued to stripe himselfe naked. A ffigure off all the nakedness of the world.... Jt was the naked that suffered for the naked truth.”
In A Declaration of present Sufferings, printed 1659, recounting six years of persecution, we have a confirmation of G. F.’s statement: under Yorkshire, “William Peers imprisoned till death for Tithes.” (p. 20.)