Note 94 — Chapter X

Poor James Nayler proved unable to stand the strain of this strenuous work. A fanatical group got about him and in a period of evident aberration he allowed these flattering followers to give him a Triumphal Entry into Bristol, as Christ, returned in the flesh. Here is Carlyle's account: "In the month of October, 1655, there was seen a strange sight at Bristol in the West. A procession of eight persons: one a man on horseback, riding single; the others, men and women, partly riding double, partly on foot, in the muddiest highway, in the wettest weather; singing, all but the single-rider, at whose bridle splash and walk two women: 'Hosannah! Holy, holy! Lord God of Sabaoth!'... The single-rider is a raw-boned male figure, 'with lank hair reaching below his cheeks'; hat drawn close over his brows; of abstruse 'down look' and large, dangerous jaws, strictly closed; he sings not; sits there covered, and is sung to by the others, bare. Amid pouring deluges and mud knee-deep: 'so that the rain ran in at their necks, and they vented it at their hose and breeches,' a spectacle to the west of England and posterity! Singing as above; answering no questions except in song. At the High Cross, they are laid hold of by the Authorities; turn out to be James Nayler and Company." (Carlyle's "Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches." Vol. III., pp. 223, 224.) What he needed was mental treatment. What he received was the harshest punishment Parliament could devise. He missed the death penalty by a vote of 82 to 96. His sentence, passed by Parliament December 16th, 1656, was to be pilloried for two hours, to be whipped by the hangman through the streets from Westminster to the Old Exchange in the city, to be pilloried again after two days for two hours more, to have his tongue bored through with a red-hot iron, and to be branded in the forehead with the letter B, to be again flogged through the streets of Bristol, and then to be committed to prison with solitary confinement and hard labor during the pleasure of Parliament. Poor James Nayler! His fall did the Quakers almost irreparable injury in public estimation. Fox had already had an intimation of this trouble. As he left James Nayler in London he wrote: "As I passed him I cast my eye upon him and a fear struck me concerning him."