Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/321

TRIAL OF GEORGE FOX. 289 for the decayed Guildhall built in the thirteenth century by virtue of the charter of Richard Plantagenet. (pp. 72, 74.) The substituted Guildhall formed the centre of the block taken down in 1 841-2. The older market house, which adjoined it, stood at its east end, opposite the house of Thomas Hyckes (p. 192) ; and the "newe markett house" of 1647 was on the Westgate Street side. On entering these buildings from the Broad Street, as they were divided for assize purposes, the business of the Crown Court was conducted on the west side of the entrance, and the Nisi Prius business on the east, the grand jury-room being above the passage. Under such an arrangement the trial of George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, took place at the spring assizes, 1656, held before Chief Justice Glyn, in the western or newer end of the buildings. Mr. Fox had been committed for distributing religious tracts at St. Ives, and was brought to Launceston for trial. He refused to remove his hat on being arraigned, and, for this contempt of the majesty of the law, was imprisoned for several months in Doomsdale. In that prison he appears to have suffered various in- dignities from the mayor, recorder, and others. On the 29th April of the same year, 1656, we find that the borough jury presented " Gabriell Brewsey for pro- phaning the Lord's day by travelling with his tools" Other presentments of the period show the severe piety of the Protector and his government. Thus, we find a joiner presented for working at his trade, a woman for spinning, and another woman for knitting " on the last day of humiliacon" a cordwainer for " abusing Mr. Gill upon the Lord's day," and the like. Was the piety of the Non- conformist Mr. Fox less sincere ? Happily such days of "civil and religious liberty" have passed. After the decay of the Guildhall of the thirteenth century, the borough Law Courts were, until the year U