york00orns

'
Canon
RESULTS OF ACT OF UNIFORMITY.
39S
thoughtful persons in the direction of Puritanism.
"Intolerance on the one hand, and a total absence
of all earnestness and zeal in God's cause on the
other, were looked upon with dislike by good and
sober-minded men. And there were few places in
England in which the national church was, at that
time, at a greater disadvantage than in the city of
York. The Minster clergy did no credit to their
office or their religion," ^
and contrasted most unfavourably
with the austere piety, narrow though it
might be in many points, of the good men whose
public utterances in the churches were now silenced.
There was great irritation of feeling caused by the
working of the " black Bartholomew Act," as it was
called, amongst other classes of the community, whose
rancour was oftentimes more genuine than their piety.
In October, 1663, an insurrection was organised on
a considerable scale. Farnley wood, near Leeds, was
their rendezvous, and liberty of conscience was their
war-cry. But they had no leader of any standing or
position, and the rising was crushed almost as speedily
as it arose. A special assize was held in the winter
of that year, and a large number of the insurgents
tried and convicted. Twenty-two were executed in
Yorkshire, many imprisoned for a length of time, and
others bound over to good behaviour.
The most prominent amongst the sectaries who
took part in the political and religious demonstrations
of the time were the Quakers. We find them
perpetually indicted at the York assizes for holding
Raine's "Memoir of Mr. Justice Rokeby" (Misce!-
lanca, Pub. .Surtees .Soc, pp. 4, 5).