Chapter 10 - Page 2

called The Athenian Mercury, a sort of Answers), married Miss Susanna Annesley, a lady of good family, in 1690-91, and in 1693 was presented to the Rectory of Epworth in Lincolnshire by Mary, wife of William of Orange, to whom he had dedicated a poem on the life of Christ. The living was poor, Mr. Wesley's family multiplied with amazing velocity, he was in debt, and unpopular. His cattle were maimed in 1705, and in 1703 his house was burned down. The Rectory House, of which a picture is given in Clarke's Memoirs of the Wesleys, 1825, was built anew at his own expense. Mr. Wesley was in politics a strong Royalist, but having seen James II. shake "his lean arm" at the Fellows of Magdalen College, and threaten them "with the weight of a king's right hand," he conceived a prejudice against that monarch, and took the side of the Prince of Orange. His wife, a very pious woman and a strict disciplinarian, was a Jacobite, would not say "amen" to the prayers for "the king," and was therefore deserted by her husband for a year or more in 1701-1702. They came together again, however, on the accession of Queen Anne.

Unpopular for his politics, hated by the Dissenters, and at odds with the "cunning men," or local wizards against whom he had frequently preached, Mr. Wesley was certainly apt to have tricks played on him by his neighbours. His house, though surrounded by a wall, a hedge, and its own grounds, was within a few yards of the nearest dwelling in the village street.

In 1716, when the disturbances began, Mr. Wesley's family consisted of his wife; his eldest son, Sam, aged about twenty-three, and then absent at his duties as an usher at Westminster; John, aged twelve, a boy at Westminster School; Charles, a boy of eight, away from home, and the girls, who were all at the parsonage. They were Emily, about twenty-two, Mary, Nancy and Sukey, probably about twenty-one, twenty and nineteen, and Hetty, who may have been anything between nineteen and twelve, but who comes after John in Dr. Clarke's list, and is apparently reckoned among "the children". {212} Then there was Patty, who may have been only nine, and little Keziah.

All except Patty were very lively young people, and Hetty, afterwards a copious poet, "was gay and sprightly, full of mirth, good-humour, and keen wit. She indulged this disposition so much that it was said to have given great uneasiness to her parents." The servants, Robin Brown, Betty Massy and Nancy Marshall, were recent comers, but were acquitted by Mrs. Wesley of any share in the mischief. The family, though, like other people of their date, they were inclined to believe in witches and "warnings," were not especially superstitious, and regarded the disturbances, first with some apprehension, then as a joke, and finally as a bore.

The authorities for what occurred are, first, a statement and journal by Mr.