the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

[51] allowance of a hundred crowns a-year, granted him by the Protector; and there is reason to believe that, in the little flock of attached adherents whom he had collected in London, there were some both able and willing to minister to his necessities.

In the year 1658, Cromwell suffered a writ of habeas corpus to be granted by the Upper Bench Court, as it was then called, by virtue of which Mr. Biddle was at length set at liberty and restored to his friends; among whom he speedily resumed his long interrupted exercises and pursuits, undismayed by the dangers he had encountered and the evils he had suffered, and deeming not even his life dear unto him, if by any means he might promote the knowledge of the only true God, and of Jesus Christ whom he had sent. In a short time, however, fresh troubles arose. Five months after his return from banishment the Protector died, and his son Richard called a parliament, which being mainly returned by his old enemies, the Presbyterians, were not unlikely to resort to hostile proceedings against him. He, therefore, took the precaution of retiring into the country during this session; but, on the dissolution of that parliament, he resumed his former station, till the restoration of Charles II., when, as is well known, the Episcopal church being immediately reestablished, its adherents shortly repaid, with interest, to dissenters of all descriptions, the sufferings they had themselves endured. All public meetings for worship elsewhere than at the established churches were interdicted, and punished as seditious. By these violent and arbitrary measures, Mr. Biddle and his friends suffered in common