Last Years
In the last years of his life, Fox continued to participate in the London Meetings, and still made representations to Parliament about the sufferings of Friends. The new King, James II, pardoned religious dissenters jailed for failure to attend the established church, leading to the release of about 1500 Friends. Though the Quakers lost influence after the Glorious Revolution, which deposed James II, the Act of Toleration 1689 put an end to the uniformity laws under which Quakers had been persecuted, permitting them to assemble freely.
Two days after preaching, as usual, at the Gracechurch Street Meeting House in London, George Fox died between 9 and 10 p.m. on 13 January 1691. He was interred in the Nonconformists' burying ground at Bunhill Fields in London three days later in the presence of thousands of mourners.
Read more about this topic: George Fox
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“I have started to say
A quarter of a century
Or thirty years back
About my own life.”
—Philip Larkin (19221986)
“These native villages are as unchanging as the woman in one of their stories. When she was called before a local justice he asked her age. I have 45 years. But, said the justice, you were forty-five when you appeared before me two years ago. SeƱor Judge, she replied proudly, drawing herself to her full height, I am not of those who are one thing today and another tomorrow!”
—State of New Mexico, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)