498 LIVES OF THE PURITANS; might lawfully take the oath ex officio. When the arch- bishop observed, that he remembered him about thebusiness of the feoffees, Mr. Foxley replied, " That he was encou- raged in that business by bishops and privy counsellors, who conceived it to be a good work." He was, therefore, commanded to appear again on the Thursday following, and so dismissed. But the next Lord's day hewas apprehended by, another pursuivant, who carried him before the council- table; when, by a warrant under the hands of the arch- bishop and five others, he was sent to the Gatehouse. There he was kept close prisoner in a chamber not four yards square, for the space of twenty months, without pen, ink, or paper, or the access of any of his friends, excepting his wife ; who, with the utmost difficulty, obtained leave to visit him during his extreme sickness, but no longer. He endured all this cruel usage without knowing or even guessing what could be the cause, unless it was his speaking in favour of the feoffees. Laud, indeed, insinuates, that Mr. Foxley was not thus punished on the account of the feoffees, but for some other cause which he refused to mention.. However, by this cruel imprisonment, he was ruined in his circumstances, and his wife and four small children exposed to misery and want+ Upon the meeting of the long parliament, Mrs. Foxley presented a petition to the house of commons in behalf of her distressed husband, still confined in close prison. This petition was read in the house, November 25, 1640, and referred to the committee for Dr. Leighton's petition. It was, at the same time, ordered that Mr. Foxley should have the same favour and privileges of the house as Dr. Leighton. January 15th following, Mr. Rouse, one of the com- mittee delivered a report of Mr. Foxley's case, when the house resolved : 1. " That the warrant made by Sir John Lamb and others, for apprehending Mr. Foxley and seizing his papers, is illegal and unjust. 2. " That the warrant under the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Coventry, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord of the Privy Seal, Lord Cottington, and Secretary Windebank, for committing Mr. Foxley close prisoner, is illegal. 3. " That Mr. Foxley ought to be delivered from the tt Wharton'sTroubles of Laud, vol. i. p. 249. t Prynne's Cant. Doome, p. 387, 388.
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