In 1653 Fox was speaking at a church in Carlisle to great effect but a rabble broke up the assembly and he was escorted away by soldiers. Next morning he was summoned before the magistrates and committed to jail as a ‘heretic, a blasphemer and a seducer.’ He was put in the worst part of the jail and was brutally treated being often beaten by the jailer, during which he used to sing Psalms. His enemies tried to get him hanged but they could not find anything to legally charge him with and after several months, on hearing that his case had come to the ears of those in Parliament, they released him.