a gallant charge upon them, and got the victory.’ Parker now became Fox's almost constant companion. They spent a fortnight at the house of John Crook [q. v.] in Bedfordshire; and Parker preached in the neighbouring villages. In May they were in Kent, in September in Lincolnshire, and the following year in the fen country—at Crowland and Boston. At Easter 1656 Parker was preaching in his native dales.
From May to November 1656 Parker was in Cornwall, and there wrote two books; the second, ‘A Testimony of the Light Within,’ addressed chiefly to the inhabitants of St. Austell, whose vicar, William Upcott, he roundly attacked. In August he wrote to Mrs. Fell from St. Austell: ‘There is not a Friend in the ministry’ (meaning a preacher) ‘within three or four score miles that is at liberty but myself.’ July and September 1657 found Fox and Parker again in Cornwall, whence they proceeded through Wales, Lancashire, and Cumberland to Scotland. Parker preached at Forfar, and at Dundee, where he was arrested, but was soon released. At Coupar he found some resolute quakers who were in the army, ‘members of Captain Watkinson's troop’ (Swarthmore MSS.) At Glasgow he attempted to preach in the cathedral, but the people ‘tore him out like dogs,’ and he was imprisoned for twelve hours. In June 1658 Parker was back in London, and visited James Nayler [q. v.] in prison (Letters of Early Friends, p. 57). In 1659 he was one of the 164 who offered to ‘lie body for body’ in prison as substitutes.
Upon the attempt to suppress meetings, Parker redoubled his energy in holding them. In 1660 he was sixteen weeks in Nantwich gaol, Cheshire, for holding a meeting at Northwich (Letter from R. Hubberthorn, 29 May 1660, ib. p. 81). From prison he wrote a letter, dated 10 June, to Charles II, printed in the ‘Copies of several Letters which were delivered to the King,’ &c., London, 1660. At Knutsford assizes in September or October following he was tendered the oath of allegiance, and was again sent to prison, this time to Chester gaol, where he remained until May 1661. He wrote thence on 13 Oct. 1660 a document addressed to Friends, encouraging them to maintain their meetings in defiance of the king's proclamation (ib. 361–73).
On 17 July 1663 he was arrested while preaching at Mile End Green, London, and committed, with thirty-one others, to Newgate for three months. On 18 May 1665, while preaching at Gracechurch Street meeting, the city marshal seized him and George Whitehead [q. v.] They were shortly released, a fine of 20l. being imposed on Parker. They afterwards wrote an epistle dated London, 19 Aug. 1665. Parker and Whitehead remained together in London during the plague, and, with Gilbert Latey [q. v.], worked unceasingly at relieving the sick and poor among their fellow-members. In October 1675 Parker was appointed by the meeting for sufferings (the standing executive of the society, still so called) to go into Westmoreland and heal differences that had arisen through the action of John Story and John Wilkinson [q. v.] Between July and November 1676 he undertook a long journey through the west of England with Whitehead. On 8 Aug. 1683 they and Gilbert Latey presented an address to the king at Windsor, recounting the unlawful persecution of quakers.
Parker was once more Fox's companion in 1684, when they attended the Dutch yearly meeting in Amsterdam, and visited meetings in Friesland and elsewhere. In the winter of 1684–5 Parker and Whitehead had an audience with the king at Whitehall, and presented another petition on behalf of their imprisoned Friends, who at that time numbered about four thousand; but, ‘although the king said something must be done, nothing ever was’ (Whitehead, Christian Progress, pp. 546, 547). Parker was soon in prison again, and a warrant was issued (Besse, Sufferings, i. 480) on 20 March 1684–5, releasing him and others from the king's bench prison, in obedience to the mandate of James II.
Parker died of fever in the parish of St. Edmund, Lombard Street, London, on 9 March 1688–9, and was buried at Bunhill Fields. He married, on 8 April 1669, Prudence, daughter of William Goodson, and widow of Charles Wager (d. 24 Feb. 1665–6), commander of H.M.S. Crown; she died on 9 July 1688, at George Yard, London. They had four sons and four daughters. Parker resided successively at White Hart Court in Gracechurch Street, Enfield, Hoxton, Crown Court in Gracechurch Street, Clement's Lane, and Eastcheap. Prudence Wager's son by her first husband became Admiral Sir Charles Wager [q. v.] Three of Parker's daughters married clergymen, one of them George Stanhope [q. v.], dean of Canterbury.
Whiting says of Parker that he had a ‘gentlemanlike carriage and deportment as well as person, for I knew him well.’ His letters, preserved in the Swarthmore MSS., show a practical acquaintance with men and affairs, very different from the mystic utterances of some of his contemporaries.
