The statutes, by virtue of which this awful sentence was pronounced,
together with the legal form of recantation used by those who were
terrified into conformity, are set forth in a note to the Grace
Abounding.[230] Bunyan was, if not the first, one of the first
Dissenters who were proceeded against after the restoration of
Charles II; and his trial, if such it may be called, was followed
by a wholesale persecution. The king, as head of the Church
of England, wreaked his vengeance upon all classes of Dissenters,
excepting Roman Catholics and Jews.

The reign of Charles II was most disgraceful and disastrous to the
nation, even the king being a pensioner upon the French court. The
Dutch swept the seas, and threatened to burn London; a dreadful
plague depopulated the metropolis--the principal part of which was,
in the following year, with its cathedral, churches, and public
buildings, destroyed by fire; plots and conspiracies alarmed the
people; tyranny was triumphant; even the bodies of the illustrious
dead were exhumed, and treated with worse than savage ferocity;
while a fierce persecution raged throughout the kingdom, which
filled the jails with Dissenters.

In Scotland, the persecution raged with still more deadly violence.
Military, in addition to civil despotism, strove to enforce the
use of the Book of Common Prayer. The heroic achievements and awful
suffering of Scottish Christians saved their descendants from this
yoke of bondage.[231]

A short account of the extent of the sufferings of our pious ancestors
is given in the Introduction to the Pilgrim's Progress[232]--a