"His fourth imprisonment was in the same year 1665, about a month
after his releasement from the former. Hitherto his commitment had
been by the civil magistrates; but now, that he might experience the
severity of each, he fell into the military hands. A rude soldier,
without any other warrant than what he carried in his scabbard, came
to his house, and told him he came to fetch him before Sir Philip
Palmer, one of the deputy-lieutenants of the county. He meekly
went, and was by him sent with a guard of soldiers to Aylesbury
gaol, with a kind of mittimus, importing 'That the gaoler should
receive and keep him in safe custody during the pleasure of the Earl
of Bridgewater,' who had, it seems, conceived so great, as well as
unjust, displeasure against this innocent man, that, although (it
being the sickness year) the plague was suspected to be in the gaol,
he would not be prevailed with only to permit Isaac Penington to be
removed to another house in the town, and there kept prisoner until
the gaol was clear. Afterwards, a prisoner dying in the gaol of the
plague, the gaoler's wife, her husband being absent, gave leave to
Isaac Penington to remove to another house, where he was shut up for
six weeks; after which, by the procurement of the Earl of Ancram, a
release was sent from the said Philip Palmer, by which he was
discharged, after he had suffered imprisonment three-quarters of a
year, with apparent hazard of his life, and that for no offence."

This was not the end of the troubles of Ellwood's patron and friend.
He had been home only three weeks when "the said Philip Palmer"
seized him again, dragged him out of bed, sent him, without any
cause shown, to Aylesbury gaol, and kept him a year and a half
prisoner "in rooms so cold, damp, and unhealthy, that it went very
near to cost him his life, and procured him so great a distemper
that he lay weak of it several months. At length a relation of his