Mary and Dorcas Erbery were arrested with Toby Hodge because the three of them had been disrupting the service of an established clergyman and they were sent to prison.
[1] On this day James Nayler who had just been released from jail in Exeter made a ceremonial entry into the city of Bristol.
They were welcomed by local Quakers, but the authorities considered their behaviour blasphemous as they were reenacting Jesus Christ's entry into Jerusalem.
Narrowly escaping execution, he was sentenced to be put in the pillory and on there to have a red-hot iron bored through his tongue, and also to be branded with the letter B for Blasphemer on his forehead, and other public humiliations.
[6] Erbery, Martha Simmonds and Hannah Stranger gathered around the pillory where Nayler was tortured in a way that recalled the followers of Christ at his crucifixion.