He subsequently wrote of him: 'He was of a poor appearance, a mere youth, coming against giants; yet the wisdom of man was made to bow before the Spirit by which he spoke'.
Parnell was arrested on Sunday 4 July 1655 as he walked through Colchester after disrupting a church service in Great Coggeshall.
But according to historian William Sewel, "So great was the malice and envy of his persecutors, that to cover their guilt and shame, they spread among the people, that by immoderate fasting, and afterwards with too greedy eating, he had shortened his days.
"[8][9] Joseph Besse wrote in Sufferings that the gaolor’s wife beat Parnell and told her servant to beat him; sent his food to other prisoners; refused to let his friends bring him a bed; had him placed in a hole in the castle wall “not so wide as some baker’s ovens,” which could only be accessed by climbing a ladder and then a rope.
Besse notes that Parnell fell and was “so wounded in his Head, and bruised in his Body, that he was taken up for dead.” He was placed in another airless hole lower down in the castle wall.
It was also the subject of a ballad set to the tune of "Summer Time" which, amongst other things, accused Parnell of starving himself to death.
While another letter by Shortland disputes the official line that Parnell had abstained from food then eaten up 'a quart of milk thick crumb’d with white bred'.
Shortland said he had brought the milk and bread, there was only a pint and a half, and that both he and Parnell had only eaten a small amount.
[11] When Parnell's collected works were published in 1675, there were personal testimonies by Steven Crisp, Samuel Cater and Thomas Bayles in the introduction.
Parnell's story was subsequently told to children all over the world by members of the Society of Friends, and he became known as ‘the boy martyr’, the first person to die for the Quaker faith.