A Commonwealth brass and wrought iron warming pan, dated 1659


The circular brass cover decorated with the legend 'THE SVTELL FOXE 1659' around a fox with a goose upon its back, the wrought iron handle with socket terminal, 33cm lid diameter x 101cm high
|This unusual warming pan probably refers to George Fox (1624 – 1691), founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and his 1659 bid to lobby the recently restored Rump Parliament to promote the Society of Friends as England's established religion. This bid followed years of preaching and imprisonment as the 1650s saw a growing number of Quakers incarcerated. The death of Oliver Cromwell (with whom Fox had had several amicable meetings), however, and the increasingly social and political turmoil which followed it, meant that Parliament did not even consider Fox's pamphlet. It was not published again until the 21st century. The movement came under increasing persecution after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 but, partly thanks to Fox's ability to heal internal divisions, the Society survived and, in places, flourished. According to Fox's journals, published after his death, Samson Townsend, an anti-Quaker writer, called Fox a 'subtle man'. Indeed, George Thomason (c.1602-1666) applied the epithet 'Alias Goose, Quaker' to Fox. The depiction of a fox carrying off a fatted goose is probably a reference to Fox's attempt to oust the Church of England – the fatted goose – from its place as England's established religion