In 1669 Fox visited Ireland, and in the same year he was married to Margaret, widow of Judge Fell, of Swarthmoor Hall. She had been one of his early converts, and was one of his most vigorous helpers. She wrote almost as many letters, and printed almost as many appeals as her husband; she visited the imprisoned, and sent relief to their families. Her house was the home of all Quakers visiting the neighborhood, and her purse was at the service of all who needed money to serve the cause. Her judgment was reliable and her energy untiring; she was the Countess of Huntingdon of the Society. She even endured long imprisonments, and risked, and for a time endured, the loss of all her property by premunire for the truth's sake. She was therefore a fitting help-meet for George Fox. She had four daughters who were ministers in the Society, and the whole family regarded him with reverence, except the scapegrace elder son. He not only opposed the marriage, but with the basest ingratitude, he endeavoured, after it was accomplished, to turn his mother out of her own home; and he rests under at least grave suspicion of being a party to the plot to have her sentenced to premunire.[6]
[6] The penalties of this sentence were, to be put out of the King's protection, to forfeit lands and goods to the King, and to be liable to imprisonment for life or at the King's pleasure.
Fox acted throughout this affair with the greatest prudence and magnanimity. He would not even be suspected of seeking worldly gain, but carefully secured to his wife and her family, the property which was hers before their marriage. No wedding could be more simple than his own. "Afterwards," he says in his journal, "a meeting being appointed on purpose for the accomplishing thereof, in the public meeting-house at Broadmead in Bristol, [the site cannot now be certainly determined,] we took each other in marriage.... Then was a certificate, relating both the proceedings and the marriage, openly read and signed by the relations, and by most of the ancient Friends of that city, besides many other Friends from divers parts of the nation." Evidently the ceremony caused considerable excitement. His wife was ten years his senior.