Agnes Beaumont 

Agnes Beaumont (1652-1720) is best known for her remarkable account of her experiences with Bunyan and his church in Bedford as found in The Narrative of the Persecutions of Agnes Beaumont. In 1672 she joined John Bunyan’s mixed congregation (Baptist and Independent) in Bedford against her father’s wishes. In 1674 she was given permission by her father to attend an evening meeting of nonconformists in nearby Gamlingay; what he did not know, however, was that she would ride all the way there while seated behind Bunyan on his horse. Her father was outraged by her action and locked her out of the house upon her return. After much turmoil, Agnes was vindicated, although rumors continued to circulate that something had occurred between her and Bunyan. She died in 1720 and was buried in the Baptist burial ground at Hitchin. In 1760 Samuel James, at that time the minister of the Particular Baptist church in Hitchin, published an abridged version of her manuscript narrative in his collection, An Abstract of the Gracious Dealings of God. James was the father of Isaac James, later of Bristol and friend to Joseph Cottle and Robert Southey and brother-in-law to Robert Hall. Two manuscript versions of the Narrative now reside at the British Library, MSS Egerton 2414 and 2128, one having been originally in the possession of a Mrs. Kenrick of Hampshire. 

For the text of Beaumont's Narrative as it appeared in James's Abstract, click here. Other texts of Beaumont's Narrative can be found in G. B. Harrison, Narrative of the Persecution of Agnes Beaumont (London: Constable, 1929), and more recently in  Vera Camden, ed., Narrative of the Persecution of Agnes Beaumont (East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1992). See also Patricia L. Bell, "Agnes Beaumont of Edworth," Baptist Quarterly  35.1 ( 1993/94), 3-17.