The Den

"AS I walked through the wilderness of this world, I came upon a
certain place where there was a den;and I lay down in that place
to sleep; and as I slept I dreamed a dream." John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress



Bunyan spent over 12 years in a foreboding Bedford County jail cell (his den), thanks to the Church of England. They did not like that he was preaching and was not a member of the sanctioned Church of England. 


Among his possessions was his Bible and a copy the Book of Martyrs by John Day. It was latter updated by John Foxe and is now known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Published early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and only five years after the death of the Catholic Queen Mary I, Foxe's Book of Martyrs was an affirmation of the Reformation in England during a period of religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. 


The jails were small. They stunk dreadfully and a person battled rats at night. It was wet, cold and full of sicknesses. There were no beds nor toilets. It was in these conditions that Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress.