Like a sweeping tempest which strikes everything, and carries away whatever is loose, so it also went at this time in the matter of persecution. All that were called Anabaptists were taken along, wherever they could get hold of them. The district of Uticken-wage had to suffer much in consequence of this. Among those that lived here, they also apprehended a pious brother, named Hans van Uticken,[353] surnamed Muller, who, in the year 1639, was incarcerated in the convent prison at Zurich.
[353] The Swiss author calls this Hans van Uticken by the name of Hans Muller, but we have allowed him to retain the name Hans van Uticken, because he was by descent from Uticken-wage; to distinguish him from Hans Muller who was descended from the Groeningen Bailiwick, and of whom we made previous mention, in the note added to the account concerning Barbara Meylin and three of her fellow-sisters.
There they fed him on water and bread, stripped him in his bonds, and treated him most unmercifully, until he, having continued therein two years, became very sick, and as sick as he was, was helped out of prison, through the assistance of some of his fellow-believers, who, as it seems, feared his untimely death.
But when he was brought to his wife and children, and attained to rest, he died; however, with a joyful hope and glad soul, because the course of his pilgrimage (since he was not weakened in his faith and conscience) was now finished.
Thereupon his wife, because she had lodged her husband, and the children, because they had shown mercy to their father, had to pay to the authorities, a fine of forty pounds. _Tracts, Jer. Mang., fol. 6, A., and M. Meyli, fol. 7, B., num. 13._
NOTE.--In the year 1639, the thief-catchers of the city of Zurich, led by one of the ministers of the church there, who went before them with a light (a lantern, torch or candle) like maniacs and madmen, violently entered into the house of a pious brother, named Rudolf Hagi, whom they forthwith took prisoner and conducted to Othenbach, a damp and unwholesome prison of the city of Zurich.
Here he was stripped in his bonds, and kept confined for about eighty-three weeks; during which time he, with other of his fellow-believers, was fettered and chained for sixteen weeks.
In the meantime they searched hard for his wife, but for the first captured only her oldest child, which they threatened with iron bonds and handcuffs, if it would not show where its mother was. Afterwards they also found the mother, whom they imprisoned in Othenbach. They, however, when there was no deliverance at hand, subsequently, by a certain means, made their escape, together with their brethren and sisters that were also imprisoned, without apostatizing from the faith. _Tract Jeremiah Mang., fol. 6, A._, compared with _M. Meyli, on the name Rudolf_.