A Humiliation Day
was ‘a solemn day of Fasting, Prayer, and Humiliation, for the ... sins, and all other the abominations whereof this Nation is guilty’ (Act of the Commons of England on 17 March 1648 for keeping a national Humiliation Day on 19 April 1649).

Charles I had issued a Proclamation on 8 January 1641/2 appointing ‘a general Publique and Solemn Fast ... as well by abstinence from Food, as by publique Prayers, hearing of the Word of God, and other sacred duties in England and Wales, on the last Wednesday of the Moneth of February then next following’ and thereafter to continue for the duration of the Troubles in Ireland.¹ On 23 April 1649, Parliament repealed this,

finding by sad experience, how much the observation of the said Monethly Fast hath been for divers years last past, in most places of this Commonwealth wholly neglected, and in other places where the same hath been retained, it hath declined by degrees from that Solemnity and due Reverence wherewith the same was at the first Institution thereof entertained ... And seriously considering how apt such set times for extraordinary duties of Worship are to degenerate into meer Formality and Customary observances²

decided from thenceforward to appoint particular days to be Humiliation Days.

On Friday 4 June 1652 Parliament enacted that

a day of solemn Fasting and Humiliation be set apart to be observed on Wednesday the Ninth of June, One thousand six hundred fifty two, in the Cities of London and Westminster, and within the late Lines of Communication and weekly Bills of Mortality; and upon Wednesday the Thirtieth of June following, in all other Cities, Towns and places within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick upon Tweed.³

Attendance and observance was a legal obligation. This would seem precisely to date Fox’s intervention at Ulverston.

Many sermons given on these occasions, pinpointing specific sins which were the causes of God's wrath, were published. See e.g. Englands Antidote, AGAINST The Plague of Civill Warre. Presented in A SERMON BEFORE THE HONOUrable House of COMMONS, on their late extraordinary Solemn Fast, October 22. 1644. By EDMUND CALAMY, B. D. and Preacher at Aldermanbury, LONDON (London: Printed by A. Miller for Christopher Meredith, 1652):

Gods Argument is this; Repent, O ye Lords and Commons, or else I'le give you over to Beggery: Repent, or else I will give you over to Popery; I'le give you over to slavery; Repent, or else I'le plunder your houses; I'le give up your wives and daughters to be defloured; Repent, or else I'le burn your Cities; Repent, or else I'le remove the Gospel from you.

Repentance is a most certain and an infallible way to remove the great plague of Civill War that is now upon the Kingdom. Mistake me not, I do not say, God will remove the bloudy Sword for our Repentance, But this I say, God will not remove it without Repentance: and upon our repentance he will remove it. Though Repentance be not causa propter quod, yet it is causa sine qua non. It is not the cause for which, but the cause without which God will not do it.

1. ‘Table of acts: 1649’ in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660 (1911), pp. LXVI-LXXVI. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56681     Return

2.  Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660 (1911), pp. 79-81. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56328      Return

3.  AN ACT For the Observation of a Day of Publique Fasting and Humiliation [made on] Friday the Fourth of June, 1652 (London: John Field, Printer to the Parliament of England, 1652). Return